My Father's UFO Photo

[BS3]

Unfortunately, I got nothin'. I think Sis told me about it in about '81, but that's really a guess. I've done some image searches now and then, and even tried watching a few of those shows, which are mostly rehashes of the same cases featuring the same "experts" and, unfortunately, mostly awful. I might have to get serious and see what I can find at Youtube. There's an endless supply. For decades, Sis and her husband had the TV on 24-7, not kidding, they never turned it off. Conversations at their house were always in competition with what spilled out of the tube. Weird. I suppose it was something she saw on a cable channel around 1980. I habitually watch those sequences closely when I see such a show. When Jacques Vallee published his book about Soviet cases in the 90s, I think, I hoped to see that object in there, but nope.

Presumably it's something that would have made its way into an image library at some point - the kind of place that a cable television researcher might have found it, anyway.

 

[Sid]

Unless it was a tethered balloon train, which could be raised and lowered at arbitrary intervals, even days (or weeks) apart.

Accurately trying to judge distances are also something to consider, as it is with most sightings.

 

[Austin Popper]

Following a comment on the Loch Ness Monster thread about disappearing evidence, I've been thinking about one characteristic of this photograph that's common to other UFO images: the original disappeared, in this case after a period of turning up in unexpected places:



Comparing this to my own (digital) 'UFO' photograph I can only point to the fact that, even as a 'sceptic', I felt a bit uncomfortable looking at it. Indeed, I actively avoided looking at it, and only found quite recently that a copy still existed on a rarely used laptop. Why? I don't really know, but I do think such experiences are, for want of a better word, challenging enough to feel conflicted about seeing concrete evidence of them - even if I can think of one or two very reasonable explanations for what I saw. Everyone wants to believe they are a sane, reliable witness, I suppose.

I think you are right. This seems relevant to the way I found the recently posted version of this photo. I ran across a smaller album of photo prints in the house, photos Dad had put in there himself, I'm sure. It's his fishing album, or one of them. It's nearly full of pictures taken on fishing trips, preparations for fishing trips, big fish caught decades ago, and quite a few shots of some semi formal proceedings of an annual meeting of an organization Dad was very active in. They held tournaments, helped with conservation efforts, and even lobbied the state legislature to change some laws. They were very successful. I'm sure Dad enjoys looking at it and reminiscing. I appear in a few of the shots, mostly as a teenager along on fishing trips.

It was fun for me to look through it. "Wow! That was fifty years ago." Along about my third trip through there, I noticed one of the empty plastic sleeves at the back wasn't so empty. There was a smallish bit of paper, maybe a photo, in there. I pulled it out, and there was "the thing". Dad was snoozing. I slipped it in my bag. I might take it back on my next visit, and slip it back in the album. Anyway, I think Dad put it there for safekeeping, but didn't want to look at it so he put it in face down. It really did bother him a lot at the time he saw it. He was happy to have some kind of proof that he wasn't imagining weird things flying around his workplace, but at the same time, I don't suppose it really was all that comforting to know it was real. The photo carries a lot of baggage for me, and I was only involved in the turmoil around the location as a bystander.

 

[Austin Popper]

Presumably it's something that would have made its way into an image library at some point - the kind of place that a cable television researcher might have found it, anyway.

I've had the same thought, and I've looked through every such collection I've come across. There are hundreds and hundreds of them, and many are like this one in that they don't seem to make any sense at all. If that thing is a physical object, what could it be?

 

[BS3]

I think you are right. This seems relevant to the way I found the recently posted version of this photo. I ran across a smaller album of photo prints in the house, photos Dad had put in there himself, I'm sure. It's his fishing album, or one of them. It's nearly full of pictures taken on fishing trips, preparations for fishing trips, big fish caught decades ago, and quite a few shots of some semi formal proceedings of an annual meeting of an organization Dad was very active in. They held tournaments, helped with conservation efforts, and even lobbied the state legislature to change some laws. They were very successful. I'm sure Dad enjoys looking at it and reminiscing. I appear in a few of the shots, mostly as a teenager along on fishing trips.

It was fun for me to look through it. "Wow! That was fifty years ago." Along about my third trip through there, I noticed one of the empty plastic sleeves at the back wasn't so empty. There was a smallish bit of paper, maybe a photo, in there. I pulled it out, and there was "the thing". Dad was snoozing. I slipped it in my bag. I might take it back on my next visit, and slip it back in the album. Anyway, I think Dad put it there for safekeeping, but didn't want to look at it so he put it in face down. It really did bother him a lot at the time he saw it. He was happy to have some kind of proof that he wasn't imagining weird things flying around his workplace, but at the same time, I don't suppose it really was all that comforting to know it was real. The photo carries a lot of baggage for me, and I was only involved in the turmoil around the location as a bystander.

I think this is a great way of articulating it. A photo proves the object was in some way real, but seeing the proof of its reality - at least in terms of light falling onto a film or camera sensor - is a strangely comfortless experience. For some people, anyway.