September 16, 2022 • 51 mins
Imagine you're hiking through the Scottish countryside, and hear a low, long hum. You look up to see -- something. You take photos, and send them to the local newspaper. The newspaper, strangely, never publishes the story. And that's only the beginning of the Calvine UFO saga. They don’t want you to read our book. They don’t want you to see us on tour.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben, and we are joined as always with our
super producer Paul Mission Controlled deconds. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. We are required to say. Look,
we made a book. Check it out. You can also
(00:46):
hear it as an audio book. You can also see
us live. We are going on the road in a
couple of places and we would love to hang out
with you in person. On We're a Lemon, the day
the book comes out, we'll be here in Atlanta. On
will be in d C. And on we will be
in Massachusetts. Check out stuff you should read books dot
(01:09):
com to find more, and definitely come and see us. Please,
if you're even close, come and see us. We'd love
to see you. And for everyone who has written to
us or reach out to us as individuals or on
our show social media asking us to go to other cities,
other countries we're with you, make a bigger stink about it.
(01:33):
Get your friends to say the same thing. Fight the
power today we're gonna do Oh gosh. I was recently
watching the Newest, uh, Newest Rick and Morty season, and
I love the way that they describe things and they
can be a bit meta, which isn't for everyone, But
(01:55):
I love those moments where Rick, voiced by just In Royland,
says something like it's it's a one and done. We're
gonna have a simple adventure Morty. More to it's just
wanted done. Classic, classic freaking Morty. That's kind of what
we're doing. Uh. Recently, you may have heard claims about
(02:17):
how the United States lied about its stance on UFOs.
That is absolutely true. You've probably also heard about other
governments doing the same. That is also true. But but
today's episode concerns a recently disclosed photograph that has garnered
(02:43):
a lot of attention in the world of ufology. Shout
out to our pals like Chris Cogswell from Mad Scientists Pod.
Also shout out to our colleagues at the Breakfast Club
who have also, it turns out, discussed this. But before
we do, our big reveal and give you our opinions. Folks,
(03:05):
We've got to start at the beginning. Here are the facts.
I'm sorry, it's a wamp wamp moment. There are as
of now no proven photographs of alien spacecraft, but there
are tons and tons and tons of photos of UFOs.
Riddle me this, what what's the difference there? Well, their
(03:25):
photos and videos, right, and recently the videos have been
making a lot of news. Uh. The thing is they
are UFOs or now U A P s unidentified aerial phenomena.
They are not conclusively known to be alien or extraterrestrial spacecraft.
That's the difference, right, Because anything that you, as the
(03:45):
photographer snap a picture of or take a video of
that's up in the sky that you're unaware of what
it is, is a U A P. Well it's a UFO,
I guess U A P is, Like I don't know
the is that the overall category? I guess because I
think that's how I would put it. At least, weird
rain could be a U A P. Yeah, that's right.
(04:05):
An oddly shaped cloud perhaps. Um. But gentlemen, you know
we've got all these photos unproven of course, and now
these you know, tic tac videos and all of that.
But what about antiquity? What about art? You know, what
about things that maybe we didn't really with a keener
I at the time realized, may have actually been depicting.
(04:26):
Um you u A P. S or UFOs. Yeah, that's
you know. What that reminds me of is the old
question to whom does a work of art belong? Does
it belong to the owner, does it belong to the creator,
does it belong to the audience, you know, those who
perceive it. A lot of the stuff about ancient aliens,
(04:50):
a lot of the Eric von danikin lore and so on,
really depends on interpretations. So you're taking a modern cultural
lens and you are applying that cultural framework too something
that was made hundreds or you know, thousands of years ago.
What you can say, if if we kind of bracket
(05:12):
the messy question of interpretation, what you can say is
that people, at least since the dawn of drawing have
drawn and carved depictions of strange things in the sky.
And a lot of that I'm sure is artistic license. Uh.
No one in ancient civilization has straight out said there
(05:35):
are aliens in the sky. Here is you know, a
drawing I made of them on this papyrus, or here
is the thing I carved into rock about my wonderful
meeting with people from beyond this earthly realm. Well, I
mean except for really like the Dogon tribe, right, they
pretty specifically noted serious amb serious. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah.
(06:00):
Also again, I love that you bring this up, Matt,
because then we have to ask about another kind of
application of cultural framework. The people who originally reported the
Dogon story to the wider world, where European and may
(06:21):
have brought some of their own interpretive baggage. Let's say
to this story, we should actually do a do an
episode on the Dogon We've mentioned them in the past
multiple times, but it bears investigation. You know already we're
talking UFOs, right guys, So some of our more skeptical
(06:41):
conspiracy realists maybe rolling their eyes. But if you find
yourself in that number, if we caught you mid eye
roll with that statement, you might be interested to learn
that belief in not just UFOs, but extraterrestrial intelligence is
increasingly common. It's less and less rare now. As a
(07:04):
matter of fact, if you live in the United States
and you believe that extra terrestrial beings have visited Earth.
You are in the majority. Yeah, there's a research poll
that found fifty one of people living in this country
the United States believe quote UFOs reported by people in
the military are likely evidence of intelligent life outside Earth unquote.
(07:29):
And it makes sense there's now a modern reference to
recent UFO footage, right or UAP footage that people It's
at least at the front of more people's minds. Um
The question there is really are those craft extra terrestrial
or not? And yeah, but whether or not we have
(07:49):
more you know, quote unquote confirmed videos or at least
the acknowledgement of the government that there's something going on,
we still don't exactly have anything in the form of
as or you know, actual you know, pieces of these
crafts or something that we can really like, you know, analyze.
It's still kind of in the realm of conjecture, at
(08:10):
least in terms of like, you know, what we where
we think these things are from, because the government sure
isn't saying that, even if they are kind of tacitly
acknowledging that there's something there. Yeah, we certainly don't have
anything that's been publicly acknowledged. No physical evidence has been acknowledged.
We've heard tons of stories about that physical evidence that
exists somewhere out there, right, but we've never actually seen it. Yeah,
(08:33):
it's a it's it's touted as is somewhere between a
camp fire story and a weird never explained superpower. Right.
Shout out to Big Low Airspace, who have repeatedly publicly
stated that they are in possession of um materials and
(08:54):
artifacts unknown to humanity, and for one reason another, they
have yet to release any physical evidence of those claims
to back them up at least. But if you are
a true believer, then you may feel the evidence is everywhere.
You may feel that people are in fact being willfully
(09:16):
ignorant or purposely misleading when they talk about these things.
But also, you know, there's an emotional element to it.
I would argue, because human beings have been taking photos
of unidentified things in the sky were so much longer
then people might know. Uh. And we're not talking now.
(09:38):
We're not talking about, you know, the von Dannikins of
the world looking at ancient carvings and putting their own
spin on it. We're talking about actually there we go,
shout it up. I like it. Uh, we're we're talking
about genuine photographs. Since the advent of photo technology, people
(10:03):
have been tried to snap cool, exclusive picks of weird stuff.
I was surprised that the first generally acknowledged UFO photograph
dates all the way back to eighteen seventy one in
Mount Washington, New Hampshire. And I included a picture of
this because I would love to get you guys take
(10:26):
on it. I just gave you the image, so no,
you're coming in fresh if you haven't seen this. There's
no caption, just tell us what. I'll tell you what
I see. I see something that appears to be clouds,
but is not clouds because of the way they are formed.
I'm telling you right now, these things are not clouds. Also,
(10:50):
it looks like there's a tiny little cigar shaped thing
in two photographs. It looks to be two photographs that
were maybe taken from a flying craft where the photographer
is is moving horizontally, so you get a slight perspective change,
like one shot taken here and the next shot taken
a little further along. Um, but dang, it just looks
(11:11):
like a manipulated photograph to me. Yeah, it looks like
there's it looks like there's some fuzz, you know what
I mean, there's some schmutz on the lens maybe or
something went wrong in the development process of the photo. Still,
but look how textured those clouds are. It looks like, um,
(11:33):
it just looks like a completely different texture than clouds
to me. But I don't know, that's just me. Yeah,
it looks like tissue paper or something. It's got like
this wet, kind of textured look to it, or like
some sort of fabric. Very and yeah, and you're right,
that little thing, that little blip in the foreground that
is that's not that isn't that doesn't really blend in
(11:54):
with the surrounding environment at all. Wait wait wait are
you are you guys telling me this is not fundamentally
changed your opinion on extraterrestrial life. Uh and UFOs, it's
not enough. Not currently, I'm just trying to figure out
how they made those mashed potatoes to look like the
(12:18):
most fluffy clouds I've ever seen. It looks like paper
machee or something like it's it really does look like
a glue, kind of like a papery mass that was
sort of textured informed it's a super low res image
to you, guys. I've got it blown up like crazy
on my screen, so the pixels are doing some blending.
But there is one tiny bit of the reported UFO here,
(12:42):
alleged UFO that is on the far left of it,
that does appear to be similar, if not the same.
I don't know. I'd love to see a full res
image of that, or at least a you know, an
original or something. Yeah. The this was taken by Amos F.
Kloud and Howard A. Kembell in eight seventy one. They
(13:06):
were on a meteorological expeditions, so they weren't out purposely
trying to staff photos of anything but weather related phenomenon. Uh.
You might be interested to know the photo came into
the public eye in two thousand and two. It got
(13:26):
purchased on eBay the original by a guy named Samuel M. Sherman,
who was then president of the Independent International Pictures Corporation.
So check that out again. Eight seventy one UFO photo
Mount Washington. Uh, and let us know your thoughts. We're
(13:49):
showing you this just to establish the track record that
humanity has with photographing UFOs, and especially in recent years.
Shout out to our good pal Jeremy Corbell, there have
been even more um let's say, high fidelity photographs and
(14:13):
video coming out that people appear to be at a
loss to explain. Also, when you're talking about mysteries, I
was not aware of this. We don't actually know who
discovered the initial principles leading to photography, the two fundamental
principles camera obscura and the first time that someone said, oh,
(14:39):
this stuff changes when you put it in sunlight. Those
two discoveries date back into antiquity. Right now as we're recording,
all that we know, all that anyone knows is there
is no record of people trying to make photographs before
(15:02):
sometime in the seventeen hundreds. But I I feel like
all three of us are probably old hands at looking
at UFO photographs, purported photographs of alien craft, and look,
you know a lot of them are proven hoaxes or
(15:22):
they have fairly solid mundane explanations. Well, you know, it
also makes me think of like the coddingly fairy photographs
that had Sir Arthur Conan Doyle all twisted up and
basically got him to kind of publicly embarrass himself taking
a photograph in those days and in the day, the
early days that we're talking about here was very, very
difficult to do convincingly. Um. So there's also a certain
(15:47):
amount of like the power of belief involved too, as
there you know, continues to be today. But I think
now we're so jaded by fake images and and you know,
photoshop jobs and stuff like that, that we're all looking
at things which much more of a discerning eye. Um
and maybe that power of belief has sort of waned
a little bit, well, wasn't. It's a really interesting point there,
not because if you think we we always talk about
(16:09):
technology as magic, right, just realized and when when you
think about that time frame right after a new technology
is being invented and starting to be adopted, there is
so much maybe wonder and off for the lay person
that doesn't know about it, right, And it's that it's
that magic side of the technology where you're still trying
(16:31):
to understand what it is. So I think there's probably
a really great window at the beginning of a technology
to trick lay people with it. Uh for someone who
is you know, early on in the in the know
about it. I don't know, Just just make me think
about that with these sort I agree with you, Matt. Also, yes,
folks that we know the Arthur C. Clark quote, and
(16:53):
I think we agree with it. Technology past some certain
threshold is indistinguishable from magic, I'm paraphrasing. I would also advance,
I would I would move that argument you're making a
bit further along and say that people aren't necessarily trying
to trick one another in that window of wonder. Let's
(17:15):
call it that people inventors and pioneers often end up
tricking themselves. History is replete with cases of great inventors
who thought their inventions did more than they did, right.
It's not uncommon for one human being to find, say
(17:36):
a medicinal application of a plant, right, or to discover
a new treatment for something, and then immediately, just like
the guy who invented the practice of chiropractics, they can
say this cures everything. If I just mess with your
spine in the right way, I will cure you are
(18:00):
serious non spine related medical condition. All. I will put
these pins inside your back, on your face, and you
will be cure. Well. That was also at a time
before like licensing was even needed or even oversight, So yeah,
a lot of those folks were really practicing. That's another point.
(18:20):
When you believe something you can change. You can change, um,
not only how you think about it and how you
view it, but sometimes how your body reacts to things. Right,
when you believe something so fully and strong enough. We've
seen that. Uh, we've seen that principle. The placebo effect
is real. Yeah, and appears to be accelerated. I feel
(18:42):
like the moment is past, but I'm gonna say it anyway,
because I believe in this thought. Uh. It is interesting
that no one needs a license to take a photograph.
It is orwellian to imagine a world where something like
that is the case. But that's that's another thinging that
must be considered when we're talking about photographs of things
(19:05):
that appear inexplicable or strange. That people who take these
photographs are not necessarily professional photographers, and they don't have
to be. There's no waiting period or background check when
you buy a camera. You know, most people have cameras
on their phones or they have no kias. Anyhow, There's
(19:28):
one photo that garnered a great deal of attention quite recently.
Part of this is due to the story behind it, uh,
And it's a good story. Uh. This photo was also
kept from the public for years. There's a bit of
state security around it that's often misreported, and then part
(19:53):
of it is due to just h just look at it, folks.
All you have to do is pull up cal l
Vine UFO Scotland. You can add photo in there if
you want to enhance your search. But what you will
see is, uh, well, you know what. Let's pause. Let's
(20:13):
pause for word from our sponsor. Give all of us
a chance to look at it. We'll be back to
explore this question. What is the Calvine ufo. Here's where
it gets crazy, all right, before we dive in. We
(20:34):
are not Scottish Calvine, Calvin, I think Calvine. We're going
with it seems fair v I n E. I mean
if it was Calvin, I would I would hope they
would have been kind enough to leave the e off. Well.
Initial reactions, UM, I know this is not the first
time the three of us have looked at this photograph.
H what do you what do you guys think? Just
(20:58):
I will say it. It looks cool. It looks like
a steampunk dirigible. Honestly, yeah, it's a cool photo. There's
no question about it. No such Bizarro cloud shapes and textures. Um,
the thing is it's almost diamond shaped. It's like a
squashed diamond, which if you'll recall I've often recounted my
(21:21):
uh my, my, would be potential sighting of a UFO
in Nebraska and it was a diamond. This is really
like like triggering me because it really looked very similar
to this and it had a similar like you know,
um distance on the horizon. It's weird though. Underneath is
that like a small prop plane. It's almost like for scale,
there's a second plane. Well it's maybe a fighter jet, right, Uh,
(21:45):
it might be a harrier right right right, Possibly it's interesting,
but yeah, there's a there's right right. And because they
couldn't get a banana up into the sky, so they
got a human made craft. Yeah. This is called the
Calvine photograph. It looks like a jet, like a fighter jet,
(22:07):
as we said, harrier jets, very similar thing. We owe
a lot of the work on this to a journalist
and associate professor at Sheffield Hallam University, one Dr David Clark.
Clark eventually brought this photo to the world, and before
(22:27):
we dive into his story, let's give you the background
the facts as we know, on August four, two hikers
who have not been publicly identified and will not be
publicly identified for many years. They were on this hillside,
per their story, near Calvin Calvine is about thirty five
(22:50):
miles northwest of place called Perth in Scotland. And these
hikers see this metallic object and from what they from
what they told the press, uh, they could tell it
was metal and it would look to be about a
hundred feet long from their observation, and it was they
(23:13):
associated it with this low hum and they watched it,
not briefly, they watched it for ten minutes. And then
they saw the fighter jets. Yeah, well, which makes you think, well,
perhaps those fighter jets were dispatched to that object because
(23:34):
the military was aware. Right, That's at least that's the speculation, right,
that's the story your mind generates. Um. And then also
according to the story, these guys, after they took the photographs,
they sent him over to a publication called the Daily Record,
which you know, if you really think you've got something,
you probably would send it out and try and get
(23:56):
it published somewhere. Maybe, I mean, what in hopes of
like paid either in the hopes of getting paid or
just in that moment of wonder that we're talking about, like, Wow,
this is amazing. Look at this thing I discovered. Maybe
maybe it's real and there are and aliens are real
and I need to tell the world, or maybe even
I could get paid, or at least I could get famous. Yeah,
(24:18):
it's a way, I guess I'm just still stuck on Nope.
A little bit of that movie is all about getting
that money shot, you know, and getting paid and like,
you know, becoming famous for your discovery. I was wonder
if that any of that was running through their minds
as well. We cannot know because we do not know
their identities. That's uh, and they have never made a
public statement about it. They sent, uh, the negatives of
(24:42):
the photos to a newspaper, Scotland's Daily Record. The paper
then sent those photos to the Ministry of Defense, and
the Daily Record didn't publish the photos. According to the Lore,
the Ministry of Defense buried the story as well. They
(25:04):
suppressed it. And we'll see how that's maybe not not
as extreme as it sounds. So we pulled some excerpts
from David Clark's website. From Dr Clark's website and he
name checks a guy named Nick Pope. Nick Pope hipped
(25:25):
Dr Clark to this series of photographs in a book
he wrote called Open Skies, Closed Minds. I love the title. Uh.
This book is an account of Clark's time working in
a real life X files job. He was at the
(25:46):
Ministry of Defenses UFO desk, and he says his experience
working there transformed him from a skeptic to a believer.
He was a civil servant, That's the only way he
learned about the Calvine photos. He says, this is one
of the most intriguing incidents or pieces of purported evidence
(26:11):
in the entire collection of the m O D. And
no one in the UFO community had heard of these
photos other than I guess those two hikers until Pope's
book was published, and no one in the media had
talked about them. Clark was eventually able to interview Pope,
(26:32):
and you can find a fascinating excerpt of the interview
on Clark's website. Let's do it, I suggest we go
for a dramatic reading. Who wants to play Clark? Who
wants to play Pope? Oh? Oh uh? How about Pope?
Can I be Pope? Sure? For sure, Clark says in
(26:57):
response to a question concerning a photo take in Scotland
that was mentioned in Open Skies, Closed Minds, Nick Pope responded,
it was taken I think in nine and ninety before
my tour of duty, and it was actually you know,
I'm a big fan of your voice where You're sure
about this one though, because this is long excerpt and
(27:17):
it was actually in post her form, blown up by
various people who had looked at it and stuck on
the wall. It was really it really was Fox Mulder stuff.
It didn't have I wanted to believe on it, but
it was on the office wall when I joined. I
don't know why British people always have to feel like
an old like colonel or something, but thank you Ben
for not allowing me to continue in that absurd high voice.
(27:40):
It subsequently came to be removed, but it was there,
and it had, as far as I can recall, been
taken by two people who had been out walking in Pilgrim,
who had heard a low humming sound, looked around, done
a double take, shot off. I think I'm not sure
if they shot off a few pictures of just one,
but it had been sent to the mod the Ministry
(28:01):
of Defense. Such a fan of your voice work, both
of you. I've seen so many interviews of Nick Pope
and you are just spot on there and shut up.
He We we actually all have a lot of fun,
uh doing doing voice work. We we do it for
(28:24):
many other shows in our network. And whenever you hear
us doing voices that we think are fun, know that
we are doing it with great affection and respect. Oh yeah,
I just want to point out here, uh, Nick Pope.
He makes a reference to Fox Molder there, which is
very interesting to me because that's around the time the
(28:44):
X Files is becoming a thing, and I'm just imagining
him in his office. Uh. I don't know if he's
at the Ministry of Defense, and I think maybe he was.
That's where the UFO project was actually occurring for the
UK government in that time when he was running it,
or he was at least a major part of it. Um.
I imagine him in a basement office, much like Fox,
(29:07):
with that picture on his ball. The way he describes it,
it's pretty pretty wonderful to imagine that. Agreed. It also
goes on and he's saying, you know, this had been
looked at extensively by experts or, as as Nick Pope
puts it, some people who would know a lot about
(29:28):
that sort of thing. Uh. And they said, these RMOD
experts or consultants at least, they said, this looks like
a solid structure and object, not weird weather. It doesn't
look like a hoax to them, and they have been
able to make some guestimations about its size. They started
(29:49):
speculating on aerodynamics, propulsion and things like that, and there
was a perception certain quartas that this was for real,
that it was a good one. And I think that's
so cool the way he's talking about it, because this
photo essentially became office art and no one was sure
(30:12):
what it what it was, but they thought it was cool.
And Nick Pope has um a funny kind of catch
twenty two story about how he lost the photo due
to the news about a craft built by the US
called Aurora. Mm hmm. I just want to point out,
(30:33):
I don't know how they can make any assumptions about
how large that craft is. I don't understand that, you know,
I think, yeah, I'm with you, I think, to be honest,
and there's not a ding on the on the folks
making those speculations. It feels almost to me like it
was water cooler talk or tea time talk. Maybe they
(30:57):
got around the poster right and going, you know, by jove,
look at that shape. How do you think it moves?
And someone else says, I imagine something sort of propulsion system.
I'm having a quick bite of their egg salad on
Rye water Crest. Jeez. Yeah, the Queen's dead. Wow. Old
(31:24):
woman passes away peacefully in sleep. That should have been
the headline there. I know there's involved people. I just
it seems like he will die every day. I know.
It's it's like she was surrounded by loved ones. There
is a massive legacy there, and it is fascinating that
in on the planet there is a new king in
(31:45):
two which is very fascinating. That's pretty nuts, and a
new prime minister like like within yes, and Henry Kissinger
still kicking. The Kissinger is still around. I like, I
am plugged in. I get news alerts just in case
(32:05):
he's years old. Yea, I will be turned into a
different body when my time will come. Yes, just so.
I think the deal he made is he got ten
extra minutes of life added to his span for every
innocent person who died as a result of his actions.
(32:26):
I thought you're gonna say war crime he encouraged. He's
a war criminal. I don't even know if the U
s would storm the Hague for him. To be honest,
they would legally have to. But yes, we we are
not meaning to sound callous or cold. For seventy years,
Queen Elizabeth the Second reigned over the United Kingdom and
(32:51):
its territories, which means that possibly she was aware of
this photograph brought it back. Uh, probably not. Probably. If
you are a monarch of an empire like the UK,
(33:11):
you probably have other stuff that you have to worry about.
I'm gonna say, I think if you're a monarch, you
have a great deal of interest in potential extraterrestrial life
and or secret technology like that. I think the Queen
was all over this photo, do you think so? Yeah? Baby,
all right, you know what, let's go with it. Yes,
(33:32):
and Matt, Yes, and she was. She was not just interested,
but she was the one who ordered the cover up
because she took it. She liked the poster and put
it in in a bucket of palace in a secret room
of cool posters. That's that's most of the palace actually
(33:53):
is that secret room and it's just posters. That's that's
the big secret. But the queen had a secret chill spot,
you know, with couches and like a beer fridge and
like a Neon sign, X files, posters and stuff like that.
Hope had va lamp, a snooker table, perhaps some foosball.
(34:16):
You know they call foosball in the UK they call
it flipper. Do you know that that's cool? Anyway? Alright,
that makes sense. It makes more sense than foosball if
we're being honest. Uh, what is the foods anyway? Yeah,
so the Queen's secret uh secret poster room, chill spot. Aside, Uh,
(34:40):
we know that Nick Pope did lose the photo to
his boss because they were getting heat from their friends
across the Atlantic. There was this debate over what is
now called the s R Aurora and Nick said his
(35:02):
boss freaked out and thought, this is a quote from
Nick Pope. Oh goodness, the Yanks won't like us having
this on the wall. I'm going to take it down
because they thought their US colleagues were coming over and
they said, oh, oh, you know, because a version of
oh crap, oh crap is like oh, dear, you know,
(35:24):
we we we've got to remove this in case it's
the thing they made that we're all supposed to pretend
his secret, which is hilarious. Um, And he goes through
the embassy Nick Pope, and he asked, I don't know,
let's just do the quote. Let's just Matt, you want
to take a turn into Pope voice? Sure? Sure, sure.
(35:45):
I was asking through the embassy, through various specialists, Hey
do you guys have a diamond or a triangular shaped
hypersonic thing you know that has a low humming sound
and does zero type five no, no sonic boom? How
do you? How do you do that? At you know,
they were saying no do you because we have sightings
(36:06):
as well, and we were wondering maybe if you know
it was an r AF a Royal Air Force plane
and we were saying, oh, I wish we had that.
That's so that is classic, right, that's very catch twenty
two stuff. If you have ever worked in a government
position or been a member of a large military, then
(36:27):
you've probably also experienced some hey why are you asking
me type stories like hey, I've got to go fill
in Form ten seventy eight A and the person who's
in charge of that said that I need ten eight B,
(36:47):
but I'm the one in charge of ten seventy eight
B and they have to send a form to me
like it's it's very I love I love it. I
thought it was a very humorous story. And as you said,
Matt nick Pole is a cool dude. Clark learns of
this photo, he goes hunting, and he meets dead ends
for more than a decade until finally he finds a
(37:12):
former press officer for the Royal Air Force, guy named
Craig Lindsay. Craig Lindsay has a copy of the photo.
It's not the original poster like all rolled up in
a cool tube that's obviously at the Queen's place. He
does have a pretty good copy of it, and Clark
(37:32):
learns that Lindsay held onto this original photo still in
its envelope from the Scottish newspaper, the Daily Record, because
apparently for years Craig Lindsay had been waiting for someone
to come looking for that photo. It's a weird story.
(37:52):
It's a weird story. We did mention that the Ministry
of Defense has classified some aspects of this story until
twenty seventy two. So we're gonna pause for a word
from our sponsor and we'll be back before two. Uh.
And when we return, we're gonna unbag some badgers. We're
(38:13):
gonna ask ourselves what this thing actually is. All Right,
we're back. We're back, and we're bagging and unbagging the
badgers of this story. What is this thing? I've read
(38:33):
a lot of analysis about this. I know we all did.
I was really impressed by the statements of a redditor
and credit where it's due. It's very important. The regular
guy zero one. We don't know the regular guy. We
have not contacted the regular guy. I just feel like
(38:57):
this reddator nailed a lot of the questionins that I
had uh and schooled me a little bit on photography.
So thanks to you, r G, I feel like we
can just call this person this entity r G. So
let's look at some of the stuff they point out. Well, um,
r G points out that nobody has actually identified who
(39:18):
took the images. We've discussed that part. Uh. The image
was apparently taken on an Ilford XP one black and
white thirty five mil camera film, rather um, which is
a pretty popular brand of black and white film. You
can buy it at most camera stores or order it online. Um.
It does have to be process you know, like you
have to find the place that actually will process black
and white film. Um. It just so happens that this
(39:40):
particular film is extremely forgiving when it comes to double exposures. Uh,
and that's true of black and white. I'm only I
was taking this because I took a couple of black
and white dark room photography classes in college, one of
my favorite things I did in college, And some of
the images that I took that I have printed actually
hanging on my wall. Uh, did quite a few double exposures.
(40:01):
You can keep the aperture open while moving a light
source around, and then you'll kind of get these burned
in images that like all kind of occupy the same space,
and if you do it right, you know, they look
kind of ghostly where they'll be will be a little
bit of transparency around the edges. And there's lots of
fun tricks you can do just with double exposures. Um.
Here Regular Guy then links to a source on this phenomenon,
(40:22):
specifically on lomography dot com. Um. You can find it
by because is a magazine. You can find that by
typing rare expired Ilford XP one four hundred and has
some interesting facts about you know, what can be done
with this trickery. R G also points out the thirty
five millimeter film uses a three to two ratio UM,
(40:44):
and the Calvine photo is not in this ratio. Matt,
you could probably speak to ratios in terms of like, um,
you know, video and stuff like like what what is
what are we talking about here? We're talking about literally
like the shape of the frame, right, Yeah? Does it
look like a square or does it look like a
what's known as a sixteen by nine image, which is
when you're familiar with if you hold your phone sideways
(41:07):
or is it in you know, some kind of other
vertical format, like when you've got your phone straight up
and you're looking at Instagram and TikTok and all those.
But it just has to do with the shape of
the rectangle. And well, this is another thing I noticed
why because of the because of the China intelligence angle. Yeah,
(41:27):
don't do it, okay, UM, the when when you first
look at this photograph, you noticed that the UFO or
U A P is almost directly centered, right, That's one
of the first striking things about it. UM, where you do.
It does seem as though there was a you know,
a piece of film that was then exposed and then
(41:49):
it was changed, like altered to be printed where the
u AP is in the center of the photograph. Yeah,
And it's strange because we also know that came ramber
I put this in the notes. But we also know
that the UK took it seriously enough to send an
image to the CIA and they described this as a
(42:12):
possible research vehicle. This image then gets sent to the Pentagon,
and the US and the UK are now having a
water cooler moment Transatlantic style, you know what I mean. Uh,
And so they're taking it seriously. But there's another thing.
(42:37):
R G finds that it is interesting and kind of
dovetails nicely with our earlier conversation about interpretation right and
cultural framework. If you look at David Clark's Twitter, you
(42:58):
will see that there is a proven hoax image that
looks very similar. Some would say, uh, this hoax was
made in nineteen comes from Puerto Rico, But if you
click on it, then what you'll see, or aside from landscape,
(43:21):
you'll see two objects in the air that appear pretty
similar in both placement and shape. Oh yeah, uh yeah,
except this definitely not centered. There's a big tree and
a bunch of branches in the foreground, and then in
the background you see a this is more of a
flying saucer image. It's flatter in the center, with two
(43:46):
uh I don't know, I don't let you call them
kind of domed shapes on the top and bottom of
that flat surface. And the curious thing is, though, and
I think that's what you're talking about here, Ben, there
is a fighter jet. This one is clearly a fighter
jet right next to the UFO in the picture. Yeah.
And r G also notes, uh, something I really appreciated
(44:11):
regarding the specifics of the Ministry of Defenses classification orders.
Did they bury the story. Let's be honest with each other, folks.
If the United Kingdom wants to bury his story, they
can do so with great success. Look at Jimmy Saville right,
(44:33):
Look at the ongoing child abuse cover up in the government.
Look at Prince Andrew right. That guy is not going
to get in trouble. He just what can't go to
certain lunches. And this, like what I'm saying is that
the UK has the capabilities and the will to actually
(44:56):
bury a story if the UK wants to so it
doesn't sound like a cover up. If you're a journalist
and you're able to find a retired press officer who says, oh,
I've been keeping this envelope just in case I was
hoping somebody would come along and ask me about that,
(45:16):
because that envelope would be gone if there really was
a cover up. From what I can tell, the classification
order essentially just disguises or withholds the identities of those
two original hikers. That's the main secret, which you know,
(45:39):
when you put it that way, doesn't necessarily it sounds
like the government is going is having an oh, snap
Aliens moment, does it now? And and and and regular
guy goes on to say that he does feel like
this photo is a hoax. Um and this person does
(46:00):
consider themselves a true believer in UFO phenomena, but also
has a pretty keen photographic eye. And I think you're
looking for the right things. And this is where we
are drawing to a close. Folks, take a look at
the s R. Aurora craft and take a look at
(46:21):
this photograph from Scotland in the ninety nineties, and give
us your take. Do you think they look similar. Do
you think this is a hoax? Do you think there's
something they don't want you to know? I want to
point out that the Aurora aircraft, this alleged aircraft out
(46:44):
there in some of the research that we've done on
it in the past, there are a lot of players
where you can find information about it. There's not a
lot of official information that you can find about this thing.
You can go there is a website called Defense d
E F E n C E aviation dot com and
it does have like computer rendered images of what this
(47:06):
thing allegedly is supposed to look like, multiple ones. And um,
I just have to point out if you go to
a website like this and you check it out and
you're reading information, oh my god, this is crazy. Check
the website to see if there's a disclaimer on this website.
If you defense aviation dot com, if you click on
(47:27):
their disclaimer, you're gonna find something that says, all information
on the site is provided in good faith. However, we
make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied,
regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of
any information on the site. Yeah, that's because of family show. Uh,
(47:53):
tell your kids that c y A stands for cover
your assumptions. Uh, oh my gosh, goad humor. Uh, yeah,
it's true. The biggest question about the s R nine
aurora is whether the US military actually ever made one.
It's and to be fair, there is secret technology. There
(48:18):
is classified, even suppressed technology out there. Now. You might
be surprised by how far along some aspects of technology
are and they're not released to the public sometimes for
good reason. Shout out National Invention Secrecy Act, which was
(48:41):
super dick move bio Uncle Sam, but arguably arguably necessary.
So is this again a hoax? Is this a secret
plane that may or may not exist? What is going
on with this UFO? We cannot wait to hear your thoughts, folks,
which try to be easy to find online. That's right.
(49:02):
You can find this on Facebook, on YouTube, and on
Twitter at the handle conspiracy Stuff on Instagram where conspiracy
Stuff show. Yes and don't forget our book. There's a
whole chapter that goes into UFOs, U A P and
government technology. It's very very very good, excellent work been
and Matt, I guess, but mostly been. Um. I'm also
(49:25):
going to point out that the F FOURT team Tomcat
is perhaps the most badass looking aircraft that was ever
produced on this planet. It is just the coolest, especially
if you see it kind of from above. Dang, that
thing is dope. Uh, it's just so good. Okay, Um,
(49:46):
you can also call us. We have a phone number
only smokes. You're right, the rumors are true. If you
want to give us a call, we are only a
phone call away. The number is one eight three three
std too be y t K. You'll hear a message,
you'll hear a beep like so beep, and then you'll
have three minutes go nuts get really weird. Uh, Matt,
(50:10):
you recently sent uh a lovely co sign about my
dream of living in a billboard and I listened to it.
I thought it was great. We've got to put that
on the air next week. Uh. And we'd love to
put your message on the air too, so long as
(50:30):
you give us the okay, tell us if it's all
right to use your name and or voice on the air.
Most importantly, if you have a story that will not
fit within three minutes, then don't feel rushed. Don't feel
like you need to keep calling. All you have to
do is send this an email, right it out in full.
We read every single email we get. Drop us a
(50:52):
line where we are conspiracy and I heart radio dot
com m H. Stuff they don't want you to know
(51:16):
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben, and we are joined as always with our
super producer Paul Mission Controlled deconds. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. We are required to say. Look,
we made a book. Check it out. You can also
(00:46):
hear it as an audio book. You can also see
us live. We are going on the road in a
couple of places and we would love to hang out
with you in person. On We're a Lemon, the day
the book comes out, we'll be here in Atlanta. On
will be in d C. And on we will be
in Massachusetts. Check out stuff you should read books dot
(01:09):
com to find more, and definitely come and see us. Please,
if you're even close, come and see us. We'd love
to see you. And for everyone who has written to
us or reach out to us as individuals or on
our show social media asking us to go to other cities,
other countries we're with you, make a bigger stink about it.
(01:33):
Get your friends to say the same thing. Fight the
power today we're gonna do Oh gosh. I was recently
watching the Newest, uh, Newest Rick and Morty season, and
I love the way that they describe things and they
can be a bit meta, which isn't for everyone, But
(01:55):
I love those moments where Rick, voiced by just In Royland,
says something like it's it's a one and done. We're
gonna have a simple adventure Morty. More to it's just
wanted done. Classic, classic freaking Morty. That's kind of what
we're doing. Uh. Recently, you may have heard claims about
(02:17):
how the United States lied about its stance on UFOs.
That is absolutely true. You've probably also heard about other
governments doing the same. That is also true. But but
today's episode concerns a recently disclosed photograph that has garnered
(02:43):
a lot of attention in the world of ufology. Shout
out to our pals like Chris Cogswell from Mad Scientists Pod.
Also shout out to our colleagues at the Breakfast Club
who have also, it turns out, discussed this. But before
we do, our big reveal and give you our opinions. Folks,
(03:05):
We've got to start at the beginning. Here are the facts.
I'm sorry, it's a wamp wamp moment. There are as
of now no proven photographs of alien spacecraft, but there
are tons and tons and tons of photos of UFOs.
Riddle me this, what what's the difference there? Well, their
(03:25):
photos and videos, right, and recently the videos have been
making a lot of news. Uh. The thing is they
are UFOs or now U A P s unidentified aerial phenomena.
They are not conclusively known to be alien or extraterrestrial spacecraft.
That's the difference, right, Because anything that you, as the
(03:45):
photographer snap a picture of or take a video of
that's up in the sky that you're unaware of what
it is, is a U A P. Well it's a UFO,
I guess U A P is, Like I don't know
the is that the overall category? I guess because I
think that's how I would put it. At least, weird
rain could be a U A P. Yeah, that's right.
(04:05):
An oddly shaped cloud perhaps. Um. But gentlemen, you know
we've got all these photos unproven of course, and now
these you know, tic tac videos and all of that.
But what about antiquity? What about art? You know, what
about things that maybe we didn't really with a keener
I at the time realized, may have actually been depicting.
(04:26):
Um you u A P. S or UFOs. Yeah, that's
you know. What that reminds me of is the old
question to whom does a work of art belong? Does
it belong to the owner, does it belong to the creator,
does it belong to the audience, you know, those who
perceive it. A lot of the stuff about ancient aliens,
(04:50):
a lot of the Eric von danikin lore and so on,
really depends on interpretations. So you're taking a modern cultural
lens and you are applying that cultural framework too something
that was made hundreds or you know, thousands of years ago.
What you can say, if if we kind of bracket
(05:12):
the messy question of interpretation, what you can say is
that people, at least since the dawn of drawing have
drawn and carved depictions of strange things in the sky.
And a lot of that I'm sure is artistic license. Uh.
No one in ancient civilization has straight out said there
(05:35):
are aliens in the sky. Here is you know, a
drawing I made of them on this papyrus, or here
is the thing I carved into rock about my wonderful
meeting with people from beyond this earthly realm. Well, I
mean except for really like the Dogon tribe, right, they
pretty specifically noted serious amb serious. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah.
(06:00):
Also again, I love that you bring this up, Matt,
because then we have to ask about another kind of
application of cultural framework. The people who originally reported the
Dogon story to the wider world, where European and may
(06:21):
have brought some of their own interpretive baggage. Let's say
to this story, we should actually do a do an
episode on the Dogon We've mentioned them in the past
multiple times, but it bears investigation. You know already we're
talking UFOs, right guys, So some of our more skeptical
(06:41):
conspiracy realists maybe rolling their eyes. But if you find
yourself in that number, if we caught you mid eye
roll with that statement, you might be interested to learn
that belief in not just UFOs, but extraterrestrial intelligence is
increasingly common. It's less and less rare now. As a
(07:04):
matter of fact, if you live in the United States
and you believe that extra terrestrial beings have visited Earth.
You are in the majority. Yeah, there's a research poll
that found fifty one of people living in this country
the United States believe quote UFOs reported by people in
the military are likely evidence of intelligent life outside Earth unquote.
(07:29):
And it makes sense there's now a modern reference to
recent UFO footage, right or UAP footage that people It's
at least at the front of more people's minds. Um
The question there is really are those craft extra terrestrial
or not? And yeah, but whether or not we have
(07:49):
more you know, quote unquote confirmed videos or at least
the acknowledgement of the government that there's something going on,
we still don't exactly have anything in the form of
as or you know, actual you know, pieces of these
crafts or something that we can really like, you know, analyze.
It's still kind of in the realm of conjecture, at
(08:10):
least in terms of like, you know, what we where
we think these things are from, because the government sure
isn't saying that, even if they are kind of tacitly
acknowledging that there's something there. Yeah, we certainly don't have
anything that's been publicly acknowledged. No physical evidence has been acknowledged.
We've heard tons of stories about that physical evidence that
exists somewhere out there, right, but we've never actually seen it. Yeah,
(08:33):
it's a it's it's touted as is somewhere between a
camp fire story and a weird never explained superpower. Right.
Shout out to Big Low Airspace, who have repeatedly publicly
stated that they are in possession of um materials and
(08:54):
artifacts unknown to humanity, and for one reason another, they
have yet to release any physical evidence of those claims
to back them up at least. But if you are
a true believer, then you may feel the evidence is everywhere.
You may feel that people are in fact being willfully
(09:16):
ignorant or purposely misleading when they talk about these things.
But also, you know, there's an emotional element to it.
I would argue, because human beings have been taking photos
of unidentified things in the sky were so much longer
then people might know. Uh. And we're not talking now.
(09:38):
We're not talking about, you know, the von Dannikins of
the world looking at ancient carvings and putting their own
spin on it. We're talking about actually there we go,
shout it up. I like it. Uh, we're we're talking
about genuine photographs. Since the advent of photo technology, people
(10:03):
have been tried to snap cool, exclusive picks of weird stuff.
I was surprised that the first generally acknowledged UFO photograph
dates all the way back to eighteen seventy one in
Mount Washington, New Hampshire. And I included a picture of
this because I would love to get you guys take
(10:26):
on it. I just gave you the image, so no,
you're coming in fresh if you haven't seen this. There's
no caption, just tell us what. I'll tell you what
I see. I see something that appears to be clouds,
but is not clouds because of the way they are formed.
I'm telling you right now, these things are not clouds. Also,
(10:50):
it looks like there's a tiny little cigar shaped thing
in two photographs. It looks to be two photographs that
were maybe taken from a flying craft where the photographer
is is moving horizontally, so you get a slight perspective change,
like one shot taken here and the next shot taken
a little further along. Um, but dang, it just looks
(11:11):
like a manipulated photograph to me. Yeah, it looks like
there's it looks like there's some fuzz, you know what
I mean, there's some schmutz on the lens maybe or
something went wrong in the development process of the photo. Still,
but look how textured those clouds are. It looks like, um,
(11:33):
it just looks like a completely different texture than clouds
to me. But I don't know, that's just me. Yeah,
it looks like tissue paper or something. It's got like
this wet, kind of textured look to it, or like
some sort of fabric. Very and yeah, and you're right,
that little thing, that little blip in the foreground that
is that's not that isn't that doesn't really blend in
(11:54):
with the surrounding environment at all. Wait wait wait are
you are you guys telling me this is not fundamentally
changed your opinion on extraterrestrial life. Uh and UFOs, it's
not enough. Not currently, I'm just trying to figure out
how they made those mashed potatoes to look like the
(12:18):
most fluffy clouds I've ever seen. It looks like paper
machee or something like it's it really does look like
a glue, kind of like a papery mass that was
sort of textured informed it's a super low res image
to you, guys. I've got it blown up like crazy
on my screen, so the pixels are doing some blending.
But there is one tiny bit of the reported UFO here,
(12:42):
alleged UFO that is on the far left of it,
that does appear to be similar, if not the same.
I don't know. I'd love to see a full res
image of that, or at least a you know, an
original or something. Yeah. The this was taken by Amos F.
Kloud and Howard A. Kembell in eight seventy one. They
(13:06):
were on a meteorological expeditions, so they weren't out purposely
trying to staff photos of anything but weather related phenomenon. Uh.
You might be interested to know the photo came into
the public eye in two thousand and two. It got
(13:26):
purchased on eBay the original by a guy named Samuel M. Sherman,
who was then president of the Independent International Pictures Corporation.
So check that out again. Eight seventy one UFO photo
Mount Washington. Uh, and let us know your thoughts. We're
(13:49):
showing you this just to establish the track record that
humanity has with photographing UFOs, and especially in recent years.
Shout out to our good pal Jeremy Corbell, there have
been even more um let's say, high fidelity photographs and
(14:13):
video coming out that people appear to be at a
loss to explain. Also, when you're talking about mysteries, I
was not aware of this. We don't actually know who
discovered the initial principles leading to photography, the two fundamental
principles camera obscura and the first time that someone said, oh,
(14:39):
this stuff changes when you put it in sunlight. Those
two discoveries date back into antiquity. Right now as we're recording,
all that we know, all that anyone knows is there
is no record of people trying to make photographs before
(15:02):
sometime in the seventeen hundreds. But I I feel like
all three of us are probably old hands at looking
at UFO photographs, purported photographs of alien craft, and look,
you know a lot of them are proven hoaxes or
(15:22):
they have fairly solid mundane explanations. Well, you know, it
also makes me think of like the coddingly fairy photographs
that had Sir Arthur Conan Doyle all twisted up and
basically got him to kind of publicly embarrass himself taking
a photograph in those days and in the day, the
early days that we're talking about here was very, very
difficult to do convincingly. Um. So there's also a certain
(15:47):
amount of like the power of belief involved too, as
there you know, continues to be today. But I think
now we're so jaded by fake images and and you know,
photoshop jobs and stuff like that, that we're all looking
at things which much more of a discerning eye. Um
and maybe that power of belief has sort of waned
a little bit, well, wasn't. It's a really interesting point there,
not because if you think we we always talk about
(16:09):
technology as magic, right, just realized and when when you
think about that time frame right after a new technology
is being invented and starting to be adopted, there is
so much maybe wonder and off for the lay person
that doesn't know about it, right, And it's that it's
that magic side of the technology where you're still trying
(16:31):
to understand what it is. So I think there's probably
a really great window at the beginning of a technology
to trick lay people with it. Uh for someone who
is you know, early on in the in the know
about it. I don't know, Just just make me think
about that with these sort I agree with you, Matt. Also, yes,
folks that we know the Arthur C. Clark quote, and
(16:53):
I think we agree with it. Technology past some certain
threshold is indistinguishable from magic, I'm paraphrasing. I would also advance,
I would I would move that argument you're making a
bit further along and say that people aren't necessarily trying
to trick one another in that window of wonder. Let's
(17:15):
call it that people inventors and pioneers often end up
tricking themselves. History is replete with cases of great inventors
who thought their inventions did more than they did, right.
It's not uncommon for one human being to find, say
(17:36):
a medicinal application of a plant, right, or to discover
a new treatment for something, and then immediately, just like
the guy who invented the practice of chiropractics, they can
say this cures everything. If I just mess with your
spine in the right way, I will cure you are
(18:00):
serious non spine related medical condition. All. I will put
these pins inside your back, on your face, and you
will be cure. Well. That was also at a time
before like licensing was even needed or even oversight, So yeah,
a lot of those folks were really practicing. That's another point.
(18:20):
When you believe something you can change. You can change, um,
not only how you think about it and how you
view it, but sometimes how your body reacts to things. Right,
when you believe something so fully and strong enough. We've
seen that. Uh, we've seen that principle. The placebo effect
is real. Yeah, and appears to be accelerated. I feel
(18:42):
like the moment is past, but I'm gonna say it anyway,
because I believe in this thought. Uh. It is interesting
that no one needs a license to take a photograph.
It is orwellian to imagine a world where something like
that is the case. But that's that's another thinging that
must be considered when we're talking about photographs of things
(19:05):
that appear inexplicable or strange. That people who take these
photographs are not necessarily professional photographers, and they don't have
to be. There's no waiting period or background check when
you buy a camera. You know, most people have cameras
on their phones or they have no kias. Anyhow, There's
(19:28):
one photo that garnered a great deal of attention quite recently.
Part of this is due to the story behind it, uh,
And it's a good story. Uh. This photo was also
kept from the public for years. There's a bit of
state security around it that's often misreported, and then part
(19:53):
of it is due to just h just look at it, folks.
All you have to do is pull up cal l
Vine UFO Scotland. You can add photo in there if
you want to enhance your search. But what you will
see is, uh, well, you know what. Let's pause. Let's
(20:13):
pause for word from our sponsor. Give all of us
a chance to look at it. We'll be back to
explore this question. What is the Calvine ufo. Here's where
it gets crazy, all right, before we dive in. We
(20:34):
are not Scottish Calvine, Calvin, I think Calvine. We're going
with it seems fair v I n E. I mean
if it was Calvin, I would I would hope they
would have been kind enough to leave the e off. Well.
Initial reactions, UM, I know this is not the first
time the three of us have looked at this photograph.
H what do you what do you guys think? Just
(20:58):
I will say it. It looks cool. It looks like
a steampunk dirigible. Honestly, yeah, it's a cool photo. There's
no question about it. No such Bizarro cloud shapes and textures. Um,
the thing is it's almost diamond shaped. It's like a
squashed diamond, which if you'll recall I've often recounted my
(21:21):
uh my, my, would be potential sighting of a UFO
in Nebraska and it was a diamond. This is really
like like triggering me because it really looked very similar
to this and it had a similar like you know,
um distance on the horizon. It's weird though. Underneath is
that like a small prop plane. It's almost like for scale,
there's a second plane. Well it's maybe a fighter jet, right, Uh,
(21:45):
it might be a harrier right right right, Possibly it's interesting,
but yeah, there's a there's right right. And because they
couldn't get a banana up into the sky, so they
got a human made craft. Yeah. This is called the
Calvine photograph. It looks like a jet, like a fighter jet,
(22:07):
as we said, harrier jets, very similar thing. We owe
a lot of the work on this to a journalist
and associate professor at Sheffield Hallam University, one Dr David Clark.
Clark eventually brought this photo to the world, and before
(22:27):
we dive into his story, let's give you the background
the facts as we know, on August four, two hikers
who have not been publicly identified and will not be
publicly identified for many years. They were on this hillside,
per their story, near Calvin Calvine is about thirty five
(22:50):
miles northwest of place called Perth in Scotland. And these
hikers see this metallic object and from what they from
what they told the press, uh, they could tell it
was metal and it would look to be about a
hundred feet long from their observation, and it was they
(23:13):
associated it with this low hum and they watched it,
not briefly, they watched it for ten minutes. And then
they saw the fighter jets. Yeah, well, which makes you think, well,
perhaps those fighter jets were dispatched to that object because
(23:34):
the military was aware. Right, That's at least that's the speculation, right,
that's the story your mind generates. Um. And then also
according to the story, these guys, after they took the photographs,
they sent him over to a publication called the Daily Record,
which you know, if you really think you've got something,
you probably would send it out and try and get
(23:56):
it published somewhere. Maybe, I mean, what in hopes of
like paid either in the hopes of getting paid or
just in that moment of wonder that we're talking about, like, Wow,
this is amazing. Look at this thing I discovered. Maybe
maybe it's real and there are and aliens are real
and I need to tell the world, or maybe even
I could get paid, or at least I could get famous. Yeah,
(24:18):
it's a way, I guess I'm just still stuck on Nope.
A little bit of that movie is all about getting
that money shot, you know, and getting paid and like,
you know, becoming famous for your discovery. I was wonder
if that any of that was running through their minds
as well. We cannot know because we do not know
their identities. That's uh, and they have never made a
public statement about it. They sent, uh, the negatives of
(24:42):
the photos to a newspaper, Scotland's Daily Record. The paper
then sent those photos to the Ministry of Defense, and
the Daily Record didn't publish the photos. According to the Lore,
the Ministry of Defense buried the story as well. They
(25:04):
suppressed it. And we'll see how that's maybe not not
as extreme as it sounds. So we pulled some excerpts
from David Clark's website. From Dr Clark's website and he
name checks a guy named Nick Pope. Nick Pope hipped
(25:25):
Dr Clark to this series of photographs in a book
he wrote called Open Skies, Closed Minds. I love the title. Uh.
This book is an account of Clark's time working in
a real life X files job. He was at the
(25:46):
Ministry of Defenses UFO desk, and he says his experience
working there transformed him from a skeptic to a believer.
He was a civil servant, That's the only way he
learned about the Calvine photos. He says, this is one
of the most intriguing incidents or pieces of purported evidence
(26:11):
in the entire collection of the m O D. And
no one in the UFO community had heard of these
photos other than I guess those two hikers until Pope's
book was published, and no one in the media had
talked about them. Clark was eventually able to interview Pope,
(26:32):
and you can find a fascinating excerpt of the interview
on Clark's website. Let's do it, I suggest we go
for a dramatic reading. Who wants to play Clark? Who
wants to play Pope? Oh? Oh uh? How about Pope?
Can I be Pope? Sure? For sure, Clark says in
(26:57):
response to a question concerning a photo take in Scotland
that was mentioned in Open Skies, Closed Minds, Nick Pope responded,
it was taken I think in nine and ninety before
my tour of duty, and it was actually you know,
I'm a big fan of your voice where You're sure
about this one though, because this is long excerpt and
(27:17):
it was actually in post her form, blown up by
various people who had looked at it and stuck on
the wall. It was really it really was Fox Mulder stuff.
It didn't have I wanted to believe on it, but
it was on the office wall when I joined. I
don't know why British people always have to feel like
an old like colonel or something, but thank you Ben
for not allowing me to continue in that absurd high voice.
(27:40):
It subsequently came to be removed, but it was there,
and it had, as far as I can recall, been
taken by two people who had been out walking in Pilgrim,
who had heard a low humming sound, looked around, done
a double take, shot off. I think I'm not sure
if they shot off a few pictures of just one,
but it had been sent to the mod the Ministry
(28:01):
of Defense. Such a fan of your voice work, both
of you. I've seen so many interviews of Nick Pope
and you are just spot on there and shut up.
He We we actually all have a lot of fun,
uh doing doing voice work. We we do it for
(28:24):
many other shows in our network. And whenever you hear
us doing voices that we think are fun, know that
we are doing it with great affection and respect. Oh yeah,
I just want to point out here, uh, Nick Pope.
He makes a reference to Fox Molder there, which is
very interesting to me because that's around the time the
(28:44):
X Files is becoming a thing, and I'm just imagining
him in his office. Uh. I don't know if he's
at the Ministry of Defense, and I think maybe he was.
That's where the UFO project was actually occurring for the
UK government in that time when he was running it,
or he was at least a major part of it. Um.
I imagine him in a basement office, much like Fox,
(29:07):
with that picture on his ball. The way he describes it,
it's pretty pretty wonderful to imagine that. Agreed. It also
goes on and he's saying, you know, this had been
looked at extensively by experts or, as as Nick Pope
puts it, some people who would know a lot about
(29:28):
that sort of thing. Uh. And they said, these RMOD
experts or consultants at least, they said, this looks like
a solid structure and object, not weird weather. It doesn't
look like a hoax to them, and they have been
able to make some guestimations about its size. They started
(29:49):
speculating on aerodynamics, propulsion and things like that, and there
was a perception certain quartas that this was for real,
that it was a good one. And I think that's
so cool the way he's talking about it, because this
photo essentially became office art and no one was sure
(30:12):
what it what it was, but they thought it was cool.
And Nick Pope has um a funny kind of catch
twenty two story about how he lost the photo due
to the news about a craft built by the US
called Aurora. Mm hmm. I just want to point out,
(30:33):
I don't know how they can make any assumptions about
how large that craft is. I don't understand that, you know,
I think, yeah, I'm with you, I think, to be honest,
and there's not a ding on the on the folks
making those speculations. It feels almost to me like it
was water cooler talk or tea time talk. Maybe they
(30:57):
got around the poster right and going, you know, by jove,
look at that shape. How do you think it moves?
And someone else says, I imagine something sort of propulsion system.
I'm having a quick bite of their egg salad on
Rye water Crest. Jeez. Yeah, the Queen's dead. Wow. Old
(31:24):
woman passes away peacefully in sleep. That should have been
the headline there. I know there's involved people. I just
it seems like he will die every day. I know.
It's it's like she was surrounded by loved ones. There
is a massive legacy there, and it is fascinating that
in on the planet there is a new king in
(31:45):
two which is very fascinating. That's pretty nuts, and a
new prime minister like like within yes, and Henry Kissinger
still kicking. The Kissinger is still around. I like, I
am plugged in. I get news alerts just in case
(32:05):
he's years old. Yea, I will be turned into a
different body when my time will come. Yes, just so.
I think the deal he made is he got ten
extra minutes of life added to his span for every
innocent person who died as a result of his actions.
(32:26):
I thought you're gonna say war crime he encouraged. He's
a war criminal. I don't even know if the U
s would storm the Hague for him. To be honest,
they would legally have to. But yes, we we are
not meaning to sound callous or cold. For seventy years,
Queen Elizabeth the Second reigned over the United Kingdom and
(32:51):
its territories, which means that possibly she was aware of
this photograph brought it back. Uh, probably not. Probably. If
you are a monarch of an empire like the UK,
(33:11):
you probably have other stuff that you have to worry about.
I'm gonna say, I think if you're a monarch, you
have a great deal of interest in potential extraterrestrial life
and or secret technology like that. I think the Queen
was all over this photo, do you think so? Yeah? Baby,
all right, you know what, let's go with it. Yes,
(33:32):
and Matt, Yes, and she was. She was not just interested,
but she was the one who ordered the cover up
because she took it. She liked the poster and put
it in in a bucket of palace in a secret room
of cool posters. That's that's most of the palace actually
(33:53):
is that secret room and it's just posters. That's that's
the big secret. But the queen had a secret chill spot,
you know, with couches and like a beer fridge and
like a Neon sign, X files, posters and stuff like that.
Hope had va lamp, a snooker table, perhaps some foosball.
(34:16):
You know they call foosball in the UK they call
it flipper. Do you know that that's cool? Anyway? Alright,
that makes sense. It makes more sense than foosball if
we're being honest. Uh, what is the foods anyway? Yeah,
so the Queen's secret uh secret poster room, chill spot. Aside, Uh,
(34:40):
we know that Nick Pope did lose the photo to
his boss because they were getting heat from their friends
across the Atlantic. There was this debate over what is
now called the s R Aurora and Nick said his
(35:02):
boss freaked out and thought, this is a quote from
Nick Pope. Oh goodness, the Yanks won't like us having
this on the wall. I'm going to take it down
because they thought their US colleagues were coming over and
they said, oh, oh, you know, because a version of
oh crap, oh crap is like oh, dear, you know,
(35:24):
we we we've got to remove this in case it's
the thing they made that we're all supposed to pretend
his secret, which is hilarious. Um, And he goes through
the embassy Nick Pope, and he asked, I don't know,
let's just do the quote. Let's just Matt, you want
to take a turn into Pope voice? Sure? Sure, sure.
(35:45):
I was asking through the embassy, through various specialists, Hey
do you guys have a diamond or a triangular shaped
hypersonic thing you know that has a low humming sound
and does zero type five no, no sonic boom? How
do you? How do you do that? At you know,
they were saying no do you because we have sightings
(36:06):
as well, and we were wondering maybe if you know
it was an r AF a Royal Air Force plane
and we were saying, oh, I wish we had that.
That's so that is classic, right, that's very catch twenty
two stuff. If you have ever worked in a government
position or been a member of a large military, then
(36:27):
you've probably also experienced some hey why are you asking
me type stories like hey, I've got to go fill
in Form ten seventy eight A and the person who's
in charge of that said that I need ten eight B,
(36:47):
but I'm the one in charge of ten seventy eight
B and they have to send a form to me
like it's it's very I love I love it. I
thought it was a very humorous story. And as you said,
Matt nick Pole is a cool dude. Clark learns of
this photo, he goes hunting, and he meets dead ends
for more than a decade until finally he finds a
(37:12):
former press officer for the Royal Air Force, guy named
Craig Lindsay. Craig Lindsay has a copy of the photo.
It's not the original poster like all rolled up in
a cool tube that's obviously at the Queen's place. He
does have a pretty good copy of it, and Clark
(37:32):
learns that Lindsay held onto this original photo still in
its envelope from the Scottish newspaper, the Daily Record, because
apparently for years Craig Lindsay had been waiting for someone
to come looking for that photo. It's a weird story.
(37:52):
It's a weird story. We did mention that the Ministry
of Defense has classified some aspects of this story until
twenty seventy two. So we're gonna pause for a word
from our sponsor and we'll be back before two. Uh.
And when we return, we're gonna unbag some badgers. We're
(38:13):
gonna ask ourselves what this thing actually is. All Right,
we're back. We're back, and we're bagging and unbagging the
badgers of this story. What is this thing? I've read
(38:33):
a lot of analysis about this. I know we all did.
I was really impressed by the statements of a redditor
and credit where it's due. It's very important. The regular
guy zero one. We don't know the regular guy. We
have not contacted the regular guy. I just feel like
(38:57):
this reddator nailed a lot of the questionins that I
had uh and schooled me a little bit on photography.
So thanks to you, r G, I feel like we
can just call this person this entity r G. So
let's look at some of the stuff they point out. Well, um,
r G points out that nobody has actually identified who
(39:18):
took the images. We've discussed that part. Uh. The image
was apparently taken on an Ilford XP one black and
white thirty five mil camera film, rather um, which is
a pretty popular brand of black and white film. You
can buy it at most camera stores or order it online. Um.
It does have to be process you know, like you
have to find the place that actually will process black
and white film. Um. It just so happens that this
(39:40):
particular film is extremely forgiving when it comes to double exposures. Uh,
and that's true of black and white. I'm only I
was taking this because I took a couple of black
and white dark room photography classes in college, one of
my favorite things I did in college, And some of
the images that I took that I have printed actually
hanging on my wall. Uh, did quite a few double exposures.
(40:01):
You can keep the aperture open while moving a light
source around, and then you'll kind of get these burned
in images that like all kind of occupy the same space,
and if you do it right, you know, they look
kind of ghostly where they'll be will be a little
bit of transparency around the edges. And there's lots of
fun tricks you can do just with double exposures. Um.
Here Regular Guy then links to a source on this phenomenon,
(40:22):
specifically on lomography dot com. Um. You can find it
by because is a magazine. You can find that by
typing rare expired Ilford XP one four hundred and has
some interesting facts about you know, what can be done
with this trickery. R G also points out the thirty
five millimeter film uses a three to two ratio UM,
(40:44):
and the Calvine photo is not in this ratio. Matt,
you could probably speak to ratios in terms of like, um,
you know, video and stuff like like what what is
what are we talking about here? We're talking about literally
like the shape of the frame, right, Yeah? Does it
look like a square or does it look like a
what's known as a sixteen by nine image, which is
when you're familiar with if you hold your phone sideways
(41:07):
or is it in you know, some kind of other
vertical format, like when you've got your phone straight up
and you're looking at Instagram and TikTok and all those.
But it just has to do with the shape of
the rectangle. And well, this is another thing I noticed
why because of the because of the China intelligence angle. Yeah,
(41:27):
don't do it, okay, UM, the when when you first
look at this photograph, you noticed that the UFO or
U A P is almost directly centered, right, That's one
of the first striking things about it. UM, where you do.
It does seem as though there was a you know,
a piece of film that was then exposed and then
(41:49):
it was changed, like altered to be printed where the
u AP is in the center of the photograph. Yeah,
And it's strange because we also know that came ramber
I put this in the notes. But we also know
that the UK took it seriously enough to send an
image to the CIA and they described this as a
(42:12):
possible research vehicle. This image then gets sent to the Pentagon,
and the US and the UK are now having a
water cooler moment Transatlantic style, you know what I mean. Uh,
And so they're taking it seriously. But there's another thing.
(42:37):
R G finds that it is interesting and kind of
dovetails nicely with our earlier conversation about interpretation right and
cultural framework. If you look at David Clark's Twitter, you
(42:58):
will see that there is a proven hoax image that
looks very similar. Some would say, uh, this hoax was
made in nineteen comes from Puerto Rico, But if you
click on it, then what you'll see, or aside from landscape,
(43:21):
you'll see two objects in the air that appear pretty
similar in both placement and shape. Oh yeah, uh yeah,
except this definitely not centered. There's a big tree and
a bunch of branches in the foreground, and then in
the background you see a this is more of a
flying saucer image. It's flatter in the center, with two
(43:46):
uh I don't know, I don't let you call them
kind of domed shapes on the top and bottom of
that flat surface. And the curious thing is, though, and
I think that's what you're talking about here, Ben, there
is a fighter jet. This one is clearly a fighter
jet right next to the UFO in the picture. Yeah.
And r G also notes, uh, something I really appreciated
(44:11):
regarding the specifics of the Ministry of Defenses classification orders.
Did they bury the story. Let's be honest with each other, folks.
If the United Kingdom wants to bury his story, they
can do so with great success. Look at Jimmy Saville right,
(44:33):
Look at the ongoing child abuse cover up in the government.
Look at Prince Andrew right. That guy is not going
to get in trouble. He just what can't go to
certain lunches. And this, like what I'm saying is that
the UK has the capabilities and the will to actually
(44:56):
bury a story if the UK wants to so it
doesn't sound like a cover up. If you're a journalist
and you're able to find a retired press officer who says, oh,
I've been keeping this envelope just in case I was
hoping somebody would come along and ask me about that,
(45:16):
because that envelope would be gone if there really was
a cover up. From what I can tell, the classification
order essentially just disguises or withholds the identities of those
two original hikers. That's the main secret, which you know,
(45:39):
when you put it that way, doesn't necessarily it sounds
like the government is going is having an oh, snap
Aliens moment, does it now? And and and and regular
guy goes on to say that he does feel like
this photo is a hoax. Um and this person does
(46:00):
consider themselves a true believer in UFO phenomena, but also
has a pretty keen photographic eye. And I think you're
looking for the right things. And this is where we
are drawing to a close. Folks, take a look at
the s R. Aurora craft and take a look at
(46:21):
this photograph from Scotland in the ninety nineties, and give
us your take. Do you think they look similar. Do
you think this is a hoax? Do you think there's
something they don't want you to know? I want to
point out that the Aurora aircraft, this alleged aircraft out
(46:44):
there in some of the research that we've done on
it in the past, there are a lot of players
where you can find information about it. There's not a
lot of official information that you can find about this thing.
You can go there is a website called Defense d
E F E n C E aviation dot com and
it does have like computer rendered images of what this
(47:06):
thing allegedly is supposed to look like, multiple ones. And um,
I just have to point out if you go to
a website like this and you check it out and
you're reading information, oh my god, this is crazy. Check
the website to see if there's a disclaimer on this website.
If you defense aviation dot com, if you click on
(47:27):
their disclaimer, you're gonna find something that says, all information
on the site is provided in good faith. However, we
make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied,
regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of
any information on the site. Yeah, that's because of family show. Uh,
(47:53):
tell your kids that c y A stands for cover
your assumptions. Uh, oh my gosh, goad humor. Uh, yeah,
it's true. The biggest question about the s R nine
aurora is whether the US military actually ever made one.
It's and to be fair, there is secret technology. There
(48:18):
is classified, even suppressed technology out there. Now. You might
be surprised by how far along some aspects of technology
are and they're not released to the public sometimes for
good reason. Shout out National Invention Secrecy Act, which was
(48:41):
super dick move bio Uncle Sam, but arguably arguably necessary.
So is this again a hoax? Is this a secret
plane that may or may not exist? What is going
on with this UFO? We cannot wait to hear your thoughts, folks,
which try to be easy to find online. That's right.
(49:02):
You can find this on Facebook, on YouTube, and on
Twitter at the handle conspiracy Stuff on Instagram where conspiracy
Stuff show. Yes and don't forget our book. There's a
whole chapter that goes into UFOs, U A P and
government technology. It's very very very good, excellent work been
and Matt, I guess, but mostly been. Um. I'm also
(49:25):
going to point out that the F FOURT team Tomcat
is perhaps the most badass looking aircraft that was ever
produced on this planet. It is just the coolest, especially
if you see it kind of from above. Dang, that
thing is dope. Uh, it's just so good. Okay, Um,
(49:46):
you can also call us. We have a phone number
only smokes. You're right, the rumors are true. If you
want to give us a call, we are only a
phone call away. The number is one eight three three
std too be y t K. You'll hear a message,
you'll hear a beep like so beep, and then you'll
have three minutes go nuts get really weird. Uh, Matt,
(50:10):
you recently sent uh a lovely co sign about my
dream of living in a billboard and I listened to it.
I thought it was great. We've got to put that
on the air next week. Uh. And we'd love to
put your message on the air too, so long as
(50:30):
you give us the okay, tell us if it's all
right to use your name and or voice on the air.
Most importantly, if you have a story that will not
fit within three minutes, then don't feel rushed. Don't feel
like you need to keep calling. All you have to
do is send this an email, right it out in full.
We read every single email we get. Drop us a
(50:52):
line where we are conspiracy and I heart radio dot
com m H. Stuff they don't want you to know
(51:16):
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