Calvine UFO Photo - Reflection In Water Hypothesis

[Scaramanga]

...or are built intentionally into the water, for example when you want your livestock to have access to the water but not to be able to cross it onto somebody else's property, or into another pasture. Yeah, most fence is not in the water... but it is not particularly rare. And how many miles of fence exist that are not on/in water and so could not feature in a water reflection photo is not relevant -- IF you were taking a picture using water reflection to fake a UFO, all that fence away from water is not usable, but it also doesn't make it harder for you... it is irrelevant. Like all those miles and miles of countryside with no fence in the shot, it doesn't matter.

Of course it matters...when you apply Occam's razor to any hypothesis. We will probably never know what the Calvine UFO really is, so all we can really do is come up with what is the simplest explanation.

The 'reflection' hypothesis is convoluted, totally ignores ( as just mentioned ) the hills clearly visible at the bottom of the photo, totally ignores that the UFO image is not a good reflection anyway, totally ignores that the simplest explanation for clouds in the sky is that they are just that...simply clouds in the sky, totally ignores that the dark base of the clouds is the wrong way up for a reflection, totally ignores the rarity of actually finding a lake with a fence and a tree that one can just happen to line up for an illusion photo, totally ignores that its a cloudy and likely windy day in Scotland yet there is not a single ripple on the alleged water...and much more besides.

I mean...how many more things does want want to just ignore to make the reflection theory the best and simplest one ?

 

[Scaramanga]

Like this:

I find it somewhat amusing that every single example of fences in lakes or water in ponds has had ripples in the water...or flotsam and stuff in the water as well. A cloudy day in Scotland is generally a windy one....yet there is not a single ripple visible in the Calvine photo. So, in addition to finding the perfect spoof location, our hoaxers have to wait weeks, months even, for the absolutely perfect calm day that just happens to not be a glorious sunny day that would be ideal but is an overcast and likely windy day when ( being Scotland ) it is likely raining too yet not producing a single ripple on the water.

 

[Kyle Ferriter]

Here's a few photos I've taken at ponds in recent years, modified to be black-and-white, lower resolution, and with a slight grain added.

 

[Ann K]

I find it somewhat amusing that every single example of fences in lakes or water in ponds has had ripples in the water...or flotsam and stuff in the water as well. A cloudy day in Scotland is generally a windy one....yet there is not a single ripple visible in the Calvine photo. So, in addition to finding the perfect spoof location, our hoaxers have to wait weeks, months even, for the absolutely perfect calm day that just happens to not be a glorious sunny day that would be ideal but is an overcast and likely windy day when ( being Scotland ) it is likely raining too yet not producing a single ripple on the water.

I find it informative that your argument against reflections seems to consist solely of derision. You understand, I hope, that is not evidence FOR your hoax hypothesis.

When I was last in Scotland, I spent three weeks there, without a single day being noticeably windy. True, there was one day of rain...

 

[John J.]

I have some sympathy for @Scaramanga's point of view (though I agree with Ann K about still waters not being that rare in Scotland).

The idea that (supposedly) a couple of young men not familiar with the area find a body of water, where there happens to be an exposed near-symmetrical rock never noticed by locals, and they take a photograph where (and this couldn't be planned) a bird's reflection for whatever reason looks like a tactical jet- and, unbeknownst to them- a second bird is also freakishly doing the same impression, not of any old jet but a specific type (or at least from a certain design stable, Hawker / Hawker Siddeley) and that their resulting image is consistent with our intuitive perception (which I accept is by no means infallible) of a foreground with a fence, and some dangling tree foliage, does seem quite a feat.

If one of the pair was a photography enthusiast, as was reportedly the case IIRC, this could be a portfolio piece. I'd guess the photography magazines of the day might have been interested in his account of how he took this photographic illusion.
If the background story is basically correct, and I'm not convinced it is, the photographer was a lad doing seasonal kitchen work, i.e. a young adult, not particularly well-off, with an interest in photography.
If this photo is of a reflection in water, it was enabled by an excellent eye for a location, skill, and an enormous amount of luck (re. birds, rowing boats or whatever). It could have been his "foot in the door", or at least an interesting talking point in an interview if he wanted to study photography. Instead it's submitted as a picture of a UFO without any attempt to capitalize on it.

Don't get me wrong, the reflection hypothesis is probably more likely than the Calvine photo being of an extraterrestrial craft!
But I think it's less likely than it being a more straightforward hoax as modelled by Wim van Utrecht

- as posted by Mick West here https://www.metabunk.org/threads/calvine-photo-hoax-theories.12596/post-286688

 

[Mendel]

where there happens to be an exposed near-symmetrical rock never noticed by locals,

not in evidence.
had the picture ran in the newspaper, I'd kind of see this point, but it did not.

 

[Scaramanga]

I find it informative that your argument against reflections seems to consist solely of derision. You understand, I hope, that is not evidence FOR your hoax hypothesis.

I guess its because to my mind the whole reflection theory is a classic example of confirmation bias. The very thing we're supposed to be eliminating.

For example the way in which the clearly visible hills in the distance just get ignored. Never mind that one would expect to see hills in the distance in a genuine photo in the area....no...it can't be hills as that doesn't fit with the reflection theory. When your data has to fit the theory rather than the theory fitting the data...you know something is wrong.

Again, never mind that the alleged reflection that forms the UFO clearly isn't a reflection as the shape and lines and colour shades don't match....no...if one conjures up enough obscure reflection pictures one can find something similar if one squints hard enough.

Never mind the upside down clouds, or ( as John J points out ) the freakish nature of a bird just happening to fly past, or the difficulty finding the perfect site and setting it all up to fool people with an entire picture. Indeed, never mind that anyone has never found the alleged pond/lake where the photo was supposedly taken.

The reflection theory goes out of its way to ignore what one would expect to see on a cloudy day in Scotland, looking at the sky over a fence, and conjures up some wild alternative based on....what ? I think people stick with it for no good reason other than that they have argued it for so long.

 

[Mendel]

I pointed that out several gazillion posts ago. But it's an inconvenient fact for the 'reflection' theory so just gets ignored.

Dude, it did not get ignored. People just don't agree with you.

Spoiler: The point was first raised and discussed on page 2.

There's what appears to be rolling hills or maybe some hangar-like structures along the bottom of the original photo.

Those might not be hills at all.

Maybe they're not reflections at all - they could just be the crud collecting at the edge of the loch or pond.

YOU keep ignoring that it's ambiguous.
You want what you find most likely to be true, but truth does not work that way.

Spoiler: page 10, august 2022

Anyone noticed the change in the background beyond the fence in the bottom left corner? Water lapping at the shore maybe?

It's been discussed before, Professor Andrew Robinson mentioned it as a possible range of hills with sparse trees on top of the hill line, but he was biased towards a camera pointed upwards. In the reflection hypothesis, it still can be the reflection of a hill line, or the way he mentions it with trees, or reflection of the margin, or ripples from a breeze, or water lapping as you suggest.

Spoiler: Enter Scaramanga, September 2022, page 13

The problem with that...and I think a lot of people have missed this...is that you can see what is landscape and distant trees between the strands of the fence.

Not really. It could be that but it could also be something else such as a bit of string. And I think something else is more likely than distant trees and landscape.

But the leftmost "hill" seems to be breaking up into smaller bits at the top, almost as if they were ...ripples at the edge of the water.

You don't think it's possible that it's not a hillside?

Of course it is possible. But surely skepticism is about looking for the most likely and reasonable explanation of what's in the photo before going off on a wild goose chase after reflections in ponds etc.

Spoiler: Extensive discussion early 2023, page 14

At the very bottom of the photo you can clearly see on the left a hillside with trees on it. The feint outline of more distant hills is also visible. I'm not clear why anyone thinks this is anything else,

When I look at the pic looking for distant hills, it looks like distant hills to me, but when I look at it looking at a slack/loose wire, I can see where that might be what it is. I don't feel strongly certain which it actually is... and if there are two possibilities, there might be another not-yet-thought-of possibility.

If somebody could find a view matching that line of hills, that would pretty much clench it. To my knowledge that has not happened.

Here's a photo I found that might illustrate the possible "not-hills" hypothesis, which I lean toward.

The problem with this being a hill line is that I'd typically expect a barbed-wire fance to be below eye level, which makes the crest of these "hills" very much below eye level, which means the photographer is on pretty much the highest hill around, which makes it unlikely for there to be a fence.

and now it's early 2024, and you keep flogging that dead horse, never acknowledging the responses, and not bringing any evidence or anything new to the table.

Your cloud argument fizzled because it can't be demonstrated on the clouds in the actual picture.

You just post on the thread dedicated to the discussion of the reflection hypothesis, saying that you find it unlikely, and asking us to stop.
Here's my suggestion for you: click this link https://www.metabunk.org/tic-ignore/ignore?content_type=thread&content_id=12572 and never see this thread again! How's that?

 

[Mendel]

The reflection theory goes out of its way to ignore what one would expect to see on a cloudy day in Scotland, looking at the sky over a fence,

Show me a single photo featuring a fence and the sky in Scotland that looks like this one, and I'll show you dozens where the sky is not visible behind the fence.

It is not "what one would expect".
It's what you expect because you think it's a hillside. That "is a classic example of confirmation bias."

The rest of us are more open about it, and see the reflection hypothesis as one of many that are worth discussing.

 

[Scaramanga]

It is not "what one would expect".

Of course it is. It's precisely what you would expect to see of a photo taken on a hillside on a cloudy day in Scotland !

It just seems totally absurd to me that one should have to re-frame the entire photo solely in order to explain one small anomaly in the middle of it....and in doing so ignore the distant hills clearly visible in the photo.

Surely the thing about any theory is that it should fit all the available data, and one should NOT have to be adjusting the data to fit the theory. The latter is precisely what people are doing when they turn the hills one would expect to see in a photo in Scotland into the 'shoreline' of some lake, in order to force the picture to fit a preconceived theory.

 

[Scaramanga]

Dude, it did not get ignored. People just don't agree with you.

It most certainly did get ignored. The distant hills are awkward for the reflection theory....so some convoluted 'shoreline' or 'crud on the water' had to be invented. Thus getting even further away from Occam's razor. People then treated things as if that had somehow resolved the matter...when it didn't.

And bear in mind that the only reason anyone proposed the reflection theory in the first place is the alleged symmetry of the 'UFO'...yet it is clearly not reflectively symmetrical in either shape or patches of colour. So the entire reason for even proposing a reflection in the first place falls at the first hurdle.

 

[Mendel]

Of course it is. It's precisely what you would expect to see of a photo taken on a hillside on a cloudy day in Scotland !

Please show us three photos that show the sky and a Scottish hillside behind a fence.

 

[Trailblazer]

The same source,

A very sunny year. Until 2006 (1999 equalled 1990), it was the warmest year on record in the UK temperature series, with a CET of 10.65C (beating 1921 and 1949). It was a very wet year in Scotland, with an average of 1820 mm.

The line "In many places, a drought of 38 consecutive dry days ended on the 14-15th, as a depression moved NE across Scotland, bringing wind and rain to much of the country" is a bit ambiguous; it doesn't say there was a state of drought in Scotland- unlikely if it had been a very wet year; a depression moving across Scotland brought wind and rain to much of the country, but it's not clear if Harley means Scotland or the UK. BBC weather forecasters (obviously) use the names of the UK nations in national forecasts, but frequently also use "...the country" to mean the whole UK.

Looking at the monthly summaries, March was especially wet in Scotland and of course there was the Burns Day storm in January that year. But the summer was notably dry across pretty much the whole UK.

The Met Office daily weather summaries are online, with maps showing locations where rain was recorded each day:

July 1990
August 1990

I have to say that both objects do look quite like reflections to me. The "plane" especially doesn't look like a plane, it looks like something sticking out of water. And while it does look like a skyline, having the skyline that low below what is clearly a fence with the top strand of wire at livestock height (as shown by the tufts of hair) would seem to require the photographer to be very low to the ground.

If only the other photos showed up...

 

[Scaramanga]

Please show us three photos that show the sky and a Scottish hillside behind a fence.

Of what conceivable relevance is that ?

If you took the UFO out of the Calvine photo, most rational people would conclude it was simply a photo of a cloudy day in Scotland, with a fence and distant hills and clouds. It would be too trivial for it to be worth anyone concocting wild reflection theories about. That is what I mean by what people would 'expect' to see.

And that is the real issue here. WHY un-trivialise the entire photo just to explain some anomaly that covers less than 1% of the surface area of the photo ??

 

[Scaramanga]

I have to say that both objects do look quite like reflections to me. The "plane" especially doesn't look like a plane, it looks like something sticking out of water. And while it does look like a skyline, having the skyline that low below what is clearly a fence with the top strand of wire at livestock height (as shown by the tufts of hair) would seem to require the photographer to be very low to the ground.

I've spent literally months walking and climbing the hills of the Lake District and Scotland. In fact my profile pic here is from the summit of Ben Hope in the far north of Scotland. I have literally hundreds of photos of such terrain in every conceivable weather condition. Here's a fence, and clouds completely obscuring a 3000 foot hill behind them. A few minutes earlier the edge of the cloud had been just a few feet away.

 

[Mendel]

Of what conceivable relevance is that ?

It fits what you wrote above, and what I quoted.

If you took the UFO out of the Calvine photo, most rational people would conclude it was simply a photo of a cloudy day in Scotland, with a fence and distant hills and clouds.

If you took the obvious reflection out of the picture, nobody would notice it's a reflection. Duh! We have examples upthread.

And your claim ("most rational people...") is a) unsupported, b) sets up a "no true Scotsman" fallacy ("I'm rational, so everyone who disagrees with me must not be rational"), c) majority opinion is irrelevant when it comes to truth.
It's not a good way to argue.

 

[Mendel]

Here's a fence, and clouds completely obscuring a 3000 foot hill behind them. A few minutes earlier the edge of the cloud had been just a few feet away.

So we'd see a patch of ground behind the fence. Not a "distant hill".

 

[Scaramanga]

So we'd see a patch of ground behind the fence. Not a "distant hill".

If the fence is on the brow of a hill, you'd only see the distant hills, not any of the foreground as that would be below the brow of the hill. I've encountered this many times in Scotland. Here's an example in mist where its not even immediately obvious one is at 3000 feet looking down at a 60 degree angle. Things are quite deceptive in the mist......I got totally lost once on the summit of Helvellyn ( quite flat ) and ended up going 180 degrees the wrong way.

So there's nothing even remotely unusual or abnormal about the Calvine pic barely just showing the distant hills. Its pretty much what I'd expect on a misty day in Scotland.. I mean, in this pic the mist is once again obscuring another 3000 foot mountain....and there's only a small patch of distant view visible.

Actually this was taken just a few months after the Calvine photo...with a really crappy old camera, yet is better quality.

 

[Ann K]

And bear in mind that the only reason anyone proposed the reflection theory in the first place is the alleged symmetry of the 'UFO'...yet it is clearly not reflectively symmetrical in either shape or patches of colour. So the entire reason for even proposing a reflection in the first place falls at the first hurdle.

How many times do I have to explain reflections? At least twice I have posted explanatory diagrams, which you've neglected, yet you keep repeating that incorrect claim. Three-dimensional items are not reflected as if they were two-D pictures, and anyone with the slightest grasp of the geometry of reflections should understand that.

 

[Giddierone]

the bottom of the photo behind the fence it looks very much like there is a distant hill skylin

Isn't this just pareidolia, because we're assuming the image is presented the correct way up? [there's just not enough information in the image to know for sure].

The same with the jet (which looks like a bird IMO).

Need more Pareidolia? Make a paper boat out of a sheet of A4. [using this method] Rest it on it's side. It has the same proportions as the UFO just like the Christmas ornament...

I think we also need to remember that the Calvine photo is one of 6 colour images. It seems very muted—almost monochromatic— just as colours appear if the whole image is a reflection.

 

[Mauro]

So there's nothing even remotely unusual or abnormal about the Calvine pic barely just showing the distant hills.

We all agree with you on this @Scaramanga, the photo can very well show an overexposed (and probably cloudy) Scottish sky, in which case the best explanation for the mistery object is a hoax (and for the 'jet': it was a lucky shot, or hoaxed too). But it could also show an overexposed water surface, in which case the mistery object is a hilltop plus its specular reflection in the water (and the 'jet' is something at water level, a boat or rocks or wood, whatever).

From the picture it's impossible to discriminate between the two possibilities, that's the reality.

The only argument against the reflection is that it needed a lucky shot in exactly right and improbable conditions. However, the hoax too needs conditions: namely the intent, the effort, and some luck to get so convincing a result (much luck, in case the jet is a real jet), so Bayes Occam's razor does not favor it so much as you may think.

And don't forget that it takes an unbelievable luck to win the jackpot at the lottery, but this does not prevent tickets from being the winning ones. The same goes for photos.

 

[FatPhil]

Show me a single photo featuring a fence and the sky in Scotland that looks like this one, and I'll show you dozens where the sky is not visible behind the fence.

It is not "what one would expect".
It's what you expect because you think it's a hillside. That "is a classic example of confirmation bias."

The rest of us are more open about it, and see the reflection hypothesis as one of many that are worth discussing.

I get the feeling that those of us who haven't yet shut the door on the reflection idea would be deliriously happy if someone found a feature in the image, or of the Scottish landscape, that absolutely rules out a reflection. We're not keeping the possibility alive because we want to, but because there are too many unknowns, and we can't be sure. And similarly, just because we're still considering it doesn't mean we consider it the most likely explanation: it does depend on more things being just right, I don't think anyone's denying that. And of course I don't speak for others, this is just the impression I get.

But I do also sympathise with scaramanga, different people have different thresholds for when you can consider an idea too contrived or too improbable to be worth considering any more. And ironically I think the probability he's right is pretty high - it can be frustrating being in that position.

 

[Scaramanga]

But I do also sympathise with scaramanga, different people have different thresholds for when you can consider an idea too contrived or too improbable to be worth considering any more. And ironically I think the probability he's right is pretty high - it can be frustrating being in that position.

I wouldn't say I consider 'a' reflection hoax impossible in general. It is just this one that strains credulity.

Actually, I have downgraded the possibility of even an object dangling from a string.

I opt for a hoax involving a photo of a photo. It is the easiest hoax of the lot. Just take a photo with no UFO, process it to make a large print, draw a nicely drawn and shaded UFO on a piece of paper and stick it to the photo, add a nicely drawn Harrier ( Nick Pope says there were no Harriers flying that day ) and then photograph that.

Why do I prefer this option ?

1) Notice that the UFO is marginally sharper than the rest of the image. This exactly the case also in my own hoax attempt at this ( below ), though my art is not that good.

2) The overall image quality is very poor. Why is this ? Its 1990, not 1890. Even my own hoax photo ( below ) taken on the crappiest possible camera ( a 1971 Instamatic 25...as basic as it gets ) under similar conditions is better. I suggest this comes from poorly focusing on the original...and also deliberately overexposing it to hide the edges of the paper UFO ( which are just visible in my own hoax ). The hoaxers have to get the UFO to roughly the same blurriness as the rest of the photo, or the game is given away ( as it is in my hoax below ). Thus the entire pic gets blurred more than it ought to be.

3) My Instamatic took 1/40 second exposures in cloudy weather. Now I do not know the exact speed a Harrier would be flying...but lets say 300mph. That is 440 feet per second...and 11 feet in 1/40 second. Now a Harrier jet is 45 feet long...so 11 feet is getting on towards a quarter of its length. Which means the Harrier ought to be blurred by 1/4 of its length...yet it isn't.

4) I suggest that the odd sticking out bits on the UFO are just the result of it being badly cut out. Also, for what is allegedly a diamond shaped object, there is no trace of either vertice that would be pointing towards the observer. There no alteration in shade or texture. All very odd

Here's my crappy attempt at such a hoax. This took all of 5 minutes to create....no pond, no string. It's not that convincing...but I'm sure with a little more artistic ability it could be....

 

[Trailblazer]

The more I look at this picture the more I think it could be upside down and showing reflections of a rock and a bit of twiggy stuff in a narrow stretch of water with a fence on the other side. Not saying it *is* of course, but it is plausible.

This would probably rule out Loch Tummel though, as the lake is too wide.

 

[Scaramanga]

The more I look at this picture the more I think it could be upside down and showing reflections of a rock and a bit of twiggy stuff in a narrow stretch of water with a fence on the other side. Not saying it *is* of course, but it is plausible.

But you then clearly have a tree growing in the middle of the lake. The tree in the upper right corner of the upside down image is clearly upside down in the image...which means it is not an overhanging part of the same tree at the bottom of the image. You can't have both the upper and the lower tree parts be upside down, as the upper one here clearly isn't. It's not even the same tree type, and the leaves are clearly hanging upside down in the upside down image.....oops !...under the influence of gravity.

The tree in the upper right here is nearer than the fence...which means it is effectively IN the lake. Its doing remarkably well for a drowned tree !

 

[Giddierone]

These objections to the reflection hypothesis seem to place it in opposition to a "thing on a string" or rephotographed image. When there's no need for such opposition. If it's a hoax image then they could have used any combination of techniques—even sticking a bit of tree upside down to throw people off the scent.

The main objection to the reflection hyp remains the upside down shadow on the object—which should be darker on the bottom.

 

[Trailblazer]

But you then clearly have a tree growing in the middle of the lake. The tree in the upper right corner of the upside down image is clearly upside down in the image...which means it is not an overhanging part of the same tree at the bottom of the image.

I'm not claiming it is. I know I'm no artist but look at the drawing - it's a bush in front of the fence post (which is barely visible through it).
It is growing the right way up on the far bank of the water, above the upper frame of the image, and its reflection is in the top corner of the photo. This is clearly upside down (in the inverted photo) so if the fence is a reflection, then so is the bush/tree.

Clearly it is not part of the same tree as the other branches, as the foliage type is completely different. The dangling branches have small deciduous-type leaves, while the other bush/small tree has long thin leaves. The leaves at the bottom of the photo as I presented it would be reflections of branches overhanging the water.

I know there has been some previous discussion of what this plant could be, one possibility (which would discount the reflection idea) is that it could be a Scots pine branch. But Scots pine needles are only 2-3 inches (5-7cm) long so it would have to be much closer to the camera than the fence, in which case the reflection theory would not work.

 

[JMartJr]

Now I do not know the exact speed a Harrier would be flying...but lets say 300mph. That is 440 feet per second...and 11 feet in 1/40 second. Now a Harrier jet is 45 feet long...so 11 feet is getting on towards a quarter of its length. Which means the Harrier ought to be blurred by 1/4 of its length...yet it isn't.

Excellent point. I wonder of that is WHY somebody decided it must be a Harrier, in spite of the very poor image quality making unclear to me if it is even really a jet: technically a Harrier could even hover long enough to have an unblurred picture made before moving a bit for the next picture! But if it is flying along in normal flight, it should be motion blurred.

I opt for a hoax involving a photo of a photo.

Not sure f that is more ore less work than "thing on a string." But an intriguing idea.

 

[Mendel]

Not sure f that is more ore less work than "thing on a string." But an intriguing idea.

To be even more intrigued, check out https://www.metabunk.org/threads/calvine-photo-hoax-theories.12596/

 

[John J.]

Excellent point. I wonder of that is WHY somebody decided it must be a Harrier, in spite of the very poor image quality making unclear to me if it is even really a jet

The original claimant(s) said it was a jet, which is why many people interpret it as such- if it's a hoax then that was the hoaxer's intention.

Though we don't know how much real effort* was put in to examining the picture, the UK Ministry of Defence identified it as "probably" (IIRC) a Harrier , and (frustratingly for us) identified a second object as also probably a Harrier in one of the pictures; frustratingly that picture (and the relevant detail in that picture) isn't available for us to study. If it showed greater detail, maybe "our" supposed Harrier was also clearer (but this is supposition).
We should remember the MoD also said no Harriers were flying in Scotland that day.

And- and I realise this won't go down too well here!- -to me it looks like a blurry picture of a Harrier. The general proportions and layout, the (possible) sweep/ angles of the (possible) wings and tailfin, the slightly broader (possible) fuselage fore of the wings, (possible) relatively slender tapered nose. My impression is that the putative wings roughly resemble those of a 1st generation Harrier (GR1/ GR3, AV-8A/C, Sea Harrier) more than those of a Harrier II (AV-8B, GR5 onward) which have broader, less-swept wings of greater area. The nose suggests (to me) a GR 3.
If the "aircraft" image is a less accurate portrayal of the actual object than I feel it is, I might be persuaded it's a Hawker Hunter; the broader (possible) fuselage in front of the (possible) wings indicating a side-by-side trainer, small numbers of which remained in service (not least at Lossiemouth, Scotland).

Of course, the image is poor, and all the above para. can be effectively called into doubt by anyone else saying "It doesn't look like a Harrier, or a jet plane, to me" as my impressions are subjective, and the image insufficiently clear to allow e.g. measuring of relative proportions or angles between "wings" and "fuselage"; I can't support my impression with objective facts.
I could be accused of saying "I think I know what I see in the blurry 3rd-hand image of doubtful provenance", and I'm not unaware of the irony of this (and the shaky basis for my interpretation).

I strongly suspect the overall picture is a hoax; if so, the "jet(s)" have a number of explanations, which might be:

(A) A model jet used in composing the image. I feel Wim van Utrecht's examples show this is relatively easy to do.
(B) Something, not an aircraft or model of one, that was present when the photograph was taken but which was described as a jet by the hoaxer(s) and which resembles a jet in that (false) context.
If the "UFO" is a reflection of e.g. a rock and the "jet" a rowing boat, this would suggest a small islet. If the picture was taken in the vicinity of Calvine it's improbable that no-one recognises it, Perth and Kinross is not Siberia. A reflection of a bird, or a piece of floating debris in a smaller-scale setting cannot be ruled out. If there were 2 jet-like details present in one of the photos, the probabilities of two birds or twigs resembling jets, described as being "probably" of the same type, might seem lower.
(C) A real jet fortuitously photographed at the time that the "UFO" was photographed. If the UFO is actually an object and its reflection, and the photograph is viewed upside down so the darker half of the diamond is topmost, the jet is flying inverted.
(D) A photographic detail of a real or model jet, or other image meant to represent a jet, incorporated into the main image
(E) A photograph of a scene including a real or model jet, or containing some other detail(s) that can be passed off as a jet(s), into which the UFO has been incorporated.
The photographic analysis by David Clarke's friend at Sheffield Hallam University might be taken as ruling out (D) and (E).

(I'm not 100% sure that we've conclusively ruled out the possibility that the picture might in some sense be real.)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

* Possible scenarios outlined here https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunking-humor.132/post-336434 .

 

[Scaramanga]

These objections to the reflection hypothesis seem to place it in opposition to a "thing on a string" or rephotographed image. When there's no need for such opposition. If it's a hoax image then they could have used any combination of techniques—even sticking a bit of tree upside down to throw people off the scent.

Every extra ' oh, but they could have also done xyz' that one has to add just strains credulity further.

Bear in mind that ( and this seems to have been forgotten ) the original reflection argument a while back did not involve the photo being upside down....and the 'harrier' was a boat on a lake. Only when it was pointed out that the clouds were thus upside down....then all of a sudden its an upside down reflection. Then we get laborious arguments when it is pointed out that the upside down version UFO is dark on top, which is surely wrong. At every step of the way one has to wangle things further, to explain the dark and light patches not reflecting as they should, the tree being literally IN the alleged lake, and so on.

If one has to continually just keep explaining issues away....the theory is most likely wrong.

 

[Ann K]

Every extra ' oh, but they could have also done xyz' that one has to add just strains credulity further.

Bear in mind that ( and this seems to have been forgotten ) the original reflection argument a while back did not involve the photo being upside down....and the 'harrier' was a boat on a lake. Only when it was pointed out that the clouds were thus upside down....then all of a sudden its an upside down reflection. Then we get laborious arguments when it is pointed out that the upside down version UFO is dark on top, which is surely wrong. At every step of the way one has to wangle things further, to explain the dark and light patches not reflecting as they should, the tree being literally IN the alleged lake, and so on.

If one has to continually just keep explaining issues away....the theory is most likely wrong.

There is no evidence at all that the clouds are upside down. That's only your particular conjecture. And you fail to note that if the thing is a small islet reflected in a lake, nobody has to explain fakery by dangling models on a string, and nobody has to explain heavy fog that miraculously hides all the background and none of the foreground. By making those claims, YOU are the one who continually tries to explain issues away.

 

[Mauro]

Bear in mind that ( and this seems to have been forgotten ) the original reflection argument a while back did not involve the photo being upside down....and the 'harrier' was a boat on a lake. Only when it was pointed out that the clouds were thus upside down....then all of a sudden its an upside down reflection.

For me the original reflection argument still holds, there's no need to suppose it's upside down (and here Occam's razor really would have something to say).

 

[Trailblazer]

For me the "rowing boat" argument seems very implausible as the rock would have to be enormous and probably well known in the area. If it is a reflection, it makes much more sense for the UFO to be the tip of a small roughly triangular rock, and the jet to be a bit of wood or reed or something similar just poking out of the water.

It's difficult to search this thread effectively: has anyone presented a good theory as to why the UFO is darker on the bottom (with the photo as normally presented) while the jet is darker on the top?

 

[FatPhil]

The main objection to the reflection hyp remains the upside down shadow on the object—which should be darker on the bottom.

Not necessarily. A fine mist near the water could add a small amount of ambient light to the reflection, lightening it

img link: https://png.pngtree.com/thumb_back/...-with-reflections-in-still-image_15733400.jpg
via: https://pngtree.com/freebackground/...lections-in-still-water-surface_15518264.html

It was a misty day, wasn't it?

 

[Giddierone]

Humm, well I wonder if a paper boat can be photographed in the water in such a way that we don't see any of its shadow in/on the water.
X's AI seems to be on board with this idea after being fed the images in #780...

 

[Mendel]

It's difficult to search this thread effectively: has anyone presented a good theory as to why the UFO is darker on the bottom (with the photo as normally presented) while the jet is darker on the top?

note "this thread"
I only looked through the first two pages of results
the boon is that the snippets are good enough to see what kind of "bottom" we're dealing with
and the post number tells me whether it's from zhis discussion, or an earlier one
if there is no snippet, the keyword occured in a quote, and that post has its own entry in the list

Mick has posted a good example that supports your upside-down hypothesis, because that makes the rock coloring right:

There's a whole fleet of them!

The "lighter on the bottom" thing is certainly an issue

 

[Scaramanga]

There is no evidence at all that the clouds are upside down. That's only your particular conjecture.

'No' evidence ? ? Clouds are generally darker at the bottom. Maybe not every time....but this is just another piece of counter-evidence that just gets hand waived away. And the point is that it is the accumulation of all this handwavium across multiple different objections that builds up to make the reflection theory unsustainable by anything other than confirmation bias.

A good explanation shouldn't need so many caveats !

 

[Scaramanga]

And you fail to note that if the thing is a small islet reflected in a lake

There's an absolutely ridiculous number of 'ifs' in the multiple variants of reflection theory. I'm pretty sure if I added enough 'ifs' I could turn the photo into the picture of the surface of Titan.

The supposition that the photo is simply what it appears to be, and which anyone would agree with were there not a UFO in it, that it is just a photo of the view over a fence on a cloudy day.....involves no 'ifs' at all.

Occam's razor. Why add increasingly convoluted 'ifs' when one doesn't need to ?

 

[Trailblazer]

The supposition that the photo is simply what it appears to be, and which anyone would agree with were there not a UFO in it, that it is just a photo of the view over a fence on a cloudy day.....involves no 'ifs' at all.

It does raise the question of why there appears to be a distant hillside below the level of the fence.