The Calvine UFO – a possible natural explanation?

Background

Rather than go over the entire story of the Cavine UFO you can find it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvine_UFO_photograph

How I got Involved

My interest started because I knew the area quite well. If the two witnesses had worked in a hotel it had to be Fishers or the Atholl Palace. I had visited both numerous times. We used to use Fishers for staff conferences at work and there were always cheap deals at the Atholl Palace.

At this point we only had the tracing of the photograph from the national archive and it it was intriguing. The anomalous black blob in the tracing looked broadly kite shaped, therefore potentially aerodynamic, and the aircraft next to it reinforced the idea that it reall was some kind of aircraft. We also had sightings around that time of what looked like con trails from the experimental Aurora hypersonic aircraft, so maybe that’s what this was.

My research at this point was about trying to identify the second aircraft and I published my research in a blog article on 12th January 2018. I was sure it was a real physical aircraft of some sort. Probably experimental. I had a good go at identifying the small aircraft in the photo and I think I got quite close.

My original article is no longer online, but you can view it on the Internet Archive here.

The discovery of the Photograph

Then in 2021 the original photograph was found. It was not what I was expecting at all.
The white area from the tracing was actually white. I had expected to see a green valley and hills spread out below or behind it, as per Nick Pope’s recreation of the photo. There were no hills and no background, just a fence line and some tree branches in the foreground.

Shock and Awe

I assumed that this was down to the location it had been shot from. But when a photo taken from the same spot was released I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There was a mountain opposite that looked very familiar. I opened a photo editing program, put the Calvine photo and the location photo into two layers, changed the opacity and my heart sank. I was so shocked and weirdly disappointed.

The mountain peak was exactly where the image of the UFO was in the Calvine photo. I took a video screen capture of it and put it on Twitter. You can see it here on YouTube (Google log in required to view it):

It did not get a lot of interest because the original Calvine photo had been out for a while before I was able to compare it with the modern location image.

By this point believers and sceptics had already settled into entrenched camps.

These were:

1. It is a genuine extra terrestrial UFO.
2. It is a genuine unknown secret aircraft.
3. It is a deliberate hoax (usually explained as a Christmas decoration hung from a tree)
4. It is a man rowing a boat on a lake.
5. It is the reflection of a rock in a pond or local loch.

My analysis was dismissed by all of these groups. I never made my videos public on YouTube because the backlash had already been quite fierce on Twitter and I didn’t have the time, or energy, to deal with it. I did embed them at the end of my original blog article for a while but they got very few views.

There were people who had even located the rock in the loch, or actual Christmas decorations. It all went a bit mad.

White Out

The fundamental problem with all of these theories is all that white background in the photo. What was it?

At this point I put the photo back into my photo editing software and changed the contrast. Clouds formations can clearly be seen, in spite of the grain inherent in the print. There are two cloud lines

I then put out a second video. In this I showed the lines of cloud and put forward the idea that it was a temperature inversion causing cloud to be in the valley resulting in all the white background:

After I circulated this privately to a few contacts I was able to obtain the aviation weather records for the day the photo was taken which showed cloud layers at 10,000 feet and 300 feet. The 300 feet rising to 400 or 500 around the time the photo was taken. This means that there was low cloud filling the valley (fog) but not reaching as high as the mountain peak. There was another high layer covering the entire sky.
We can be pretty sure about the date because of the MOD and Daily Record recording it.

Given these two layers then the mountain peak should be visible in the photo.

If we assume it is a photo of an anomalous aircraft then how big is it? If it is sitting between cloud layers at 300 and 10,000 feet its either very large or very small. If we had the negative we might be able to work out how far away it was from the cameras. It is hard to be certain without knowing what focus the lens was set to. This is one of the indeterminable issues with the photo.

Aftermath

Following this second video I was told that the official photo analysis had found the mountain much lower in the photograph. This put it behind the fence. I looked at this, but the shape seemed more in keeping with the uneven ground in the background, or simply the cloud texture.

This resulted in a third video where I showed why this explanation didn’t work, and it didn’t work for one simple reason: In the original photo you can see the tops of the fence posts. This means the photo was taken from a standing position. If it was taken from a standing position then the mountain had to be above the top of the fence, not behind it. The only way to get it behind the fence would be to take the photo lying down.

Occams Razor

“The simplest explanation is usually the best one.”

Here is what I think happened:

Two aircraft are out on low flying exercises in the Perthshire valleys. At the same time two men are out on the hills poaching rabbits or venison. As the fog came down they sheltered in the trees because Scottish fog can be quite wet. The fog settles in the valley. One of them hears an aircraft and grabs his camera. The aircraft has already passed, but he takes the photo, capturing the second aircraft as it passes. Then he realises there is a larger object there and takes two more photos (we know these negatives existed at the Daily Record but were lost). In the few seconds he is looking at it through the viewfinder the low cloud rises up and obscures it giving the impression it has rolled away and upwards. It would have been impossible to perceive what it really was under those circumstances.

The reason the MOD took so much interest in it was that it happened just as the Gulf War was starting. They also had an ongoing communication with the US authorities about Aurora. It was given a lot of credibility because of this and that gave it a standing in the MOD that kept the picture on the wall of the office that Nick Pope saw.

Hard evidence

My solution relies on two pieces of hard evidence:

1. The photo – showing definite cloud and setting exactly the height from the ground the photo was taken from.
2. The weather report for the day.
   

Apply Occam’s Razor and it really is the most likely explanation.

The debate continues

Nobody has ever been able to discount those two pieces of hard evidence.

Debunkers continue to dismiss the photo as a hoax. Believers have got around my theory by removing the mountain completely.

Shortly after I pointed out that the photo had been taken from a standing position it was revealed that the photo was taken from a completely different direction, and that is why the mountain peak is not visible between the cloud layers.

This contradicts the official photo analysis which located the mountain behind the fence and it seemed to be a reaction to my suggestion. The evidence for the other location is also quite flimsy as we have no location testimony from the original and the fences have all deteriorated or been replaced over the years.

There seemed to be concerns that my idea was debunking the entire story and by this point a lot of people had emotional investment in it. I did too and it had taken a lot to come to terms with the evidence.

Conclusion

I remain back at the moment I saw the original location photo with one question: Why is the UFO exactly in front of the mountain peak? The solution given  in this article is the only one that actually makes sense from the evidence available. It makes a lot more sense than a hoax involving a man rowing a boat in a loch, or suspended Christmas decorations, but it won’t win me any friends in the UFO/UAP community. In fact, the reaction to my original analysis caused so much stress that its taken me nearly five years to come back to it.

Follow up

If you took the original Calvine photo please get in touch with me. I am not part of any group and have no commercial interest in any of this. I would just love to hear your story.

If you are from the UFO/UAP community and have any comments you can leave them here on my blog or find me over on X here.