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Over the years I go back and study this photo and come to no conclusion.

Maybe that is why I always look at it.

According to the internet comments this is the wife in the background.

I just do not know ?
:confused:
Really...you don't see a woman and her bare arms, back, and her head in post #430 above.....really...?
 
According to the internet comments this is the wife in the background.

I just do not know ?

All I've done here (Paint 3D within Windows10, to the recolourised version) is

- recrop and realigned to the subject axis

- overtopped the over-exposed/burnt-in dark area at the back of the head with mirror-copied content and tone from the far side of the hair (with some token dither infill and edgeblur)

- applied about 8deg of lateral twistaway, to correct perspective

- resaved the upscaled edit ver as a downpixeled JPEG so that the forum can still locally-host the image


cumberlandspacemum5.jpg


This is *not* a spaceman - it is a space occupied by a human endomorph, suggestive of being female body-shape, but not necessarily so. Despite capsleeved teeshirts or hooded sleeveless sweatshirts not usually being worn outside of UK gymnasiums during the era this picture was taken, it reminds me more of that than a sleeveless dress...in this view, anyway

EDIT -I've not attempted to mask the original image placement traces or eg the wrist transition: it's an illustrative edit for arguing a situational circumstance, not a forgery
 
All I've done here (Paint 3D within Windows10, to the recolourised version) is

- recrop and realigned to the subject axis

- overtopped the over-exposed/burnt-in dark area at the back of the head with mirror-copied content and tone from the far side of the hair (with some token dither infill and edgeblur)

- applied about 8deg of lateral twistaway, to correct perspective

- resaved the upscaled edit ver as a downpixeled JPEG so that the forum can still locally-host the image


View attachment 34868

This is *not* a spaceman - it is a space occupied by a human endomorph, suggestive of being female body-shape, but not necessarily so. Despite capsleeved teeshirts or hooded sleeveless sweatshirts not usually being worn outside of UK gymnasiums during the era this picture was taken, it reminds me more of that than a sleeveless dress...in this view, anyway

EDIT -I've not attempted to mask the original image placement traces or eg the wrist transition: it's an illustrative edit for arguing a situational circumstance, not a forgery
And here is a photograph from the same day with Jim Templeton’s wife, Anne, at the right hand side of the image.

A8E3FFB4-DDBC-46B2-B5A7-BEC789A4EB04.jpeg
 
I don't get why this wasn't figured out decades ago, like when the picture was in the news. It was analyzed by Kodak or something, wasn't it? The MoD was interested enough to send someone to interview the photographer. Nobody messed with the exposure to see what details might be hiding in the overexposed "space suit"? The blue dress has been there all along. I know it's much easier for us armchair researchers to do it ourselves with computer programs now, of course, but all that was needed back then was a decent darkroom. Those were not exactly rare.
 
It's one of those widely publicized stories that takes on a life of its own and somehow persists for decades.

The local and national authorities expressed no interest in the photo back in the Sixties. Once Templeton submitted the photo and his story to the newspapers it went viral and that was that.

Its popularity was maintained by two main factors: the ufology community's faith in the progressively elaborated story (MIBs; the Woomera launch tie-in) and Templeton's own dogged refusal to concede the mystery figure had to be either his wife or his other daughter.

One thing that always baffled me about the affair concerns the fact Templeton was convinced the figure represented a non-family person or entity who mysteriously popped into view and then disappeared in a wide open landscape on a sunny day. Templeton's claims seem to imply (e.g.) a mysterious teleportation or ghostly manifestation event. Curiously, this angle never seemed to be front and center in discussions of the image and what it might be. Instead ...

The second thing that always bugged me was the way the photo was treated as a pure UFO storyline from the very beginning. This happened even though there was no connection to any UFO sighting and the mystery figure's garb bore more resemblance to a fire protection or race driver's suit than the actual spacesuits people were increasingly accustomed to seeing by 1964.
 
I've never understood why they didn't bring out a Cumberland Sausage Spaceman?

or a Cumberland Spaceman Sausage? (which works better).

It marries two great things - a fantastic type of sausage and a timeless mystery, (well until the other pics of mum surfaced).

If they'd run with it they could still be making spaceman sausages to this day.
 
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I've never understood why they didn't bring out a Cumberland Sausage Spaceman?

or a Cumberland Spaceman Sausage? (which works better).

It marries two great things - a fantastic type of sausage and a timeless mystery, (well until the other pics of mum surfaced).

If they'd run with it they could still be making spaceman sausages to this day.
I want to taste the spaceman's sausage!
 
It's one of those widely publicized stories that takes on a life of its own and somehow persists for decades.

The local and national authorities expressed no interest in the photo back in the Sixties. Once Templeton submitted the photo and his story to the newspapers it went viral and that was that.

Its popularity was maintained by two main factors: the ufology community's faith in the progressively elaborated story (MIBs; the Woomera launch tie-in) and Templeton's own dogged refusal to concede the mystery figure had to be either his wife or his other daughter.

One thing that always baffled me about the affair concerns the fact Templeton was convinced the figure represented a non-family person or entity who mysteriously popped into view and then disappeared in a wide open landscape on a sunny day. Templeton's claims seem to imply (e.g.) a mysterious teleportation or ghostly manifestation event. Curiously, this angle never seemed to be front and center in discussions of the image and what it might be. Instead ...

The second thing that always bugged me was the way the photo was treated as a pure UFO storyline from the very beginning. This happened even though there was no connection to any UFO sighting and the mystery figure's garb bore more resemblance to a fire protection or race driver's suit than the actual spacesuits people were increasingly accustomed to seeing by 1964.
I think so much of this is because of the absolute insistence of Mr Templeton that there was nobody there, and Mrs Templeton's added insistence that she wasn't in the background of any of the pictures. The human memory is SO fallible, and when someone is looking down the viewfinder of a camera and focussing entirely on the object in the foreground, it is possible to 'not see' what is hugely obvious to anyone else. All it took was for his wife to not recognise her own back view (and I'm not sure I'd recognise myself from the back either, to be honest) and not to remember her husband pointing a camera at their daughter at that moment (well, she wouldn't, she had her back to them), and they could, completely plausibly, deny any knowledge.
 
And don't forget the rush of unease you felt the first time you saw the photo, probably when you were a kid. That kind of "fright" is not easily forgotten, and not something you would want cheapened by a mere logical explanation.

After a while you think, yeah, you fooled me.
 
And don't forget the rush of unease you felt the first time you saw the photo, probably when you were a kid.

First time I encountered the Cumberland Spaceman photo was in my local library when I was about 12. It gave me exactly what you describe, a sense of unease. I don't remember what time of year it was, but my walk home would have involved a walk along a dim lane with woods on one side- if it was a dark autumn or winter evening it'd probably have escalated the unease even more.
 
First time I encountered the Cumberland Spaceman photo was in my local library when I was about 12. It gave me exactly what you describe, a sense of unease. I don't remember what time of year it was, but my walk home would have involved a walk along a dim lane with woods on one side- if it was a dark autumn or winter evening it'd probably have escalated the unease even more.

Yes, don't underestimate the power of The Dark Side seeing Fortean weirdness at an impressionable age.
 
It was analyzed by Kodak...

You used to hear this so much, didn't you...analyzed by Kodak...even as a kid I thought that sounded kinda hokey...was there a guy at Kodak whose job was to "analyze" cruddy ghost/monster photos...how would you find that person. Ring them up? "Hi, can i speak to your ghost photo person please?"

I suspect this line was wheeled out by lazy journalists.


Bottom line - loved the photo as a kid, was a big part of my awakening to the mysteries of the world.


But it's obviously his missus.
 
I used to like to imagine there was a whole lab at Kodak, devoted entirely to staring at mysterious photograph negatives.

But yes, either a bored journalist, or a work-experience lad at the Kodak labs holding the negative up to the light and going 'nah, no idea'.
 
And truthfully, what is anyone at Kodak going to be able to tell you anyway? They can say whether the film has been tampered with, or had light exposed on it or is faulty, but as for knowing what the subject of a picture is?
 
And truthfully, what is anyone at Kodak going to be able to tell you anyway? They can say whether the film has been tampered with, or had light exposed on it or is faulty, but as for knowing what the subject of a picture is?
Yes thats exactly it, all Kodak would do in a situation like this would say things like the negative has not been tampered with which is then translated by a journalist to "this is genuine and not a fake"
 
You might have a point, has the Kodak person or persons ever come forward...?

I always thought there must have been hundreds of them in the 80s...the amount of pictures from milkmen in Dewsberry of a blurry figure in a church they were required to get through!

:hahazebs:
 
My point is though, apparently no knowledgeable person with access to a darkroom back then ever had the curiosity to see what details might emerge if the exposure was adjusted, which was a straightforward operation. Just make a copy and make it darker. Even I know that. Probably knew that when I was a teenager. The photo appeared in countless publications. Every newspaper, book publisher, magazine HQ, even every high school, had a darkroom and someone competent to run it.

It was a fascinating photo. The "astronaut" claim never made much sense. It just seemed to be weird anomaly with no explanation. Then someone put it in Photoshop or something and found the blue dress.
 
But where’s the hood on the dress?
There isn't a hood. She was overexposed in the original photo. Overexposure is difficult to correct for since you have lost any detail in the overexposure. When you try to darken it later it can bring all sorts of "detail" that simply isn't there. It may be a slight crease in the dress. It may be nothing.
 
My point is though, apparently no knowledgeable person with access to a darkroom back then ever had the curiosity to see what details might emerge if the exposure was adjusted, which was a straightforward operation. Just make a copy and make it darker. Even I know that. Probably knew that when I was a teenager. The photo appeared in countless publications. Every newspaper, book publisher, magazine HQ, even every high school, had a darkroom and someone competent to run it.

It was a fascinating photo. The "astronaut" claim never made much sense. It just seemed to be weird anomaly with no explanation. Then someone put it in Photoshop or something and found the blue dress.
The majority of school darkrooms were geared up for black and white work rather than colour so that woudln't have revealed the blue of the dress.
 
Another mystery solved (tread carefully for you tread on all the general fortean books of my youth )

Next: the photo of the giant snake rising up to the airplane above the Amazon and the huge black hole in the Artic seen by the satellite. Both from the wonderful 1980s 'Unexplained' magazine series....
 
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Yes, don't underestimate the power of The Dark Side seeing Fortean weirdness at an impressionable age.
It seems, in my experience anyway, we lose a lot of contextual memory from prior to the age of 12 or thereabouts. We remember isolated highlights and lowlights, and I think particularly anything that scares us or for which we profoundly misunderstand or mistrust the adult explanation.

My nicest memory is my 7 year old Xmas present from my parents - one of the scariest is getting lost on Paddington station at about a year younger - I'd wandered off to look at a steam engine. Which I can still see in my mind's eye. It wasn't that which scared me, it was when I looked round and couldn't see my parents.

But I'm sure my Fortean slant is due to some of the adult books I read about mysteries at an early age - including the semi-legendary Reader's Digest one.
 
I've never understood why they didn't bring out a Cumberland Sausage Spaceman?

or a Cumberland Spaceman Sausage? (which works better).

It marries two great things - a fantastic type of sausage and a timeless mystery, (well until the other pics of mum surfaced).

If they'd run with it they could still be making spaceman sausages to this day.
I guess only Thyme will tell?
 
All I've done here (Paint 3D within Windows10, to the recolourised version) is

- recrop and realigned to the subject axis

- overtopped the over-exposed/burnt-in dark area at the back of the head with mirror-copied content and tone from the far side of the hair (with some token dither infill and edgeblur)

- applied about 8deg of lateral twistaway, to correct perspective

- resaved the upscaled edit ver as a downpixeled JPEG so that the forum can still locally-host the image


View attachment 34868

This is *not* a spaceman - it is a space occupied by a human endomorph, suggestive of being female body-shape, but not necessarily so. Despite capsleeved teeshirts or hooded sleeveless sweatshirts not usually being worn outside of UK gymnasiums during the era this picture was taken, it reminds me more of that than a sleeveless dress...in this view, anyway

EDIT -I've not attempted to mask the original image placement traces or eg the wrist transition: it's an illustrative edit for arguing a situational circumstance, not a forgery

I don't think it's a hood, it's the rear collar on a sleeveless sundress slightly flapped about in a breeze, something a bit like this:

518adNaxQZL._AC_ - Copy.jpg
 
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