The Mystery Behind the Best UFO Picture Ever Seen (theguardian.com) 62
In August 1990, two hikers in Scotland captured photographs of a mysterious diamond-shaped aircraft accompanied by a Harrier jet, but the images and story were suppressed by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for decades. Was it a prank, a hoax, an optical illusion or something else entirely? The Guardian's Daniel Lavelle reports on "what really happened in Calvine." Here's an excerpt: On a misty evening in August 1990, two men hiking on the moors surrounding Calvine, a pretty hamlet in Perth and Kinross, claimed to have seen a giant diamond-shaped aircraft flying above them. It apparently had no clear means of propulsion and left no smoke plume; it was silent and static, as if frozen in time. Terrified, they hit the ground and scrambled for cover behind a tree. Then a Harrier fighter jet roared into view, circling the diamond as if sizing it up for a scuffle. One of the men snapped a series of photographs just before the bizarre craft shot away vertically and disappeared.
Craig Lindsay was a press officer at the RAF base in Pitreavie Castle in Dunfermline, 50 miles away, when the Daily Record got in touch a few days later. The hikers, who worked as chefs at Fisher's Hotel in Pitlochry, had sent six photos of the diamond to the newspaper and told their story. The Record's picture editor, Andy Allen, sent Lindsay the best of the bunch. Lindsay had never seen such a clear photograph of a supposed UFO, so he forwarded the picture to the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which told him to ask the Record to send the other five photographs and their negatives. The MoD also instructed him to phone the hikers, which he did. One of them told Lindsay the whole story: the diamond, the jet, how it levitated eerily with no sound and accelerated with no obvious propellant. The MoD told Lindsay to leave the case with them. He pushed the diamond to the back of his mind.
That autumn, Lindsay attended a routine meeting in London. On his lunch break, he went for a wander around the MoD's offices and saw something familiar. "There, on the wall in front of me, was a great big poster-size print of the best of them [the photographs]. So, I spoke to the guys that were there and I asked them what their other photographs were like." The ministry's staff placed the other photographs on a windowsill. The snaps showed the Harrier jet moving from the right side of the frame to the left, while the diamond didn't move an inch. He quizzed some of the specialists who had investigated the photos. They told him there was no evidence of a hoax, but they didn't know what the diamond was. "I gradually forgot all about the thing," says Lindsay. "Nothing had appeared from the first inquiry ... I assumed that everything had just been forgotten." The Record didn't run the story, the hikers never spoke publicly about the photos and the images weren't seen by the public for 32 years. "It is the 35th anniversary of what has been described as the best UFO photo ever taken. Now is the time to come forward and tell us what really happened," says Prof David Clarke, a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University who worked as a reporter in the 1990s.
Craig Lindsay was a press officer at the RAF base in Pitreavie Castle in Dunfermline, 50 miles away, when the Daily Record got in touch a few days later. The hikers, who worked as chefs at Fisher's Hotel in Pitlochry, had sent six photos of the diamond to the newspaper and told their story. The Record's picture editor, Andy Allen, sent Lindsay the best of the bunch. Lindsay had never seen such a clear photograph of a supposed UFO, so he forwarded the picture to the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which told him to ask the Record to send the other five photographs and their negatives. The MoD also instructed him to phone the hikers, which he did. One of them told Lindsay the whole story: the diamond, the jet, how it levitated eerily with no sound and accelerated with no obvious propellant. The MoD told Lindsay to leave the case with them. He pushed the diamond to the back of his mind.
That autumn, Lindsay attended a routine meeting in London. On his lunch break, he went for a wander around the MoD's offices and saw something familiar. "There, on the wall in front of me, was a great big poster-size print of the best of them [the photographs]. So, I spoke to the guys that were there and I asked them what their other photographs were like." The ministry's staff placed the other photographs on a windowsill. The snaps showed the Harrier jet moving from the right side of the frame to the left, while the diamond didn't move an inch. He quizzed some of the specialists who had investigated the photos. They told him there was no evidence of a hoax, but they didn't know what the diamond was. "I gradually forgot all about the thing," says Lindsay. "Nothing had appeared from the first inquiry ... I assumed that everything had just been forgotten." The Record didn't run the story, the hikers never spoke publicly about the photos and the images weren't seen by the public for 32 years. "It is the 35th anniversary of what has been described as the best UFO photo ever taken. Now is the time to come forward and tell us what really happened," says Prof David Clarke, a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University who worked as a reporter in the 1990s.
The summary is too long already (Score:1)
Like I'm gonna read TFG of crazy shit.
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The aliens clearly abducted your patience lobe.
Re: The summary is too long already (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: The summary is too long already (Score:2)
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What about a piece of tape on the film negative or somehow doctor the negative? It looks like someone took a exacto knife to the film. Any film experts in the house?
My money is on a couple suspended things re-photographed on a projected image. Notice the grain is a bit different on the so called UFO.
If this is the best UFO image ever seen, it's just like Bigfoot, miraculously never a clear sharp image. And with the number of decent quality securiy cams, today, perhaps the aliens know and avoid where they are.
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Um, my brain has room for both. I am sorry if yours doesn't.
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Um, my brain has room for both. I am sorry if yours doesn't.
OK narcissist.
Re: You do realize... (Score:2)
Classic internet content thread. Straight to abuse.
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Classic internet content thread. Straight to abuse.
They forgot to bring up Hitler.
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War, famine and injustice? What is this, 1950? I'm worried about AI, microplastics, and... Ok, war too I guess.
Re:You do realize... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's all connected of course, knowledge is power. You think the rich and powerful are going to give away power? They never do so willingly. It's no different than taking any drug from an addict. There's obviously a lot they aren't telling us. This is done for two reasons of course, in order to manipulate us to their advantage and to hide maleficence.
This is the way of things.
UFOs: a quasi religious mythology (Score:3)
“The projected image then appears as an ostensibly physical fact independent of the individual psyche and its nature. In other words, the rounded wholeness of the mandala becomes a space ship controlled by an intelligent being.”
Info and photo: (Score:1)
Info and photo: https://allthatsinteresting.co... [allthatsinteresting.com]
Its a reflection of a rock next to a fallen fence (Score:5, Interesting)
As a photographer (for most of my life) - I see a reflection of a rock next to a collapsed fence, and the reflection of a plane flying over. Reading the article the "Chefs" that were responsible for the shot - claimed to have taken it in an area where there were no flights of this aircraft and no bodies of water... so probably taken somewhere else then...
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I also see this.
But then we can't rule out it's not a USO (Unidentified Submersible Object)!
Re: Its a reflection of a rock next to a fallen fe (Score:1)
it's right in the description (Score:3)
Good grief.
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Re:Its a reflection of a rock next to a fallen fen (Score:5, Insightful)
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Except you are missing one thing. According to the story, all five photos were lined up side by side. The UFO did not move while the jet did. The relevant part:
The ministry's staff placed the other photographs on a windowsill. The snaps showed the Harrier jet moving from the right side of the frame to the left, while the diamond didn't move an inch.
While I agree the single photo (might) show a rock and reflection, that does not explain a series of photos where one thing move and the remainder does not. Esp
Re:Its a reflection of a rock next to a fallen fen (Score:4, Insightful)
The snaps showed the Harrier jet moving from the right side of the frame to the left, while the diamond didn't move an inch.
Why would you expect a rock to move?
snake
TL;DR: MoD knows what it is (Score:3)
The article never states what it is but instead merely implies that the UK Ministry of Defense knows what the object is.
The rational conclusion is that it is a balloon of some sort. Given the circumstances, one could conclude that it was being used to test some military tech in R&D.
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It's a garbage pod.
Best UFO Picture Ever Seen (Score:2)
b. Where are the negatives?
c. Are there any other photos by the same individuals?
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According to TFA (I read it before it was on /. so don't judge me), the answers to c and b are respectively that they had five or six photos, and that the Ministry of Defence took the negatives.
UK newspapers take orders from the military? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd sooner live in a constitutional monarchy where the monarch is pretty much a figurehead than live in a so called "democracy" where you only have 2 parties to vote for and the president is an elected king in all but name and can seemingly ride roughshod over whatever laws he pleases.
But hey, enjoy living in the "land of the free". What a joke.
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You need to learn how Slashdot works. If you say anything even remotely critical of the United States, a scumbucket of right wing moderators (my new collective noun) will drag you down to zero or minus one. Somehow, they always seem to have enough mod points to make it stick.
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I don't think its even just right wing ones, they all do it. I criticised Biden once and got modded to hell. The rule seems to be its perfectly ok for americans to criticise any other country, but criticise theirs and you're immediately modded to troll as you say.
And yes pedants - criticiSe is spelt with an S in british english so suck it up.
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You have a bizarre view of life on slashdot.
Few Americans give a flying fuck about other countries as long as they're not directly fucking with us. There are almost no American posts about other countries.
However, slashdot is packed full of Europeans bashing the US every day here even when the article had nothing to do with the US. The mere existence of the US, Trump, etc is so triggering they can't help but post anti-America rants daily. And usually that spewage is modded up or left alone.
Perhaps you're
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"Btw, what country are you posting from?"
Why don't you try and work it out from my 2 previous posts Mr IAmWaySmarter. Isn't looking that way so far mate.
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Yup, way smarter than you. Can't answer a simple question. Has to get into his emotions like a girl.
A man would've just answered or ignored me. Either would've been fine.
But you did ignore the 95% of my post which said you were full of shit about how Europeans and Americans feel and post about each other. Because you know I'm right and you were just virtue signaling. Very feminine behavior, mate.
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You have a bizarre view of life on slashdot.
Few Americans give a flying fuck about other countries as long as they're not directly fucking with us. There are almost no American posts about other countries.
However, slashdot is packed full of Europeans bashing the US every day here even when the article had nothing to do with the US. The mere existence of the US, Trump, etc is so triggering they can't help but post anti-America rants daily. And usually that spewage is modded up or left alone.
Perhaps you're posting on a slashdot in a different t universe. In this one UniversePrime, slashdot is a cesspool of blind anti America hatred.
Since 99% of you refuse to say what country you're posting from even when directly asked how could we bash your country anyway? And frankly, why would we bother? As I said, Americans don't care about you. We just don't. You're not that important to us.
I hope this helped clarify things for you.
Btw, what country are you posting from?
I must confess that part of the fun of all the anti-American lame trolls is posting back to the European ones that they are living in a glass house. Some of the most horrific crimes against humanity were by Europeans, and even fun to point out that those crimes that were undertaken by Americans against the native Americans were from people from Europe.
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You need to learn how Slashdot works. If you say anything even remotely critical of the United States, a scumbucket of right wing moderators (my new collective noun) will drag you down to zero or minus one. Somehow, they always seem to have enough mod points to make it stick.
I've read the exact opposite, that if you post anything right wingish, the hardcore left does the same. There's truth to both sides, because on slashdot, it is fun to troll others.
Here's a reply supporting your thesis.
America sends it's regrets for interfering in the righteous war in the 1940's, because we have seen that you would have preferred to be ruled by Adolph or Uncle Joe, and we just came along and fucked everything up, keeping you from your preferred forms of government.
Kind of like the
D notices (Score:3, Informative)
The UK has an official system to allow the government to get the press to shut up about issues that it needs to have away from the public spotlight / bad actors' view. It's an informal system in that ignoring a D notice doesn't result in court action, but it does provide a means for journalists to be asked to shut up about things that really do need to be kept quiet. Of course it's subject to abuse - as any such system will be - but it's probably better than the ad hoc system that seems to apply in the US,
Re:D notices (Score:4, Informative)
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True - but for the MOD to know to issue a D notice, they have to know about the story. In this case they were told before publication, and so were able to suppress it.
The moral of the story then is clear: If you get some pictures of something you can't explain, publish first (ideally onto multiple photo hosters), then talk to the papers. If they notify the MOD and get a D notice, the pictures will already have been published - not beyond the reach of the MOD, I'm sure, but a whole lot more work for them, an
Re: UK newspapers take orders from the military? (Score:2)
So does the US press though. The fact you didn't know that proves it works.
Its the scottish highlands... (Score:2)
... not northern siberia. Even in the most remote part of the highlands other people would have seen and heard 2 jets shadowing a giant diamond craft. Its quite obviously a hoax.
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Right, I find it suspicious that the best picture of something happened before smartphones.
There are literally a billion more cameras now than there was then.
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One could also remark that nowadays we're all glued to our smartphone screens and not so much watching idly the skies for the chance to spot a UFO (or anything), so even if we have many more cameras, we're not as observant as before the advent of those things...
But maybe I'm getting old.
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Ok but even in the extreme case where we are 99% less observant that will be way more than offset by the 8 billion percent increase in cameras.
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Several things in the image don't add up... (Score:1)
Re:Several things in the image don't add up... (Score:4, Insightful)
1) The summary states the "UFO" was static, and the jet flew around it, so wouldn't be difficult to get it in the middle of the viewfinder. I think it also states this was the best of 6 pictures.
2) The whole picture is a bit blurry, to my eye the "UFO" looks no less blurry than the rest of the image but perhaps your vision is a bit sharper than mine.
That said, hoax is still infinitely more likely than real aliens.
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Just to be pedantic, one cannot have "infinite" probability. What would that even mean? Probability is a measure between 0 and 1, that's it.
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It's a phrase, not maths.
I've seen (way) better. And isn't it hilarious ... (Score:2)
... how these fotos are always super-grainy with little to truly recognize? This one looks like a piece of junk or a rock sticking out of the surface of a calm lake, with a fence in front of it and a plane passing overhead.
Anyhow, I've seen way better fake UFO fotos that this one. The "Gulf Breeze Sightings", which later turned out to be super-fake, would be one example.
Notice also how since we all now have smartphones with premium cameras on them the reports of potentially alien craft have plummeted? Oblig [explainxkcd.com]
Tomorrow on Slashdot - perpetual motion mystery (Score:1)
Claimed by some to be the most puzzling physics demonstration on TikTok! Could there perhaps be a battery hidden in the needlessly large apparatus? Some have theorized that there could be a fan just outside the frame. One crazy theory even proposes another motor hidden below the table. Or could it be the most important discovery of the human civilization put together from random trash? Unless the original author comes forward, we'll never know.
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I built a perpetual motion machine but when I turned it on it fell through time and was lost. The MiB then showed at my door to told me never to do that again and there was a flash of light.
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Says it all (Score:2)
MoD people are superstitious too (Score:1)
Photo is stupid, story is stupider (Score:2)