Is the Calvine UFO actually a Christmas decoration?
Some thoughts in response to suggestions that the Calvine UFO photograph may actually be a model hung close to the camera.
In a post dated 18th August 2022 and in a more detailed document subsequently shared via Dropbox (here) Wim Van Utrecht suggested that the Calvine photograph could have been faked with the help of a Christmas ornament. This explanation has also been suggested by UFO researcher Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos in recent email correspondence.
I agree the image could have been faked using a Christmas decoration (or some other similar object) as Van Utrecht suggests and have stated in my published analysis (here) that my interpretation of the available evidence leads me to conclude that the image is either a genuine photograph of a unknown craft flying above Calvine or one of the best ever, and most convincing fakes.
I obtained a similar Christmas decoration for £9.52 from Amazon (here) and have made test photographs using it (see above). Indeed, when Dr David Clark and I give talks on our work on the Calvine image we reference Van Utrecht’s suggestions and present this as a possibility. On occasions we even ‘fly’ such a decoration above the audience using a fishing rod and invisible thread and photograph it to demonstrate how such a constructed image might have been achieved.
Whilst I think that this is one of the most credible of all the suggestions made by those who have tried to explain the Calvine object as something other than an genuine unknown flying craft, there is no evidence that this is actually the case.
I’d question how easy it would be to construct a total of six convincing consecutive faked images in this manner. If we believe the witnesses who claim to have seen all six reported negatives - the Daily Record, RAF and MoD intelligence staff who have been interviewed by David Clarke and his research team - then the images are on continuous frames of the film and show the unidentified object in more or less the same place and position in each frame with the plane circling around it and even a second plane visible in some images. This would be very hard to achieve using a hanging model on an open hillside – but clearly not impossible.
Some commentators (including Van Utrecht and Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos) have suggested that the plane visible in the photograph (identified by the MoD as a Harrier) may also be a model hanging from invisible thread close to the camera however given the available evidence I think this is highly unlikely and I would suggest that the most likely explanation would be that the Harrier (or whatever type of jet this is) is genuine.
Harriers and other jets made regular sorties in the area surrounding Calvine. If the photographers were indeed intending to fake a picture of a model UFO, they could have set up their camera and model and waited, hoping to catch a jet flying past on a day when flights might be expected. Alternatively, it could have just been a lucky accident that a jet was passing while they were photographing – again this wouldn’t be so surprising given the proximity of air bases and the use of the area for low level flying. If the image was being faked in this way the problem of the photograph being allegedly produced on a Saturday when RAF flights didn’t take place, would no longer be an issue.
If there were indeed six consecutive images with the Harrier in different (but believable) positions, this would be very hard to produce with TWO hanging models on a windy Scottish hillside.
It’s impossible to prove whether or not this is a genuine plane however, there is nothing to suggest it isn’t. The size, shape, movement blur and distance that I have calculated for the plane (see my report here) are consistent with this being a genuine Harrier as determined by specialist MoD image analysts at both JARIC and a second unnamed MoD imaging department. If six negatives did exist showing the Harrier in other positions circling the object it is reasonable to assume that this would also have aided the MoD in their identification of the plane.
Ultimately, I would agree that the image COULD have been faked using a hanging model, kite or flying model of some sort (and this is a possibility worthy of further investigation) however at present there is no evidence to support this, and I would consider it most likely that the Harrier is genuine.
© Andrew Robinson, 2024.