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The Lago de Cote photograph:

The picture below shows an unknown object, which was captured on film by an official mapping plane of the Costa Rica government on September 4, 1971, while flying in the region of Arenal over the lake "Lago de Cote." A camera, mounted on the plane, took a picture of the terrain about every seventeen seconds. The entire picture, covering an area of seven by seven miles, shows remarkable detail. It is possible to distinguish roads, animals, and trees. Which is no surprise considering that it was taken with a high quality professional camera. The first detailed analysis of this picture was undertaken by Dr. Richard Haines and Dr. Jacques Vallée, who obtained the original negative for study.

Photograph

The case:

The absence of any shadows on the surface of the earth tends to suggest that the object itself is at or close to the surface; Hence, no shadow of the disk would be expected. Equally intriguing is the fuzzy area on the left side of the disk, which may be explained by the possibility that the disk was partially submerged, producing the irregular boundary. Aside from visual inspections of the negative and enlarged prints, with different contrasts, computer enhancement was used to uncover further details after which the authors concluded:

"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 dark regions that appear to be nonrandom... There is no indication that the image is the product of a double exposure or a deliberate fabrication."

Haines, and Vallée, 1989.

Computer scientist and ufologist Jacques Vallée participated in this photograph's analysis and stated in a recent interview:

"Digital enhancement of photographs is very useful. In my book, Confrontations, I mention the photograph that I brought back from Costa Rica, which was unusual because the object was over a lake [Lago de Cote], so there was a uniform black background. Everything is known about the aircraft that took the photo. At the time the picture was taken, nobody on the plane had seen the object. It was only after the film was developed that the object was discovered. The camera used was exceptional: It produced a very large negative - ten inches, very detailed. You can see cows in the field. The time is known; the latitude, longitude and altitude of the aircraft is known. So we spent a lot of time analyzing that photograph, without being able to find any obvious natural answer to the object. It seems to be a very large, solid thing."

"I obtained the negative from the government of Costa Rica - if you don't have the negative, analysis is a waste of time. I also obtained the negative of the picture taken before and the picture after, all uncut. I took negatives to a friend of mine in France who works for a firm that digitally analyzes satellite photographs. They digitized the entire thing, and then analyzed it to the extent that they could, and could not find an explanation for the object."

This photograph,which has been thoroughly investigated, is on tof the may photographic prrof of the reality of UFOs as solid and material crafts of non terrestrial origin.

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This page was last updated on September 15, 2001.