Claim: Original Calvine UFO Photo

[deirdre]

This seems quite dubious, have they applied some selective sharpening in that area? Simple adjustment of contrast/curves etc. etc. doesn't reveal a distinct ring like that.

the top of the ring you can make out if you move your head down below your computer screen, like we had to do to see the "blue dress".
but i'm dubious of any computer generated manipulation too.

 

[Rory]

Ah yes, I see the circle very clearly if I tip my laptop screen away from me - it actually runs through the object too, so not moon.

 

[deirdre]

Ah yes, I see the circle very clearly if I tip my laptop screen away from me - it actually runs through the object too, so not moon.

if that line -through the object- is a part of the "circle" then it isn't actually a circle proper. so maybe just a drop of sweat that landed on the photo at some point or water glass condensation drip? this is a 30 year old photo we are talking about and there ARE some actual hair like spots on it and smutz .

 

[Unys]

I submit this wasn't a personal call, it was a call from a representative of HMG conducting offical business. I get your point, and it's valid for 1990, but a call would be infinitely more desirable to management than having uniformed officals from the MoD showing up in person and making inquiries in front of paying guests.

Okay, I see your point. Our Press Officer asked for a manager, discretely introduced himself and then asked for the individual concerned. It works but it is not how Lindsay has described placing the call and he must have glossed over certain details or not thought them worthy of mention. The way he portrays it in the interview is that he rang up, someone answered - whom Clarke believes was a receptionist* = and who was immediately able to confirm the witness was at hand, quickly fetch him and allow him to take a personal call. That's what threw me as it seems a little far-fetched in a busy hotel with dozens of staff.

*Clarke states this belief when talking in the Disclosure video about the staff he has tracked down from 1990, one of whom was a receptionist and states he is frustrated she can't remember the call.

 

[NorCal Dave]

But let's say one or some combination of those theories was actually used, would the resulting photographic images have been so good they could have fooled the 1990 photographic analysis capabilities of the MoD? Wouldn't they have seen a string, or recognized a composite photo?

Who says they were fooled? Pope says it's a real object, but that's his schtick:

Fast forward to 2020 when The Sun newspaper quoted Nick Pope as claiming, once again, that the Calvine photographs show 'a structured craft of unknown origin, unlike any conventional aircraft'.

Clark has an unknown source that says it's a US craft, but this is the same source that claims the photo was taken by poachers:

The hand-written report does not say why the men were in the area but a source from Defence Intelligence claims they were poachers who had killed their prey and were posing with the animal when the 'UFO' appeared.

He claims a DI55 officer was sent to Scotland to examine the evidence and interview the men. The two photographers were reassured they not in any trouble as a result of their activities. Afterwards they simply 'went on their way'. Their identity remains unknown and, since that time, they have not come forward with their version of the story.

A UK Confidential memo in DEFE 31/180/1, a file opened by the DI55 UFO desk officer, confirms my source's claim that the negatives were examined first in September 1990 and were subsequently sent to the RAF's Joint Air Reconnaissance Centre (JARIC) at RAF Brampton in Cambridgeshire for detailed analysis.

According to him, the investigation concluded the 'object' was a US experimental aircraft flying from the former RAF airfield at Machrihanish on the Mull of Kintyre.

'There was nothing extraterrestrial about what was seen in Scotland,' he added. 'No one else other than the Americans had anything like it at the time. But we knew what it was'.

But neither of these is official. Clark also has an official memo sent to House of Commens from MoD saying there was nothing special about the photos (bold in original):

In a written response in the House of Commons, MoD said:

"A number of negatives associated with the sighting were examined by staff responsible for air defence matters. Since it was judged they contained nothing of defence significance [my emphasis[ the negatives were not retained and we have no record of any photographs having been taken from them." (Hansard, 23 July 1996).

And unlike the unknown source above:

Speaking on the record, Air Commodore Baldwin says he is confident the photographs taken in Scotland were 'a spoof' or prank and this assessment was shared by the Pentagon.

Nevertheless, it appears that they were still fooled by a Styrofoam model from 1989 as late as 2000. So, someone(s) at MoD were as credulous as Leslie Kean, meaning they could have been fooled by a hoax, again.

In 2000 the author of the MoD's Condign UAP report used a photograph taken during the Belgian UFO flap of 1989-90 on pg1 of his Executive Summary. This document was originally classified as Secret-UK Eyes Only before I obtained a de-classified version in 2006 using Freedom of Information requests.

It was also published as genuine in Leslie Kean's best-selling book UFOs: Generals Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record (2010).

In her book Kean publishes the results of an analysis of the photo where an 'expert' highlighted a halo of light particles around the craft, 'suggesting the presence of a strong magnetic field'.

It was a fake:

But in 2011 Patrick confessed to the Belgian media how he had faked the photograph. He invited reporters to his home to show them his original prints and said:

"The UFO of Petit-Rechain is not a spaceship from a distant galaxy but a panel of painted styrofoam with three spots affixed'.

All EC from: https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/secret-files/the-calvine-ufo-photographs/

 

[Rory]

maybe just a drop of sweat that landed on the photo at some point or water glass condensation drip?

Mark on the photo or even negative is my guess - ie, nothing to do with the actual image.

The way he portrays it in the interview is that he rang up, someone answered - whom Clarke believes was a receptionist* = and who was immediately able to confirm the witness was at hand, quickly fetch him and allow him to take a personal call.

Best protocol here is to quote the source and post what Lindsay actually said.

 

[NorCal Dave]

*Clarke states this belief when talking in the Disclosure video about the staff he has tracked down from 1990, one of whom was a receptionist and states he is frustrated she can't remember the call.

This is Clark projecting what he now thinks of as a monumentally important phone call back in time. If she was a receptionist at a 100 room hotel, how many calls a day did she answer? For how many years? Now someone expects her to remember one specific call related to a seasonal kitchen worker 30 years later, because it was from an RAF press officer?

And as I alluded to before, giving what we now know about memory, it's possible Linsday rang up this persons' flat mate who put the witness on the line. After learning he worked at the hotel, he has, in the ensuing 30 years confabulated calling the flat mate into calling the hotel.

If he did ring the hotel directly, the fact that no one remembers is not unusual.

 

[Duke]

Okay, I see your point. Our Press Officer asked for a manager, discretely introduced himself and then asked for the individual concerned. It works but it is not how Lindsay has described placing the call and he must have glossed over certain details or not thought them worthy of mention. The way he portrays it in the interview is that he rang up, someone answered - whom Clarke believes was a receptionist* = and who was immediately able to confirm the witness was at hand, quickly fetch him and allow him to take a personal call. That's what threw me as it seems a little far-fetched in a busy hotel with dozens of staff.

*Clarke states this belief when talking in the Disclosure video about the staff he has tracked down from 1990, one of whom was a receptionist and states he is frustrated she can't remember the call.

I can't speak for Lindsey or the MoD, but as DoD/USAF representatives we were trained to immediately identify ourselves, our organization, and our job title when making official business calls, especially calls outside the government. Having worked with the RAF/MoD, I found their personnel to be every bit as professional, if not more so, than our folks. I have little doubt Lindsey identified himself and the official nature of his call to whoever answered at the hotel.

 

[Unys]

I can't speak for Lindsey or the MoD, but as DoD/USAF representatives we were trained to immediately identify ourselves, our organization, and our job title when making official business calls, especially calls outside the government. Having worked with the RAF/MoD, I found their personnel to be every bit as professional, if not more so, than our folks. I have little doubt Lindsey identified himself and the official nature of his call to whoever answered at the hotel.

Thanks, has cleared that up I guess. Oh look, within the past hour David Clarke has posted on James Easton's Facebook (UFO Research List) that through his research he is satisfied they were two kitchen workers at "a hotel in the Pitlochry area". Hi Dave...!

He then mentions the poaching allegation and states:

"You will be aware there are questions about what they were doing on a mountainside at 9pm on a weekend after a long shift at work - with a camera. Draw your own conclusions. Think about what they might have been doing might have something to do with why they were persuaded not tp go any further with their Press contacts and to disappear for 32 years"

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1100706627172357/?ref=share

 

[deirdre]

but as DoD/USAF representatives we were trained to immediately identify ourselves, our organization, and our job title when making official business calls, especially calls outside the government.

because nothing says "trustworthy colleague" like them being contacted at work by the Department of Defense.

 

[Rory]

Best protocol here is to quote the source and post what Lindsay actually said.

My first time noticing that under a YouTube video you can click three dots and select "show transcript":

From 46:15: "I just picked up the phone and tried the number, it was the Atholl Palace Hotel. [I asked] "is so-and-so around?" "yes i'll get him for you" and uh [...] "tell me what you did. who are you? i can't remember if I asked where they were from but they were as far as I can remember an english accent. They were part of what you call it holiday workers at the Atholl Palace mainly washing dishes and for pocket money"

So that's the actual story from Lindsay.

 

[Duke]

Who says they were fooled? Pope says it's a real object, but that's his schtick:

Fast forward to 2020 when The Sun newspaper quoted Nick Pope as claiming, once again, that the Calvine photographs show 'a structured craft of unknown origin, unlike any conventional aircraft'.

Clark has an unknown source that says it's a US craft, but this is the same source that claims the photo was taken by poachers:

The hand-written report does not say why the men were in the area but a source from Defence Intelligence claims they were poachers who had killed their prey and were posing with the animal when the 'UFO' appeared.

He claims a DI55 officer was sent to Scotland to examine the evidence and interview the men. The two photographers were reassured they not in any trouble as a result of their activities. Afterwards they simply 'went on their way'. Their identity remains unknown and, since that time, they have not come forward with their version of the story.

A UK Confidential memo in DEFE 31/180/1, a file opened by the DI55 UFO desk officer, confirms my source's claim that the negatives were examined first in September 1990 and were subsequently sent to the RAF's Joint Air Reconnaissance Centre (JARIC) at RAF Brampton in Cambridgeshire for detailed analysis.

According to him, the investigation concluded the 'object' was a US experimental aircraft flying from the former RAF airfield at Machrihanish on the Mull of Kintyre.

'There was nothing extraterrestrial about what was seen in Scotland,' he added. 'No one else other than the Americans had anything like it at the time. But we knew what it was'.

But neither of these is official. Clark also has an official memo sent to House of Commens from MoD saying there was nothing special about the photos (bold in original):

In a written response in the House of Commons, MoD said:

"A number of negatives associated with the sighting were examined by staff responsible for air defence matters. Since it was judged they contained nothing of defence significance [my emphasis[ the negatives were not retained and we have no record of any photographs having been taken from them." (Hansard, 23 July 1996).

And unlike the unknown source above:

Speaking on the record, Air Commodore Baldwin says he is confident the photographs taken in Scotland were 'a spoof' or prank and this assessment was shared by the Pentagon.

Nevertheless, it appears that they were still fooled by a Styrofoam model from 1989 as late as 2000. So, someone(s) at MoD were as credulous as Leslie Kean, meaning they could have been fooled by a hoax, again.

In 2000 the author of the MoD's Condign UAP report used a photograph taken during the Belgian UFO flap of 1989-90 on pg1 of his Executive Summary. This document was originally classified as Secret-UK Eyes Only before I obtained a de-classified version in 2006 using Freedom of Information requests.

It was also published as genuine in Leslie Kean's best-selling book UFOs: Generals Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record (2010).

In her book Kean publishes the results of an analysis of the photo where an 'expert' highlighted a halo of light particles around the craft, 'suggesting the presence of a strong magnetic field'.

It was a fake:

But in 2011 Patrick confessed to the Belgian media how he had faked the photograph. He invited reporters to his home to show them his original prints and said:

"The UFO of Petit-Rechain is not a spaceship from a distant galaxy but a panel of painted styrofoam with three spots affixed'.

All EC from: https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/secret-files/the-calvine-ufo-photographs/

Yes, their have been a number of fakes/hoaxes that have gotten by "experts." I don't know if the RAF/MoD did their own analysis of the Belgian hoax photo before including it in an official (Condign) document. Who knows if the Belgian military did any analysis of the photos, or even officially received them.

Not making excuses for my Brit colleagues, but I can tell you from personal experience in the USAF it was the rule we were to accept as golden anything of a technical nature from a NATO ally. I was chief engineer on a program where we received a direct order from a two star to accept technical data/certification for a piece of equipment from a NATO nation when we questioned their conclusions. The general made it clear we would not embarrass an ally by questioning their professional and technical capabilities. This came back to bite us in the ass, and damn near resulted in the loss of an a/c and a number of USAF personnel.

 

[deirdre]

"You will be aware there are questions about what they were doing on a mountainside at 9pm on a weekend after a long shift at work - with a camera. Draw your own conclusions. Think about what they might have been doing might have something to do with why they were persuaded not tp go any further with their Press contacts and to disappear for 32 years"

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1100706627172357/?ref=share

so he's just making up his own story. the real question is if you are poaching, why would you take photographic evidence of your crime? please.

 

[Duke]

because nothing says "trustworthy colleague" like them being contacted at work by the Department of Defense.

No argument from me there. I sometimes thought identifying ourselves so officially put people off, or at least put them on the defensive. Still, the reasoning behind the directive was to be totally transparent and preclude anyone from saying we had deceived them as to who we were and why we were calling. Too many "60 Minutes" episodes where the dirty old government wasn't truthful.

 

[Rory]

Oh look, within the past hour David Clarke has posted on James Easton's Facebook (UFO Research List) that through his research he is satisfied they were two kitchen workers at "a hotel in the Pitlochry area".

This is what he actually said:

"Since that time I have established to my satisfaction (via inquiries and interviews on site some of which I can't reveal at this point) that the 2 men were chefs working in kitchens at a hotel in the Pitlochry area at the relevant time."

https://www.facebook.com/groups/110...17804877905&reply_comment_id=1190554581520894

So looks like he's sticking with "chefs" (yes, chefs are technically also "kitchen workers" - but "kitchen workers" is very misleading in this instance).

Please quote the sources (and link) rather than paraphrasing. I know it's a bit of a pain but, alas, they have kind of strict standards here in this forum.

 

[deirdre]

Still, the reasoning behind the directive was to be totally transparent and preclude anyone from saying we had deceived them as to who we were and why we were calling.

telling the receptionist is a little different then telling the person you are calling. i think you do it so the coworkers will feed any "pinko" info they suspect to the DOD

 

[john.phil]

Interesting. So if we assume the recently unearthed photo is the best of the lot, is it so BAD the MoD couldn't make anything out?

To be quite frank, I've seen enough of the people in the intelligence community to conclude they're mostly just ordinary people with considerable technical limitations, prone to common mistakes as much as anyone else. I can visualise them looking at it and not caring much about it, then writing a simple report just to get rid of the case. From their viewpoint, talking to the "witness", contacting the airfields and police enforcement was a lot more important than diving straight away into a complex technical analysis of a photo. From the beginning, I doubt they thought there was much substance for it after calling around a bit, asking independent people if they saw or heard anything, for them the photo was secondary and promptly archived.

 

[Duke]

Again, no argument. Even those with cool jobs and grandiose titles are human.

 

[Rory]

I don't think the "how did they fool the MoD and why couldn't they figure it out?" narrative is quite right.

From Clarke, 2021:

When I spoke to RAF Air Commodore Simon Baldwin he dismissed the theory that the object in the photograph was a Stealth aircraft. He believes the whole story is a spoof – the same word he uses in a memo sent to MoD in December 1992 that I obtained using the Freedom of Information Act. Baldwin believes the story – and the photographs – were the result of an elaborate hoax that briefly fooled the intelligence services. He says the photographs – one of which he saw – depict 'an airborne Loch Ness Monster'.

The prank explanation was confirmed by Sir Donald Spiers, Controller of Aircraft at MoD and a former Assistant Chief Scientist at the RAF. He said that he recognised the black and white image from the MoD files as the same one he saw at the time. There was, he said, 'no doubt that the photograph was a spoof,' a conclusion he claims is based upon analysis by 'our technical experts'.

https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/2021/07/31/the-ufo-that-never-was-the-calvine-photographs/

"Briefly fooled", perhaps - but it looks like they got there in the end.

 

[DavidB66]

the real question is if you are poaching, why would you take photographic evidence of your crime? please.

Something to show your friends in the pub. 'Hey, look, we shot a deer on the Duke of Atholl's estate!' (I'm guessing at the last bit, but a lot of the land around Calvine is on the estate.) But the 'poaching' story does raise other issues. If the prey was deer (which is most likely in that part of the world), you would need a powerful gun (something bigger than a small-bore rifle), and in the UK it isn't that easy for an 18-year-old to get a powerful gun and ammunition. And from a legal point of view, getting caught in possession of an illegal firearm would be much more serious than poaching.

 

[DavidB66]

Ah yes, I see the circle very clearly if I tip my laptop screen away from me - it actually runs through the object too, so not moon.

It's not obvious, but once you've seen it you can't unsee it. Which might raise the question why the academic photography expert (Robinson), with the best available version of the photo, either didn't notice it or didn't think it worth commenting on.

 

[john.phil]

Another processed version that highlights the "circle" (from Reddit)

The circle measures roughly 0.9" (23mm) and has a noticeable rim (thickness). Maybe someone pressed a magnifying glass against that part of the object to try to make out any details of what the white patch might be, and the imprint was picked up by the scanner.

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/magnifiers/2009425

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/magnifiers/1368099

 

[Ann K]

To be quite frank, I've seen enough of the people in the intelligence community to conclude they're mostly just ordinary people with considerable technical limitations, prone to common mistakes as much as anyone else.

If the case was not considered to be of major importance, wouldn't it have been fobbed off to a minor official anyway, maybe someone with the title of "person in charge of crank calls"?

 

[Rory]

Getting around to checking Nick Pope's version of the Calvine incident as recounted in Open Skies, Open Minds (1996) since it's the closest account to the actual date.

Differences from the current general story:

• Pope says the witnesses "became aware of a low humming sound" and then turned to see the object (now generally described as being silent)
• Pope says the photographer "sent the photographs he took to both the ministry and the Scottish Daily Record" (when it was actually the Daily Record that sent them to the MoD)
• Pope says he "kept a blow-up of one of his photographs on my office wall" (whereas he now says it was there when he arrived and describes the office as "our office")
• He also says "one day my Head of Division noticed it and took [it] off my wall" (in later tellings he says it was there for four years and the implication is that the Head of Division - and many other people - saw it frequently. I also notice the phrase "disappeared overnight" in recent tellings has been introduced, to add a nice air of sinister mystery - as though a poster had any other options, such as disappearing bit by bit!)
• No mention of what the poster looked like (eg, "countryside", "broad daylight", "sharp focus", etc)
• His conclusion is that "expert analysis had revealed that the photographs were not fakes, but neither the experts nor I accepted the Aurora theory" (no insinuation that "not fake" = "craft" such as he's been doing in recent years: "The analysis was nothing short of sensational. The photos hadn't been faked. They showed a structured craft of unknown origin, unlike any conventional aircraft."
• There's nothing about it being "the best photo ever taken of a UFO" or "Britain's most significant UFO sighting" as he wrote in The Sun in October 2020 - rather, in the sober three paragraphs he dedicates to Calvine he merely says it "remains one of the most intriguing cases in the Ministry of Defence's files" and then moves on to what he considers "the most peculiar reports", those of a spate of sonic booms being recorded in southern California in 1991 (actually 91-93)

Additions to the current general story

• Nothing, though I did notice in writing this that he said in that Sun article that "I soon got the story out of my predecessor and read the file myself" - which implies that there wasn't anything in the file other than what we know about today

Also quite interesting in this 2017 talk, speaking about the photo recreation he had done in LA:

"This image [the original Calvine poster] was on my office wall for three years [stressing how often and for how long he looked at it] and I remember it. This is what it looked like."

youtu.be/KwfcG_kT538?t=461

One really has to wonder how they got the craft and the plane so right and the sheer absence of countryside so wrong,

He also says (at 3:10) regarding the photocopy image that it's a "poor photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of one of the line drawings" when clearly it's a photocopy - most likely fax copy - of one of the original photos, and probably a copy of the fax that Lindsay originally sent to London.

And finally here's what Pope said about Calvine when talking to Mick on TFTRH in 2019:

"The view from the Defense Intelligence staff and also from a unit called JARIC was: Yes, this shows a real solid object maybe somewhere between 25 and 30 feet in diameter, not one of ours."

youtu.be/k3iPZXrifso?t=710

I think from all we've seen that's clearly a massive overstretch on his part (and probably he meant "metres" rather than "feet").

Pdf of (almost) the full 'Cover-Up' chapter attached.

 

[john.phil]

If the case was not considered to be of major importance, wouldn't it have been fobbed off to a minor official anyway, maybe someone with the title of "person in charge of crank calls"?

You mean the "Nick Pope" of the time? Maybe it was an intern calling around, there's nothing to suggest they had a large MIB team erasing people's memories in Calvine and surroundings.

 

[Duke]

Something to show your friends in the pub. 'Hey, look, we shot a deer on the Duke of Atholl's estate!' (I'm guessing at the last bit, but a lot of the land around Calvine is on the estate.) But the 'poaching' story does raise other issues. If the prey was deer (which is most likely in that part of the world), you would need a powerful gun (something bigger than a small-bore rifle), and in the UK it isn't that easy for an 18-year-old to get a powerful gun and ammunition. And from a legal point of view, getting caught in possession of an illegal firearm would be much more serious than poaching.

The key is "18 years old." Kids that young are fearless, they don't think they'll get caught doing anything. They also don't appreciate the cause and effect relationship for getting caught.

 

[john.phil]

Any evidential support for this statement? I've seen it said a few times but it doesn't strike me as true.

See the case of photographer Baraúna who hoaxed the Trindade Island UFO in January 1958:

A few years before the manipulated photo above, he even published in the magazine "Mundo Ilustrado" from 1954 (photo below) how to hoax UFO photographs using a white fridge as background. That was the technique he used for the photo above, but the UFO is just two spoons glued to each other. He gave an interview on National TV in the late 90's laughing a lot and recreating the hoax in his kitchen.

Make sure you read his bio here:

https://ufo.com.br/noticias/trindad...ephew-claims-that-the-photos-are-fake-part-1/

 

[deirdre]

The key is "18 years old." Kids that young are fearless, they don't think they'll get caught doing anything. They also don't appreciate the cause and effect relationship for getting caught.

but if you shot (with a gun or crossbow) a 10 point buck, wouldnt you drag the head home for your wall? they were gonna just shoot a deer and leave its carcass lying there? that's pretty sick.

 

[Rory]

The poachers thing is nonsense if you ask me. Clarke's "source from Defence Intelligence claims they were poachers who had killed their prey and were posing with the animal when the 'UFO' appeared" - which makes them the most efficient poachers ever, literally racing straight from work, driving twenty minutes, walking up a hill, shooting a deer, and then posing with it all within the space of about half an hour.

See the case of photographer Baraúna who hoaxed the Trindade Island UFO in January 1958

That's one example. You said "usually".

 

[Liptrot]

FWIW the flying tech demonstrator was the Have Blue which looked very much like a smaller F-117 rather than a pure diamond shape.

You're right. Apols.

 

[Deleted member 17800]

So this would require knowing the location and season etc the photo was taken to take an accurate reference, and that the same foliage etc was present, to match the colours?

And the object in question would need to be present or "assumed" in order to know what colour it might reflect?

I think my confusion was as to how focus stacking would help..

No worries my friend.
It was mentioned about colourising and I was explaining and affording examples of those challenges for a true representation.

 

[john.phil]

The poachers thing is nonsense if you ask me. Clarke's "source from Defence Intelligence claims they were poachers who had killed their prey and were posing with the animal when the 'UFO' appeared" - which makes them the most efficient poachers ever, literally racing straight from work, driving twenty minutes, walking up a hill, shooting a deer, and then posing with it all within the space of about half an hour.



That's one example. You said "usually".

You asked for "any" evidence.

 

[Liptrot]

From everything I've read, I don't believe that Harriers were ever on quick reaction alert (QRA). Simply not fast enough compared to, say, a Tornado. So if it IS a Harrier, I don't think it would have been scrambled to get there. It was there either by chance or design.

[Mods, following post is evidence free, but I feel it may be useful nonetheless. If I am incorrect, or it violates Metabunk fules, pls remove]

Agreed. If anything was scrambled, it would come from an Air Defence base, not Lossie. I believe Leuchars in Fife (subsequently closed as an active RAF base) had QRA jets at the time. Probably Tornado F.3s then, but I'm sure someone can either confirm or refute.

Also, AD radars in UK traditionally concentrate towards the boundaries of the UK ADIZ, East over the North Sea. I am also pretty confident they would 'see' neither the UFO nor the jets inland to the West, shielded by a glen, at the height they appear to be on the pic.

I struggle to understand why the US would be trialling such an advanced capability over the glens of Scotland (there are training areas for that sort of thing, both in CONUS and UK), and why a Harrier (or a Hunter) would be used as a chase aircraft if it were.

If the jets were there by chance, then unless there was a major exercise underway (was there?) then I see a very low probability of a jet (except for an Air Defence asset, which is *not* what's on the pic) flying on a Saturday evening. Certainly, I have never seen an RAF fast jet flying at a weekend, and I grew up in the Galloway Tactical Training Area (about 150 miles SSW) during the previous 2 decades when the Cold War was quite chilly. So, either the pic was not taken at the time it is said to have been taken, or it wasn't taken where it was said to have been taken.

Either way, something doesn't smell right - to me at least.

 

[Rory]

You asked for "any" evidence.

Exactly. Evidence that "hoaxers rarely are successful on first try and usually don't stop trying" - one example doesn't (and can't) support that.

And probably we both know that there isn't any evidence that could possibly support that - short of sampling a thousand or two hoaxers.

 

[JMartJr]

See the case of photographer Baraúna who hoaxed the Trindade Island UFO in January 1958:

Thanks for posting that -- I remember that photo well from my interest in UFOs many a long year ago, and while it never looked "right" to me but I was too young and knowledgeless to guess at how it had been done.

 

[john.phil]

Thanks for posting that -- I remember that photo well from my interest in UFOs many a long year ago, and while it never looked "right" to me but I was too young and knowledgeless to guess at how it had been done.

Photography has so many tricks and old school ways of faking things, plus a knowledge base mostly confined to the arts and cinema industry where they protect the information, that it's close to "only magicians can guess what other magicians are really doing", as for the non-initiated, it baffles until the magic is finally revealed as something quite simple.

 

[Deleted member 17800]

Photography has so many tricks and old school ways of faking things, plus a knowledge base mostly confined to the arts and cinema industry where they protect the information, that it's close to "only magicians can guess what other magicians are really doing", as for the non-initiated, it baffles until the magic is finally revealed as something quite simple.

It certainly does .
What they don't tell you ' but I will ' Is one can take hundreds of photographs of that ' thing ' and never quite get what you want.
You can spend a year waiting for a daylight Tassy devil ( they're nocturnal ) and be very disappointed.

Customers only ever see suitable work. They never see those complete stuff ups that are made I assure you all of the time. Least by myself

 

[Tomer]

This seems quite dubious, have they applied some selective sharpening in that area? Simple adjustment of contrast/curves etc. etc. doesn't reveal a distinct ring like that.

The ring is just about perceptible on my copy of the higher-quality scan.

 

[Duke]

The poachers thing is nonsense if you ask me. Clarke's "source from Defence Intelligence claims they were poachers who had killed their prey and were posing with the animal when the 'UFO' appeared" - which makes them the most efficient poachers ever, literally racing straight from work, driving twenty minutes, walking up a hill, shooting a deer, and then posing with it all within the space of about half an hour.

Maybe the poachers got "lucky" the same way a friend of the family did for years deer hunting. He baited the deer, put out deer blocks and corn, and they came to him. This was not legal of course, but he only hunted way back in the middle of nowhere on a large family farm. He was always back home within an hour or so with a field dressed deer and a celebratory butter bacon sandwich from the local Mom & Pop greasy spoon.

 

[Rory]

Anything's possible I suppose. And they could always have been out after smaller things - rabbits, birds - and not using guns.