Hmmmm... I like the explanation OP, but can you or we find evidence of similar film failures? I would think the little girl area of the photo, or surrounding area should have some similar anomalies if it is in fact the film.

This is a weird photo, and it's actually the first time I've seen it. Film, film is harder to fake added imagery, how ever if it were a " stand in" type hoax I could see that.

It is very odd, whatever it is.

Have any of the other photos he's taken on that camera turned out with weird failures?

What about the same film? I'm aware in 10, 20 maybe even a 100 rolls may not fail the same way, it just seems odd just that one area of the photo would suffer this failure.

Interesting theory.
Unless His wife looks like a 10 year old girl, I doubt that photo of the female bending over next to the daughter in the blue dress, is a full grown "Wife"...she is wearing very girly clothes and is not much bigger than the daughter, and has light brown shortish hair.....so I would say that is another young girl, not the Mother/wife.

The figure is definitely a rear view of a "Person", as can be seen by the bend of the elbow, the way it is attached to the shoulder etc. Also this rear view shows the shoulder blades attached to the neck, as you would looking at a "Male" from behind.
I think there is another person there, that either was not seen or even disregarded by the photographer. Perhaps with the new cameras zoom ability etc, the figure wasnt seen in the viewfinder, but was brought more to the foreground by the camera's lens, then onto the photo.

So...who is the young girl playing near the daughter?...no explanation?, but we can rule out the dark haired wife fairly certainly...unless a photo of the wife is produced showing her wearing those clothes on that day.
The "Spaceman" appears to be a man facing the opposite direction (looking at the view), with dark hair and one of those little British caps people wore in those days, and his right hand almost on his hip. And probably further away than he appears in the distored image.
Solved!!! .

Originally posted by gort51
Interesting theory.
Unless His wife looks like a 10 year old girl, I doubt that photo of the female bending over next to the daughter in the blue dress, is a full grown "Wife"...she is wearing very girly clothes and is not much bigger than the daughter, and has light brown shortish hair.....so I would say that is another young girl, not the Mother/wife.

The figure is definitely a rear view of a "Person", as can be seen by the bend of the elbow, the way it is attached to the shoulder etc. Also this rear view shows the shoulder blades attached to the neck, as you would looking at a "Male" from behind.
I think there is another person there, that either was not seen or even disregarded by the photographer. Perhaps with the new cameras zoom ability etc, the figure wasnt seen in the viewfinder, but was brought more to the foreground by the camera's lens, then onto the photo.

So...who is the young girl playing near the daughter?...no explanation?, but we can rule out the dark haired wife fairly certainly...unless a photo of the wife is produced showing her wearing those clothes on that day.
The "Spaceman" appears to be a man facing the opposite direction (looking at the view), with dark hair and one of those little British caps people wore in those days, and his right hand almost on his hip. And probably further away than he appears in the distored image.
Solved!!! .

From the video interviews with Jim we can see that he isn't very tall,I'd guess about 5ft 7in (ish),and the photo of the couple looking at Jim's new camera shows here to be a few inches shorter than he is,so she certainly was less than the average size for a full grown adult.But yes I do agree the person does look vaguely child like,but Googling girls and womens dresses for that year shows that both were VERY similar in a lot of cases.
A camera of the age wouldn't have had zoom,but would have been fixed focus.The normal or "prime" lens for that type of camera to be fitted with when new would have been a 50mm,which gives life size reproduction meaning it is neither wide angle nor long focus.
I'm still adamant that the "spaceman" is the exact same person shown next to the daughter in the other photo,but I'm willing to agree that it MIGHT not be the wife.But no matter what it is,it most definitely isn't a man wearing a space suit.
Sadly Jim died last year,so if there ever where any other photos taken that day that did come out we'll probably never see them.

Originally posted by Imagewerx

From the video interviews with Jim we can see that he isn't very tall,I'd guess about 5ft 7in (ish),and the photo of the couple looking at Jim's new camera shows here to be a few inches shorter than he is,so she certainly was less than the average size for a full grown adult.But yes I do agree the person does look vaguely child like,but Googling girls and womens dresses for that year shows that both were VERY similar in a lot of cases.
A camera of the age wouldn't have had zoom,but would have been fixed focus.The normal or "prime" lens for that type of camera to be fitted with when new would have been a 50mm,which gives life size reproduction meaning it is neither wide angle nor long focus.
I'm still adamant that the "spaceman" is the exact same person shown next to the daughter in the other photo,but I'm willing to agree that it MIGHT not be the wife.But no matter what it is,it most definitely isn't a man wearing a space suit.
Sadly Jim died last year,so if there ever where any other photos taken that day that did come out we'll probably never see them.

edit on 4-11-2012 by Imagewerx because: (no reason given)

Yes I agree, its not a "Spaceman"

Im Still not convinced the person in the blue dress is the wife. Particularly if the other picture of the husband and wife looking at the camera was take around the same time period, which Im guessing it was.

To start with the hair is wrong, the Girl bending over has brown straight hair, the wife has dark wavy hair.
The wife appears to be mid 30s to 40ish years old (they all looked older then).....and is showing typical sagging jowls, double chin and bits drooping on her face, I would think that she would have, what was called, bingo wings....flabby skin and fat that hangs from her upper arms. Many women even in their 20s exhibit this, but mostly in their 30s-40+yos.
The Girl in the blue dress does not exhibit any sign of "Bingo Wings", in fact her forearm width is similar to that of the 5 yo daughter...not a 30-40 mother of the 1960s. In fact to me, a 30-40 yo woman at that time period would probably have some difficulty in getting on their knees and bending forward on one hand.....not a normal "Motherly" pose to take a picture of. Tho some women still use to get on their hands and knees to scrub the floor in those days....so it is possible. Its still looks like 2 girls playing to me.

Of course we can only go by the description given at the time, but to me, there were other people at the same place at the same time, that have not been mentioned in the original story, for whatever reason we will never know.
Has the wife Actually stated that she is the person (girl) in the blue dress at any time?

I was 5 in 1964 too, I remember how people dressed, and yes, gay summer fabrics were the norm, for the younger set. ( note.gay used in correct term)

This is a great little mystery! Is the "spaceman" quite close to her ? it looks like it. Also ive always wondered why the figure is leaning.

I've not read any of the other reply's yet, only the OP. I've seen this image many times before and I'm not sure of your theory (looking forward to reading it, though!) but to me this just looks like a set up or doctored photo. It looks like a toy being held up behind her and I know that everybody involved said they didn't tamper with it but for me it looks too fake. The "Spaceman" seems to be moon hopping instead of peering over somebody's shoulder! I'd be interested to see if anybody can find a pic of an astronaut in the same pose?

My conclusion: Faked, just don't know how. Maybe even faked by mistake and thats why the taker of the photo can't explain it.

Ah ok! Enjoyed your theory, and everybody's posts. Must admit, I always think spaceman before I look at the photo, never thought of showing it to somebody who has never seen it before just to see what their initial response would be!

How can we be so sure that this is not a test of HAARP? Maybe it caught a reptilian in it's beam

Originally posted by TXRabbit
How can we be so sure that this is not a test of HAARP? Maybe it caught a reptilian in it's beam

Really I think you have been exposd to way too many microwave particles.

Comments like this are not even funny, they are made by trolls, are troll like and provide nothing to the thread or the conversation on hand. The OP has gone to quite a bit of bother to debunk a myth that goes back longer than you have been alive and the best you can do is drop in, blurt out some garbage that has no relevance and just be of no use at all.

focus on topic.

Hats off to the OP, I think he's cracked it. The leaning angle always seemed a bit off to me along with the bend in the arm. I never it gave it much more thought than that to be honest but look at it; it's totally the back of someone's elbow.

It's not been a long thread, OP, but I've enjoyed it. I'd love to see you cast your eyes over other ATS-type mysteries.

Originally posted by TXRabbit
How can we be so sure that this is not a test of HAARP? Maybe it caught a reptilian in it's beam

Because HAARP is an HF transmitter into a ground based antenna array used to investigate what happens when we heat up a small area of the ionosphere directly above it.The antenna is directional so can't be pointed anywhere else other than directly upwards.Reptilians can only be found in science fiction books and crackpot conspiracy websites and don't actually exist in the real world,so that rules them out.
Also you notice this happened some 30 years before they even built the HAARP facility,so again irrelevant here.Sorry to disappoint you,but HAARP is responsible for nothing more exciting than a load of scientific data comprising of graphs and numbers.

Now can we please keep this on topic,as pointed out above I did go to some trouble to gather the information together to TRY to solve this mystery once and for all.

Originally posted by Amadeo
Hats off to the OP, I think he's cracked it. The leaning angle always seemed a bit off to me along with the bend in the arm. I never it gave it much more thought than that to be honest but look at it; it's totally the back of someone's elbow.

It's not been a long thread, OP, but I've enjoyed it. I'd love to see you cast your eyes over other ATS-type mysteries.

Thanks,although I can't really take all the credit for almost solving this one. I'm still convinced it's Jim's wife Annie despite some other ideas that have been put forward,and maybe this is nothing more than the chance remark of a shortsighted chemist planting the same seed into Jim's brain that's been planted into mine and everyone else's that saw a photo labelled "The Solway Firth Spaceman".If the photo had been labelled "A day out on Burgh Marsh with my family",the photos would have been forgotten and never got any further than the Templeton family photo album.
Oh and if I've got a spare couple of decades,I'll see what I can do with some of the other mysteries that are almost certainly anything but mysteries.