The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children does many different things to help find missing kids.
One of the things it does is create age progression photos for kids who have been missing for a number of years, and likely look different from when they were missing.
Like the Hoggle siblings, who went missing in September 2014.
We met with one of the forensic artists at NCMEC whose job it is to create those age progression photos.
Christy Andrews works in a smaller, darker room in the mainly bright and airy NCMEC Headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.
"Children that have been missing for two years or more are considered long term and we'll age progress their image to come up with a composite of how we feel they may look like at their current age," Andrews explains. "The other part of what I do is skull reconstructions, facial approximations on unidentified child remains."
Which explains the decorative skulls in all colors and shades litter the space for the four forensic artists who work there.
"Anybody that's been around children, you know that they grow very rapidly, especially in those first few years. So, when we're looking at creating age progressions, the first thing we do is look at the family."
They'll ask for photos of family members of the missing kids.
"So we're looking at these photos of a family and determining, you know, who do they look like? Do they look like one parent more than the other? Are they a combination of both parents? Do they look more like an aunt or an uncle? Do they favor their siblings?" she explains.
And she says every family is different. They look at the photos for hours, make notes, and try to figure out where the child gets their features from.
But it's also a marriage of art and science, Andrews explains.
They use the science of human growth patterns, or the science of aging after the late teens, early 20s after one's face stops growing, to age up the kids.
The forensic artists use Adobe Photoshop to make their compilations.
"So, when we create these images, we're pulling stock photos of you know, similar eyes, noses that we see, emulate the children, and then we are making a collage of sorts," she says.
They're able to use the software to blend the layers and create a final image, that is then taken to the other artists to peer review the pictures.
Once the progression is finalized among the NCMEC artists, they send it to the family.
"There's a letter that goes with the age progression, saying you're about to look at an image of, you know, your child age-progressed to a particular age, you know, this can be emotional for you. Make sure you have support with you, make sure that.. you've prepared yourself to look at these images," she says. "We want the family to see their child looking at them."
Sometimes, families tell NCMEC that that's exactly how they imagined their child at that age. Other times, they get feedback that a particular feature is off, and they make edits.
"Sometimes, we get feedback about the hair and hairstyles, we try to keep them sort of neutral and following what the hair of the child is," she explains. "But, you know, I remember one parent I gave it was a teenage girl, and I gave her a sort of shoulder length hair and the mom said, no, no, she always had a pixie cut, she would never wear her hair long. That's important."
And the goal of putting the pictures out to the public is to trigger something in someone that helps find the kid.
"There's always somebody that's going to know something, but the right person has to see these images," Andrews says. "You know, when you see them on your mailers that come in the mail 'Have you seen me?' Pay attention to those. Because you never know, you might know this child from somewhere in your community and all you have to do is pick up a phone and call in, and you could get a child recovered that's been missing from their family."