UFO. Costa Rica

On the morning of September 4, 1971, an aircraft of the Costa Rican Geographic Institute was photographing the Arenal region for making maps.

The crew of four didn’t recall anything unusual, but then the camera was set to take pictures automatically every 20 seconds or so. It was a special R-M-K 15/23 camera with b/w film ASA 80, with an 8×8 negative printed on Kodak Safety aerial film, type 3665.

One shot taken at 10,000 feet altitude, frame 300, showed mountains around Cote Lake in Guanacaste Province, 25 miles south of Nicaragua.

A disc-like object appeared clearly on the lower half of the lake.

Drs. Richard Haines and Jacques Vallee listed a number of reasons why they believe that the photo is of great scientific value in their fairly exhaustive studies, published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration in 1989. These include:

it was taken by a high-quality professional camera

the camera was looking down, which implies a maximum distance, hence a maximum size for the object

the disc was seen against a reasonably uniform dark background of a body of water

the image was large, in focus and provided significant detail.

The photograph remains one of the most comprehensively analysed and, consequently, credible images of a UFO there is.

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The photo above (cropped and enlarged) was taken by a Costa Rican government mapping plane during an aerial mapping mission. This UFO photograph is unique for several reasons. 1) The photograph was taken by a high-quality, professional camera. 2) The unidentified object is plainly visible against the uniformly dark background of the lake and appears in sharp focus. 3) The camera was aimed downward and the plane was flying at a known, fixed altitude (10,000 feet), which makes it easy to calculate a maximum size for the object (683 feet).

The plane carried a crew of four; a specialist in aerial photography, a geographer, a topographer, and the pilot. No member of the crew stated that they saw anything unusual during the routine flight.

Much analysis has been undertaken using the original negative, most notably by Dr. Richard F. Haines and Dr. Jacques F. Vallee. It seems safe to assume that it is not a double-exposure or the result of manipulation of the negative. All indications are that this is a photo of a large three-dimensional disk , or shallow cone, [hovering?] above, and possibly partially submerged in Lago de Cote.

There were apparently no witnesses to the disk’s presence at the time of the photograph, but other incidents at that location had been reported by local farmers, involving strange, artificial objects moving around the surface or just below the surface of the lake. (NURMUFO)

For an in-depth, scientific analysis of this photograph, see “Photo Analyses of an Aerial Disc Over Costa Rica”, by Richard Haines and Jacques Vallee, available online at:
http://www.scientificexploration.org/jse/articles/ufo_reports/haines_aer...