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The Cumberland Spaceman

Paul_Exeter said:
True, but she has moved position relative to the cooling towers which are now on the right but on the left in the picture of her with mum .

I have always felt that mum looks small in that photo and not much bigger than her young daughter but might just be the angles. Has anyone got a similar-ish image of a mum and daughter crouching like this?
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Yes, but if it's a level horizon it wouldn't make much difference - if any?
 
I cant make my mind up if he was a crap photographer, as in everything leaning, lumps
cut off and not knowing what was in frame, or good enough to screw with the negatives
well enough to fool Kodak or who ever.

crap and screw are tech terms that non photographer's would not understand.
:dunno:
 
RaM said:
I cant make my mind up if he was a crap photographer, as in everything leaning, lumps
cut off and not knowing what was in frame, or good enough to screw with the negatives
well enough to fool Kodak or who ever.

crap and screw are tech terms that non photographer's would not understand.
:dunno:
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Or, crop & skew perhaps?
I think he must have been experimenting with his camera, and like us all made some fundamental errors?
 
RaM said:
I cant make my mind up if he was a crap photographer, as in everything leaning, lumps
cut off and not knowing what was in frame, or good enough to screw with the negatives
well enough to fool Kodak or who ever.

crap and screw are tech terms that non photographer's would not understand.
:dunno:
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He didn't need to screw with the negatives to fool Kodak. Kodak will have been looking for evidence of manipulation. There was no manipulation to find as it is just an out of focus, over exposed and slightly tilted photo of his wife. I bet every husband with a camera at that time had a bunch of those!
 
But the mum in that photo looks no bigger than the little girl next to her, if it is an adult they should have a significantly larger body and legs. So what if it is another little girl? A relative or even total stranger who had made a new friend?

Surely it can't just be me, that blue dress female just looks like a small girl
 
Paul_Exeter said:
But the mum in that photo looks no bigger than the little girl next to her, if it is an adult they should have a significantly larger body and legs. So what if it is another little girl? A relative or even total stranger who had made a new friend?

Surely it can't just be me, that blue dress female just looks like a small girl
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Right, can now see the blue dress female has a part of her outstretched arm in shadow, making it appear thinner and more childlike
 
The photographer also reported some surrounding weirdness like a visit from the men in black, does all this unravel now the case is essentially solved?
 
Robbrent said:
The photographer also reported some surrounding weirdness like a visit from the men in black, does all this unravel now the case is essentially solved?
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As mentioned earlier in this thread, Jim Templeton dismissed them as two men pulling his leg.
Take away the crap photography and there really isn't anything mysterious left in this story.
 
Frideswide said:
They aren't next to each other - so it's perspective.

It can be really hard to resolve a picture we've looked at "wrong" for a long time.
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Yep. I looked at a photo on the sports pages the other day, and thought it was a face - what I saw was actually the black spaces surrounding and between the body of someone holding up a trophy. :D
 
Steven said:
Yep. I looked at a photo on the sports pages the other day, and thought it was a face - what I saw was actually the black spaces surrounding and between the body of someone holding up a trophy. :D
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I STILL have problems with some of the photos over on our 'Pictures you need to see to understand' topic. Even when someone has told me what I'm looking at, my brain seems to get 'stuck' seeing the first image it registered.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
As mentioned earlier in this thread, Jim Templeton dismissed them as two men pulling his leg.
Take away the crap photography and there really isn't anything mysterious left in this story.
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Now we are aware of the deception journalists of the past would stretch to for a story, it may have been two such hacks trying to trick a confession out of him or simply to get his story for free
 
I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but it had been suggested identical figures to the "spaceman" had been seen at Woomera Rocket Range around the same time, but it's since been revealed that although a rocket launch had been cancelled, there were no figures resembling the Cumberland Spaceman at Woomera
 
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What Jenny Randles had to say on the predominant wife in the photo theory:


Screenshot 2024-05-04 at 14.06.12.png


From FT400 Christmas 2020: "Jenny Randles comments..."
 
This is like a religion, you either believe in an unseen god or don’t believe.

Since I saw this photo taken in 1964, I have been puzzled.

I don’t think the many explanations given over the years work 100%.
 
charliebrown said:
This is like a religion, you either believe in an unseen god or don’t believe.

Since I saw this photo taken in 1964, I have been puzzled.

I don’t think the many explanations given over the years work 100%.
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Well I reckon 99.9% is good enough for me.
After seeing the two most explicit photos that Jim Templeton inadvertently took of his wife, wearing her pale blue dress, on that day ....

mum.png
mum2.png


I really cannot believe there is any mystery left here.
The only element that hasn't been 100% explained is the visit from the "Men in Black", but I tend to go along with Templeton's own dismissal of them as two guys pulling his leg.
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
Well I reckon 99.9% is good enough for me.
After seeing the two most explicit photos that Jim Templeton inadvertently took of his wife, wearing her pale blue dress, on that day ....

View attachment 76372View attachment 76373

I really cannot believe there is any mystery left here.
The only element that hasn't been 100% explained is the visit from the "Men in Black", but I tend to go along with Templeton's own dismissal of them as two guys pulling his leg.
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I doubt Jim's wife would have wanted to own up and spoil his 15 minutes of fame and so maybe kept quiet
 
Erinaceus said:
Did the photographer print his own pictures? It used to take days to have a film developed and printed from Boots or wherever so I wonder whether his wife would really remember where she was standing. It wasn't of significance until the prints were viewed.
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This was what I thought. It is almost impossible to make sure you are out of shot when you don't know where the camera might be pointing next. Yes, if they are set-up posed shots sometimes you can look over and make sure you aren't visible, but when someone who is a 'camera enthusiast' is clicking about all over the place, you rely on them to frame their shots so you aren't in them. But it's still possible for the photographer to be so concentrating on the immediate shot that they don't notice the background, and you wouldn't even know that you featured at the back.

So basically, Spacemum might have had good intentions but that doesn't mean she didn't venture into shot.
 
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