1971 Lake Cote / Lago de Cote UFO Aerial Photo

UFOs dont have t be disk, that's just a science fiction fiction.
I say this because look at it. If we are going to explore the hypothesis that it MAY be an object in the air some distance from us, what shape should we start with? I think to most people this looks like if indeed its out there, and not an artifact, its roughly a disc, roughly horizontal to the ground, with a black spot at its top. I'd love to hear different takes on that initial assumption of shape, but I haven't heard any.

We know about the history of UFOs in Sci-fi. But there's also a long history of unambiguous reports of disc-shaped craft at close distances where the witnesses strongly feel they could rule out error/misidentification.

I tried this new shape below. Still doesn't work but works better than the others in some respects. To those assuming it is legit, it may be time to re-examine what shape you actually assume it to be.

blender_2021-05-13_01-06-48.jpg
 
But there's also a long history of unambiguous reports of disc-shaped craft at close distances
i hear you but i think you are limiting yourself to a big assumption. maybe that model is flatter on one end for the headlights.

you are doing a real nice job in blender... but not sure you should assume the AI recreation is at all accurate. can you make a copy of your first one and dent the copy up a bit, to see how the light plays different on a banged up ship. like from a crash or a meteor shower.
 
Is it possible that the film itself simple had a defect? I would think anomalies in the production of film in the 70's was probably not unheard of.
 
i hear you but i think you are limiting yourself to a big assumption. maybe that model is flatter on one end for the headlights.

you are doing a real nice job in blender... but not sure you should assume the AI recreation is at all accurate. can you make a copy of your first one and dent the copy up a bit, to see how the light plays different on a banged up ship. like from a crash or a meteor shower.
Well I'm precisely not limiting myself, and specifically not assuming it's accurate, in the form of literally asking for suggestions for other possible shapes! Thanks for the dents idea I'll have a go at that. However I don't see how dents will help our cause here. The reflections (assuming they are even that) have straight lines... Not broken up by dents, from what I can tell.

Half my point here is, if we are going to even explore the idea that it may be a solid object (and many are running confidently with that) then shouldn't we at least first come to an agreement on what shape we are suggesting the object to be. Yes, we should. What I am demonstrating, I think, is that this isn't as simple as it seems. The shape most people assume, doesn't necessarily work! That's my point. I can experiment with obscure shapes until the cows come home.
 
Another theory is optical coating delamination. For instance the AR coating on the glass lenses. But that we would see in every frame, not just this one, and it would appear blurry and unsharp. So this theory is valid, but unlikely.
 
Could it be a mark on the print, possibly caused by someone using a loupe and touching the print with it while it was drying?

https://lensnotes.com/photography/loupe/
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explor.../editing-tools-and-supplies-for-film-shooters
in one interview he allegedly said he enlarged the negative. or enlarged the photo, its hard to tell from translations. There are different methods of expanding , either from a negative or from a negative of a photo of the negative :) Don't trust my description, its been decades since my brother enlarged photos.

But something might have happened during that process too. I would assume authorities would be looking at a photo from the original camera negative, but the problem with old stories is it's always hard to tell. and all stories i saw just said people saw the "photograph" not the negative, or negative of the negative.

Article:

Article:
There are three darkroom techniques for producing an enlarged negative for contact printing, and none are particularly difficult. The easiest is to copy a print made from an original negative using a large format camera. The other two methods both require a positive image, which is then projected onto another piece of film of the desired final size using an enlarger. This second piece of film is developed as a negative. The second two methods vary only in how the positive image is made.




aug 2016, translated from spanish (sorry my "copy" function isnt working)
1620915332578.png

https://www.crhoy.com/tecnologia/hace-45-anos-un-ovni-impresiono-a-costa-rica-y-al-mundo/

Content from External Source
add: in case i made no sense
0209anchell07.jpg
 
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Who are replying to? The Chip the the glass was proposed by the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society, back in 2013. Not by anyone here.

The artefact in the image does look similar to images of conchoidal fracture, as one would find in obsidian, say.
Conchoidal fracture is a smoothly curving fracture surface of fine-grained materials which have no planar surfaces of internal weakness or planes of separation (no cleavage). Such a curving fracture surface is characteristic of glass and other brittle materials with no crystal structure.
Content from External Source
-- https://www.sandatlas.org/conchoidal-fracture/
However, there's absolutely no reason why photographic equipment with damage in the form of conchoidal fracture should create artefacts resembling conchoidal fracture on the film. A photo *of* a chip in glass and a photo *through* a chip in glass are quite different things. So I think that line of thought was a bit of a red herring, even if the similarity of what was seen (see the post above the one you responded to) was understandable.
 
A photo *of* a chip in glass and a photo *through* a chip in glass are quite different things.
Might the camera have been taking pictures through a protective "window?" Though in that case you'd expect the UFO to persist, at the very least in subsequent shots. Unless maybe the camera pans/tilts about? If either of those (window or pan/tilt) can be definitively ruled out, I'd say a conchoidal fracture could be ruled out pretty definitely.
of conchoidal fracture, as one would find in obsidian, say.

Or in a window... interestingly,with a central hole that might account for the spot in the center(ish) of the UFO.
Unless of course there'sno window or no camera pan/tilt...
conchoidal fracture.jpg
 
As you can see in your photo it could be difficult to have both the chip in the window and the objects in the background in focus simultaneously. May depend on the camera settings but likely a window would be very close to the camera so I’d expect it likely difficult.
 
Unless of course there'sno window or no camera pan/tilt...
there seems to be a window in the floor of the plane and the camera is bolted on top of it. i was wondering if there was a little washer or nut stuck between the camera and the plane window (in the frame area) that just slid into the camera area if the plane tilted a bit... but i dont think it could slide back out for the third pic, unless it was a ball shape. The ufo pic seems a tad more tilted to me, but that might just be an illusion.
sbs.png
 
I went over the manual of the Zeiss camera a couple of times already and I cannot find anything in the design that possibly might show this artefact in any optical sense. No tilting or panning going on. It is a very straight forward design, inherent to Zeiss.

A possible window in front of this camera is also unlikely, as it messes up the camera's image quality. Unless it is a dome, but that is not used often.

My best guess is the film development or damaged things? I am guessing here.
 
in one interview he allegedly said he enlarged the negative. or enlarged the photo, its hard to tell from translations.

https://www.crhoy.com/tecnologia/hace-45-anos-un-ovni-impresiono-a-costa-rica-y-al-mundo/

From the first sound recording, by Sergio Loaiza (on top of page):

"We brought the picture strips and always spread them along a large table and a fellow [not understandable to me] we looked at the lab amplifier, put the negative inside and projected it and enlarged it [...]"
 
I have rotated the image from Reddit to make North upward as suggested by Mick.

If cloud projections are correct as I put them on arrows, then sunlight comes from northeast and so object's shadows is are inconsistent with this as sunlight had to come from west-northwest to make a shadow in such a position.

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N.B. - Image from Reddit is very good quality. Could we get the other two images in this resolution? Also, are there images completing the lake available?
 
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Then shadow should be on your freehand UFO's left :cool:

However there's something wrong here. According to watch picture on pic's margin, it was taken at 12.25pm. From SunCalc, sunlight should come from west-southwest at that time.

1621084260572.png

But sunlight clearly comes from north-east as it can be seen from trees and rock on lake's border. It's hard to believe they wouldn't have camera's watch adjusted to correct time. Anyway object's shadow is inconsistent with cloud and ground shadows as far as I can see.

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Can anybody spot a shadow on the ground lake cast by the UFO? I can't: finding it, though, would indicte the object actually existed out in the world. If it cannot be found, that would tend to support, though not prove, the idea that it is created inside the camera or on the physical negative.
 
However there's something wrong here. According to watch picture on pic's margin, it was taken at 12.25pm. From SunCalc, sunlight should come from west-southwest at that time.
The relative positions of clouds and their shadows on the aerial photos depend not only on the Sun position in the sky, but also on the position and altitude of the camera. I realised the importance of the latter long time ago, calculating the altitude of contrails from the positions of their shadows on satellite images.
 
The relative positions of clouds and their shadows on the aerial photos depend not only on the Sun position in the sky, but also on the position and altitude of the camera. I realised the importance of the latter long time ago, calculating the altitude of contrails from the positions of their shadows on satellite images.

I'm not an expert, but I guess angle will make the big difference much more than the rest. However I think angle here is supposed to be 90º to ground surface as these are orthophotographs.

Anyway shadow angles are just for the sake of curiosity as they're not consistent with time registered by camera, 12.25pm, unless I'm missing something. The main point here is that object's shadow isn't consistent with cloud shadow, and also trees and rocks too, if it comes from object's relief. But they can be a cloud projection as it was put by deirdre.
 
N.B. - Image from Reddit is very good quality. Could we get the other two images in this resolution? Also, are there images completing the lake available?

The Reddit image is very likely AI-upscaled by the poster, from a quarter-resolution version that can be found elsewhere on the web. See earlier in this thread for that discussion.

Can anybody spot a shadow on the ground lake cast by the UFO? I can't: finding it, though, would indicte the object actually existed out in the world. If it cannot be found, that would tend to support, though not prove, the idea that it is created inside the camera or on the physical negative.
We can't see the plane's shadow either, so the lack of shadow would only tell us that a putative object was close enough to the plane's altitude for its shadow to fall outside of the frame.
 
The Reddit image is very likely AI-upscaled by the poster, from a quarter-resolution version that can be found elsewhere on the web. See earlier in this thread for that discussion.

I don't think so unless poster retouched inscriptions and marginal markings. Also, that pic is quite unique in that it has self-adhesive bands in it. So it's more likely it was taken later from original with a very high quality camera (and exposure). That's my opinion. I'd like to have frames 299 and 301 from that camera and if possible also frames completing the lake.
 
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I don't think so unless poster retouched inscriptions and marginal markings. Also, that pic is quite unique in that it has self-adhesive bands in it. So it's more likely it was taken later from original with a very high quality camera (and exposure). That's my opinion. I'd like to have frames 299 and 301 from that camera and if possible also frames completing the lake.
The Reddit pic's height and width in pixels are exactly 4x larger than those of this image: http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/Cote-Lake-UFO-photo.jpg

Plus it contains tell-tale signs of "AI" upscaling.

Edit: the Reddit user H-M-1 confirmed via chat that he uses VanceAI. Here's the above image from openminds.tv run through VanceAI's upscaler at 4x, with "Suppress Noise" and "Remove Blur" deselected. It is visually very similar to the 4k image from Reddit (modulo the watermark): Direct image host link - since the forum software seems to downscale the full-res upload.
 

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The Reddit pic's height and width in pixels are exactly 4x larger than those of this image: http://www.openminds.tv/wp-content/uploads/Cote-Lake-UFO-photo.jpg

Plus it contains tell-tale signs of "AI" upscaling.

Edit: the Reddit user H-M-1 confirmed via chat that he uses VanceAI. Here's the above image from openminds.tv run through VanceAI's upscaler at 4x, with "Suppress Noise" and "Remove Blur" deselected. It is visually very similar to the 4k image from Reddit (modulo the watermark): Direct image host link - since the forum software seems to downscale the full-res upload.

Then I must concede that's "AI" upsclaled indeed and that's very disappointing. Perhaps some day we get fresh reproductions untouched and in best possible resolution and quality.
 
Well, I don't really know what to think about this, but at least it is perhaps worth sharing.

On frame 299 there's an object that looks like the UFO-to be including a seemingly conical shadow.

It looks slightly smaller half-size but parallel to ground with no shadow projected. It can't be seen on same position from frame 300...

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EDIT: I have added disk from frame 300 next to disk on frame 299 both zoomed to 800%. Pics used are Mick's from #14.
 
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We can't see the plane's shadow either, so the lack of shadow would only tell us that a putative object was close enough to the plane's altitude for its shadow to fall outside of the frame.
My thought was, if there is a shadow, then the object exists. If there is no shadow,maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. I'd tend to agree, if it's shadow is not visible AND IF it is real, that would suggest it is pretty high, with the shadow either out of frame or just too small/diffuse to spot.
 
Just a comment: frames are taken in 13 or 20 seconds intervals and clouds run a large distance between succeeding frames. So one may reasonably conclude that it was a windy day. So that might be something blown by the wind, even if it looks too large (but we don't really know how far from ground it is). Mexico is far away, but perhaps who knows that could be a sombrero...
 
I had a go at the "metadata" of the three frames. These are three small images on the edge of each photo. One is probably a barometer for the camera altitude, showing the same readings (10,000 ft?) , the second is a bull's eye level, showing the camera's tilt (appears to be constant), the third is a three-hand clock, showing the time of 08:25 and 20 sec intervals between the sequential frames. There is a substantial overlap between sequential frames, about a half of each image.

At this time, the Sun was directly on the East with elevation of 42°, with is fully consistent with the ground illumination. The plane travelled from East to West, with the Sun behind it.

From Mick's mapping, frame 300 covers the ground dimensions 12.800 x 10.500, about the same as the reported altitude. This translates into a 60° difference between the viewing angles at the opposite edges, which have a strong effect on the positions of cloud images relative the ground.
Screenshot 2021-05-16 at 15.09.57.png

Note that the positions of cloud shadows changed very little from frame to frame, whereas the cloud images are closer to their shadows near the West (right) edges and farther from their shadows near the East (left) edges of each frame.

Size comparisons of images of clouds and their shadows, suggests that the clouds altitude is a small fraction of that of the plane. I estimate it being about 2,500 ft.

On a side note, the "object" found in frame 299 by @kasparovitch in #69, could have come from the projection of a small bit of the cloud that projected to a different ground location in frame 300.
 
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Hey all - long time lurker, first time poster.

I say this because look at it. If we are going to explore the hypothesis that it MAY be an object in the air some distance from us, what shape should we start with?

Fin - would you be willing to model the following object - one reported in several sightings in the US around the same era 24 years prior? It would explain the "cut edge" at the back.

Basically, still a roughly-saucerlike object, but not perfectly round, and with a bit of a cut edge. Photos attached for reference.

 
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Original investigators claimed that sombrero-like UFO should travel at least at 3,000Km/h once it was absent in all other frames.

However, if those sombreros are the same thing, then I grossly calculate it traveled some 500m/1640ft in 20sec, which gives about 90Km/h or 60 miles/h. Speed may however perhaps be higher in that it seems to be traveling a path towards the sky and distance run might be more than 500m/1640ft (e.g. 40% higher speed if angle is 45º by using Pythagoras calculations).

After watching it again in frame 299, its 6-9 o'clock portion looks covered by a small cloud and so it traveled below cloud's level there.

The best explanation for it to look larger on frame 300 is that it's closer to camera there.

Whatsoever is the distance from plane in frame 299, distance is likely half that in frame 300 as one can learn from sizecalc.com (half perceived size means twice the distance from lens). Once distance is 10,000 feet at most in frame 299, then its distance from plane is 5,000 feet at most in frame 300 (this makes me reminding of calculations used in Utah's drone).
 
My best guess is that it was an helicopter they didn't pay much attention at the time and couldn't recall any longer years later when they found the sombrero-like UFO in their picture set.
 
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