<>#8UFO PHOTOS: FACTS AND FRAUDS @2Nine out of ten photographs of alleged UFOs are misinterpreted pictures of everyday events or are the work of hoaxers. ROBERT S. DIGBY, of the British UFO Research Association, and CHRIS COOPER describe the gauntlet of tests that such photos must run. @4WELL-TRAINED METHODS of analysing and evaluating UFO photographs will be supplemented, but not superseded, by newer methods of image-processing by computer. In fact the more sophisticated and expensive techniques of analysis are generally reserved for photographs that have survived the more traditional examination. These are a small minority of all claimed UFO pictures. At most, 10 per cent of the photographs that analysts study still seem convincing after they have been exposed to a battery of tests. A UFO photograph is a report like any other, and requires to be supported in the same way. Many pictures that seem to be authentic cannot be used as evidence for the occurrence of some inexplicable phenomenon simply because of the unsatisfactory circumstances of the sighting. The photographer may have been alone at the time, for example; however strongly a researcher might be convinced of the sincerity of the witness, sceptics can hardly be blamed for insisting on the possibility of a hoax. Financial motives for creating a successful hoax photograph are very strong. One person who took photographs allegedly showing the Loch Ness monster refused to release the negatives for study by experts. Despite this and the fact that there are inconsistencies in his account of the sighting, his photographs were prominently featured in the British press and continue to be used. He has commented that the use of the picture by the media all over the world would fetch something like £200,000 over the first six months. Income would continue long after that, of course, and there would also be fees for lectures and personal appearances. There are great incentives for providing what the public wants to see. Among some people, especially bright schoolchildren, it has become a hobby to fake 'flying saucer' photographs. One of the best-known cases is that of Alex Birch, which took place in Britain. In 1962, when Alex was a 14- year-old schoolboy, he produced a photograph of a group of five saucer- like objects. He was interviewed on radio and television and by the Air Ministry. He appeared before the inaugural meeting of the British UFO Research Association to explain the circumstances of his sighting. It was only 10 years later that his plausible, tenaciously defended and apparently sincere story was admitted to be a hoax. Hence the vital importance of having independent witnesses to a sighting. The ideal case, from the investigator's viewpoint, is one in which the witnesses are neither friends nor relatives nor relatives of the photographer, and make full statements of the circumstances of the sighting before the film has been processed. Hoaxers are rarely bold enough to announce their 'sightings' before they have made quite sure that @4their pictures are sufficiently convincing. So the first requirement for a photograph if it is to provide 'hard' scientific evidence is that there should be at least on other witness, who is independent of the photographer. The second requirement is that the original film - whether it is a black and white negative, a colour negative or a colour transparency - be submitted to qualified analysts for examination and evaluation. The whole film roll should be provided, even if only one or two frames show the UFO image. The other pictures may provide valuable evidence about the weather conditions, whether there was grease or dirt on the lens, whether there was stray light in the camera, the characteristics of that particular sample of film, and much else besides. The third requirement is that there should be reference points in the picture. If it shows an object against a blank sky and nothing more, distance and size cannot be calculated. The forth requirement is not obligatory, but it is highly desirable: that there should be a sequence of pictures. A series of still photographs provides more information than a single one could; and a movie sequence is still more valuable. A movie film is harder to fake than a still photograph, and it provides information about the time elapsed during the sighting. (On some cameras the speed of the film can be varied from the normal 24 frames per second. It is essential that the witness report should specify what speed was used during the filming of the UFO.) The UFO investigator presented with a photograph will also want to know full details of the camera and film used, the distance, aperture and speed settings, whether there was a filter over the lens and if so, of what type it was, whether the camera was hand-held or tripod-mounted, and any other information that might be relevant. So a great deal of the investigator's work is done before he or she gets down to a detailed study of the picture. What needs to be done when that analysis at last begins? The University of Colorado was given a contract in 1966 to study UFOs on behalf of the US Air Force. Many UFO investigators have been sceptical of the value of the report that was finally published under the title 'The scientific study of unidentified flying objects'; however, the approach that photographic evidence requires was clearly outlined by the Colorado investigators, and can provide a good guide to other analysts. This approach falls into several phases: Firstly there is a subjective evaluation. Do various photographic factors such as clarity and contrast, combined with the witnesses' testimony, make the picture appear both plausible and informative about a potentially unusual phenomenon? If a photograph passes this initial qualitative assessment, the second phase of investigation asks whether there is any rational explanation for what is shown in the picture. This @4question can be tackled only by someone who has wide experience with astronomical, meteorological, optical and photographic effects. Only such a person is equipped to know the surprising forms that can be assumed by aircraft vapour trails, stars and planets seen under unusual atmospheric conditions, lens flares, faulty film processing and countless other straightforward but poorly appreciated effects. Yet such possible causes of a 'UFO' image are so infinitely diverse that even the expert will be fooled on occasion. Nevertheless many photographs will be rejected at this stage of examination as cases of mistaken interpretation. In the third phase of investigation the possibility of a fake is examined. Even with the best credentials concerning the sincerity of the report, this possibility remains and must be tested by the investigator. Are there any signs of tampering with the original film? Such interference can usually be detected. An elementary question to ask is: do the frames represent a continuous sequence? If the manufacturer's frame numbers reveal that the available pictures are separated by others, which the witness cannot or will not make available, the suspicion arises that the shots do not belong to a single sighting but were 'set up' on separate occasions - or else that obviously unconvincing shots have been deliberately withheld. Are the focus, sharpness and contrast in accord with the description by the photographer and others? If the object is alleged to have sped across the sky there should be some corresponding degree of blurring in the UFO image - or, if the photographer panned while taking the shot, there should be some blurring of the landscape. The focus of the image can provide an accurate estimate of the distance of the object. This is crucial to a judgement of the authenticity of a photograph, since most hoaxes involve small objects positioned close to the camera. Nevertheless, even if the UFO image is judged to be distant from the camera, the possibility remains that the witness knows it to be an everyday object, such as an aeroplane at an unusual angle, but has decided to cash in on the peculiarity of its appearance in the picture. Further tests of consistency between the pictures and the witnesses' testimony can be made. In daytime photographs, angles of sunlight and weather conditions can be checked to see whether they agree with the stated time and date of occurrence of the sighting. If the height of an object appearing in the picture and the length of its shadow can both be measured, the height of the Sun can immediately be calculated, and by the use of an astronomical ephemeris or nautical almanac the time of day can be found. The local weather office will have detailed records of the weather on that day. Not only might they confirm or contradict the time of the alleged sighting, but such information as the height of the cloud base can, in some circumstances, give information about the height of the object photographed. Study of the lighting conditions may also show whether the photographs in a sequence have been taken within a @4short period of each other. If a sighting is described as having lasted a few seconds, and the Sun is found to have moved through, say, 10 degrees between one shot and another - corresponding to 40 minutes - then the credibility of the witnesses is destroyed. This information may very well be carried on to an examination of the camera itself, if this is available. The true shutter speeds and apertures of most cameras can be substantially different from their nominal values and it can be vital to obtain an accurate value. It is also highly desirable to visit the scene of the sighting. The purpose of this is generally not to look for physical traces of the UFO - though such evidence, if available, is invaluable - but to make measurements to determine the sizes and directions of objects that are visible in the picture. Of the photographs that run this gauntlet of tests, few survive with their credibility intact. But when they do, the final classification is essentially of a negative kind - the object shown is not a nearby object, not a plane, not a meteor. Unfortunately the ideas often associated with the term 'UFO' - ideas of extra-terrestrial craft - cause misunderstanding between the public and serious-minded researchers. People ask, in all seriousness: 'Do UFOs exist?'. This is tantamount to asking whether anything has ever been seen in the skies that remains unidentified - and this is obviously so. The question that such enquirers really have in mind is: do alien spaceships visit Earth? And to this we do not have an answer. No firm evidence exists that unambiguously shows the phenomena to be due to this cause. We might ask, less ambitiously: are there any photographs that have resisted all attempts to discredit them? There are many candidates - though it seems that controversy concerning such pictures never quite dies down. Some of the most convincing photographs are the stills taken aboard a Brazilian naval ship participating in scientific studies as part of the International Geoghysical Year. At 12.15 p.m. on 16 January 1958, while the ship was off Trindade Island in the South Atlantic, large numbers of personnel on the deck of the ship saw a strange object approach the island at high speed, hover over it for a while, disappear behind a peak, reappear and head out to sea. Four photographs taken by Almiro Barauna, a civilian photographer on board at the time, show an object resembling two dishes face-to-face surrounded by a vapour or mist. In many respects this was a near- perfect sighting. There were many witnesses and the negatives were developed immediately, virtually ruling out a fake. The US Air Force later claimed they had made a detailed investigation and concluded that the affair was a hoax. However, their publicly available file does not contain any evaluation of the case. If they have any information throwing doubt on the pictures, they have kept it to themselves. There is no publicly available evidence against the @4authenticity of the Trindade Island photographs. The Brazilian investigators decided that the object seen in the pictures was 120 feet (36 metres) across and flying at 560 to 620 miles per hour (900 to 1000 km/h). Equally remarkable objects are shown in many other photographs. But whether they are space visitors or something even more exotic, such as thought projections, cannot be discovered by photographic analysis alone. end.