Ann K
Senior Member.
I'll pass, thanks. There is very little music past the eighteenth century that I can tolerate!
Claim: Original Calvine UFO Photo
- Thread starter Mick West
- Start date
John J.
Senior Member.
That might not be a big problem, I guess a young man working as a kitchen porter- perhaps mainly a washer-upper- might be asked to help out with some food prep. /basic cooking, and at a pinch might describe himself as a chef to some people.
Agreed:
As they chatted, a dark car pulled up outside the hotel and two mysterious figures, dressed in black suits, emerged from the back seat. They called to the two chefs by name.
'Cigarette break's over lads,' one of them barked to the rest of the group. 'In you go and mind your own business.'
Also agreed.
Incidentally, it isn't explained how the supposed MiBs identified the witnesses, or knew they were among the gaggle of staff.
This is well before social media, it's hard to see how the MiBs would know what the claimed witnesses looked like unless they had been under prior surveillance, which all seems a bit "overkill". As does sending at least three "operatives"; the two "mysterious figures" got out of the back seat(s).
David Clarke is Associate Professor in the Department of Media Arts and Communication at Sheffield Hallam University, and I get the impression he's pop-culture savvy. He must have been aware of the film-noir feel to his retelling of the story,
(i.e. the phrasing in the account- "mysterious", "barked"- might be down to Dr Clarke more than Grieve).
No description of the men is given as far as we know, apart from the black suits. No reference to accents, build, hair/ facial hair, apparent age or skin colour, shirt or tie colours (if they wore ties). Apart from being dark, the car isn't described, which seems odd. We're left to imagine it (and we're probably not imagining some version of a modest family saloon or a hatchback).
It all seems a bit folklore-y; we fill in the blanks with archetypal MiBs (probably not Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones).
It's difficult to see what could be accomplished by this alleged visit. People resent, and usually remember, being bullied.
If The Authorities, or some branch thereof, genuinely felt the need to stop two young men drawing attention to their story, a visit by a pair of polite and (at least superficially) considerate personnel, appealing to the witnesses' better natures, sense of responsibility or patriotism might be a better bet- make them feel part of the "in-group" to a limited degree.
Confirm that they've seen a secret prototype, but it would be best if it wasn't widely known at this time, and discretely make it clear that the authorities would deny all knowledge if asked.
"MiB":
"Thanks for seeing us, I guess you're very busy. We're here from [whatever might sound best], about your sighting a few days ago- don't worry, you're not in any trouble! But, I have been cleared to tell you, you managed to photograph a secret prototype aircraft being tested. I don't know much about it, it's above my pay-grade! You probably know more than I do.
It's all our fault, of course, you didn't do anything wrong.
We were all taken aback at how good your photos were in the circumstances, do you have professional training?.....
...Well, you could have a promising future with your talent.
Anyway, the problem is, foreign agents, even terrorists, might start taking an interest around here if they think we're trialling this sort of tech in the area, and because of the quality of your pictures it might give hints to a hostile power...
...Yeah, I know, but believe me, if we get word along those lines, and we normally do, we will protect you, and your friends and family if necessary. We're professionals- trust us.
-Oh, like with the pictures, your descriptions of the prototype's flying characteristics- how it flew, its speed, that sort of thing- might give clues to foreign engineers. And I'm told it's not the sort of thing we'd want our lads to have to face in battle!
I know it's a big ask- you see something unusual, you want to tell everyone about it, human nature- but, well, for the safety of the people around here- and maybe our forces- now that you understand the issues do you think you could be, well, less forthcoming about what you saw? It's a big responsibility for any man to shoulder, I know, but meeting you, you strike me as someone with a maturity beyond their years. Sometimes, we just have to keep schtum, even when we know something, bit like during the war. I know the pilots, and their families, will sleep better when the interest dies down. "
etc.
"Thanks for seeing us, I guess you're very busy. We're here from [whatever might sound best], about your sighting a few days ago- don't worry, you're not in any trouble! But, I have been cleared to tell you, you managed to photograph a secret prototype aircraft being tested. I don't know much about it, it's above my pay-grade! You probably know more than I do.
It's all our fault, of course, you didn't do anything wrong.
We were all taken aback at how good your photos were in the circumstances, do you have professional training?.....
...Well, you could have a promising future with your talent.
Anyway, the problem is, foreign agents, even terrorists, might start taking an interest around here if they think we're trialling this sort of tech in the area, and because of the quality of your pictures it might give hints to a hostile power...
...Yeah, I know, but believe me, if we get word along those lines, and we normally do, we will protect you, and your friends and family if necessary. We're professionals- trust us.
-Oh, like with the pictures, your descriptions of the prototype's flying characteristics- how it flew, its speed, that sort of thing- might give clues to foreign engineers. And I'm told it's not the sort of thing we'd want our lads to have to face in battle!
I know it's a big ask- you see something unusual, you want to tell everyone about it, human nature- but, well, for the safety of the people around here- and maybe our forces- now that you understand the issues do you think you could be, well, less forthcoming about what you saw? It's a big responsibility for any man to shoulder, I know, but meeting you, you strike me as someone with a maturity beyond their years. Sometimes, we just have to keep schtum, even when we know something, bit like during the war. I know the pilots, and their families, will sleep better when the interest dies down. "
etc.
At the moment, I'm not convinced that any official or semi-official visit occurred connected with the Calvine UFO report.
If Mr Grieve's account is accurate, maybe the claimed witnesses were spoken to by plainclothes police for some wholly unconnected reason, and this caused them to be subdued the next day. (If so, the initial approach by the suited men is a bit more "The Sweeny" than textbook community policing, but these things happen).
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@Ann K , are you familiar with your new national delicacy, the deep-fried Mars bar?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep-fried_Mars_bar
Never had one myself. Used to have a can of minced Haggis on Burns Night (well, evening) but no-one else will touch it, and I wasn't that keen myself, so that's one (borrowed) mini-tradition I've given up.
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Ann K
Senior Member.
To me that sounds about as caloric-overkill as Bob Evans' sweet bacon stuff (honey-glazed, it might be?). However I still enjoy a good fish'n'chips dinner or a plate of mince and tatties, and I've had a lifelong fondness for licorice allsorts.
(I was born within two blocks of the waterfront (Firth of Clyde), and fish meant straight-off-the-fishing-boat fresh fish.)
Mendel
Senior Member.
If they had been under surveillance, it wouldn't have been necessary to confront them in public in front of the kitchen staff.
Alexandria Nick
Active Member
It is kinda funny. If three guys turned up at my work to chastise me about something, that would just be a weird day at work.
One guy coming up behind me in the middle of the night while I'm waiting for a bus to warn me about talking about the UFO I saw would literally scare the urine out of my body.
One guy coming up behind me in the middle of the night while I'm waiting for a bus to warn me about talking about the UFO I saw would literally scare the urine out of my body.
Giddierone
Senior Member.
There's a not dissimilar "Pleiadian Beamship" film he made. Which echos the framing of the Calvine photo with branches in the foreground, overcast sky, hills, low angle shot etc.
Source: https://youtu.be/fNUynkNS4pE?si=let6KTZtrWC2qD73&t=1284
[scroll to timestamp 21:24]
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JMartJr
Senior Member.
I am unable to convince myself that this Mirage fighter jet is not just a bird flying by.The photographer is called Billy Meier and according to him, hes the sole contact person the aliens have decided to talk with.
John J.
Senior Member.
In case anyone's unfamiliar with Billy Meier, he's an interesting gentleman whose UFO stories- and sometimes very clear photos- might be, er, artistic interpretations of what really happened (nothing).
Wikipedia, Billy Meier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_MeierIn 1997, Meier's ex-wife, Kalliope, told interviewers that his photos were of spaceship models he crafted with items like trash can lids, carpet tacks and other household objects,[22] and that the stories he told of his adventures with the aliens were similarly fictitious. She also said that photos of purported extraterrestrial women "Asket" and "Nera" were really photos of Michelle DellaFave and Susan Lund, members of the singing and dancing troupe The Golddiggers.[23] It was later confirmed that the women in the photographs were members of The Golddiggers performing on The Dean Martin Show.
More problematically, Meier adopted a prophet-like standing among his group of followers, and had a habit of "predicting" future disasters caused by certain ethnic groups (mainly those that have been targeted by Nazis/ neo-Nazis in the past).
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The Eighteenth Century- are they like The 1975? Or more Queens of the Stone Age? I'm not familiar with all the newest acts myself.
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NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Yes, but IF the claim was that it's Dassault Mirage, then we have the motif of an UFO with a jet/plane and foreground foliage as far back as 1976, 14 years before the Calvine photo. And a motif that was copied multiple times in what are known or likely hoaxes:
Meier:
The 3 Stevens photos from supposedly 1994 (this is the most popular of the 3):
The Puerto Rico photo from 1988:
And the Calvine from 1990:
Seems odd that someone managed to capture a real UFO or top-secret US aircraft in a photo that almost exactly mimics a style of UFO photo that was popular at the time.
John J.
Senior Member.
Without wanting to derail us too much, what is the plane in the Stevens photo meant to be?
Looks to me a bit like an F-101 Voodoo, but checked on Wikipedia, F-101's left US service in 1982 (and Canadian service 1987)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_CF-101_Voodoo.
Also has some resemblance to a B-1 Lancer- but that would be a very strange choice of chase plane/ interceptor (not built or equipped for air-to-air missions, slower and less agile than the much more numerous fighter jets in service in the US at the time).
Duke
Senior Member.
It's a B-1B.
Alexandria Nick
Active Member
As a conjecture, if you just need someone to make a pass over an area and there's an aircraft nearby, they'll just use that out of convenience. You don't necessarily need something capable of engaging or otherwise dealing with whatever is being investigated. Sort of like having a GA aircraft directed to overfly a crash site or the totally not fast and not ATA capable helicopters that patrol the skies of Washington DC.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Yeah, as @Duke mentioned above, it supposed to be a B1B and would indeed be an odd choice for an air to air intercept mission I would think. It's a long-range bomber. But note that the Puerto Rico photo also has a long nosed single tail aircraft with swing wings. Duke can correct me, but I think in the US arsenal, that limits the possibilities to the B1B Lancer or the older F111 Aardvark, which despite the F designation was more of a low-level attack plane IIRC.
The more famous Top Gun F14 Tomcat also had swing wings and would be the more obvious choice for the mission, but has a distinctive twin tail arrangement:
However, and again Duke probably knows more about this than me, in the Stevens photo, the aircraft seems to have intakes almost on the side of the fuselage as opposed to under the wings like B1B does, but it does have the distinctive "cruciform tail" configuration with the rear wings mounted 1/2 way up the tail:
The soviets had a number of swing-wing aircraft, such as the Tu-22 Backfire, but none had the unique tail of the B1B:
So, in both the Steven's photo and the Puerto Rico photo we have evidence of:
- The US using a long range B1B bomber to intercept a UFO on multiple occasions.
- The US using a long range B1B bomber to intercept a UFO on one occasion that was captured by 2 different people.
- 2 different people capturing B1Bs doing maneuvers and composited in a UFO to create a hoax photo.
- 2 different people using a B1B model and a UFO model to create a hoax photo.
- One person using a B1B model and a UFO model to create multiple hoax photos.
A model of an F14, F15, F16 or even an old F4 would have made more sense. Either whoever produced the Steven's photo happened to pick the B1B as their model of choice at random, or they saw the Puerto Rico photo and tried to emulate it or the photos are by the same person at the same time and the photos got separated over the years.
The choice of the B1B and the fact that the UFOs look very similar certainly suggest some kind of connection. It's possible the Steven's photo was someone's attempt to recreate the Puerto Rico photos, much like I tried to with the Calvine photo. So, not a hoax, but a possible debunk. Something that might be a bit expensive to try today as 1980s B1B models are a bit pricey:
In any event, the collection of photos shows that the Calvine photo slots in nicely with zeitgeist of the time.
Giddierone
Senior Member.
There's a few more using the same formula [branches, plane, UFO, overcast sky] here, given without much info about dates or locations, starting at around [30:00]
Source: https://youtu.be/BT6xqxkNOMQ?si=Nt5GJPdGvhu716jp
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
This one appears to be one of the Wendal Stevenson photo's as they're known or a variation on them:
Note again the swing wings and cruciform tail of a B1B. Here is some of the other Stevenson photos that goes along with this one:
Slightly different angle and crop, but the tall pine tree to the right with the bushy looking tree behind it is identical.
There is also this one, in addition to the one I posted upstream:
The other 3 appear to be made at the same time with 2 of the same, just with a different crop:
Note here we again have a swing-wing aircraft, but with a much wider and flatter tail section and possible twin tails, marking this likely an F14 Tomcat. While more appropriate for the mission, I believe they were largely carrier-based Navy aircraft, though they were probably also based at Naval Air Stations on land.
The Stevenson photos were discovered after in a collection after Wendal Stevenson died by Dustin Shutta who shared some of them. @Robert Sheaffer has speculated that at least some of the Stevenson's photos may just be more of Amaury Rivera Toro's UFO photo's from Puerto Rico which also include a B1B:
https://badufos.blogspot.com/search?q=Puerto+Rico+UFO+photo
Rivera was a young man from New York City working a part-time job in a restaurant in Puerto Rico, when he claims to have been abducted by a UFO, and to have gotten this (and several other) photos as the aliens departed.
UFOlogist Wendelle Stevens (1923-2010) had earned, by the end of his life, a thoroughly dismal reputation. He was a major promoter of the preposterous photo hoaxes of the Swiss contactee Billy Meier. Stevens was also convicted of having sex with an underage girl, serving time in prison. He boasted of having a huge collection of UFO photos, sacrificing (one suspects) quality for quantity. We know that Stevens interviewed Rivera in person, so it is reasonable that Stevens might possess more works from Rivera's oeuvre. But that is just conjecture, albeit a plausible one.
Something I think makes sense looking at all the photos. I wouldn't be surprised if the photos from the YouTube video with what looks like an F14 also came from Stevenson's collection. Here are some others from his collection riffing on the same vide:
https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.ne...-colonel-wendelle-stevens-hidden-archive.html
This time we have what looks like a F117 Nighthawk, at least the silhouette of one and we're out over the sea, so no foreground foliage. In fact, despite the UFO being illuminated, the aircraft is always just a black silhouette. Almost as if somebody just panted or drew a silhouette of a plan on a sheet of glass.
John J.
Senior Member.
The Calvine and Puerto Rico UFOs are sort of similar (Puerto Rico 1988 left, Calvine, Scotland 1990 right).
Both very roughly symmetrical in the vertical plane but with a lighter top half. Probably coincidence, unless as @NorCal Dave has suggested one directly inspired the other (the more I think about it, the more I wonder if this is what happened).
As suggested by @jarlrmai, and indicated by @Giddierone's examples, there seems to be a trope of UFO-plus-jet photos.
I suspect most, probably all, are faked.
Conversely, prototype aircraft are sometimes shadowed by in-service types on early flights.
And if the UFO in any of the above photos is, for whatever reason, a truly unidentified craft that has been sighted or detected on radar, maybe it's not unreasonable, as @Alexandria Nick suggested, that any military aircraft flying in the area might be tasked to have a look even if they're not the optimal choice.
The aircraft in the Puerto Rico photo, with relatively large tailplanes and a proportionately short, broad rear fuselage looks like maybe an F-14 to me, but perspective and poor focus can play tricks! In the context, unlikely to be a (USSR) Su-24 Fencer.
Of course, the aircraft in this (and maybe other) photos might be models or generic toy aeroplanes which don't necessarily resemble real aircraft types in detail.
though more angular and (proportionately) less broad horizontal planes.
Very unlikely to be a Blackjack over the USA in 1988 though! The Stevens photo doesn't show much vertical tailplane rising above the horizontal tailplanes as far as I can make out.
Both very roughly symmetrical in the vertical plane but with a lighter top half. Probably coincidence, unless as @NorCal Dave has suggested one directly inspired the other (the more I think about it, the more I wonder if this is what happened).
As suggested by @jarlrmai, and indicated by @Giddierone's examples, there seems to be a trope of UFO-plus-jet photos.
I suspect most, probably all, are faked.
Conversely, prototype aircraft are sometimes shadowed by in-service types on early flights.
And if the UFO in any of the above photos is, for whatever reason, a truly unidentified craft that has been sighted or detected on radar, maybe it's not unreasonable, as @Alexandria Nick suggested, that any military aircraft flying in the area might be tasked to have a look even if they're not the optimal choice.
The aircraft in the Puerto Rico photo, with relatively large tailplanes and a proportionately short, broad rear fuselage looks like maybe an F-14 to me, but perspective and poor focus can play tricks! In the context, unlikely to be a (USSR) Su-24 Fencer.
Of course, the aircraft in this (and maybe other) photos might be models or generic toy aeroplanes which don't necessarily resemble real aircraft types in detail.
I might be nit-picking, and I guess this is of limited relevance, but the Tu-160 Blackjack has a similar-ish tail to the B-1B,
though more angular and (proportionately) less broad horizontal planes.
Very unlikely to be a Blackjack over the USA in 1988 though! The Stevens photo doesn't show much vertical tailplane rising above the horizontal tailplanes as far as I can make out.
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John J.
Senior Member.
Looks a bit like a clothing "popper" fastener or a rivet from a pair of jeans.
On balance it's more likely to be a spacecraft from an extraterrestrial civilisation that lives many light years away. Maybe.
Todd Feinman
Active Member
A lot of UFO sightings with fighter jets nearby have been reported, all of the photos aside. These reports were posted at NUFORC.
Ann K
Senior Member.
We are back to the subject of pareidolia again, aren't we. It's been suggested (about a thousand-and-something posts ago) that the Calvine UFO is a small islet and its reflection, and also that the plane in the photo is really a man and a dog in a rowboat with THEIR reflection, and the "hills" at the very bottom are just ripples at the edge of a loch. What a pity we don't have any genuine intergalactic vessel with which to compare shapes, and are stuck with "things that look like we think things should look like according to fiction", while even terrestrial objects can be mistaken for other terrestrial objects.
Looks a bit like a clothing "popper" fastener or a rivet from a pair of jeans.
On balance it's more likely to be a spacecraft from an extraterrestrial civilisation that lives many light years away. Maybe.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Which makes a "UFO with fighter jets nearby" a good candidate for hoaxed photos.
As for "a lot" of NUFORC reports, this can get into a "sum is greater than the parts" type of argument. If "lots of" people report UFOs with fighter jets, there must be something to it. As is often the case Todd, you're kinda violating the "No Click Policy" for the forum. You have provided a link with no examples or explanation. Fortunately, you piqued my interest, so I checked it out.
First up is a guy who knows "what he seen" and heard!
And this one that includes observed FTL travel maybe, and a collective non-remembering followed by a collective remembering. Right around the time of CE3K came out (heavily edited for brevity) (bold by me):
Location: Desoto, WI, USA
Shape:
Characteristics: Aircraft nearby, Animals reacted
I seen 3 fighter jets circling my area flying back and forth over my house. After the fighter jets went north, I looked up in the sky and seen what appeared to be tiny little blue stars moving very fast across the sky with absolutely no sound!
Shortly after I seen the moving stars, or what ever it was, I heard a very loud screeching from some type of animal. Not sure what it was but it was freaky!
Unclear if CE3K came out a few months after the experience or the collective re-remembering. If it's in between, that might explain a lot.
Location: Joyce Kilmer Slickrock Creek Wilderness, NC, USA
Shape: Circle
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aircraft nearby
very large craft, moving at the speed of light, no sound, lots of lights, jet aircraft came to invesitgate.
While camping in a remote area of western NC under crystal clear skies in mid February, my friends and I noticed a light moving erraticly in the heavens at what appeared to be great altitude.
The light seemd to cris cross the sky at great rates of speed and then began to descend closer to our location.
As we sat mesmerized, all of a sudden this very large craft making no sound rose up from the valley floor and was almost as large as the ridge itself.
The light we had seen earlier in the sky was apparent that it was the underside of the craft and the craft was circled by many flashing and mulit colored lights. We could 'feel' someone was inside and knew that we were there.
. All of a sudden several jets appeared deep in the valley and directly over our camp so low we could see the lights on the wings quite clearly. We counted several jets but in rality this may have been only a couple making passes over our location. It was if the jets came to investigate what the larg craft
never speaking of the incident in 4 hour drive home or for that matter remembering it.
It was at that moment that we all three had a sort of collective memory and began to relate to each other what took place that night and even remmbering not speaking about it until then.
This event has caused great stress to all three of us for the past 25 years and is accomapnied by strange dreams
Also at the risk of ridicule, a few months later the movie 'Close Encounters' came out and we were all completely stunned at how close the final scene was to what we experienced that night. I just cant explain how large this thing was. Thank you
Then there is just confussing descriptions like this:
If the jets were at "extremely high altitude" how does our reporter know they are military jets? Or maybe they weren't all that high?
As I was watching this happen, I noticed what appeared to be two military jets at extremely high altitude circling the area in a much wider pattern. It then occurred to me that maybe they were looking for these objects. My wife suggested that maybe it was some sort of training exercise.
I'll leave with this one that sounds like a police action with helicopters. Helicopters can account for many of the observed things in the sky (bold by me):
The link goes on endlessly with different reports. As we've noted before in other threads, a collection of reports from a UFO aggregator that is full of self-reported incidents, preselects for those disposed to think UFOs are aliens and in the sky. People that report to NUFORC, MUFON or others already KNOW there is a NUFORC or MUFON to report to, so something like a bunch of police helicopters buzzing around becomes a UFO and "I know what I seen!"
Location: Pompano/Deerfield Beach, FL, USA
Shape: Oval
Characteristics: Lights on object, Aura or haze around object, Aircraft nearby, Electrical or magnetic effects
Fighter Jets Chasing objects in the night sky
At about 11 pm that evening I noticed what sounded like a very loud barritone instument, shortly after that I heard what sounded like fighter jets flying around all over the place and police cars racing around with there sirens blarring. My friend and I walked outside of the house to see what all the commotion was about and thats when we noticed several objects in the sky, some where stationary but there were a few that were moving at incredible speeds high up in the sky, the thing that really freaked me out was how quickly these crafts could change the direction they were traveling in. Although the crafts appeard to be oval in shape with Intense bright lights, one craft was definitly triangular with colorful lights at each peak of the angles. My friend and roomate (who is definitly a non believer) could not come up with an explinition was taken back the entire event.
Todd Feinman
Active Member
Oh, yes, sorry about the link. I'm not claiming anything. What you have described is true for many UFO reports.
Mendel
Senior Member.
this report has the characteristic that the sound of low-flying jets makes people look at the sky who usually don't, and also makes it a "special" occasion that provides a context for other unfamiliar (if mundane) observations.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Real Tu-160 Blackjacks would be cause for concern, regardless of UFOs, but like the B1B, models were available back in the '80s:
If one is just hanging models to create photos, a Soviet aircraft is as good as any other.
The other 3 appear to be made at the same time with 2 of the same, just with a different crop:
Let me correct myself. More looking shows these appear to be 2 of the 3 photos Amaury Rivera Toro captured of a UFO that had abducted him and others in Puerto Rico. He claims to have captured these as the UFO dropped him off. I think they go along with this 3rd one:
Which is sometimes cropped and appears like this:
So, we have 3 photos that get cropped differently and turned into more photos. As noted above, the aircraft looks kinda like an F14 Tomcat. For what it's worth, the UFO/saucer from the top 2 photos (same photo just cropped) looks a lot like the saucer in the Stevenson's B1/TU-160 photo:
Interesting note, while I'm having a hard time finding a written account from Rivera and I didn't feel like sitting through a 40:00 interview with him on YouTube, most versions say that after being abducted, Rivera and others were taken to a secret UFO base by the aliens and that base was under the ocean! So, the Crypto Terrestrial Hypothesis authors could have used Rivera and his photos as evidence over in our thread about CTH: https://www.metabunk.org/threads/cl...on-the-dark-side-of-the-moon-or-alaska.13504/
I wonder why they didn't?
Ann K
Senior Member.
Interestingly, there are background ripples visible here. Are they clouds? Are they artifacts? Or are they, as I still think a strong possibility with the Calvine photos, water instead of sky? The "UFO" bears every resemblance to a partially submerged object (tree?) with its reflection.Which is sometimes cropped and appears like this:
Mendel
Senior Member.
Ann K
Senior Member.
I agree. But the ripples visible in the cropped version give a distinct appearance of water, thus making the object-and-reflection appearance even stronger.I cannot get myself to see this at all in the full picture this was cropped from.
FatPhil
Senior Member.
They look like aliasing artifacts from printing then scanning, as they don't appear to be a natural phenomenon out there in its own plane.
Giddierone
Senior Member.
I thought that particular crop was a photo of a monitor. The lines look uniform diagonals bottom left to top right. (slightly adjusted version)
FatPhil
Senior Member.
I thought that particular crop was a photo of a monitor. The lines look uniform diagonals bottom left to top right. (slightly adjusted version)
The property I was looking for was of being a matrix of dots. Screens works just as well as printers in that regard. Better if anything due to the fact that printers used to make sure that the aliasing is at different angles for the different colours, so that you see it less:
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
No. As @Mendal pointed out when the full photo is seen and grouped with the other 2 that make the set of 3, there is just no way it's a reflection. I think FatPhil and Giddierone explained what we're seeing. In almost all of these, we're usually treated to some sort of photo of a photo that is then cropped.
I can't rule out the reflection, but it seems highly unlikely. While some have shown how it could be done theoretically, I find the reality of pulling off very difficult. Besides the dead calm day and perfect angle of the sun to create the reflecting rock, said rock must be in a perfect location to have the fence at the bottom, the tree at the top AND allow for the proper open space to reflect a just happens to be passing jet. That's a lot of minute detail that all has to line up out in nature with an aircraft thrown in.
While absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, it's still an absence. There are no known records of Harriers operating in Scotland at that time. Maybe it's a Hunter, but again is their evidence of them buzzing around there. Yes, it may have been near a low-level training run, but then there would be records of such flights in and around the supposed photo was taken.
All these problems are easily solved with a model(s) and/or a piece of glass. Something that has been shown as very doable in camera.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
Are we sure there are not? I'm not 100% certain we even know when it was taken!
Mendel
Senior Member.
I think we're discussing a Russian aircraft in Puerto Rico?
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
A model of a Soviet aircraft. Maybe.
Very true. The whole backstory and date could be completely made up. All we really know is the photo was likely taken before it was sent to the news paper. I say likely because it’s still possible it’s a composite, so maybe multiple photos taken at various times then joined together before being sent to the news.
I still lean model and/or glass hoax. As I said getting everything just right for the reflection theory sounds daunting.
My point about the Harrier records was that the RAF maintains that they have no record, it as you say, for the given date. While it’s been mentioned that the area had a low-fly zone, I haven’t seen any evidence, unless it’s back 10-15 pages ago. Not saying there wasn’t, just that the reflection theory depends entirely on low-level fly bys of Harriers, or maybe Hunters in the area sometime prior to the photos arriving at the newspaper.
That assumes the photo was taken near the reported area of Calvine with a low-fly zone. I don’t know Scotland well enough to say that’s the case. If the photo is from somewhere else in Scotland or even someplace out of Scotland that can serve as a stand in, then it’s all irrelevant.
All of the “background” about how and where this photo happened, is the 2nd reporting of 1 guy who spoke to 1 guy on the phone for a few minutes. Lindsay had a short phone conversation that he then had someone write up some notes about and he then embellished a bit 30 years later.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
Don't mean to accuse anybody of anything here, but reading that caused my brain to think "Newspapers have concocted hoaxes to sell papers before now..." I don't particularly suspect that here, but I suppose it ought to be on the table, and would explain things like nobody at the paper ever coming forward with info on the photographer.
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Agreed, there is ample evidence of news papers stretching the truth or printing full fake stories. The hidden city in the Grand Canyon is a good example. (I’m on my phone at the moment so sourcing is a bit harder for an old fart like me but I can find it if needed).
You and I know the various checkout line usuals with The National Inquirer being the most famous. I don’t know UK papers and how they rank. But even the supposedly staid NYT introduced us to Elizondo and the likely non-existent AATIP. And the Gulf Breeze photos to the Stevenville UFO have all been promoted by local newspapers.
Which makes one wonder why the Scottish newspaper did not run the photos. Clark speculated that is government pressure. I could speculate as well, that is was a bit of research that showed the story to be bogus.
Mendel
Senior Member.
I thought it's documented that the newspaper contacted the MoD, and they told the paper it's bogus, since they had no such aircraft flying there at the time? That would mean the story lacked corroboration, and thus a quality paper wouldn't print it.
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