Claim: Original Calvine UFO Photo

[econ41]

IF it is acceptable to this sites needs / rules I shall add eventually the finished to show the reader how colouring progresses.
This I am hoping may shed light on the ' UFO' written about previous.

Good move @Chelle Tassy. One of the great aspects of Metabunk is that it allows people with a wide range of expertise to contribute to the debate.

 

[Darat]

He seems confident that he found the spot and has footage to match:

View attachment 53952

Be interesting to see what they come up with.

One of the things that keeps being missed is where is any evidence in the photo that this was taken across a landscape of fields? There is simply nothing in the photo that suggests that.

 

[jarlrmai]

This is not to show off my stuff but to show colouring process warts and all. Re the 'UFO'.
So here's the original damaged photo scan then a restored version I did followed by a BASIC thus far colouring.
It takes a while before it shall start to blend together. Quite a few hours left

I don't mind in the slightest showing mistakes for it all blends together in the finished version.

IF it is acceptable to this sites needs / rules I shall add eventually the finished to show the reader how colouring progresses.
This I am hoping may shed light on the ' UFO' written about previous.

NOTE: That's it for today will continue this work tomorrow and display accordingly

Tomorrow will do :
Window reflections / skin needs work. toning down colours more of clothing/ and more

Can I ask how you think colourising the image will help shed light?

 

[Deleted member 17800]

Can I ask how you think colourising the image will help shed light?

An earlier post that I wrote explaining how the ' ufo' photograph could be coloured.

 

[jarlrmai]

An earlier post that I wrote explaining how the ' ufo' photograph could be coloured.

I understand it could be colourised, a process that creates an artistic impression based on the photo, I am still trying to understand why it is useful in analysis?

 

[Deleted member 17800]

I understand it could be colourised, a process that creates an artistic impression based on the photo, I am still trying to understand why it is useful in analysis?

I have made a large number of posts recently. I would suggest that if you go look back at them it will become clear. Thanks.

 

[Itsme]

Be interesting to see what they come up with.

One of the things that keeps being missed is where is any evidence in the photo that this was taken across a landscape of fields? There is simply nothing in the photo that suggests that.

You can see some features of the distant landscape through the barbed wire fence, such as a distant hilltop behind the pole on the right and some distant patches of green to the right of the vegetation. They are barely visible but they are there:

 

[Darat]

I understand it could be colourised, a process that creates an artistic impression based on the photo, I am still trying to understand why it is useful in analysis?

One way would be to see if it could be made to match the "artist recreation" that Nick Pope had produced or match up with a suggested location if one can be found.

BUT that was only before we knew we had an actual print of the photo. The photo itself shows no vague background of blotches that could perhaps if you squint enough be taken for fields or hills. There is no structural detail in the actual photo that could be even by the most generous person be considered hills and fields.

Did Pope see what he had recreated above? There are only a few possible explanations that fit 1) Pope misremembered 2) Pope deliberately lied 3) there is a better photo 4) the poster was a composite someone had made of the actual [photo against a landscape.

1) It is amazing how bad our recollections can be so not all farfetched if he misremembered
2) Always a possibility - but don't think there is anything that suggests he was
3) According to the sources the photo we have is the best one
4) Always a possibility given the expertise there was meant to be in the group, which could even be why it was later removed as someone realised it wasn't real?

 

[Ravi]

You can see some features of the distant landscape through the barbed wire fence, such as a distant hilltop behind the pole on the right and some distant patches of green to the right of the vegetation. They are barely visible but they are there:

My impression on that is (see below), that the area around 1 looks more as stones in the water near the shore of a loch/wet area", whereas the area around 2 looks more like hill tops of mountains.. Tricky, all this.

 

[Darat]

You can see some features of the distant landscape through the barbed wire fence, such as a distant hilltop behind the pole on the right and some distant patches of green to the right of the vegetation. They are barely visible but they are there:
View attachment 53978

I've played around with levels, luminance, and contrast in PS to try and tease out any detail and I can't find anything that I think - and yes that is just a personal opinion - could indicate the types of structure and detail you'd see even in a badly exposed photo that maps onto the idea of fields and hills.

 

[Darat]

My impression on that is (see below), that the area around 1 looks more as stones in the water near the shore of a loch/wet area", whereas the area around 2 looks more like hill tops of mountains.. Tricky, all this.

View attachment 53980

I agree with 1 - for me that has always looked like lapping water

 

[jarlrmai]

One way would be to see if it could be made to match the "artist recreation" that Nick Pope had produced or match up with a suggested location if one can be found.

View attachment 53977

BUT that was only before we knew we had an actual print of the photo. The photo itself shows no vague background of blotches that could perhaps if you squint enough be taken for fields or hills. There is no structural detail in the actual photo that could be even by the most generous person be considered hills and fields.

Did Pope see what he had recreated above? There are only a few possible explanations that fit 1) Pope misremembered 2) Pope deliberately lied 3) there is a better photo 4) the poster was a composite someone had made of the actual [photo against a landscape.

1) It is amazing how bad our recollections can be so not all farfetched if he misremembered
2) Always a possibility - but don't think there is anything that suggests he was
3) According to the sources the photo we have is the best one
4) Always a possibility given the expertise there was meant to be in the group, which could even be why it was later removed as someone realised it wasn't real?

You can make a colourisation match whatever you want in terms of colours, because it is essentially an artistic impression limited to the geometry and brightness values of the scene.

In this way it's no more useful than the image you linked, which is a recreation based on Nick Popes recollection of the photo we now see. Which was only 'useful' at the time because we didn't have the photo. The only relatively accurate bits of the recreation are the shape of the object it's position relative to the jet, which were already "out there" because of the photocopy.

The recreation misses the fence and overhanging vegetation adds a landscape, charitably it's muted tones are similar to the black white "dull sky" appearance of the real photo.

 

[Hougenai]

It was pretty common to see jets on training missions flying low level in the UK. I think they dropped back on it now recently but back in

Hello, this is my first post here!

I don't know if it helps but the tree in the upper left corner is most probably an European larch (Larix decidua) which is grown for timber in Scotland.

View attachment 53708

The tree shown on the contemporary photo of the alleged location is also an European larch and you can see several larches in the distance (the yellow trees between the evergreen pines).

View attachment 53707

Larch needles turn yellow and are shed in fall as seen in this photo.

Larches are easily recognized by their needle-bearing short shoots grouped along their thin often pendulous branches. After needles fall the short shoots look like small beads on a string. Additionally there are the 2-4cm large larch cones, visible in the photo as larger egg shaped black dots.

If the branch on the right is a larch, the 'UFO' photo was taken during the growing season, likely in summer as the larch needles are rendered completely black as they would have been dark green in real life. The tips of the branches are bare and likely dead.
I do not know when larches turn yellow in Scotland, probably September. But this gives a limit to the season the photo could have been taken.

I am unsure about the branch in the middle. It looks odd. It might belong to the same larch tree but I cannot discern any branches with short shoots or needles. This may be due to the high contrast between dark needles and the bright sky but it still looks remarkably different to the branch on the left.

View attachment 53709

An alternative would be weeping birch (Betula pendula) but it branches differently. Unfortunately the quality of the photo is not good enough to give a definite answer.

The most interesting plant however is the "shrub' on the fence post on the lower left. It puzzled me for a long time because I can hardly think of a Scottish plant with such growth pattern.

View attachment 53710

It almost looks like an old palm frond. At first I thought in might be some sort of reed but what we see are probably dead branches if a tree that's either tilted 45° or 135° and almost upside down. In this case the dead branches would originally have pointed upward while the crown still has foliage and is at the base of the fence post. It could be a pine. But I am really not sure, maybe this is something entirely different and not a plant at all.

One last hypothesis - this is a close-up of the shoot of a Scot's pine (Pinus sylvestris) and the horizontal reed-like appendages which appear to emerge from a trunk are the pine's needles.

View attachment 53711

View attachment 53712
This would however mean that the entire 'plant' at the fence post is only about 10-20cm, long. But if this branch is right in front of the camera, how can the rest also be in focus?

It is impossible to distinguish larch species using those images as the differentiating features are too small to appear at that resolution (or not shown). Genus is the best possible. It could be European, Japanese or Hybrid , all used in forestry.

The question of the 'odd' appearance of the larch branches in the third photo (above) could simply be clusters of cones that have dropped in other images.(they are clearer in the non enlarged photo). Cone formation may be increased in the death throes of diseased trees, leading to unusually dense appearance.

The image of the (alleged) shrub is not of such quality or extent to allow a clear attribution as a shrub. It is not possible to attribute the horizontal lines as foliage, they could simply be branches of a fallen tree.

 

[DavidB66]

Did Pope see what he had recreated above? There are only a few possible explanations that fit 1) Pope misremembered 2) Pope deliberately lied 3) there is a better photo 4) the poster was a composite someone had made of the actual [photo against a landscape

If I understand it correctly, the photo now being hyped as the 'original' photo is just the one print (out of six) which Craig Lindsay happened to keep, maybe because he thought it was the 'best'. If so, there is no particular reason to suppose that the copy pinned up on the wall in the MoD was taken from the same photo. There were six to choose from, so whoever made the copy may have picked one with a better landscape background. I guess this falls within your option (3), except it is not necessarily better with respect to the UFO, just the landscape.

 

[jarlrmai]

If I understand it correctly, the photo now being hyped as the 'original' photo is just the one print (out of six) which Craig Lindsay happened to keep, maybe because he thought it was the 'best'. If so, there is no particular reason to suppose that the copy pinned up on the wall in the MoD was taken from the same photo. There were six to choose from, so whoever made the copy may have picked one with a better landscape background.

There are 3 images

The photo we now see
The photocopy we had originally
The recreation Nick Pope commissioned

The recreation was based on Nick Popes description of the photo to an artist, I assume Nick Pope is the only person who knows which of the 6 photos he was recalling to provide instructions to the artist. could be one, could be a chimera of all 6, could be his faded memory of the photo with creative license added by the artist and/or Nick Popes imagination.

 

[Itsme]

My impression on that is (see below), that the area around 1 looks more as stones in the water near the shore of a loch/wet area", whereas the area around 2 looks more like hill tops of mountains.. Tricky, all this.

View attachment 53980

They look like distant patches of trees to me, but what they really are is anyone's guess.
What strikes me is that the landscape contours are BELOW the barbed wire. This could indicate the photographer is not standing but is near the ground, i.e., hiding/taking cover.

 

[Ann K]

I understand it could be colourised, a process that creates an artistic impression based on the photo, I am still trying to understand why it is useful in analysis?

I agree, completely. Coloring the object in greens and browns would make it a vegetated islet. Coloring it in shades of tan would suggest a rock, while coloring it in steely blues and greys would make it an "alien craft". But it would still result in an artist's impression with an artist's preconceptions, not an increase in verified information.

 

[Ann K]

My impression on that is (see below), that the area around 1 looks more as stones in the water near the shore of a loch/wet area", whereas the area around 2 looks more like hill tops of mountains.. Tricky, all this.

View attachment 53980

I agree with the rocks-in-water suggestion, but the line (here marked in green) meandering through the fence line obviously continues to the left side of the picture. It's high at the posts, drooping down between them, and gives every impression of just being an additional strand of wire that sags. Perhaps it was an original wire, just left there when they reinforced the fence with newer strands of barbed wire. Perhaps it's just an entangled strand of fishing line.

 

[jarlrmai]

I agree with the rocks-in-water suggestion, but the line (here marked in green) meandering through the fence line obviously continues to the left side of the picture. It's high at the posts, drooping down between them, and gives every impression of just being an additional strand of wire that sags. Perhaps it was an original wire, just left there when they reinforced the fence with newer strands of barbed wire. Perhaps it's just an entangled strand of fishing line.

It's not just a line its the upper border of an area of darker shade in the image that is possibly something that is not sky, ie land etc.

 

[Ann K]

It's not just a line its the upper border of an area of darker shade in the image that is possibly something that is not sky, ie land etc.

It's a thin line. If it were a landscape, it wouldn't be outlined. Indeed, since the summit of a hill is facing the sky, it would usually be brighter than the body of the land, not a darker line. Here, I've boosted the contrast. Two strands to the left side actually seem to go up to get tangled in the top fence line.

 

[Darat]

If I understand it correctly, the photo now being hyped as the 'original' photo is just the one print (out of six) which Craig Lindsay happened to keep, maybe because he thought it was the 'best'. If so, there is no particular reason to suppose that the copy pinned up on the wall in the MoD was taken from the same photo. There were six to choose from, so whoever made the copy may have picked one with a better landscape background. I guess this falls within your option (3), except it is not necessarily better with respect to the UFO, just the landscape.

It wouldn't be a better landscape background - it would be one with any landscape background!

 

[JMartJr]

It's not a science just an interpretation.

Respectfully, that seems the key point.

 

[JMartJr]

You can see some features of the distant landscape through the barbed wire fence

Unless that is ripples or flotsam by the shore of the reflecting body of water. I'm not sure how you get distant hills that low in the picture compared to the fence, unless the photographer is standing in a hole.

 

[JMartJr]

Perhaps it was an original wire, just left there when they reinforced the fence with newer strands of barbed wire.

The line rising to peaks at the posts, as you noted, is strong support of this.

 

[Rory]

An interesting proposal to go along with a model Harrier - star decoration on a fishing line:

Which when viewed from the side looks like this:

Source: https://caravaca.blogspot.com/?fbclid=IwAR1TXA_GBh1GjvFhx8Bol2ZFVNyaxzBIqQurs4gDpJojeTm417y1J_hC0B4

(Original source appears to be Belgian skeptical UFO investigator Wim Van Utrecht in a mailing list run by Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos.)

 

[DavidB66]

An interesting proposal to go along with a model Harrier - star decoration on a fishing line:

It even has the odd little bobble at the end, which is otherwise so out-of-scale with the rest of the Calvine object!

 

[Daves!]

Someone i follow on Twitter by the name Larsen has emailed the 237 OCU about the possibility that the Harrier could be a Hawker Hunter. I asked what they wrote.
He copied their answer instead of forwarding the email ( affraid that ufologist would have someting in store for them ). So this is what they wrote :

"Many thanks for your email. I posted your details and pictures on our private Facebook group and had several replies.

All said how difficult it is to identify the background aircraft and they seem to be split whether it is a Hunter T7 or something else. A couple suggested it might be a Hawk, but I think the tail is the wrong shape. It certainly doesn't look like a Harrier, or any other aircraft on the RAF's strength at that time, so there is every possibility that it is a Hunter.

237 OCU at RAF Lossiemouth and FRADU at RNAS Yeovilton were the only units flying the Hunter at that time. Training flights in that part of Scotland would have been a daily occurrence by 237 OCU from Lossiemouth. However, only two of our members were still on 237 OCU by that time and neither recalls anything being mentioned about this. Even our two pilots and our ex-Operations Officer couldn't be sure.

I'm afraid this is all a bit inconclusive, but the general consensus is that it looks more like a Hunter than anything else.

Sorry we haven't been able to help, but we would be very interested if you managed to find anything out from other sources. "

Just trying to help out with some facts and yes of course i know this could be discussible if its real etc. But insomehow trust this but others could take this with a grain of salt ofcourse.

 

[Rory]

You can actually see pretty much the entire back of the photo at 3:13 and there's no trace of writing, redacted or otherwise:

(Frames around this point reveal more of the corner hidden by Vinnie's hand)

Anyway, I'm sure the question about "the name on the back" will be addressed/resolved in the Q&A tomorrow.

Answer: Andrew Robinson made a copy of the one they got from Lindsay (from the live Q&A).

 

[gabelewis]

An interesting proposal to go along with a model Harrier - star decoration on a fishing line:

View attachment 53997

Which when viewed from the side looks like this:

View attachment 53998

Source: https://caravaca.blogspot.com/?fbclid=IwAR1TXA_GBh1GjvFhx8Bol2ZFVNyaxzBIqQurs4gDpJojeTm417y1J_hC0B4

(Original source appears to be Belgian skeptical UFO investigator Wim Van Utrecht in a mailing list run by Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos.)

Wow that is so close. Even has that defined but slightly offset ridge down the center. I would be surprised if this does not eventually become the leading theory.

 

[Daves!]

Answer: Andrew Robinson made a copy of the one they got from Lindsay (from the live Q&A).

They found out the name of the Photographer, his name was written in red inkt on the back of the picture.
Here is the video of tonight of the Q&A of The Disclosure Team where they reveal that they actualy had dive into him to find him ( around 200 persons with the same name )

Source: https://youtu.be/kQqt0d34nbI

mark @1.53:55
They thought of it and decided NOT to give away the name for several reasons as stated in the video.
One of it is that they hope someone will come forward and thus they can check if its that person.

 

[Robert Sheaffer]

The most interesting plant however is the "shrub' on the fence post on the lower left. It puzzled me for a long time because I can hardly think of a Scottish plant with such growth pattern.

It almost looks like an old palm frond.

Indeed, it does look exactly like palm fronds. My yard here in California is filled with them. But do palm fronds grow in Scotland? I would think not.

Is it possible that the photos were taken somewhere else, say Puerto Rico, by someone who later came to Scotland, and mailed them in to the Daily Record?

 

[Rory]

Other interesting things from that discussion:

• Pretty much pooh-poohed all hoax theories
• Location of Pope reconstruction shown
• Confirms the "90,000 acre private deer reserve" is Atholl Estate, encompassing Struan Point
• Clarke says he talked to a guy who knew the witnesses, says they didn't hoax it, and has revealed details he wouldn't know if he was making it up
• Clarke says one of the photographers was a keen birdwatcher (hence camera)
• Clarke says the others in the panel have heard a recording of his conversation with his DI source and they all feel it was straightforward, matter-of-fact, casual, legit
• Clarke says someone told him it was a US stealth craft on a test to see if it was "invisible" (to radar)
• Clarke says DI55 did interview the witnesses at the time in 1990
• They've contacted over 200 people with the same name as the photographer

Full summary here:

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/calvine-disclosure-team-q-a.12584/post-277602

 

[Duke]

Indeed, it does look exactly like palm fronds. My yard here in California is filled with them. But do palm fronds grow in Scotland? I would think not.

Is it possible that the photos were taken somewhere else, say Puerto Rico, by someone who later came to Scotland, and mailed them in to the Daily Record?

Yes, there are palm trees in Scotland, as well as in Ireland and England.

 

[Duke]

They found out the name of the Photographer, his name was written in red inkt on the back of the picture.
Here is the video of tonight of the Q&A of The Disclosure Team where they reveal that they actualy had dive into him to find him ( around 200 persons with the same name )

Source: https://youtu.be/kQqt0d34nbI

mark @1.53:55
They thought of it and decided NOT to give away the name for several reasons as stated in the video.
One of it is that they hope someone will come forward and thus they can check if its that person.

Still think it's going to take a financial inducement to bring the photographer(s) out in the open. One of the Scottish tabloids needs to step up.

 

[Deleted member 17800]

This is just a generic reply to a perhaps misunderstood word 'Interpretation' with reference to my current colourising of a restored photograph in comparison to the 'ufo' of this discussion.

I have a reference point to begin colouring ( most of the time ). The pixels / colour of and shade do represent a colour at all times of photography irrespective of ' black and white or muted or photographic resolution and print.

In my own usage of ' interpretation this is/was in context to THIS restoration below.
It is merged with colour of which IS an ' interpretation.
Pause here and take a look at below for a few moments then continue reading thanks.

First photograph is a stock image photo of more recent. Second is my original restoration scan circa( 1913 ) last is where I am currently in restoring the colour.

The ' science' I have referred to previously is the matching of photographic colour /print resolution etc of the original image taken ' back in circa 1913 with what was available.
An ' interpretation is of the colours of clothing / dirt / and other subtleties.

This by default allows the viewer a more indicative representation to understand what they are seeing ( photographic restoration ).

In reference to the Calvine 'ufo' we do / could have / a photograph from that exact point ( similar to photo number 1 below.

Whilst a photograph would preferably show far more of the area than the ' Calvine ufo' it would help greatly.

 

[Rory]

Interesting stuff from Scottish photographer Stu Little who says he went into the Daily Record's photo department in 1993 and saw a "rag print" - partial blow up - of one of the other Calvine photos on the wall there. He says he asked the guy there about it and the guy showed him the whole strip of six negatives - duplicates of the original negatives - and he spent about 15 minutes looking at them on a special negative viewer (which he describes as like looking at them through a magnifying glass, 20x zoom).

I did a write-up of his talk and posted it here, and here are the main points of interest/new information:

• He says the Lindsay photo is only about 30% as detailed as what he saw and that this is due to the copies being made on an enlarger that wasn't quite in focus
• He says the photographer's camera was a Canon AE 1 Program and the photo was probably taken with a shutter speed of 1/250
• Said that the Lindsay photo is a crop and that the original had more countryside, more fence, more tree, and more bush
• Said the colour tinge came because of printing on colour paper and that it was taken on XP1 (he also used XP1 at the time)
• He describes the craft as being "clearly man-made" with discernible panels and thinks it was a stealth craft
• He dismisses both the reflection theory and the UFO theory, saying "I never thought for one minute it was ETs" despite being a young man into UFO stuff at the time
• Thinks the plane was more likely a Tornado than a Harrier
• Says he heard the photos weren't published because of the D-notice
• Shows recreations of the five other photos. Frame 2 is the Lindsay photo, Frame 4 the one with two planes in it (and the one he saw on the wall), and #5 and #6 had no planes in the shot

His slideshow with all the recreation images and stuff to do with the film, the cameras, and the equipment the Daily Record used is available here:

https://lightroom.adobe.com/shares/5afcd937e69446e8bf342d7dc34b9ebc

He's seemed like a very credible fella and obviously very knowledgeable on his subject. Here's his recreation of his memory of the craft he saw:

 

[NorCal Dave]

Clarke says someone told him it was a US stealth craft on a test to see if it was "invisible" (to radar)

This part just makes no sense. The US military has access to and owns Nellis AFB, Groom Lake/Area 51 and the Fallon Naval Air Station, just in the state of Nevada alone. Then there's the huge Edawards AFB in nearby So California, close to the so called "Skunkworks". And just west of all of this is the Pacific Ocean. And then there's Alaska. And Diego Garcia in a remote part of the Indian Ocean. Why would they test a secret aircraft's radar reflections near the town of Calvine Scotland? Just, no.

 

[JMartJr]

Why would they test a secret aircraft's radar reflections near the town of Calvine Scotland?

Unless the Scots have some special radar we didn't have, that seems a valid objection.

His slideshow with all the recreation images and stuff to do with the film, the cameras, and the equipment the Daily Record used is available here:

https://lightroom.adobe.com/shares/5afcd937e69446e8bf342d7dc34b9ebc

The slides recraeating the missing photos suggest the UFO pretty much hovers between shots as the planes zip around. That would seem to rule out a conventional stealthed plane as well...

 

[Rory]

In addition, here's a summary of some of the answers to questions I sent to David Clarke (more full summary here).

• He believes the hotel wasn't the Atholl Palace Hotel, based on not finding people there who remembered the two witnesses and having talked to two others who say they worked with the witnesses at a different hotel
• He says he's not 100% on their location being the right location, but rather that it's "their best guess"
• Going by these new sources of information he says the witnesses were chefs - or at least part-time chefs - and that they were both male
• He says he's had various stories from the Daily Record about what happened to the negatives, with some saying they were not returned, some saying it's possible they were and then destroyed, and some saying there was a bit of an internal "egg on face" inspired cover-up within the paper as they were "accidentally" sent on to the MoD by someone covering for the main guy's leave without having made copies first.

I think that's pretty much all the salient points.

 

[Duke]

Unless the Scots have some special radar we didn't have, that seems a valid objection.

Not the Scots, but the Brits were developing/testing a new, advanced air defense radar system about this time. I remember reading about it in UK defense journals like Jane's and Air Forces Monthly. It was getting a lot of press.....until the Gulf War took center stage. Let me see if I can the name of it.