that turn out to be explainable upon careful investigation, we will see in this section that highly publicized UFO photos said to prove the reality of the phenomenon turn out to be fakes when examined with a little care.
Most UFO photos show nothing more than indistinct blobs of light. Many such blobs appear only when the film is developed, although the photographer didn’t see any UFOs when the pictures were taken. Such blobs are defects in the film, lens flares, or by-products of film development. The numerous UFO pictures of “strange lights in the sky” that show nothing but vague blobs are photos of aircraft, seagulls, or balloons. Under certain viewing conditions, such familiar objects can lose their distinctive and familiar features and appear “mysterious,” often resulting in a UFO report and photographs. Night photos of blobs of light can easily be attributed to aircraft, the planet Venus, and other such causes (Sheaffer 1981; Menzel and Taves 1977). To be of value, a UFO picture should show at least some structure to the UFO and should have enough background to permit one to judge the relative size of the UFO, its distance from other objects in the picture, and—especially if successive photos are obtained—its speed and direction. Only a tiny minority of UFO photos contain such information. The ones that do are the best photographic evidence for the reality of UFOs.
One of the most famous UFO photos is reproduced in figure 14. It is widely cited by pro-UFO groups as excellent evidence for UFOs. It would be—if it were genuine. But this photograph is a fake. The photo was allegedly taken from a Brazilian naval training ship in January 1958. The photographed UFO was said to be seen by many of the vessel’s crew. The photographer was one Almiro Barauna, who, by an amazing coincidence, was a trick photographer who had previously made fake UFO photos to illustrate an article titled “A Flying Saucer Haunted Me at Home” (Sheaffer 1981). Sheaffer also points out that the crew of the vessel, upon investigation, said they had not seen the photographed object. Much is made of the fact that the film was developed aboard the ship and under supervision, but this would not have prevented a double exposure in which the UFO was photographed before boarding the ship, the film rewound, and the terrain photographed from the ship.
A famous set of UFO photos was taken in August 1965 by Rex Heflin in Santa Ana, California. One is shown in figure 15. The photos were allegedly taken through the window of Heflin’s truck. At first, he reported shooting only three photos, but several weeks later a fourth turned up. His explanation was that three photos were “enough for one day” (Sheaffer 1981, p. 57). This is very suspicious behavior and should be considered as a strong hint of a possible hoax. After all, if four photos were taken originally, there would be no reason not to show them all when making the report. Other aspects of this case are also most suspicious. The photos were taken with a Polaroid camera, but the original prints have disappeared. Heflin claims that they were taken away by men from the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) two days after he reported the sighting. NORAD denied sending any investigators to take the photographs, and Heflin did not ask for a receipt for photographs that, if genuine, would be among the most important in the history of science. Further, the road with cars on it seen in the photograph is the Santa Ana Freeway—hardly a deserted stretch. Yet no one else reported seeing this UFO, which, if the photographs were genuine, was flying and hovering in plain view almost directly over the road.
One UFO organization, Ground Saucer Watch (GSW), has branded the Heflin photos a deliberate hoax, based on computer enhancement of the photos (Sheaffer 1981). The enhancement of a set of excellent duplicate prints reveals that “in the first of the three UFO photos, which shows the object at its minimum distance from the camera, the object is not in focus, as it is in the other two. Distant objects, however, are in focus in all three. This strongly suggests that the object was small and extremely close to the camera” (p. 57). The enhancement also showed similar findings for two other photos. Finally, and most damningly, the enhancement showed traces of a very thin string from which the UFO is hanging. Once again, careful investigation has shown that what once was accepted as a genuine UFO photograph is a fake. This case shows the importance of considering all available evidence before reaching a decision about the genuineness of alleged UFO photos. The suspicious behavior of the photographer and the lack of confirming sightings—which should have been present in abundance if the UFO were really there—both point to a hoax.
Perhaps the single most famous and, according to UFO proponents, best piece of photographic evidence for UFOs is the set of photographs taken in McMinnville, Oregon, on May 11, 1950. One of the two photos is shown in figure 16. Hall (1984, p. 88) calls the Trent photos “two of the clearest UFO photographs on record.” Before considering the photographs themselves, the behavior of the Trents in regard to the photos is enough to arouse considerable suspicion. The roll of film with the two UFO photographs was not developed immediately. Rather, the Trents waited until the few remaining exposures had been used up to develop the roll. In addition, Sheaffer (1981) reports that the precious negatives were left lying around and that one interviewer found them “on the floor under the davenport where the Trent children had been playing with them” (p. 60). Sheaffer (1981, pp. 59–61) has pointed out other inconsistencies in the Trents’ story of how the photos were taken. He has also pointed out that the Trents are
On behavioral grounds alone, the Trent photos must be viewed as a probable hoax. An analysis of the photos themselves clinches the case as a hoax. According to the Trents’ story, the photos were taken around 8 P.M. The pattern of light and shadow in the photographs shows they were really taken at about 7:30 A.M. Further, the UFO is under the same spot in the telephone wires at the top of both pictures, in spite of the fact that the camera has been moved from one picture to the next. As the camera moved away from these wires, the wires and the UFO shrank in size by about the same amount. This is just the result one would obtain if one took a photograph of a small model hung from the wires.
I would agree that the Trent photos are about the “clearest” available, and that they are thus about the best photographic evidence for UFOs. This merely shows, however, the extremely poor quality of the photographic evidence. After more than fifty years and thousands of sightings, the best photographic evidence consists of a few grainy shots taken by trick photographers or people who claim to have had repeated experiences with UFOs. That’s not very impressive evidence, to say the least.
In the late 1980s a seemingly spectacular set of UFO photos appeared from the town of Gulf Breeze, Florida. These showed a flying saucer with much visible detail. That these photos were hoaxes was strongly suspected at the time. This suspicion was confirmed a few years later when the house that had belonged to the photographer was being renovated by new owners. Hidden away behind a partition was a model that looked just like the saucer in the photos! (See Sheaffer 1998, pp. 100 ff., for more details on this case.)
It should be remembered at this point that excellent photographs exist of rare events. The photos of the airline crashes in Chicago in 1979 and San Diego in 1978 come to mind, as do the photos of the initial September 11, 2001, impacts. All clearly show airliners falling from the sky—an extremely rare event, but the photos are sharp and clear and show every horrible detail. Such photos exist because people carry their still cameras (and video cameras) everywhere and are almost always ready to take a picture. But in spite of this, there is no UFO photo that can be considered genuine showing anything other than vague shapes or blobs of light.
To the skeptic this total lack of photographic evidence points to one conclusion—UFOs don’t exist. UFO proponents, however, interpret the situation differently. Admitting that the lack of photographic evidence is most odd, Hynek and Vallee (1975) go on to conclude that UFOs are a “jealous phenomenon” that doesn’t want to be photographed. Further, UFOs somehow know when someone has a camera and selectively appear only to those who have left their Nikons at home. It should be noted that this is yet another example of an irrefutable hypothesis.
If UFO photos are rare, films are still rarer. One film received a great deal of media coverage when it was shown on the nationally syndicated television program PM Magazine in February 1983. The film was allegedly made near Woonsocket, Rhode Island, during September 1968. The photographer was Harold Trudel, who had taken numerous UFO photos during the 1960s. These photographs have apparently not been taken seriously even by UFO proponents. Interestingly, the 1968 film, which shows a tube-shaped object below a tree branch, wasn’t made public until 1982 because of little public interest in UFOs. Emery (1982–83) reports that the negative for the film is
