Director James Fox claims Calvine photograph is ‘Best UFO Photograph Ever Taken’ on Joe Rogan.
James Fox talks about the Calvine UFO, David Clarke and Nick Pope on the ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ Podcast, Christmas Eve 2024 - including transcript.
On Christmas Eve, documentary director James Fox appeared on the ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ a US based podcast with more than 3 million listeners which has been cited as the ‘most popular podcast in the world’ (info HERE / podcast HERE).
In this episode, which at the time of writing (6th Jan 2025) has had more than 1.5 million views, Fox and Rogan talk for over two hours and 40 minutes about a range of subjects including being eaten by bears, Elon Musk, the amazing sense of smell in animals, and the film ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’. Most of the conversation however focuses on UAP sightings, the possibility of alien visitations and governmental coverups, the key themes of James Fox‘s recently released documentary ‘The Program’ (see HERE).
At one point Fox steers the conversation onto the Calvine Photograph which he introduces as an example of ‘good evidence’ describing the image ‘the best UFO photograph ever taken’ and ‘the most amazing picture ever’. Given the number of UAP sightings Fox has investigated, the years of research he’s undertaken, and his detailed knowledge of the subject this is high praise indeed for the Calvine photograph.
What makes this particular case special for him, even though the original witnesses have disappeared, is the fact that not only is there a relatively good quality photograph with a traceable provenance, but that the two witnesses saw the UFO in broad daylight and the photograph contains clear points of reference including a military jet flying around the mysterious diamond shaped object.
Fox also states that when he interviewed Nick Pope in the late 1990s Pope referenced the Calvine sighting as the ‘best case’ he ever saw while at the MOD. Fox however seems to have been frustrated by the limited amount of information Nick Pope was able to provide regarding Calvine in this and other interviews he had with him in the late 1990s and early 2000s, questionning why Pope hadn’t investigated the incident further (link to Podcast HERE).
Fox and Rogan also discuss the reconstruction of the Calvine image produced under Nick Pope’s guidance by a digital artist in Los Angeles for an episode of the UK Channel 5 documentary series ‘Conspiracy’ entitled ‘Alien Cover Up’ directed and produced by Phil Stein, which was first broadcast in July 2015 (available HERE).
Prior to the publication of the genuine Calvine image in August 2022 this image was reproduced in the press on a number of occasions with many believing it to be genuine, indeed even as recently as June 2024 the UK based tabloid The Daily Star reproduced the reconstructed image in place of the genuine one (see HERE).
Fox considers the reconstruction to be ‘pretty damn good’ however Rogan takes issue with the ‘bullshit background’ and ‘beautiful hills’ which have been added.
In June 2023 when James visited Sheffield Hallam University to interview Dr David Clarke and myself regarding the discovery and publication of the original Calvine image, we discussed the Channel 5 reconstruction and considered whether Nick Pope would be able to create this from memory or if, as some have suggested online, he may have his own copy of the Calvine image.
Whilst Pope didn’t take up his post on the MOD UFO desk - Sec(AS)2a - until around eight months after the MOD closed its initial investigation into the Calvine sighting in September 1990 (and apparently returned the negatives to the Scottish Daily Record), he would have nevertheless had access to the files relating to the sighting held in Sec(AS)2. These should have included the handwritten note probably made by Owen Hartop (the UFO desk officer at the time) when Lindsey first reported the sighting by phone (TNA DEFE 24/1940/1 – page 113 – HERE), the type written report and three photocopies of the image Lindsay faxed to the MOD after his brief investigation (now unfortunately missing), along with the answer prepared for the Minister of Defence in case questions were raised in the Parliament should the story be published (DEFE 31/179/1 – pages 156-7 - HERE). In addition to this, a poster size enlargement of the best Calvine image was pinned to the wall in Pope’s office, apparently for at least a year, before it was removed by his superiors.
Whether the Sec(AS)2 files included all six images of the sighting, as reportedly seen by Craig Lindsay in October or November 1990, is unknown. These may have been held by DI-55, the Defence Intelligence section involved in the original analysis of the photographs.
Whilst the suggestion that other copies and perhaps other variants of the Calvine image might have existed is tantalising, it would seem highly unlikely that Pope would ever share them even if he had access to them, given that the unauthorised disclosure of any MOD documents by current or former civil service employees that might cause ‘damage to the work of, or of any part of, the security and intelligence services’ would be an offence under the UK’s Official Secret Act (1989) - see HERE.
The video footage used in the Channel 5 documentary which formed the background for the reconstructed image shown above was captured on the moors above Calvine before Pope worked with a graphic artist in Los Angeles on the reconstruction. The site used by the film crew, to the north of Calvine in the vicinity of the Old General Wade Military Road, is easily accessible from the village and is an understandable choice given the limited information regarding the location of the sighting available prior to the publication of Craig Lindsay’s evidence and the original photograph in the summer of 2022. An Teampan, the moorland rising steeply to the right in the middle distance of the image, which lies to the south of Calvine, is now believed to be the most likely site for the photograph.
On reflection, given Pope’s interest in the Calvine sighting and his access to the Sec(AS)2 files during his time on the UFO desk, it seems reasonable that he could have created the reconstruction using only his memory and the poor-quality photocopy showing the Calvine craft released by the National Archive in 2009 (DEFE 31/180/1 – pages 36-7 - see HERE).
Overall, Fox and Rogan discuss the Calvine case for around 17 mins with Fox recounting Craig Lindsay’s evidence, the discovery of the photograph and the last-minute inclusion of Richard Grieve’s story regarding the arrive of ‘Men in Black’ at Fisher’s Hotel in Pitlochry on a stormy summer night in 1990 in order to interview and ‘intimidate’ the two witnesses (see HERE for David Clarke’s recounting of this story).
You can jump striaght to the start of the Calvine discussion HERE however I’ve provided a transcript of the relevant sections below for those who are interested.
TRANSCRIPT - This is transcribed directly from the video however minor edits have been made for clarity. I have also included occasional notes (within brackets in italics) to provide further information.
TIME – 0:53:40
FOX - They let me tell you a really cool story that's the best UFO picture I think's ever taken, do you have it…?
ROGAN - We're going to look for it, okay?
(they watch the trailer and chat before returning to discuss the Calvine Photograph…)
TIME – 0:57:10
FOX - So well I was going to tell you there's a photograph of a jet circulating… can I go into a little bit of detail cause everyone's always worried about like ‘where's the good evidence? Where's the good photograph’…
ROGAN - Now this was a lost photograph that was recovered…
FOX - Yeah, you know about this?
ROGAN - Yeah, I know about this…
FOX - Okay so I heard about this in the late 90s… there was a guy Nick Pope who investigated, he was part of the UFO desk at the ministry of Defence of England (U.K.) in the mid to late 90s… I was interviewing him for a number of my films… and I uh I asked him like ‘hey man you were a part of the UFO desk at the MOD what was the best case you ever saw?’ and he goes ‘oh man 1990’ he didn't give me the town - it was Calvine - but he said ‘Scotland’, there were two poachers - they called them hikers but they were actually poaching…
He said it was late in the afternoon, they were in a place (I now know it's called Calvine) and they came up in this relatively remote area (I know because I hiked out to the exact spot and it's in the movie) and they came upon this diamond shaped or disc-shaped object that was quite large that was hovering silently really close, I mean close, and they were scared to death and they were kind of hiding out underneath this tree and they're looking at this thing… as it silently hovering (remember this is 1990 okay) and one of them had a camera and just as he was considering taking his camera out, a military jet came in… they think it was a Harrier jet and it came out into the scene and it flew all the way around the disc and as it did so the guy mustered up the courage came out from under the tree and he snapped five or six photographs of this object suspended in the air… so the disc is here and the plane is flying around it and click, click, click, click, click...
The reason why I know this is because the individual who kept one of the prints - thank you very much! Craig Lindsay RAF press officer, and thank you David Clarke for uncovering this because it's the most amazing picture ever…
The two hotel workers just outside the town of Calvine, Scotland, came back and they were like telling their co-workers ‘oh my God we encountered this thing we don't know what it was’. So they go to the local newspaper and they were like ‘hey man we just filmed something in the sky we got six prints of it’. It was 35mm film footage right, and they're going to go public with their story - two witnesses; broad daylight; a UFO; points of reference; with a military jet flying around. Five or six prints - that's pretty solid evidence right?
So, the local newspaper was… about to go public with it, print the story and they were like well ‘we need a statement from the RAF’ so they contact the press officer Lindsay and they were like ‘hey what do you make of this UFO these guys took’ and Craig Lindsay goes ‘I don't know what you're talking about, I haven't seen the picture’… ‘you haven't seen it? Well, let me send you a print’...
The newspaper sends him a print big print like this… and uh he's like ‘holy shit what the hell is this?’ (Fox is paraphrasing here as Lindsay is highly unlikely to use such terms…!) He's RAF press officer: Craig Lindsay… so he starts getting in touch with the MOD and he… investigates this… talked to the witnesses… well they tell him what happened and he goes well what kind of noise did it make they say ‘it didn't make any noise’ so he goes ‘no noise that's impossible’ - you know an object that can hover like that in the sky for that period of time we're talking 34 years ago didn't make any noise - and the witness said ‘no’ so he was like ‘holy… this is crazy’ (more paraphrasing!). So, he takes a colour xerox… and he sends it to the MOD in London and he says… there's a case that you might want… to look into and here's a Xerox… it's just a scanned Xerox like a fax machine, over to the MOD. He said he went from the office where the Xerox machine was and before he can get back to his office his phone was ringing off the hook – the MOD - and the MOD basically stepped in took over the investigation. They said you can step down to Craig Lindsay, he steps down and he keeps the print right! He steps down, they take over, witness is gone five or six prints gone story killed right…
We rumoured about it because Nick Pope talked about this case in a book he wrote called ‘Open Skies, Closed Minds’ and then I talked to him about it in late 90s, then I talked to him about it again in the early 2000s and… in 2007. I was like tell me about this photograph and he's like ‘oh it was incredible we had a big poster of it on the wall at the MOD’ and I was like ‘well where is it?’ he goes ‘well I don't know, I stepped down, I'm no longer at the at the UFO desk’ and I said ‘well they didn't just throw that away why don't you get in touch with the people that were there and find out?’ he's like ‘oh you know James I can't just make those inquiries… they, we killed the story’…
I was incredibly frustrated so discreetly for over a 20-year period I was making inquiries because I don't like letting things go right, I was like ‘this picture exists and bloody hell let's get this one out’ there but the story went dark.
So David Clarke found Craig Lindsay and the way he found Craig Lindsay (the guy that kept one of the prints) is that he got a declassified government document out of the MOD’s office that had redactions on it and one of the things it said was… ‘RAF press officer in Scotland’ blacked out… and he's like ‘huh well who was the RAF press officer in 1990 in Scotland?’ Craig Lindsay – boom! So he contacts Craig Lindsay, they started communication going and then after
ROGAN - So much for redactions!
FOX - Yeah so much for redactions right, and so this whole dialogue starts going… you know developing, and then ‘well gosh I I might I guess I might have one’. It turns out he ended up keeping one of those prints which he had and that story broke probably two years ago. David Clarke again I can't thank you enough you deserve accolades for this!
So I flew to England I met with David Clarke and his crew - the people that did the analysis work then I went up to Scotland I met with Craig Lindsay the RAF press officer who gave me the first and only on camera interview about it, what astonished him about it, the analysis work they did on it, what the witnesses said but we didn't have the witnesses - the people that took the photograph - we didn't have them but I was going to report on this anyway just because ‘wow’ this is the picture that we've all been waiting for. This picture is phenomenal, but if you don't have providence and you don't have the background story on it it could be AI it… could be a hoax. Some people call it a reflection, (but its) not a reflection, not a hoax.
So, I'm ending production of the program and I get a text from David Clarke and he goes ‘something big's about to happen’ and I said ‘what?’ He goes ‘just sit tight I can't go public right now but something big's going to happen there's a new development…’ I was like ‘well I'm almost done with the movie and if this is something I can include in the movie about the case please let me know’.
So long story short this guy Richard Greaves who was one of the hotel cooks, worked in the kitchen with the photographers with the two witnesses that took the photograph, and Richard Greaves came forward on print. But I contacted David Clark I was like ‘hey you get me an interview with this guy’. So he (Richard Grieve) kept putting it off putting it off putting it off and then finally I was like… I wanted to be persistent but I didn't want to annoy the guy to the point where he's going like ‘hey you know what fuck you like right, you're being annoying’ you know but I I got it right up to that point right when I was like I was wrapping the movie the movie's done and I want to get this movie out - all the people that participated wanted it out - and then I finally sent him one final text and I was like ‘look I'm really sorry to pester you and I know you're probably really busy and I really appreciate the fact that you even said that you'll meet with me, that you'll give me an interview…’
Then probably about 10 o'clock that night I'm in the edit room buttoning the film up and all of a sudden, I get a phone call and he's like ‘I've just come out the pub I'm ready to go’ I was like ‘okay grab a camera, roll it, let's record this’ and he reveals that he knew the witnesses. He worked with them in the kitchen he gave all the specifics he provided their names and then he said that… two or three nights, four nights after they took that photograph, they were all in a cigarette break at the hotel early evening pissing rain, he said a car rolled up, there were three guys in it a driver and two men in suits in the back they roll up they come out. They say: ‘cigarette breaks over’, they pull the two witnesses aside and they grill them, and you got to hear it directly from the horse’s mouth. Richard Greeves said… the people that were not involved with the incident were told to go back inside the hotel, which they did but they looked through the window and they saw… he said they were out there for 10 or 15 minutes in the pissing rain and that these guys, they came back inside and they were white as a… he literally goes ‘they came back inside they were white as a fucking ghost’ which we all get a good laugh out of but then they started drinking heavily and within a couple of weeks they vanished without a trace and they've been gone ever since…
(Rogan shows Channel 5 reconstruction image which Nick Pope consulted on)
FOX - Yeah, that's a that's a replica…
ROGAN - It's way too clear…
FOX - That's a replica from Nick Pope that he did for some series talking about it and that was before the real photograph was found and printed
ROGAN - Let's see the real photograph…
FOX - Yeah show the real photograph again…
ROGAN - So what was he doing… show the fake one more time…
FOX - Yeah that's was a recreation before it leaked out…
ROGAN - So was he just recreating what he remembered…?
FOX - Yes…
ROGAN - Let me see the real one again?
FOX - It's pretty damn good isn't it - that he remembered - not bad!
ROGAN - Not bad, missed the barb wire fence but not bad, put in a bunch of bullshit background…
FOX - I went to the exact location…
ROGAN - A lot of bullshit in there! He put in beautiful hills…!
FOX - I know and that fence is still there…
ROGAN - So what is that jet in the background?
FOX - A Harrier, a Harrier jet is what I'm told they're 99% sure
ROGAN - and was that Harrier jet trying to figure out what this was?
FOX - Well, its like I said… according to Craig Lindsay, the RAF press officer, he said the other six prints or five prints had that Harrier jet in a different position so he said it was if the Harrier jet flew around checking that out.
ROGAN - Now where are those other prints?
FOX - MOD, just they were gone they killed the story I mean the guy at the MOD who worked there, Nick Pope, told me that they did everything they could to squash it because…
ROGAN - Don't you think they probably have it filed away somewhere..
FOX - They do, of course they didn't throw those pictures.
(Fox shows Rogan high quality versions of the image and the Calvine site)
FOX - I think it's one of the best photographic cases cause you're not dealing with just a UFO, you've got a military jet in the background, and if you have a date and a location guess what, that Pilot's still out there! That pilot can probably got it on radar, and probably got gun camera footage…
ROGAN - If he’s still alive
FOX - He would have been probably young right, pilots are young, he would have been his 30s or maybe early 40s and that was 34 years ago so chances are he's still alive. They're pretty fit right?
ROGAN - Yeah, maybe he’s in his 70s?
(Fox sends Rogan more photos)
FOX - It just goes to show the lengths that the intel community, the Ministry of Defence the DOD go to hide the more compelling photographic data because it's so easy to complain like: ‘if they were real there would be good…’ - well there are some really good prints.
Time - 1:11:12
(Conversation about Senate hearings)
Time – 1:17:43
FOX - Those of you out there that are like tired of hearing about it well I spent 20 plus years in search of the photograph that I featured just now (the Calvine photograph). That one with the background story on it, providence that sort of thing… it's not like just because you know… after a year or two haven't successfully obtained stuff…
(show a higher quality version of the Calvine photograph)
ROGAN - So this is a better version…
FOX - Yeah it's a better version that you could see the granular of the film footage
ROGAN - Weird it almost looks like there's something in the back
FOX - It does look a little bit like that…
ROGAN - A little propeller or something like a Jetson's type…
FOX - But let's just say…
ROGAN - That thing was silent supposedly?
FOX - Silent - according to the witnesses it didn't make any sound. It hovered there for an extended period of time but when it took off it took off straight vertical like this ‘sushhp’ straight up.
ROGAN - Fast?
FOX - It started going fast, faster, faster and then was gone.Yep that was Craig Lindsay who interviewed the witnesses who told me that and it's so weird though according to Richard Greaves in Scotland the Americans got involved…
ROGAN - Of course we get involved in everything…
FOX - Yep, they showed up and they intimidated the shit out of the witnesses and I know people can criticize me for reporting on these alleged ‘Men In Black’ but it's not me saying it, it's the witnesses that are saying it and I did it full bore for the first time in ‘Moment of Contact’ because I remember hearing these stories for decades and I finally was like everyone's going to think I'm crazy if I report on this but this lady who was the mother of the two daughters that saw that had these visits and the intimidation and I was like screw it I'm just going to report on this and I'll just take the criticism and then I wasn't expecting this for the to be the case with this Photograph but lo and behold it was…
TIME – 1:19:20