Top 5 UFO photos

[technomage]

What are the top 5 UFO photos that have undergone analysis and have never been explained?

Two I can think of are the Trent photos from 1950 and the Trinidade photos from 1958. Any others that have never been explained?

 

[Stagger Lee]

I recall an episode of the paracast dedicated to the O'Hare sighting photo. I forget who the guest was that analyzed one photo and found it authentic, matching witness testimony. 7 year old episode I recently enjoyed, and wonder what became of the photo/case since.

 

[Burnt State]

The Trinidade photos are up for debate with the photographer claiming hoax along with a hoaxed treasure chest discovery he also shot and sold. This post from the excellent forgetomori site details it all with some excellent media, including an interview in Portuguese with Almiro Barauna with English translations. This is older news.

forgetomori » Trindade Island case photographer admits hoax

Here's a more detailed look at this hoax angle with much better details from Antonio Huneeus. Either way, Barauna is a pretty suspicious character:

Rare document on the Trindade UFO case - Openminds.tv

That famous Belgian Triangle photo was claimed hoax and explained by the original photographer as merely some plastic and lights. Of course extensive testing by all the big UFOphoto experts claimed all manner of interesting physics at work following their critical analysis of this infamous UFO photo.

Maybe, before we look for which photos are indeed real, we need to sort out the analytics a little more. Some folks, for example, have done some incredible quasi-mathematical leaps of fuzzy logic in order to prove the Turkey aliens onboard the cruise ship deck out at sea are actually real life greys hovering just under the moon. You'd think we'd have heard from the Vatican about that if it were true in any way. In one thread it was once suggested, that like Bigfoot, it's impossible to take an actual photo of a UFO, unless perhaps it was truly a nuts and bolts craft as opposed to mostly elusive, shady & pixellated images.

 

[Burnt State]

These are some classic favourites. Who knows what they are?

French Gendarmerie Files

This one has been retouched so many times you can't tell anything about it anymore.

Los Angeles 1942

 

[Burnt State]

This one is a personal favourite: Connecticut 1987

A really nice collection : Ten Best UFO Photos ever Taken, Alien ET Craft, UFO Pictures | <b><i><a href="http://www.educatinghumanity.com">Educating Humanity</a></i></b>

 

[Bob Watson]

phobos 2

 

[technomage]

Just like that documentary by Paul Kimball, "The Top 10 cases", we really should have a group of photographic experts and top UFO investigators agree or come to some consensus on the top 10 photographs.

 

[technomage]

The Trinidade photos are up for debate with the photographer claiming hoax along with a hoaxed treasure chest discovery he also shot and sold. This post from the excellent forgetomori site details it all with some excellent media, including an interview in Portuguese with Almiro Barauna with English translations. This is older news.

forgetomori » Trindade Island case photographer admits hoax

Here's a more detailed look at this hoax angle with much better details from Antonio Huneeus. Either way, Barauna is a pretty suspicious character:

Rare document on the Trindade UFO case - Openminds.tv

Thanks for this information!I will definitely read those articles, particularly the one by Antonio Huneeus since he is considered a trustworthy investigator. I thought there were several credible military witnesses in this case, so I was surprised to see there were questions about the authenticity of this photograph.

There was also that article about the Trent photographs being a hoax, but it didn't make much sense as I recall and was factually incorrect. I am wondering if the hoax angle is also not a realistic explanation, but I have to read those articles first.

 

[manxman]

Cant be done, an 'official' top 5/10 by a panel of experts, the reason why not is because getting one wrong would make them a laughing stock.

 

[technomage]

Cant be done, an 'official' top 5/10 by a panel of experts, the reason why not is because getting one wrong would make them a laughing stock.

I think several people declined getting involved in the Top 10 Sightings documentary for a similar reason, I surmise. I think experts should be willing to stake their reputations on their analysis. Bruce Macabbee does it all the time.

 

[technomage]

I read the two articles and I am not convinced those photos were hoaxes per Antonio Hunneus' points in his article. However, these doubts may strike this photograph from the top 5.

 

[Burnt State]

I read the two articles and I am not convinced those photos were hoaxes per Antonio Hunneus' points in his article. However, these doubts may strike this photograph from the top 5.

How do you feel about the character of the photographer?

The same questions are asked about Walton for his own questionable past. I think the whiff of such things can't help but complicate these stories. I thought the Belgium triangle photo was a bombshell. And Chris O'Brien's mentor is claiming hoax on another of the holy grail photos, the Costa Rica survey image that Vallée sweated over with many a calculation.

But too much of the history is wrapped up in fakery; Gulf Breeze anyone? How about Adamski, Menger or Meier? Greer fits in there well, but let's not get into a listing of hoaxes as it's a long sad one ending in a Boo video and the potential of more abusive and disturbing types of human created imagery abusing other young humans.

So, not to derail the excellent idea of claiming excellent UFO photography, there is a kind of edge of depravity about the whole UFO thing, especially when you dig into the abduction pieces such as Cortile and the whole "let's just forget about that whole Jacobs' affair thing." Is it the phenomenon's elusive nature allows for such edges and extremes? I think UFO's themselves are very extreme things. Ultimately, they mess with us and we prove just how messed up we are along the way.

 

[Burnt State]

March 25 1989 just before the Soviet probe is destroyed.

 

[manxman]

I forgot about that national geographic survey UFO, thats the best of the best.

Originally it was just a tiny tiny pinhead sized white dot, in N.Geographic publications, it went un-discovered for a good few years if i remember right

 

[Burnt State]

Yes, the 1971 Costa Rica survey photo is often cited as one of the best. I don't think it was Nat Geo, though, but the actual Costa Rican gov't that was completing the survey. Of a series of four frames this is the ony one in which this unique object appears. But it did take some time for the photo to get into the hands of an investigator who would take it further.

Here's Vallée and Haines with their detailed confirmation: http://www.scientificexploration.org/journal/jse_03_2_haines.pdf

This is Ray Stanford's refutation from UFO updates, but if I remember correctly it did not gain much traction amongst the membership: 1971 Costa Rican Photo Is Prosaic Object

The one point Stanford makes here though is critical: no one saw the object during the survey shooting and it's sudden appearance on the one frame owns no shadow & no disturbance of the water in any preceding, current or subsequent frames. So was it ever really there he asks?

 

[technomage]

How do you feel about the character of the photographer?

It's definitely a warning flag, but because there were corroborating witnesses, I still think it's authentic. Also, because someone can fake a photograph and even does it one time, it doesn't mean that every photograph they produce is a fake. But I think it's enough to put a question mark at least and remove it from the top 5.

 

[Erno86]

I would tend to say that Andreas Epp's two flying saucer photos would rank in the top five. Epp...a former WWII German Messerschmitt Bf109 pilot/flying saucer designer, was wounded at the time --- during WWII --- when he was riding in a car in Yugoslavia...he spotted such a flying saucer, and took two photos of the object, with his Leica R camera.
It starts in 2:2o of Epp's video, titled: Andreas Epp-Nazi UFO's Myth on YouTube.

 

[Erno86]

My bad...Epp took the pictures outside of Praque, Czech Republic, with his Leica "A" camera.

 

[withoutlimits09]

Great thread.

 

[Creepy Green Light]

I've been involved with the subject of UFO's since 1979. It seems that all the UFO photo's fall into two categories; blured, fuzzy or out of focus lights/objects/shapes/blobs etc. or super, crystal clear photo's (which always turn out to be models/fake/CGI. This is most frustrating.