Calvine Photo Hoax Theories

[JMartJr]

It was thirty-six years ago. The world wasn't so paranoid as it is now.

1990 was the year before the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. The Baltic states were separating themselves from Soviet domination. Gulf War 1 kicked off. At least a little (maybe even justified) paranoia was probably hanging around... ^_^

And the supposition that it was a genuine craft of some sort would have been seen as ridiculous by anyone who read their description of the supposed capabilities of the object in flight, let alone the silly "extraterrestrial" connotations. The MOD consisted of serious people, not a group to fall for schoolboy pranks.

Absolutely agree on this.

 

[NorCal Dave]

he MOD consisted of serious people, not a group to fall for schoolboy pranks.

You mean, unlike our DoD, with "serious" people like Elizondo, Stratton, Stublebine, Channing, Grusch, Gallaudet, Barber and a host of others? I would assume the MoD has similar "serious" people. The late Nick Pope, a MoD civilian really created the modern myth of the Calvine photo.

 

[JMartJr]

You mean, unlike our DoD, with "serious" people like Elizondo, Stratton, Stublebine, Channing, Grusch, Gallaudet, Barber and a host of others?

Worth noting that:

The Department of Defense is responsible for providing the military forces needed to deter war and protect the security of our country. The major elements of these forces are the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force, consisting of about 1.3 million men and women on active duty. They are backed, in case of emergency, by the 825,000 members of the Reserve and National Guard. In addition, there are about 600,000 civilian employees in the Defense Department.

Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/agencies/defense-department

Out of that pool of people, a handful of woo-enthusiasts does not seem surprising. Though smaller than the US DoD/DoW, the MoD in Britain is large enough that, statistically, you'd expect some there as well. That is not inconsistent with the view that these organizations are/were essentially made up of "serious people."

One could argue that, these days, this may be less true looking at information beyond how many UFO fans are working there. But current events can't have had much of an impact on whether MoD was well-constituted to spot silly hoaxes in 1990.

 

[Charlie Wiser]

But in more modern times, the Sunday NYT ran an article by David Segal flipping the story. Geller was a fun and uplifting maybe hoaxer, while Randi and the people calling Geller out were mean, nasty fun-suckers. Segal doesn't so much say whether Geller was a fraud, more that it doesn't matter:

Ah, the fundamentals of fascism: not telling people what to believe, but convincing them the truth is impossible to decipher so why bother trying.

 

[Eburacum]

Here's an interesting development;
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/fife/5055321/kirkcaldy-ufo-sighting/

A paranormal investigator is calling for a woman who reported a UFO above Kirkcaldy 34 years ago to come forward.
Straiph Wilson says the sighting on the A92, near Gallatown Roundabout, resembles a famous Perthshire case reported in the same month.
And he hopes to gather enough evidence to link the two incidents and unravel the mystery.

Straiph Wilson says the Kirkcaldy UFO sighting is strikingly similar to one in Calvine, Image: Mhairi Edwards/DC Thomson,
Straiph uncovered the Kirkcaldy case in the National Archives while researching the sighting at Calvine, near Pitlochry.
"The mysterious Fife case bears striking similarities, especially in shape," he says.
"The coincidental August 1990 date for both incidents prompted speculation about a potential link."

Details of Kirkcaldy UFO sighting
The woman, whose husband was a policeman, was on her way to hospital on August 26 when she saw something in the sky.
According to the archives, she described a very bright, diamond-shaped object, silent and hovering around 200 feet above ground.
The sighting lasted around three minutes before suddenly disappearing "as if someone had turned off a light".
It was 8.20pm and sky conditions were described as clear.
Straiph says the woman slowed down to observe the object before contacting her husband, and he enquired about other potential sightings.
Documents show there was later official involvement.
RAF Leuchars was informed and reported the incident to HQ Strike Command at RAF High Wycombe.

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

Here's an interesting development;
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/fife/5055321/kirkcaldy-ufo-sighting/

Diamond shaped flying objects are reported, whether they're real objects or not.
I don't get where the connection between these two cases might be.
If the Calvine photo is actually a hoax, then I cannot imagine any connection between this event and other diamond shaped perceived stuff in the sky.

 

[Mendel]

Diamond shaped flying objects are reported, whether they're real objects or not.

I think there's a special LIZ-equivalent for witnesses.
We know the ubiquitious "orb" that's basically a single light of indeterminate shape.

But if you watch a kite, and want to sell it as something exciting, add a little uncertainty and say you saw a "motionless diamond-shaped object". Don't say you saw a kite, everyone knows what that is, so it's not exciting.

"Straiph says the woman slowed down to observe the object before contacting her husband" indicates she looked away from the object and at her phone at least once; so "out like a light" might mean "I looked away for a moment and then couldn't find it again".

 

[Fritzkquzerk]

I think there's a special LIZ-equivalent for witnesses.
We know the ubiquitious "orb" that's basically a single light of indeterminate shape.

But if you watch a kite, and want to sell it as something exciting, add a little uncertainty and say you saw a "motionless diamond-shaped object". Don't say you saw a kite, everyone knows what that is, so it's not exciting.

"Straiph says the woman slowed down to observe the object before contacting her husband" indicates she looked away from the object and at her phone at least once; so "out like a light" might mean "I looked away for a moment and then couldn't find it again".

3 minutes, if true, it's a pretty long time to observe an object.
Can't imagine anything that took me more than a few seconds before I could identify it as something that I know of.
Just a thought.
Also, are kites becoming rarer? I've seen like a total of two or three in my whole life.
I've seen some photos online of "3d kites" that could be mistaken for something else, still nothing similar to the shapes described or the Calvine photo.

Edit:
I'm not infallible.
There was a time I genuinely could not identify this weird planet thing in the sky, moving like a plane but silent.
It was many years ago before I knew about how the ISS actually looks with the naked eye.
That's about the only time I didn't know what I was looking at, but my description was pretty accurate. I did not see a weird object, just a white/yellowish dot moving in a straight line.
I guess the whole "ISS sighting" lasted about 1 minute.

 

[Ann K]

exciting.

"Straiph says the woman slowed down to observe the object before contacting her husband" indicates she looked away from the object and at her phone at least once; so "out like a light" might mean "I looked away for a moment and then couldn't find it again".

Cell phone usage was quite low in 1990. "Contacted her husband" might mean "got where I was going and phoned him from there". But if she was driving, it's to be hoped that she occasionally looked at the ROAD.

 

[Eburacum]

Kirkcaldy is much more densely populated than Calvine, so you would expect other witnesses.

The coincidence of an August 1990 date is intriguing, though. The Daily Record never published the Calvine photos, but maybe someone at the newspaper sparked a rumour, leading to copycat reports.

 

[John J.]

Kirkcaldy is much more densely populated than Calvine, so you would expect other witnesses.

Totally agree. Current population just over 50,000, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkcaldy

There might be a number of people out and about at 20:20 on an August evening in good weather.
A very bright diamond at 200 ft. / 61 metres for 3 minutes might be noticed by others.
We also have the old problem of how the witness estimated altitude of an unfamiliar object (whose dimensions she could not know).

Straiph Wilson says the sighting on the A92, near Gallatown Roundabout, resembles a famous Perthshire case reported in the same month.

Not really here nor there, but in the Courier article Straiph is quoted as saying

I would like to speak to the police officer's wife or anyone else who saw the same thing.

I thought this was odd phrasing, why not "the witness?" This is 2026.
The fact that her husband was a policeman is completely immaterial. Uncharitably, maybe this is an appeal to authority or claimed "trained observer" status by marriage. More likely just an awkward choice of words I guess.

 

[Ann K]

There might be a number of people out and about at 20:20 on an August evening in good weather.

The sun doesn't set in mid-August in Kirkcaldy until at least an hour past that time. The report said "the sky was clear", so yes, there were probably other people around, but I see no mention of her having done what I would have done, buttonhole strangers to say "Do you see that thing?".

One contraindication to that assumption of other viewers is that, as in many towns at the time, the local shops might all have been closed by five or six pm.