Did National Geographic take the Clearest UFO photo EVER??

Show Transcript

Hey UFOlogers, what if I told you that the most compelling UFO evidence ever recorded was sitting in the hands of National Geographic Costa Rican mapping specialists who accidentally photographed something in the sky? And today we are diving into that mystery. Jimmy is out of town so it's just going to be you and me today. I'm Cristina Gomez and welcome to this episode of Mysteries with a History.

Hello and welcome to everyone catching this live. Happy Thursday! I usually say that to Jimmy but now I'm saying it to you. Happy Thursday, how are you doing? This is a very interesting episode, as every episode is, but this one has some very compelling photographic evidence. And the question is: do better, more authentic UFO photos exist somewhere? Well, you can bet your boots that they do, but those images usually remain locked away in classified files hidden from public view. How many times have we heard people say that? Both those in the military and those not. Too many times to count.

For now, this single photograph that I'm going to share right here on screen has carried the weight of evidence and it's been doing exactly that for about five decades. Now this image turned 50 years old in 2021 and its reputation has only strengthened with time. Now you're going to probably be asking me "Cristina, what the heck am I looking at?" See, that's the fun part. It's like where's Waldo, right? I used to love those books, I need to get back into those. But if you look in the corner of this image you will see something very strange. Look at that physical object with sharp round edges. Isn't that strange?

There's a lot of information to this and a lot of countries got involved. French military officials were so convinced by this photograph that they featured it prominently on the cover of their groundbreaking COMETA report back in 1999. And yes, of course I have that image for you. I'm going to share it right here. There it is, take a look at that. There's the image, there's the front cover of the French report back from 1999. And by the way, this isn't some fringe publication. It was an official document titled "UFOs and the Department of Defense" sent directly to the French government. Wow, we're going big and we're going big right here right now.

Now their conclusions, referring to the French government, the extraterrestrial hypothesis offered the best explanation for this image, for this phenomenon altogether. And then when The New Yorker profiled UFO researcher Leslie Kean, looked into this in 2021, she found that this exact photograph, which is actually hanging behind her desk a few years ago. She's, as you know, has been covering UFOs for the New York Times and she called this image, this image right here, "the finest image of a UFO ever made public." That's the key right there - ever made public. Now behind the scenes, behind closed doors, on some dusty cabinet somewhere in the Pentagon, there's going to be a lot of amazing, probably amazing UFO photos. But for the public we always get like the really blurry stuff, the really lame stuff. But then this image comes up and it's kind of changing the narrative.

In particular, Leslie Kean received the photo directly from Costa Rican government contacts complete with chain of custody documentation. But if we go back to this image, this is actually a negative by the way, but take a closer look at it. Here's a zoom in on that. This image was taken September 4th, 1971, and the mission was for Costa Rica's National Geographic Institute had just a routine job that morning. And they were meant to do some aerial mapping for a proposed hydroelectric dam. So I mean, like it's exciting in some ways but not really. They're just doing their job, minding their own business.

The Electricity Institute was funding the survey to identify water sources and suitable land for this dam project. And at exactly 8:25 AM, pilot Omar Arias was flying his twin-engine Canadian Aero Commander at about 10,000 feet over Lake Cote in northern Costa Rica. And his passengers included aerial photography specialist Sergio and geographer Juan Bravo and topographer Francisco Reyes. I love this! Why? Because we get their first and last name and we get their background, their credentials. What do they do? We have the date and time this took place and we have people to back it up. What did you see? What were you doing that day? Right? In here in the United States with a lot of more credible cases that hold a lot of weight, we get no name or their first name. We don't always get their first and last name. Here we're like "Yeah yeah, I got you, I got you."

So Sergio operated an RMK 15/23 camera, a 100-pound German manufactured mapping instrument that was mounted right beneath the aircraft. And this wasn't obviously, this wasn't amateur equipment. Can you imagine a camera being 100 pounds? Yeah, you can't be carrying that casually with you. But the camera used high resolution black and white film with an ASA speed of 80, designed for this job - looking at water sources, trying to figure out where to place this hydroelectric dam. And they were using this instrument right here. Let me pull that up because it's kind of interesting. There it is. This is an intervalometer which automatically captures every frame but only once every 20 seconds, which great for this but not if you're actually looking to capture UFOs. Catching a frame every 20 seconds? Yeah, you're not going to find anything. In this case, I got really, really lucky because the camera focused at this kind of maximum terrain detail.

And I'll go back to the original image. There it is. And you are able to see every little detail in this image - the clouds, the shadows, the texture of the trees, right? The lines of trails and maybe some roads. It's a fantastic camera. But what's interesting about this particular photo and the story behind it, there's the UFO by the way, nobody on board saw anything unusual during the flight. They were so focused on their work, completely unaware that they were really about to make history. Could you imagine? You're minding your own business, doing your job, maybe you hate it, maybe you love it, who knows. And then you get them developed, which I'll get into in just a moment, and you get a phone call and you're like "You will not believe what I just found." And the person on the other side is going to say "Okay, hopefully it's good news. Hopefully we can make this hydroelectric dam, right? Like everything is A-OK."

Right? And the photographer on the other end, the one converting these negatives, say "That's not what I'm calling about. You won't believe what I found. Was it Bigfoot? Was it a cave?" No, no, no, no. Don't get crazy over here. No, you just captured a UFO. And then there's like mic drops, there's explosions in the background, people are going crazy screaming "hooray" and "hurrah." And then it kind of gets forgotten about for some time and then it resurfaces almost 50 years later, give or take a little bit.

So Sergio processed the film on Kodak Safety aerial stock and even after development, nothing really seemed out of place because they got so many images and all of them had to be developed because this was in the 1970s, right? That was just how photography worked back in the day. And the discovery came much later during the very tedious process of enlarging and examining each negative for mapping purposes. I want to ask you this - those catching this live, those watching us on replay - have you ever developed negative photos before? I almost had the opportunity to do so in high school when I took photography, but I just, they didn't let me in. I was a bit disappointed. Like I just wasn't at the grade level to be able to do it. But I wanted to so bad that I almost made one in the laundry room, but there wasn't enough darkness there to create one. So I was a bit devastated. So I can only live vicariously through Sergio here that he got to do this kind of stuff. But have you done it? Is it fun? Is it tedious? Is it boring? I'd like to hear that from you in the live chat if I can.

In this case, at frame 300, that's when Sergio stopped cold. He was like "What the heck am I seeing?" And that's this frame right here, frame 300. He's looking at it, he's checking it out, and then he zooms in and he captures this. I'll give you a better image. There it is. That one's a little pixelated but bear with me. We're going to get into more detail on this. And he sees this massive metallic disc which, in many respects, dominated the image with startling clarity. Now when you have the negative, you're not going to get this pixelated look that we are here in digital. But in his case, it was a very clear image. The object appeared nowhere in frame 299 or 301, only in frame 300, because as a reminder, the camera was taking images every 20 seconds on the dot.

This photograph is unique for several reasons. First, it captures a 7-mile by 7-mile area in perfect focus and you can actually see, as I had mentioned earlier, individual trees, roads, and some claim even livestock in the original print. Second, unlike typical UFO photos shot upward like into the bright sky, and the image is looking down, right? You're not going to get these clear images. And hold on to that thought because we're going to go into a little bit more detail on that. It's a really important little tidbit to mention.

In some respects, I'm not going to say all of them, but in some respects, you might be asking why is this UFO photo so clear? Today we get the blurriest, really lamest photos ever and videos. But back in the day, they were good. There were some good stuff. But this one, this image was taken from above. So a plane, the camera looked down and took a picture of the UFO from up looking down and in a bird's eye view. This is something very, very important to mention.

And you know what, I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but this is important. I'm going to share this video here. I had the pleasure to speak to two engineers very recently that did investigations on UFOs and how to really decipher the difference between a fake and a real UFO photo and video. Here is a snippet of that interview. Take a listen to this: "We're looking down at it. Yeah. Okay. And the warp propulsion and the distortions caused by the warp bubble are mainly underneath it. Yep, that's true too. So that's why for once we got a clear video. So all of the videos we're looking up at them, right? That one we were looking down. Changes everything. Yeah. And that warp bubble underneath it was severely affecting the background objects as it passed in front."

The biggest takeaway from this is that when taking a picture on top of a UFO, a bird's eye view, the UFO according to these scientists and engineers had mentioned that their propulsion system of these UFOs is below the craft, not above it. And below the craft, looking at the Alcubierre drive and the oscillation of creating energy to be able to move from point A to point B is going to distort the camera image. But if taking it from above, there is no energy on top of the craft. Therefore, you are able to capture a clear image. So when looking at pictures and videos, that is one detail to look at. And also if the object distorts the landscape around it. In this case, for this particular photo, it looks like it is over water. There is nothing that it can distort. But if this image was taken over the land, like this kind of landscape or over a tree, and it slightly, very slightly disoriented the photo, making it like bump a little bit or curve around the object, that can also demonstrate that the picture and/or video is more authentic and not created by CGI or by AI. Keep that in mind.

And if you want to watch that interview, I highly recommend it. I will place that link in the description box below for you because it will really help for future references. When you come across a picture or a video and you're like "Hmm, is it real? Is it fake? I can't decide," then you go to this knowledge that was shared by those two engineers and it'll be a little bit easier to figure out: okay, legit or not, right?

Okay, let's continue on with this because, as I had mentioned, I got a little ahead of myself. The third thing that's very unique about this is the fixed altitude that allowed precise size calculations. Leslie Kean explains that the photo significance, stating quote: "You clearly see sunlight reflecting off this round object with a small dot on top." And you know what, I actually have, let me find it. There it is. The image was edited in multiple ways with reverse contrast, also with zooming it in and enhancing the gray levels, and also increasing the gray levels here and able to see that kind of shine on the object. And by the way, this analysis was done by Jacques Vallée, one of the most renowned ufologists of all time. But again, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm getting a little too excited about this case, but it's just so good. Sometimes I wish I could just say all the information in one go, like one sentence sandwiched over the other one, to just give you all the information like that. But we're humans and we can't do that yet. But in time, I'm looking forward to that. The same thing with like putting USBs in your mind and sharing information or memories or dreams and then putting into someone else's brain. That would also be pretty cool and I feel like efficient, depending on whose hands it's in, because very dangerous. But that topic is for another time.

So this was taken from a government mapping plane with very professional equipment and there's an unbroken chain of custody. It remained in Costa Rican government possession since 1971. And you know it's authentic and it's completely unexplained, according to Leslie Kean. So the biggest question that I've already answered, but I'm going to address it here one more time: Why is it so clear? Now what did I say? Who was listening? What was the explanation that I gave? I'll let you answer that in the live chat and in the comments as well for that one. A little trivia question, a little trivia game going on here.

But of course, of course I have more, because the Costa Rican government immediately imposed this gag order. And Sergio, the photographer who developed these negatives, said quote: "We were completely banned from talking about it. We couldn't tell anyone." The negative eventually reached Ricardo, who held a civilian UFO research group in San Jose. And in 1980, Ricardo interviewed Sergio and documented the complete story. So Sergio insisted the specialized equipment was so sensitive that even a microscopic dust particle would have prevented operation. And he says here: "There was no possibility of error. There was no trick." And this has been analyzed by a ton of different experts - those that are knowledgeable in photography, those that are knowledgeable in creating double exposure and things like this. And none of them were able to debunk the photo altogether. The answers that were given of "Oh, it's a bug," "Oh, it's a dust particle," but those very quickly got debunked in themselves, especially when Jacques Vallée wrote his paper on it back in the 1980s.

And here is a screenshot of the first page of that paper that Jacques Vallée wrote back in 1989. It's a 19-page analysis and it concluded quote: "Our research indicates an unidentified, opaque, aerial object was photographed at a maximum distance of about 10,000 feet. There was no visible propulsion systems and no surface markings except darker regions that appeared deliberately arranged. This case must remain open pending additional information." And then they were also able to calculate the size and it was about 220 feet in diameter, and also with Ground Saucer Watch estimating about 120 feet. And either estimate describes an overall enormous object, somewhere between half a football field and an entire football field, because here in the states we love measuring everything in football field lengths and the sizes of Walmarts. And you know what, I respect that. I love that. I think it's actually great. Should do that more often.

But when we're also looking at this overall, the photograph also underwent analysis in France, earning its prominent placement on the report that was placed back in 1999. But what's interesting about this, actually everything, but looking back at this image, this was taken at Lake Cote and locals have long reported objects emerging from and submerging into the water. And since neither adjacent frame shows the craft really messing with the water, we can't make a conclusion on if it actually came from the water or not. But as the locals had mentioned, "Well, we see things all the time. It's no big deal." Which is very important to find those patterns, to find those stories when looking, investigating UFO encounters and sightings overall.

But you also might be thinking, "You know, Cristina, that shape looks a little familiar." Yes, we are dealing with the classic saucer shape, but it has this little bump on top. To me, it looks like a spin top toy more so than the very typical flying saucer. This looks very, very similar to what I want to throw it over to you. What does it look similar to? Because I have the image here. It looks like this: the McMinnville photo from the year 1950 in Oregon. And if you are not familiar with this case, don't worry, I'll give you a brief overview on this one because this one was taken May 11th, 1950 in McMinnville, Oregon. Paul Trent and his wife captured two black and white photographs of a metallic disc-shaped object hovering silently over their farm, estimated at 20 or 30 feet in diameter. So you know, a third of the size that they believe to have calculated in Costa Rica, but still pretty large.

This one was also developed and also using a simple Kodak camera. It was published in Life magazine and it gained widespread attention. And it represents, in this case according to many of the descriptions, a classic flying saucer shape. But what's not so classic about it is we're not really seeing a typical dome like an observation deck. But this little bump on top of it, again like a spin top. And I have one here and I can show you. There it is. Here's my spin top. It looks kind of like this, doesn't it? Similar if we just kind of forget that part. A very small top, a wide base, and probably in this case it might not be an observation deck just because it looks so small, at least according to the photo that we have in this case.

For the McMinnville image, it was spoken about in the 1969 Condon Report and people tried to brush it off as a hoax of some kind, but to this day people haven't really given a full explanation to this particular photograph. And yet it stands out very different from the Cote UFO photo just because of where it was taken, who took it, and the equipment that was used. For this one, National Geographic had some of the best tech out there and they had many trained eyes as well, compared to the McMinnville one where just some humble farmer who had a very simple camera and took an image at the right place at the right time. So that's the difference between the two. But the shape overall remains the same. The size, however, does not. It's very, very strange, very interesting, and in some respects very unique. It's not very often that we get such great detailed photos.

And I want to spend these last few minutes with you. I want to hear your thoughts on this. What do you think about this image? Do you think it's legit? Do you think it's falsified? I want to hear it from you. Let me know in the live chat. Let me know in the comments as well. So is this image the best UFO image ever captured that's been made public? Answer that. I want to hear it from all of you.

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