Extraordinary claims. Ordinary investigations.

Location: Puerto Maldonado, Peru
Date: July 19th, 1952 (?)

Domingo Troncoso, customs officer in Puerto Maldonado, in the border of Peru and Bolivia, noticed a big airship shaped object flying low and horizontally in the afternoon, going from right to left. The object left a dense smoke trail, vapor or some similar thick and white substance. It was expelled from the rear end of the object while it flew. That the object was a real and structured machine can be seen by its reflection on the waters of the Madre de Dios river down below. Mr. Troncoso managed to get a camera and could take one good shot of the cigar-shaped object.

Comment: That’s a very curious image, but unfortunately there’s not much coherent information about it. For instance, according to FOTOCAT, it was actually taken on July 19, 1951 — not 1952 — and was published on a newspaper on July 6, 1952.

The description curiously makes reference to an outdated element of ufology, very fashionable on the 1950s: the “angel hair”. The thick, white and fibrous substance on the trail left by the object is clearly a reference to “angel hair”, a thing one seldom see on UFO cases nowadays.

Assuming the object was real, it could have been the reentry of some object in the atmosphere. Given the date, 1951 or 1952, it very probably wasn’t a man-made object. But it could have been a meteor.

1972 meteor reentry video

However the Peruvian photo suggests an almost perfect horizontal path, and then there is the cigar-shaped object in front of the trail. This is not just the photograph of a meteor going through our atmosphere.

The image could have been a mixture of a real and unusual phenomenon (such as a meteor) and some degree of photo retouching (such as adding a cigar-shaped object). Following this suggestion, it’s also possible the real phenomenon could have been something more mundane like a roll cloud.

A roll cloud is a particular kind of cloud formed by meteorological processes related to storms. As one can see on the image above, it’s perfectly horizontal. Add a cigar-shaped object in front of it, and you may get something very close to the Puerto Maldonado UFO photo.

Of course, another possibility is that the UFO and the trail are both hoaxed. Or that they are both real. The case remains unsolved, but this is not extraordinary as there doesn’t seem to be any in depth analysis of the photograph to this date. 

- 1952, Peru: Customs Inspector films large UFO
- Roll Clouds
- Roll Clouds

Location: Peralta, New Mexico, USA
Date: July 16th, 1963

One of a series of photos taken by contactee “Paul” Villa. In close contact with the space brothers since he was five years old, Villa finally arranged to take photos of the flying saucers when he was over his forties.
The image above is from his first series, taken in 1963. Telepatically instructed to drive his truck, alone, to the meeting point, he then faced a flying saucer with an estimated size of twenty meters. The saucer had nine occupants, four men and five women. Spacewomen, of course.

Comment: Villa’s images have something difficult to define, similar to those from Adamski or Billy Meier. At first sight they do not seem so blatantly faked. Leaving the wild storied aside, one can wonder if the photos at least could be real without looking that much insane. At right, another image from Villa, with his pickup truck up front and the saucer at the background.

But in the end, the story and the images from Apolinar “Paul” Alberto Villa Jr. are too good to be true. Because they are not.

William Spaulding, from the now extinct Ground Saucer Watch, pioneer on the computer analysis of UFO images, analyzed this particular image from the many taken by Villa:

Through digital enhancing filters, Spaulding could uncover the strings that held the saucer in the air. Villa hanged the strings on the trees around to hold his flying saucer models, which were not larger than one meter in diameter.

Other methods adopted by Villa included the classic throwing of saucers in the air, and sometimes, not even that. Below we see what is supposedly a telepathically controlled probe with over two meters in diameter. That is, according to Villa:

If you noticed the giant grass at left, you may wonder why Villa didn’t speak about this amazing side effect to objects close to the probe. Of course, it may be that the grass was of normal size, and the alleged probe was very tiny. The same probe can be seen in flight:

The background is the same. If the disc had a sizeable dimension, the photographer should have been at some considerable height to be able to capture this geometry. There is a small shiny sphere above the probe, which could have been held by a string, or simply thrown in the air.

This case teaches an important lesson: do not believe in the shiny discs.

See: Les photos de Paul Villa

Location: Periférico-Defensa Nacional, Mexico City, Mexico
Date: December 1, 2003

This video was promoted on a website, now offline, called ufosshop.com, which publicized UFO “investigations”. It was also publicized on international ufology discussion lists with the following description:
“This sighting is of interest because the presence of two UFO fleets was reported (the first fleet is the one which caused other UFO research groups in the area to mobilize) and it allowed the witnesses sufficient time to record the extraordinary succession of events. This video shows only three of the phases: The second flotilla of spheres, a sphere and an elongated object.“

Comment: We analyzed the video, but it didn’t take much to realize that what one can see above, supposedly a fleet of “elongated objects”, are actually office lights reflected on a window.

Not unlike the ones at right, or even the ones that may be lighting you at this moment.

Those are fluorescent lights with light diffusors. 

People usually don’t mistake reflections on a window with huge alien spaceships over one of the most populated cities in the world. Which suggests that either those responsible for the video maliciously promoted it as alleged UFOs, and/or at some point someone didn’t check anything at all.

The video also showed a second fleet of “spheres” in the sky. Those could also be reflections on a window, but another video showed them on the open air.

We assembled a crude panorama from the video, which allowed us to pinpoint the cinamatographer’s original position.

Mexican researcher Luis Ruiz Noguez, used to solve the many “mysteries” promoted on his country, located and visited the place:

“I located the building. It’s on the corssing between Periférico and Las Palmas avenue. It’s a heavy traffic area. The shot was taken form the Polanco zone, pointing to Las Lomas (close to, but not on Defensa Nacional, as originally claimed). One of the buildings that can be seen is, effectively, the Conservatorio Nacional de Musica. As there are no other reports for these objects from other areas on Mexico city, the only option is that the UFOs flew away: they were balloons, and that’s why nobody paid them any attention (only the ufologists). If theu were alien ships, they would have stopped the city, it would have been worldwide news“, he told us.

Reflections on a window and balloons. No UFOs here.

See: Mexico City UFO

Location: Lago de Cote, Costa Rica
Date: September 4th, 1971

The unusual photography was taken by an official mapping aircraft of the Costa Rican government, flying at 10.000 feet over Lago de Cote, Arenal region. The mapping photos were automaticlly taken, and the four crewmen, including an aerial photography specialist, a geographer, a topographer and the pilot, didn’t notice anything unusual at the time. The apparent discoidal object over the lake was noticed only after developing. The filme, black and white, special for those tasks, is very big, measuring 23 cm x 23 cm, which resulted in an extraordinary clarity. According to Jacques Valleé, who analyzed the case, “one can see the cows on the field“.

Comment: This is an unexplained photographic case to this day. It involves a real UFO. Or not.

The photo came to light on the 1980s, thanks to one of the crewmen, who contacted costa-rican ufologist Ricardo Vilchez. In 1985, a second generation negative got to the hands of Jacques Valleé, who along with Richard Haines, conducted an analysis published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration. The ufologists also had access to the negatives taken just before and just after the negative with the UFO — as those were all taken by an automated system. On those adjacent images, taken 20 seconds before and after, there is nothing unusual.

This photographic case is close to perfect. The possibility of a hoax is very small, given the official source. Precise date and location are known, furthermore, the negative is of an exceptional quality. Vallé and Haines analyzed the scenario geometry and estimated that the maximum value for the disk size, assuming a real object at ground level, would have been 210 meters. Their analysis also involved computerized image processing, something rare at the time. Their conclusion:

“In summary, our analyses have suggested that an unidentified, opaque, aerial object was captured on film at a maximum distance of 10,000 feet. There are no visible means of lift or propulsion and no surface markings other than darker regions that appear to be nonrandom. This case must remain “open” until further information becomes available.”

The analysis was published along with a critical review by Marilyn E. Bruner, scientist from Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory. Peer review is a common scientific practice that one seldom see on ufology, so that adds to the validity of the studies on this case. Bruner wrote that:

“While I agree that the image is very suggestive, my impression is that it probably does not represent a physical object”.

Noting several inconsistencies of the image, she noted that

“the oval image is more likely to be an artifact such as a pressure mark than a photographic image of a physical object. Such a mark could have been caused by a foreign particle trapped between two layers of the film on the supply spool.”

On February 1990, Valeé and Haines finally obtained the original negative, and conducted a new analysis. They managed to confirm their previous evaluations, no signs of hoax were detected on the film. Equally important, they evaluated Bruner’s suggestion that the disk could have been the result of some defect on the film. According to them, as the original negative had no protrusion nor depression, her hypothesis failed to be verified.

The new analysis concludes:

“In summary, our good fortune in obtaining the original negative … has resulted in confirmation of our earlier speculation that the aerial disc is certainly anomalous. While it may not be inexplicable, it is at least unidentified.”

Indeed, it remains unidentified. Could it have been a real disk more than 200 meters in diameter coming from inside Lago de Cote’s waters?  It would have been something extremely anomalous, for various reasons.

The shots taken second before and seconds later show nothing unusual. Assuming the disc was not photographed on those other images because it quickly moved away from the camera field of view, one can estimate its minimum speed if it did indeed come from the lake. Valleé and Haines themselves made the calculations, and suggested the disc in this case must have moved at a minimum speed of 2,300 km/h.

Coming from the lake and shooting at such speed, one would expect a sonic boom, and also some perturbation on the water, which would have been visible on the images taken seconds later. No such things were reported or seen.

Of course, one could always assume that such an anomalous object would have such anomalous characteristics as absence of a sonic boom or significant perturbation of the water. But those characteristics suggest the object was not material — or at least, it didn’t behave like a common material object.

It could also be that the object was actually much smaller and closer to the camera, in which case one would assume it was not that fast and didn’t touch the water. But it’s appearance in this case, with a significant part seemingly vanishing in the clear sky, is also puzzling.

See: Photo Analyses of an Aerial Disc Over Costa Rica
And also: Photo Analysis of an Aerial Disc Over Costa Rica: New Evidence

Location: Brazil
Date: September, 2004

The above image is a reproduction made by our reader Diogo Rodrigues Gonçalves of a series of photographs published on section “Cosmic Encounters” of the Brazilian UFO magazine #98. The magazine reproduced the story told by the photographer, E.O. (name redacted by us), 25 years old, from Arujá, São Paulo, under the title “Static point in the sky”:
“I was distracted when I observed a static point in the sky. The weather was good, but viewing the object was hard as I was against the Sun. What intrigued me was that, for around 15 minutes, it didn’t move. And as it suddenly appeared, from nowhere, it disappeared. I have no witnesses for the fact, as I was alone at the moment“.

Comment: How did Diogo Gonçalves reproduce the image of such an intriguing “static point in the sky”? He explains it in one phrase: “You just have to photograph the Sun, the bright area tunrs up black, it’s that simple!”. He used a digital camera, and the electronic sensor cannot cope with the glaring, direct light from our star. The result is, ironically, a black spot.

We suspect that the reader who sent the images and the report to the Brazilian UFO magazine was playing a (nice) joke, that endedup being published without any analysis. In his story, he actually mentions that he was against the Sun — the “UFO” — and how the Sun didn’t seem to move for 15 minutes. It’s indeed wonderful how the Sun comes up every day, and some hours later vanish much the same way he appeared. The time he gives for his “sighting” also seems to match the elevation of the Sun on his images.

We just think that half the world was probably witnessing the same “UFO” at the time.

[With thanks to Diogo Rodrigues Gonçalves]