1971 Lake Cote / Lago de Cote UFO Aerial Photo

[Mendel]

No, I'm looking at the coast. Other features also don't quite align.

Because the image is vertically compressed (as if tilted)—you can see that on the street grid as well. It's still aligned due north.

 

[FatPhil]

Because the image is vertically compressed (as if tilted)—you can see that on the street grid as well. It's still aligned due north.

The image you provided does not support that claim. If you have an image that supports that claim, perhaps you should have embedded that image.

You do realise that "vertically compressed" plus "tilted" can turn any set of axes into any other set of axes, I hope. (The "tilted" does a lot of the heavy lifting here, by the time you were typing that you should have considered whether your argument could be miscontrued as "red is blue if you rotate the palate".)

 

[Scaramanga]

Because the image is vertically compressed

Well, this is a score for reliable eyewitness reports

 

[Mendel]

The image you provided does not support that claim.

Yes, it does.

Spoiler: off-topic nitpicking

The image is aligned north, the flight path for the aerial photography is not.

If you have an image that supports that claim, perhaps you should have embedded that image.

I picked the image because the source it comes from is a lesson on how to lay out a flight path for aerial photography that does not reference the cardinal directions, supporting the claim that they're not important. The not-north-aligned flight path is just a visual representation of it. I did not check the map when I posted it because I assumed it was north-aligned, which it is. Please observe the street grid of Del Mar Heights to confirm that.

You do realise that "vertically compressed" plus "tilted" can turn any set of axes into any other set of axes,

No, both transformations leave horizontal lines/axes horizontal, like the street grid at Del Mar.
But then I did not write "vertically compressed" plus "tilted", I wrote vertically compressed (as if tilted), which constrains the tilt to "away from the viewer". Vertical compression leaves vertical lines intact.

I hope. (The "tilted" does a lot of the heavy lifting here, by the time you were typing that you should have considered whether your argument could be miscontrued as "red is blue if you rotate the palate".)

Just strike the "(as if tilted)", it's in parentheses anyway and does zero lifting.

You understand maths, please recall that vertical compression flattens the slope of diagonals (of either slant), but does not rotate anything.

 

[Mendel]

Well, this is a score for reliable eyewitness reports

View attachment 61071

The scale mismatches affect the slant of the coastline and other diagonal map features. However, horizontal E-W and vertical N-S lines stay horizontal and vertical.

 

[PublicStranger]

Looks exactly like a cymbal. Any chance this image could be doctored in any way? Considering it was a camera that took automatic photos every 20 seconds could it be possible somebody chucked something from the plane, that being said the reflection evidence doesn't support this being an actual physical object.

 

[Mendel]

Looks exactly like a cymbal.

https://ufocymbals.com/

 

[Ann K]

Looks exactly like a cymbal ....could it be possible somebody chucked something from the plane

Or a light fixture. Or a slightly dented aluminum pot lid, one that's been dropped on the kitchen floor once too often. But that speculation doesn't get us much closer to a resolution, I'm afraid. If it's an object "chucked out of a plane", I don't think I'd expect a sharp, crisp image, but more of a blur.

 

[John J.]

Playing about with my basic zoom and contrast functions, I was surprised to see an appearance by the Blessed Virgin Mary...
...in a rather oversized robe and maybe wearing a floral crown.
(Pareidolia, of course).

 

[MapperGuy]

It appears so. If you drop the brightness you can see the pitch of the roof catching the light.
View attachment 60926
There are also two other ground objects much closer to the "flying saucer".
A roundish looking thing they airbrushed out completely on the recent drum scan.
Do we think that's something on the print or something real on the ground?
The other building (in the red box) you can see in more detail on the drum scan and that it's a also a building with a pitched roof somewhat catching the light.
Also notice the green box. They airbrushed out the fiducial mark and the light bleed.
View attachment 60925

Been decades since I did any photo film processing, the old way where run the film through developer and fixer and water to clean the chemicals away. But I suspect that is where this UFO originated, in the wet chemistry processing of the original film. A dot of some material, and it would only take a tiny amount, got onto the emulsion side of the film and during processing it dissolved and effected a tiny spot on the emulsion.

The film was probably processed on a continuous feed machine, where the film passes over and under multiple rollers as it is pulled through multiple tanks containing the various chemicals. It would take a microscopic look at the emulsion side of the original film to see if there is any damage to it, so any look at copies however made is never going to be definitive.

Tone and Texture. Always compare the tone and texture of the proposed UFO to the tone and texture of the rest of the image. So often there are noticeable differences as there are in this case. The UFO shows faint concentric "scratches" around the black dot that is presumably the center of the object.

The ground length of those scratches is tens of meters, judging by the size of the small buildings visible. Those scratches are just to uniform to be expected on a curved surface of this size, they should change with the presumed curvature of the objects surface. To me the UFO here just does not "belong" in this image, an actual object where this one appears to be would not look so different in tone and texture as this object does.

The two alternating versions of the image in the lower photo show how far from the original image this evidence has traveled. Different resolutions and different brightness and contrast. Until some one finds the original film, the film that was actually flown, this will remain unresolved. To me at least this is just a blemish in the emulsion.

Finally, has anyone tried to create a three dimensional object that would look like this under the well established lighting conditions? Is the object oval or round and tipped up on one side? When I look at this object I see a pot lid shaped object tilted up, with the left side submerged in the lake. What is the actual shape of this object and what is its orientation?

 

[Prophet Rob]

This is useful info. fig 1.8 seems to support the idea that the point light source could be far outside of the frame. (Unless I'm misunderstanding it). Perhaps a reflection from the lake as someone suggested earlier in the thread. (I wonder if more images from the mosaic from the parallel pass to the North that the aircraft took could be retrieved from the Costa Rica land registry).

If the point source is the building you indicate wouldn't there be more than the single ghost at the far edge of the frame?

The source could be anywhere outside the frame , but doesn't have to be.
The example was for a different sort of lens than the wide angle topogon style that the aerial photograph was taken with. There doesn't have to be other elements visible necessarily, it's possible to sometimes hit a precise spot where only one is readily visible, there's very complex reflection geometry that happens internally to the lens akin to wizardry.

I went looking for some examples of wide angle lens flare and came up with this example where I have modified the brightness/contrast and overlaid the thin white line along the center of the flare axis and a green circle around the off center lens ghosting.

Here the source is outside the frame to the right, but there is also what appears to be one ghost prominently offset from the axis of the rest. I asked the photographer about it and got the lens type, a Laowa 15mm f/4 wide angle macro, but she doesn't seem interested in letting me have access to the uncropped unedited version at the moment. I think this is at least confirmation that such a thing is plausible.

I think I may have solved even more of the question about the exact skew of the anomaly via that red herring of thinking that the skew matched the off level condition of the camera, because while I was thinking about it I realized that triangle has similar angles with the triangle formed by the displacement of the reflection to the center of the film plane.

Here I have overlaid the level indicator on both the anomaly and the geometry of the reflection with respect to center to illustrate the similarity relationship. The level gradation also happens to be slightly off axis to the image capture fiducials for some reason, but barely.

The out of level didn't make the tilt of the anomaly with respect to the photograph axis, the reflection geometry did, and the level indicator just happened to accidentally match. At least my brain put them both together at the same time so I could realize the connection.

I need some time to figure out how to diagram up and skew the anomaly back into what it would have looked like as the lens cone pointing down in its original orientation.


For the people looking for what object it could be, it is the front cone of the camera lens taking a photo of itself unintentionally.

 

[flarkey]

Playing about with my basic zoom and contrast functions, I was surprised to see an appearance by the Blessed Virgin Mary...
...in a rather oversized robe and maybe wearing a floral crown.
(Pareidolia, of course).

View attachment 61079

This ties in with my suggestion earlier in this thread somewhere that the 'ufo' is a blob of something and the image we see is of a person, possibly the photo developing technician, as they look onto the imaging table when the photo was being resampled.

 

[Ravi]

This ties in with my suggestion earlier in this thread somewhere that the 'ufo' is a blob of something and the image we see is of a person, possibly the photo developing technician, as they look onto the imaging table when the photo was being resampled.

View attachment 61096

I thought the artefact was on the original negative?

 

[flarkey]

I thought the artefact was on the original negative?

it may be, and that may scupper my theory.

 

[Ravi]

it may be, and that may scupper my theory.

Check out post #21

 

[Mendel]

Check out post #21

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/1971-lake-cote-lago-de-cote-ufo-aerial-photo.11729/post-248498

Are those negatives or positives?

 

[Ravi]

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/1971-lake-cote-lago-de-cote-ufo-aerial-photo.11729/post-248498

Are those negatives or positives?

The link from @deirdre in #47 is I think the answer to the question if the ufo was already on the negative:

snip:

 

[Giddierone]

the Blessed Virgin Mary...

...the truly shocking thing is that she appears to be holding an iPhone 11 which wouldn't be released until 2019!...

 

[flarkey]

Here's a new video from TheSneezingMonkey going through his thoughts on the 'disc'...


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGI2eY8Xuks&ab_channel=TheSneezingMonkey

His YouTube summary...

On September 4th 1971, on board a twin-engine Aero Commander F680 aeroplane, an automated camera captured an image of a "flying saucer". The National Geographic Institute of Costa Rica was studying the potential impact on surrounding land and water of a hydroelectric project in the vicinity of the Arenal Volcano in the northern highlands. At 10,000 feet, aerial photographer Sergio Loaiza activated the 100lb map-making camera. At 20 second intervals, the camera shot images of the water and rainforest in high resolution black and white. None of the occupants were aware of what the camera had captured that morning. Even after the film was developed and the negatives filed away, they did not realise what they had captured. Eventually, after pulling out the negatives to study potential ways to connect Lake Cote with the nearby Arenal Lagoon, they noticed the anomalous object hovering over Lake Cote. On frame number 300, with a timestamp of 8.25am, the image shows what appears to be a shiny metallic disc on the right of the photograph. Over the years, the object's size has been estimated to be between 120-220 feet in diameter. Over the years the image has been analysed by various experts such as Costa Rican UFO researcher Ricardo Vílchez, Dr Richard Haines and Dr Jacques Vallée. They all concluded that the object in the photograph appeared real and was NOT the result of double exposure or a deliberate fabrication.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

I've watched part of this. His explanation about the debris causing a flaw in the film is muddled. He keeps talking about the camera plate. I'll have to watch again to give a more detailed critique. But that's my favored theory. It's a flaw in the film. A dimple.

 

[JMartJr]

But that's my favored theory. It's a flaw in the film. A dimple.

Mine as well, but to settle on that I think we need to circle back to:

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...

EDIT: I have added disk from frame 300 next to disk on frame 299 both zoomed to 800%

SOMETHING remarkably similar looking appears in frame 299 that is not there in 300. Of course, if there is one dimple or flaw in the negative, there could be more, I suppose...

 

[Horsehockey]

...the truly shocking thing is that she appears to be holding an iPhone 11 which wouldn't be released until 2019!...View attachment 61107

I say she needs a rhinoplasty ASAP.

 

[DavidB66]

Mine as well, but to settle on that I think we need to circle back to:


SOMETHING remarkably similar looking appears in frame 299 that is not there in 300. Of course, if there is one dimple or flaw in the negative, there could be more, I suppose...

I note that in the 'main' photo one side of the object appears to be obscured by something. Likewise in Frame 299. But in the main photo there is an obvious candidate for the 'something' that is obscuring the object: namely the lake. Whereas in Frame 299 the object (if it is an object) is over land. Maybe part of it is obscured by trees?

The difference in apparent size seems to rule out the two objects being the same thing, unless the object in the main pic is actually much closer to the camera. But then it would be some distance above the lake, so the lake could not be obscuring the edge.

I don't have a solution. Unless perhaps the objects in the two pics are both fakes, and the object in 299 was a first attempt and the faker was dissatisfied with it. Obviously it is less noticeable and 'saucery', otherwise it wouldn't have taken decades before Kasparovitch noticed it.