you need to source that.
External Quote:As far as the wide ranging gaps in documentation which you feel you have identified, I have written all sorts of exotic reports where the files would eventually be archived for review at the 10 year point - at which stage files would be reviewed to decide whether they should be kept to the 30 year point or destroyed.
Guess what? After 10 years much that seemed exciting and exotic is only fit for the bin when you are being encouraged to reduce warehouses full of filing.
In short, where you surmise there was a culture of obfuscation and official secrecy by MoD the answer is likely to be much more mundane: "we are moving to an electronic filing system, unless there's a good reason not to, get rid of this 30 foot high stack of old files. And do it by Friday."
https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/t...calvine-ufo-in-the-1990s.308465/post-11323271
External Quote:The partial and random preservation of files doesn't strike me as unusual.
I'm ex-MOD, spending many years as the local IT expert before evolving into a central policy role developing MOD Information Management processes and practices.
One of the biggest problems we had was duplication and gaps. Back in the 90s, when you raised a loose minute, copies went to everyone listed. Another copy went into the registry for filing, and another copy went on circulation within the unit.
The circulation copy would be destroyed pretty quickly. The registry copy would be filed, The copies sent out would be retained or destroyed depending on how interested the receiving desk officer was.
If anyone replies, copies will go to everyone on the original distribution list. The reply might also contain a snippet of useful information. And, again, the receiving desk officers will retain or destroy depending on how interested they are.
This means it is entirely possible that a receiving desk officer would destroy the first loose minute but retain any of the subsequent loose minutes because they contain something of interest beyond that contained in the original loose minute (e.g. the name of an expert who was consulted who might be a useful contact for the desk officer's other work). It's fairly random, but means some documents are destroyed quite quickly, whilst others are held in multiple places.
If you then throw in 20 years of review and weeding, by desk officers who are several post-rotations away from the originator, then the retention becomes even more random.
Then add in endless reorganisations and responsibility changes, and what may have been within a unit's Area of Responsibility in 1990 would not be in the unit's AOR ten years later, so any records would get destroyed as no longer being relevant to that unit.
And then we moved to electronic records, with pressure to reduce the amount of paper held so migration to the electronic system would be cheaper, thus putting further pressure on keeping old documents.
Incomplete and random records from 30 years ago is not at all surprising.
https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/t...calvine-ufo-in-the-1990s.308465/post-11324169
External Quote:You rather pejoratively refer to what you clearly think is some sort of cover up, and one that even now people are "afraid to talk about".
Well that, Sir, is just a load of bollox. To be blunt the majority of us were busy in the 1990s with real sh1t from NI to Bosnia, Kuwait and a hundred other things besides. We were more interested in black ops flights into Tusla than we ever were into things that might or might not be scudding around the skies of Scotland.
So don't confuse "wall of silence" with "better things to have been worrying about".
https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/t...calvine-ufo-in-the-1990s.308465/post-11323861
External Quote:We understood initially that the men were out walking, but it was then suggested to us by a senior ex-military source that they had been poaching, hence the camera. They were out in the middle of nowhere on a remote, private, 90,000-acre deer reserve at dusk, having driven 13 miles to get there. The camera was to capture a shot of they bagged a prize, but they allegedly got more than they bargained for.
https://www.pprune.org/military-avi...o-uap-1990-calvine-scotland.html#post11180473
On this point we have a senior former defence intelligence source who interviewed the witnesses at the time.
https://www.pprune.org/military-avi...o-uap-1990-calvine-scotland.html#post11180649
The senior ex-mil source insists that 1 Harrier was UK, 1 was US, the diamond was real, and the US harrier was there because of the diamond in case it went down. He could, of course, be leading us down the garden path, but one has to trust somebody in all this.
https://www.pprune.org/military-avi...uap-1990-calvine-scotland-5.html#post11182575
According to [his] version of events, the source got the RAF and USMC information from the 6 prints originally taken by MoD from the negatives and, later, from the Americans themselves.
https://www.pprune.org/military-avi...uap-1990-calvine-scotland-5.html#post11182709
Admittedly, he could be deliberately misleading us. He could even be unintentionally misleading us (telling us what he thinks is true but he has himself been misled). Once one starts to go down that route, though, one seems to lose sense of what's up and what's down, so when people who we don't yet have reason to doubt tell us something, we have tried to treat them as if they were straight shooters.
https://www.pprune.org/military-avi...uap-1990-calvine-scotland-5.html#post11182668
External Quote:I was shown an original print of this photo in the course of my duties around that time. As a UFO sceptic I was utterly gobsmacked. It wasn't an F117 (and why would an F117 be at low level?), or any aircraft revealed before or since. I had no explanation for it and have been a lot less sceptical since!
It was noted at the time that it was taken on a Saturday when, as we know, no routine FJ LL flying takes place.
https://www.pprune.org/military-aviation/644967-alleged-ufo-uap-1990-calvine-scotland.html
It was a long time ago, but my recollection is that the copy I saw was black and white. It was sharp, on glossy photo paper ( not a photocopy) and looked authentic. The mock up on line is a pretty accurate recreation but I think the "object" was lower and not exactly side on. My impression at the time was that the circling aircraft was a Hunter but it could have been a Harrier.
It may have been a fake, but it was certainly not any aircraft revealed before or since or a blimp/ balloon/kite etc.
https://www.pprune.org/military-avi...uap-1990-calvine-scotland-3.html#post11181322
I don't really understand how the senior military source gets one RAF and one USMC Harrier from the photo. As I said earlier, my initial impression was of a Hunter, and no sign of a second aircraft. If JARIC, or whoever could identify the nationalities of the aircraft they must have seen a MUCH better picture than I did. OR they have another source of information.
https://www.pprune.org/military-avi...uap-1990-calvine-scotland-5.html#post11182690
There were indeed Hunters at Lossiemouth in 1990 but I would have thought that operating them on a Saturday night would have attracted a lot of comment. I knew most of the Hunter qualified Lossiemouth pilots at that time and never heard any mention of this incident.
https://www.pprune.org/military-avi...uap-1990-calvine-scotland-4.html#post11181626
External Quote:Ex Pitreavie Int here. We did have a dark red file on this general topic but it contained nothing that persuaded me we were having ET visitors. Also later worked in the next office to Nick Pope and same applies.
https://www.pprune.org/military-avi...uap-1990-calvine-scotland-2.html#post11181115
External Quote:I live fairly close by and spend a lot of time in the hills around there. Some of the most popular hills in Scotland are in the area just N of Pitlochry/Calvine, and at that time of year, on a Saturday evening the area is packed with tourists and hillwalkers, even that late in the evening. There are one or two genuinely remote and unfrequented areas of the Scottish highlands, but the Cairngorms NP/A9 belt are most definitely not in this category. The idea that an event like that could have just a single witness seems highly improbable/incredible to me.
https://www.pprune.org/military-avi...uap-1990-calvine-scotland-4.html#post11182499
External Quote:After being twice interviewed by the military, the photographer (likely a deer poacher) has never again come forward and his identity is unknown.
https://www.pprune.org/military-avi...o-uap-1990-calvine-scotland.html#post11179186
We have a senior former defence intelligence source who interviewed the witnesses at the time.
https://www.pprune.org/military-avi...o-uap-1990-calvine-scotland.html#post11180649
We only have one alleged witness (there were two men walking there apparently, but only one is named in the file, only one sent the photos in, and only one was interviewed).
https://www.pprune.org/military-avi...uap-1990-calvine-scotland-4.html#post11182479
post #42you need to source that.
the uk military couldnt locate a 90,000 acre private deer reserve? 13 miles from atholl palace hotel?that they had been poaching, hence the camera. They were out in the middle of nowhere on a remote, private, 90,000-acre deer reserve at dusk, having driven 13 miles to get there. The camera was to capture a shot of they bagged a prize, but they allegedly got more than they bargained for.
i found this tweet interesting :
@Duke what i find so fascinating and even funny is, that the press officer in 1990, Craig Lindsay, kept the original picture in his possession, and what i think, is without knowing what the procedure was what to do with stuff he got from the press.
Even "sensitive" material like this, he decided well no one is going to investigate this stuff further so im going to keep it as a souvenir.
No one ever asked him what he did with it, even forgetting about him. He years later lived a quite life enjoying a peacefull and good life till one day David knocks on his door and he simply says " ah yes i have the picture, here you go keep it i dont have any use for it "
The uk military couldnt locate a 90,000 acre private deer reserve 13 miles from atholl palace hotel?
JMartJr had it figured out all ready. But the story does run with it as if this is the actual picture.All, --be wary of pics like the following, which has been turning up online here and there as purported copies of the newly released better quality copy of the pic. It is obviously no such thing, little in it other than the presence of a jet and an aerial chevron match the actual picture. It appears to be some sort of "artist's impression" which has been published in several of the tabloid papers' online versions, such as here;
Thank you.The highest resolution available seems to be this one (4.4Mb jpg, 3103x2480).
https://web.archive.org/web/2022081....wordpress.com/2022/08/watermarked-jpeg-2.jpg
Somewhere there's a 2.8GB Tiff (mentioned in Robinson's analysis)
The problem with the photo seems to be the amount of film grain. I don't believe scanning it with more pixels is going to help very much.Thank you.
The whole camera thing doesn't ring true to me. On the assumption Lindsay's account is correct and they saw a UFO in the sky: these guys went out near dark - they saw the UFO at an undetermined time after leaving the car, but apparently not *hours* later. So it was already late when they arrived in Calvine in the car. They weren't there to shoot sunsets, they had unusual artsy B&W film in the camera. What were they intending to shoot? Nature? They knew they'd be shooting in low light - why not take a tripod?Low shutter speed leads to more camera shake being recorded, which causes blur which can make things appear out of focus.
Low light makes autofocus systems perform poorly.
Overcast twilight are very hard conditions for a camera, especially if they had low ISO film loaded and a slower lens.
It's not really any better than the 4Mb jpg that was released. It's also 8-when they scanned it a 16-bit. But I doubt that would really add much.Here is their new release of what they claim is a high quality copy scan of the Calvine pic
Doesn't look any better to me though, But my eyes are not that good, and I have not compared it to the first one they released
Just to make a note to anyone remotely interested:
Like I introduced myself previously I amongst other things restore photographs to museum grade.
The grain on the photograph truly is not a problem.
That grain contains a thousand different shades.
be careful not to over think unnecessary details. he could have been out shooting sunsets or nothing. i almost always took my camera with me on walks in case i saw something i wanted to shoot. and i liked shooting in B&W, but b/w or color i used whatever was in my camera because if you took the roll out midway you just wasted shots and film.They weren't there to shoot sunsets, they had unusual artsy B&W film in the camera. What were they intending to shoot? Nature? They knew they'd be shooting in low light - why not take a tripod?
Honestly to colour entirely a photo and make it natural to the film it is on camera and everything else is a science.Do you rate any online colorization sites? Or can you colorize yourself?
Seems like a good colorized version would really answer the question of whether we're looking at a boatload of fog (supporting mountaintop hypothesis) or clouds and sky.
It takes a good 10 hours at least to do a ' proper ' job even on the most simplistic image.
Online it is done by button pressing.
ExactlyUseful to have your pre and post pictures there for comparison: here's what hotpot.ai (left) and imagecolorizer.com (right) makes of your b&w
View attachment 53688 View attachment 53690
Ie, it's colored and looks all right - but there's nothing in the way of the blues and reds and yellows that your version has (and presumably were there in real life).
Interesting.
Here is a deblur of it someone did
Source: https://twitter.com/Flyingh43892139/status/1559639940371292162
How do we know that they did NOT use a tripod? I rather think they did. In my view: they set out with the intention of producing a hoax UFO photo, perhaps playfully intending to replicate (or, pay homage to) a 1988 UFO hoax photo from Puerto Rico. Load up the car with camera, "artsy" film, a tripod, a cable release, plus whatever paraphernalia they used to create the model UFO. They carefully set up the tripod and the model, focused the camera on the model, and took advantage of seeing the jet in the background.The whole camera thing doesn't ring true to me. On the assumption Lindsay's account is correct and they saw a UFO in the sky: these guys went out near dark - they saw the UFO at an undetermined time after leaving the car, but apparently not *hours* later. So it was already late when they arrived in Calvine in the car. They weren't there to shoot sunsets, they had unusual artsy B&W film in the camera. What were they intending to shoot? Nature? They knew they'd be shooting in low light - why not take a tripod?
There's a chance it's not a jet after all but a bird instead, and they most likely had the camera on a tripod, perhaps to fake Nessie, but went home to develop the film and realised they could fake a UFO sighting instead.How do we know that they did NOT use a tripod? I rather think they did. In my view: they set out with the intention of producing a hoax UFO photo, perhaps playfully intending to replicate (or, pay homage to) a 1988 UFO hoax photo from Puerto Rico. Load up the car with camera, "artsy" film, a tripod, a cable release, plus whatever paraphernalia they used to create the model UFO. They carefully set up the tripod and the model, focused the camera on the model, and took advantage of seeing the jet in the background.
For information on the Puerto Rico hoax, see
http://www.hoaxorfact.com/Pranks/al...t-a-local-restaurant-in-puerto-rico-hoax.html
autofocus in a 1990s chemical camera? automatic exposure, fine, but focus?Low shutter speed leads to more camera shake being recorded, which causes blur which can make things appear out of focus.
Low light makes autofocus systems perform poorly.
Overcast twilight are very hard conditions for a camera, especially if they had low ISO film loaded and a slower lens.
20 minutes before (not after) sunset under an open sky is neither "dark" nor "twilight", and @NorCal Dave quoted the expert as stating the film could be exposed at 50 to 800 ISO, 400 being sufficient for scenes much darker than this picture.Because it would be dark, film cameras couldn't just push the ISO to 12800 you were limited to working with the ISO of the film you had loaded.
Google Drive has a bandwidth limit, I believe. (That's why I reposted the PDF as soon as I saw that link.)I would imagine that they just wanted to move it from Google Docs since linking to Google Docs doesn't look very professional.
Film cameras had autofocus as far back as the late 80's.autofocus in a 1990s chemical camera? automatic exposure, fine, but focus?
twist the ring to stop at ∞ and you're set
20 minutes before (not after) sunset under an open sky is neither "dark" nor "twilight", and @NorCal Dave quoted the expert as stating the film could be exposed at 50 to 800 ISO, 400 being sufficient for scenes much darker than this picture.
How do we know that they did NOT use a tripod? I rather think they did. In my view: they set out with the intention of producing a hoax UFO photo, perhaps playfully intending to replicate (or, pay homage to) a 1988 UFO hoax photo from Puerto Rico. Load up the car with camera, "artsy" film, a tripod, a cable release, plus whatever paraphernalia they used to create the model UFO. They carefully set up the tripod and the model, focused the camera on the model, and took advantage of seeing the jet in the background.
For information on the Puerto Rico hoax, see
http://www.hoaxorfact.com/Pranks/al...t-a-local-restaurant-in-puerto-rico-hoax.html
Film cameras had autofocus as far back as the late 80's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EOS_650
And what would the calculated shutter speed be at those film ISO's? we don't know the EV
I shot a a butterfly stack at close to sunset in shadow in my garden the other night, I had to shoot 1/6s at ISO 400 and f/2.8 to get a well exposed image.
The earlier Harrier variant (GR.3 / F/A-2) had a much more swept back wing, similar to the Hunter's. Although RAF GR.3s were out of service by 1990 (I think), the F/A-2s were still in service with the FAA.A fella on Twitter reckons it's a Hunter rather than a Harrier because the Hunter has more v-shaped wings and that's what's indicated in the photo:
View attachment 53525
Harrier:
View attachment 53526
Hunter:
View attachment 53527
The upper wing does seem more swept back in the Calvine photo. But then the quality's so bad perhaps it would have been easy to have lost that information.
As I said before, let's keep in mind that if the photo is a hoax, the back story could be as well. The whole notion that "two young dishwashers" went out and took this photo of a UFO or were the hoaxers, is based entirely on the 30-year-old recollection of 1 phone call.Someone mentioned camera shake, so presumably a tripod would've fixed this. I agree with you that I think they planned this in advance while washing dishes bored out of their minds, probably scouted out some areas on prior walks. If they were paying homage to the PR hoax then the jet had to be prearranged too.
So I had a think about the F117 and it kind of made me wonder about what testing models etc were done
Lockheed had an original design called the "hopeless diamond"
https://www.f117sfa.org/f117-development
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdWings/comments/bfqi1o/lockheed_hopeless_diamond_experimental_stealth/
View attachment 53596
"From the computer program, the Skunk Works engineers created a ten-foot wooden model dubbed the "Hopeless Diamond". The model was taken to an outdoor radar test range on the Mojave Desert near Palmdale. The model was mounted on a 12-foot high pole, and the radar dish zeroed in from about 1,500 feet away."
Is it possible the object could have been another balloon/model being used to test the radar visibility of the shape and coatings?
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?