My Father's UFO Photo

[Austin Popper]

I had thought the streaks and the blue dot were artifacts of my cell phone copying technique, because I didn't see them on the print. I think I mentioned that somewhere. Anyway, I looked closely just now and they are in fact on the print I have. That sort of thing was pretty common with Polaroids back then, but I don't think they left symmetrical blobs that resembled whatever was being photographed. This isn't something that showed up after the fact, the way all those pesky birds keep doing, but the whole reason for the picture. I'd be interested to see if any other cameras produced artifacts that resemble the thing in the photo. All cameras can produce weird effects. Polaroids were pretty well known for that. The previous Polaroid Dad had was an old Swinger ($19.95!) that took black and white photos you had to peel the cover off of after waiting a minute. It would produce amorphous shapes sometimes, especially with out of date film.

Dad was standing on the sidewalk outside on a summer day. There was no window involved. I don't recall any wires running through that area.

Well, off to warm up the servers at Google Image Search.

 

[maximus otter]

To me, the following facts:

General shape/arrangement of components
Silent
Brightly-coloured
Not absolutely vertical
Gone within 60 seconds

… are suggestive of a parachute:

maximus otter

 

[eburacum]

Maybe a hobby rocket launch? This one is a water rocket, so would have been fairly quiet.

 

[Sid]

To me, the following facts:

General shape/arrangement of components
Silent
Brightly-coloured
Not absolutely vertical
Gone within 60 seconds

… are suggestive of a parachute:

maximus otter

Enlargement of image. . .

No visible Parachutist below, and what could explain the circular pink coloured areas above and below the main green coloured image?
Also, the green coloured 'dot' below and to the left of the main object - is it lens dirt, a maybe a fly, a bird or what?
(If it's suggested that the 'dot' could be just a fly, then why is it quite a sharp image - if fact, sharper than the main unknown image.

 

[Analogue Boy]

It looks to me like an advertising blimp - possibly for a bottled product. The top being the cap and the green being the product label. As I’m not really familiar with US products from the seventies, I can’t really say medicine, shampoo, drink or dressing. Intriguing photo though.

 

[Analogue Boy]

Enlargement of image. . .
View attachment 42689
No visible Parachutist below, and what could explain the circular pink coloured areas above and below the main green coloured image?
Also, the green coloured 'dot' below and to the left of the main object - is it lens dirt, a maybe a fly, a bird or what?
(If it's suggested that the 'dot' could be just a fly, then why is it quite a sharp image - if fact, sharper than the main unknown image.

If that’s a polaroid, a bit of dust or grit could have easily got stuck to the developing picture or even the roller. I had a polaroid camera and the rollers did pick up dirt.

 

[EnolaGaia]

It looks to me like an advertising blimp - possibly for a bottled product. The top being the cap and the green being the product label. As I’m not really familiar with US products from the seventies, I can’t really say medicine, shampoo, drink or dressing. Intriguing photo though.

In our private conversation, Austin specified the timeframe for this photo as the summer of 1976. He even casually stated the photo could have been taken almost exactly 45 years ago (which would be July 1976).

1976 was the bicentennial year, and there were all sorts of commemorative / celebratory things happening, especially around the Fourth of July. These included lots of hot-air balloon flights, because the ballooning craze was spreading nationwide during that time.

My point is that some sort of aerial display (such as a hot-air balloon) would have been quite common in the summer of '76.

However, this was before the odd-shaped novelty balloons became popular. I'm not sure any of the irregular / novelty-shaped balloons common today had even emerged by 1976.

 

[Austin Popper]

Aerial advertising of any sort was not common in that place and time. I don't recall ever seeing anything like that in the air there. All those balloons car dealers like to use were well in the future. The fan powered dancing "men" were nowhere to be seen for quite a few years. Aerial advertising that doesn't really resemble known objects, and is seen only very briefly, would not seem to be very effective.

As discussed above, the area behind that building was what real estate agents like to refer to as "vacant land", a grassy area not used for anything by humans. The grass was high when we went looking for signs of recent activity, debris, whatever we might find there. No crop circles, no deflated balloons, no trails through the grass like the ones we left, etc.

That speck is probably on my print, which is not a Polaroid but a copy from an enlarger. I'll look at it later. It has not recieved any special care over the years, and is not in great shape. If the speck had been on the original, then it would likely be as fuzzy as everything else in the photo I have.

 

[Analogue Boy]

Just out of curiosity, what is the reflected thing in the top left corner of the photo?

 

[Austin Popper]

Probably a water stain. Again, my print is far from pristine. I've made no attempt to clean it up. i put it down on the dining room table and took a couple of pictures of it with my phone. The blue artifacts discussed above, the streaks and the *ahem* blue orb! are not obvious on the print, but typical of digital photography, show up much better on the version we have here.

 

[Analogue Boy]

Thanks for that.

Looking at the photo, I assumed that if the subject was a UFO, it was a large object and was snapped way behind the building, possibly over the fields as you say. But what if it’s a smaller object, say on a pole on the roof of the main building in the middle of the towers here. It’s a fuzzy image but what if it’s a flag?
This doesn’t explain the sudden disappearance but it does mean the object could have been quite close.

 

[Austin Popper]

This was taken at my father's workplace. He would have known of any flagpole or other structure on the roof of any of the many buildings on the property. He certainly would not have mistaken such a thing for something weird, or shot the picture. Some friends and I spent some time up there looking around and puzzling over what it might be. Back then, UFO pretty much meant flying saucer to most people, and this does not look like a "structured craft" or any sort of vehicle to me, and even less so to us at the time.

As I've said before, the enlargement I have is a pretty crappy copy of the original. The object in question was in good focus, apparently. The central sphere was discrete, the lower shape appeared to be a cone with a fairly small diameter at the top where it met the sphere. There was the impression of a reddish glow about the bottom of the cone. The "rod" or whatever was fairly distinct, and the red blob at the top appeared to be another sphere. It's possible it was large and far away, but I doubt it would have escaped notice by everyone in town if that were the case. But who knows? I don't recall where Dad saw the thing the first time, but it was while he was working up there. He didn't happen to have a camera in his hands at that time.

 

[Sid]

Aerial advertising of any sort was not common in that place and time. I don't recall ever seeing anything like that in the air there. All those balloons car dealers like to use were well in the future. The fan powered dancing "men" were nowhere to be seen for quite a few years. Aerial advertising that doesn't really resemble known objects, and is seen only very briefly, would not seem to be very effective.

As discussed above, the area behind that building was what real estate agents like to refer to as "vacant land", a grassy area not used for anything by humans. The grass was high when we went looking for signs of recent activity, debris, whatever we might find there. No crop circles, no deflated balloons, no trails through the grass like the ones we left, etc.

That speck is probably on my print, which is not a Polaroid but a copy from an enlarger. I'll look at it later. It has not recieved any special care over the years, and is not in great shape. If the speck had been on the original, then it would likely be as fuzzy as everything else in the photo I have.

That would be the most likely explanation for the spec, agree... the speck would probably be as fuzzy as the main image - "great!"

 

[Sid]

Just out of curiosity, what is the reflected thing in the top left corner of the photo?

View attachment 42697

There's another - what appears to be a water, or chemical mark in the bottom right hand corner of the photograph too 'Analogue Boy,' and a small blue doughnut shaped mark in middle right, probably chemical mark of some sort I imagine?

 

[Austin Popper]

I just had a look with a magnifying glass. The speck appears to be sitting on top of the print. There is damage on the lower right corner. It appears most of that got cropped out, I suppose when I photographed it with my phone. More cropping got done than I had though. Yes, the blue doughnut or orb is on the print, as well as the blue streak and at least one other, parallel streak, presumably from the mechanism of the Polaroid camera.

I'll try to get a good scan when I'm feeling up to dealing with my cantankerous printer. I think of it as the print shop on the corner, run by the grouchy old guy who does beautiful work when nothing is pissing him off. My print is in pretty sorry shape, really. Creased here and there, dirty, and lots of little matte spots like you get sometimes when a print has been in an album. I'm not big on albums, so who knows.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

Looks like the Flatwoods Monster to me.

https://www.smalltownmonsters.com/shop?tag=Flatwoods Monster

Just saying...

 

[Paul_Exeter]

As it happens, I can do better than that. I just found my copy! After posting my message above, it occurred to me that there was that one shoebox of photos not five feet away that I hadn't got around to going through. "It's entirely possible it's in there," I told myself, and it was high time I looked in there anyway to see what was in it. I'll find a place to post it, and edit the link in here. Not surprisingly, it's a bit different than I recalled.

Here is the link. It's just a snap of the print with my phone, including some new blue artifacts. I'll see about getting a decent scan, but this isn't much worse than the old print.
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/my-fathers-ufo-photo.68645/

My immediate thought on seeing your photo on the other thread is that 'it' looks like the Flatwoods Monster, same colour too:

https://www.smalltownmonsters.com/shop?tag=Flatwoods Monster

Which is preposterous, I know, but...

 

[dream_decoder]

A different view.
Do the lines on the right extend across the picture or are they creases on the print?

I read that 'this place' was used as warehouse and storage between 1972 and 1978, perhaps there are still records of who was there that might help?

With the population being so small it might be an idea to ask the remaining townsfolk.

 

[Austin Popper]

The long streak, center right, shows up on my print. As noted a few times, it appears blue in the picture I took with my phone.

I know all about who was there during the 70s. Me, pretty often. The gym was mainly empty. There had been some stuff stored in there, which disappeared around the time the property changed hands. The only things going on at the whole campus, beyond the minimal maintenance that had been done since it was "abandoned", was some repair work, building inventories, and some investigation into what still worked and what needed attention. No homeless people, no unusual infestations, or anything like that. The whole property was in remarkably good condition. It was my first taste of what became known as urban exploration, but then I had full access and Dad's big ring of keys. I still have the odd artifact I carried home, with the permission of the owners at the time. Vast amounts of other stuff got hauled away without permission, to the point that theft might have accounted for most of the activity around there for some years. That always happened at night.

Dad adopted a large German Shepherd the local police had, a stray that curiously no one ever claimed. They didn't have a formal dog pound or anything. The dog was very intelligent, scarily well trained, and a big teddy bear if he knew you. If he didn't know you, and you intruded into his space, he was terrifying. Dad started leaving him in a different building every night. The theft stopped immediately. Toward the end of Dad's tenure, he happened onto the perfect permanent home for the dog. His reputation seemed to get the job done until the new owners took possession of the property.

 

[dream_decoder]

This view shows a line running diagonally that might indicate there are wires which aren't obvious on the provided picture?

 

[Austin Popper]

That appears to be a scratch on my print. I had to look close with the magnifying glass. The photo has not had good care. There were no wires anywhere around there that would show up from the angle of the photo. Obviously there was power to the gym building, but I'm pretty sure that came in from the back.

 

[Sid]

This view shows a line running diagonally that might indicate there are wires which aren't obvious on the provided picture?

I believe that the lines (wires) must have been in the photograph also 'dream_decoder,' as it appears to be showing as a part image of telephone - or power lines visually in parallel.
I'm suggesting that if it was thought to be caused by the cameras mechanism scoring in the lines, they would have to be parallel lines (horizontally) right across the photograph?

 

[EnolaGaia]

... I'm suggesting that if it was thought to be caused by the cameras mechanism scoring in the lines, they would have to be parallel lines (horizontally) right across the photograph?

That presumption might be valid if it were certain the transport mechanism and film remained perfectly aligned relative to the path of the film traveling through the transport mechanism.

Remember that this photo was taken and developed with a Polaroid camera. Inside the camera there's a miniature printing process occurring that's analogous to making a silk screen print. The captured image is a negative that serves as a sort of stencil for controlling the application of RGB (red; green; blue / cyan) dye pigments through extremely fine micro-holes into the topmost layer you see as the positive image / final print. Crudely stated, the transport mechanism is moving the multi-layered film in such a way as to pass the right combination of pigments embedded inside the film in the places the "stencil" allows.

If anything perturbs the coordination of this pressure-printing procedure (e.g., misalignment; debris inside the transport path) it can cause dye (or dye effects) to bleed through as an artifact of the printing rather than a representation of something in the scene. Conversely, such interference can also cause no dye to induce effect onto the positive side, resulting in a gap or area of non-color.

If someone had handed me this Polaroid print without telling me the story of how the photo was snapped I would immediately say the "UFO" is obviously a splotchy bleed-through of red and green dye (or dye interaction) along a skewed axis perpendicular to the two parallel lines (where apparently insufficient pressure or a transport "skip" caused no dye to be transferred). My first guess would be that the film became misaligned or skewed in moving through the transport path, and it stretched or tore the micro-pore layer inside the film to allow excessive dye to affect the positive side.

I've seen such glitches in Polaroid photos before, dating back to the time circa 60 years ago when I first saw it being used in my family. Most often the effect of such glitches is limited to leaving something analogous to a visible water stain.

Having said that ...

The seemingly obvious printing glitch hypothesis clashes with Austin's father's claim that he saw the same object in the actual scene.

 

[Sid]

That presumption might be valid if it were certain the transport mechanism and film remained perfectly aligned relative to the path of the film traveling through the transport mechanism.

Remember that this photo was taken and developed with a Polaroid camera. Inside the camera there's a miniature printing process occurring that's analogous to making a silk screen print. The captured image is a negative that serves as a sort of stencil for controlling the application of RGB (red; green; blue / cyan) dye pigments through extremely fine micro-holes into the topmost layer you see as the positive image / final print. Crudely stated, the transport mechanism is moving the multi-layered film in such a way as to pass the right combination of pigments embedded inside the film in the places the "stencil" allows.

If anything perturbs the coordination of this pressure-printing procedure (e.g., misalignment; debris inside the transport path) it can cause dye (or dye effects) to bleed through as an artifact of the printing rather than a representation of something in the scene. Conversely, such interference can also cause no dye to induce effect onto the positive side, resulting in a gap or area of non-color.

If someone had handed me this Polaroid print without telling me the story of how the photo was snapped I would immediately say the "UFO" is obviously a splotchy bleed-through of red and green dye (or dye interaction) along a skewed axis perpendicular to the two parallel lines (where apparently insufficient pressure or a transport "skip" caused no dye to be transferred). My first guess would be that the film became misaligned or skewed in moving through the transport path, and it stretched or tore the micro-pore layer inside the film to allow excessive dye to affect the positive side.

I've seen such glitches in Polaroid photos before, dating back to the time circa 60 years ago when I first saw it being used in my family. Most often the effect of such glitches is limited to leaving something analogous to a visible water stain.

Having said that ...

The seemingly obvious printing glitch hypothesis clashes with Austin's father's claim that he saw the same object in the actual scene.

I know. . . I've still got mine ~ haven't used it for years as I upgraded.

 

[Austin Popper]

The horizontal line looks blue in my print, as I have stated at least a few times now. Just like in the digital version I posted. It's very faint in the print. It's the same color as the "doughnut" nearby, against a dark part of the trees. It's dead straight, as power or phone lines in that place tended not to be. There was always plenty of slack in them. But there weren't any wires there. If there had been, they would not have been blue, either. Such flaws are common in that type of camera. I have done some looking online, but haven't come up with much of anything about such artifacts.

That particular camera worked pretty well, overall. Dad liked it because in some business situations, having a good photo right now was extremely useful. I know some people might get a random artifact in an otherwise useless photo and make up some bullshit story about a UFO, or jump to some conclusion or other. Dad isn't one of them. If he had not seen the thing, he would probably have just tossed the obviously defective picture. It was not a great image of the gym, as I recall, hastily composed and not very sharp.

Since I'm repeating myself a lot, I'll again emphasize that several of us (close friends and family members) visited the site of the photo numerous times, looking for that precious logical explanation, only to come up empty. Again, Dad had worked there for some months before getting this photo, and went to work at the campus every day for a good while after that, more than a year I think. I went there often. None of us attached a huge amount of importance to the picture, as evidenced by the rather poor condition of my copy. It's just a weird thing that happened. The original photo was treated as just another curiosity.

 

[Sid]

The horizontal line looks blue in my print, as I have stated at least a few times now. Just like in the digital version I posted. It's very faint in the print. It's the same color as the "doughnut" nearby, against a dark part of the trees. It's dead straight, as power or phone lines in that place tended not to be. There was always plenty of slack in them. But there weren't any wires there. If there had been, they would not have been blue, either. Such flaws are common in that type of camera. I have done some looking online, but haven't come up with much of anything about such artifacts.

That particular camera worked pretty well, overall. Dad liked it because in some business situations, having a good photo right now was extremely useful. I know some people might get a random artifact in an otherwise useless photo and make up some bullshit story about a UFO, or jump to some conclusion or other. Dad isn't one of them. If he had not seen the thing, he would probably have just tossed the obviously defective picture. It was not a great image of the gym, as I recall, hastily composed and not very sharp.

Since I'm repeating myself a lot, I'll again emphasize that several of us (close friends and family members) visited the site of the photo numerous times, looking for that precious logical explanation, only to come up empty. Again, Dad had worked there for some months before getting this photo, and went to work at the campus every day for a good while after that, more than a year I think. I went there often. None of us attached a huge amount of importance to the picture, as evidenced by the rather poor condition of my copy. It's just a weird thing that happened. The original photo was treated as just another curiosity.

I think as the image has a number of unexplainable oddities 'Austin Popper,' nothing more in my own view can be added, or suggested, as to what the actual blips are, or might be. Still - it's a good thing to keep hold of it just in case something like it happens to pop up in future!

 

[Amergin]

I wonder if it isn’t some slightly involved arrangement for raising a balloon-borne shortwave antenna? The tilted upper “rod” because carrying a pole antenna atop the balloon would make the structure top-heavy (and that might also explain the skirt underneath, a structure serving as a counterbalance?)

Radio Hams were a big thing back then, all but forgotten now. But balloons for raising antenna wires are a thing in such circles. See here for a modern example:

 

[eburacum]

Radio hams still exist, and still use balloons. Recently they've taken to using mylar balloons to loft tiny tranceivers.

I'm sure that a small, but non-zero, number of UFO reports are caused by this hobby.

 

[Sid]

Radio hams still exist, and still use balloons. Recently they've taken to using mylar balloons to loft tiny tranceivers.

I'm sure that a small, but non-zero, number of UFO reports are caused by this hobby.

An extra bit of info on 'foil' balloons. . .

 

[EnolaGaia]

Mylar / foil-skinned balloons were used for military and meteorological balloons as early as the 1940s. These were primarily large balloons that were custom-built. They were too expensive to manufacture to be marketed for recreational use until decades later.