The Calvine UFO photo was said by Nick Pope to be "the most spectacular photo ever sent to the Ministry of defence. It's also missing." But since David Clarke found a print of one of the photos, it has been subject of a lot of attention, which I wrote about in the last post.
After the Calvine photo was revealed it didn't take long for Scott Brando on "UFO Of Interest" to note its similarity to a hoax photo taken in Puerto Rico in 1988 by Amaury Rivera Toro.
 |
| Hoax photo taken in Puerto Rico by Amaury Rivera Toro, 1988. |
Rivera was a young man from New York City working a part-time job in a restaurant in Puerto Rico, when he claims to have been abducted by a UFO, and to have gotten this (and several other) photos as the aliens departed.
Compare Rivera's photo with the Calvine photo, below.
 |
| Calvine photo, 1990 |
On August 23, this turned up: "Photos depicting a UFO being chased by a fighter were released from Wendell Stevens’ locker." UFOlogist Dustin Shutta shared photos on Anomalien showing a UFO and a fighter jet.
I own these photographs of a fighter jet/B-1 chasing or being followed by a ufo taken in 1994, location unknown. If anyone has any more info about these series of photographs let me know. Also, these photographs came from Colonel Wendelle Stevens storage locker.
UFOlogist Wendelle Stevens (1923-2010) had earned, by the end of his life, a thoroughly dismal reputation. He was a major promoter of the preposterous photo hoaxes of the Swiss contactee Billy Meier. Stevens was also convicted of having sex with an underage girl, serving time in prison. He boasted of having a huge collection of UFO photos, sacrificing (one suspects) quality for quantity. We know that Stevens interviewed Rivera in person, so it is reasonable that Stevens might possess more works from Rivera's oeuvre. But that is just conjecture, albeit a plausible one.
 |
| 1994 photo found in Wendelle Stevens' files. Photographer is unknown, but is suspected to be Rivera. |
Yet another Calvine-like photo has turned up (now that I am looking for them). It is taken from an anonymous YouTube video that looks very, very fake, and has been published in various places.
 |
| This photo, taken from an anonymous video, shows two jets chasing a "UFO." |
What
do all these photos have in common? There seems to be a certain formula
or 'archetype' among UFO photos, that might be described as follows:
1. Near the center of the photo is a dark UFO, either disc-shaped or diamond-shaped.
2. At least one military jet is flying around, but not necessarily toward the UFO.
3. There are tall tree branches near the top of the frame.
4. Something is in the foreground, to help establish the scale of the photo.
WHY this should be is anybody's guess. My guess is: some artist has a vision!
Do we conclude that Rivera is responsible for all these photos? That can't be established. Perhaps he has a "fan club" among UFOlogists, who pay homage to his work?
If any reader knows of some other "Calvine-like" UFO photos, please let us know!
Its a fake a sword from the front
ReplyDeleteipaco Software says its a fake, a sword from the front
ReplyDeleteCheck Mr con twitter, some massive info he produces. He seems to be from the UK and challenges all the usa researchers
ReplyDeleteWhoever composited the 1994 photo should've checked with a plane nerd for authenticity: that's a B-1B bomber, and if it was nose-down that close to the ground it would be crashing.
ReplyDeleteVery good point about artistic vision! I find some of the most 'impressive' UFO photos aren't the most plausible, but the ones with the best composition; underscoring the psychological component of the UFO 'phenomenon'.
I recognized it as a B-1B. Am I a plane nerd but never realized it?
DeleteReally good article. Keep up the good (and needed!) work
ReplyDeleteNot just the composition, but the light levels and muted color registers are near-identical - could easily be the same film. But note that none of the UFOs match the brightness of the aircraft, even though at this exposure and with those skies, they should have been just this side of silhouetted. The known hoax photo (#1) is the closest to displaying the highlights and shadows from a three-dimensional object; #4 shows nothing at all, highly unlikely; #2 shows too faint shadows on the underside when they should have been nearly black - look at the foreground fenceposts.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it is extremely unlikely that any intercepting fighters would be so ridiculously close, and at such a low level as well - even in the nineties, combat aircraft had significant stand-off capabilities. Nor would they be performing any kind of observation or intercept activity while in the tight formation shown in #4 - that's a recipe for collision.
As you pointed out earlier, the focus on #2 is very curious - the foreground is unfocused, but the aircraft (at infinity no matter what the lens) is as well. We might charitably put this down to motion blur (a close examination of the print could confirm or reject this,) but this implies that the UFO was *inside* the infinity range of the lens, and given the field of view and the foreground focus character, this was *not* a long focal length, probably maximum 200mm, but I'd say more like an average focal length (35-80mm.) This would put infinity within 100 feet, so that wouldn't make the UFO very big. The longer the focal length, the greater the defocus on objects not close to the actual focusing distance.
Two of the photos also show significant evidence of being near population, where fighter intercepts would have likely drawn a lot of attention. Corroborating sightings? Oh, yeah, no one knows where these were, because *of course* photos come in within documentation - who needs that?
All the hallmarks of a clumsy hoax. You'd think after all these years we'd be seeing much better...
The most spectacular UFO photo???Why?The witness or witnesses are unknown, neither then nor after the current media hype did not identify themselves.Neither the date is correct nor the location of the recording.Supposedly there are 6 photos?Where are the other five ?Where are the negatives? I don't know how any serious researcher can choose the hypothesis of an experimental aircraft over a hoax. Also, there is no background showing where the photograph was taken. Why did the alleged witnesses contact a newspaper and not immediately to an official authority? Why couldn't anyone in the Calvine area remember the witnesses? Paul Trent's shot is far more spectacular to me but unfortunately like this Calvine photo it's just a joke.
ReplyDeleteWhat happens when someone sees something like this with their naked eye? Way too many cases of people seeing UFO's near or being escorted by some form of Air Force or some sort of secret air craft mission. There really are people in the government and people not associated with government who think they are untouchable. Only time will tell.
ReplyDelete