The Solway Firth spaceman a new theory

This photo has been around since 1964 like many when I first saw it I was a little spooked by it and for 50 years it has perplexed millions of people however tonight it finally clicked in my mind what I was looking at!.



The “spaceman ” in my opinion is a man on a horse!

Once you slightly rotate the picture so that the horizon is level you can see how the entire horse can be hidden behind the girls head I’ve made this image to show my theory .




Next look at the “space mans” helmet it is a helmet but this is a horse riding helmet possibly a polo helmet the dark area that appears to be a visor is the horse riders dark hair or part or the neck / nape protector of a polo helmet the rider is looking down towards the horses head.

Over the shoulder of the “space man” you can see a thin rope like object this is his riding crop which he has across his chest the whip end of the crop is flipped over his left shoulder.

He has on a long sleeved white skin-tight top probably a polo shirt no doubt by Ralph Lauren!! Obviously his upper body is muscular but if he is a polo player then that is exactly what you would expect..



The photographer claimed he never saw anything in the picture at the time that could be the truth maybe he thought the horse rider was out of shot by the time he took the photo and later completely forgot about the rider passing its plausible in my opinion what do you think?

reply to post by brianporter


Interesting and plausible theory. It has been shown quite conclusively in other threads that the person in the back is the mother/wife with her back to the camera. She's wearing the same dress in all the photos.

reply to post by brianporter


I gave you a star and a flag simply because you provided (at least to me) a new look at a fascinating picture. But the father has said numerous times that there was no one else around. And from what I remember reading, he wasn't prone to lies. I think it would be hard to miss a guy (or gal) on a horse behind his daughter when snapping a picture.

Very cool. An interesting take on an old mystery.

reply to post by _BoneZ_


I've seen another thread demonstrating how it could be the mother, and to be honest, I've never been able to come to the same conclusions.

I don't know if what the OP posits is necessarily true, but I can visualise their theory in a far more convincing manner, rather than that regarding the mother.

Love it! Great theory! I've always been one to believe it was someone traversing the inter-dimensional planes and has just been caught at the exact milli second that they were present in our timeline. But yours is very plausible and something I've never though of before )

I know that sounds utterly crazy and stupid but it's something I like to entertain.
Someone above posted about it being the mother with her back to the camera, but from what I've read in previous articles is that it was only the father and daughter there at the time. No one else.

I was trying to find an article abiding to my view regarding the inter-dimensional traveler but all I could find was a Wiki article and another on gawdlykpraduktshons- so I ditched it.

Good idea s&f.

Just seen tgis the other day. The picture taker did claim though that there was no one else there AND some MIB showed up to tell him not to talk of this. Others said his wife was there and something happened when he took the picture and thats his wife's dress. Ignorant to cameras so no idea if the technical gitterish they said could happen. Ill try. To find the site.

I’m sure I could forget a horse rider passing me in the countryside after a week or so back then photos took days to get developed

I see horse riders pass me often when I’m out but and I don’t give it a second thought the muscular arms in a skin tight top jumping up 4ft into the air really don’t convince me it was the wife to be honest.

Auricom
But the father has said numerous times that there was no one else around. And from what I remember reading, he wasn't prone to lies.

He doesn't have to be lying to not see his wife standing in the background. When you're focused on something in the foreground and trying to take that "perfect" shot, many inexperienced photographers won't be paying much attention to what's going on in the background.

It's not much different than this:




It's easy to miss things when you're focused on a single thing.

Either way, ATS members have done a fantastic job of showing the person in the background is the mother/wife wearing the same exact dress as in other photos.

reply to post by Isittruee


Said pretty much the same thing at the same time haha

_BoneZ_

Auricom
But the father has said numerous times that there was no one else around. And from what I remember reading, he wasn't prone to lies.

He doesn't have to be lying to not see his wife standing in the background. When you're focused on something in the foreground and trying to take that "perfect" shot, many inexperienced photographers won't be paying much attention to what's going on in the background.

It's not much different than this:

It's easy to miss things when you're focused on a single thing.

Either way, ATS members have done a fantastic job of showing the person in the background is the mother/wife wearing the same exact dress as in other photos.

I don't agree at all. This was an entire field that had nothing but hills, grass, a father and a daughter. There is utterly no way you could mistake your wife on a horse for an entity. You'd look at the image and say 'Oh, lol, look at Jenny in the background on the horse we were all riding before, she looks like a spaceman, what a photobomb!'.

I don't think the father would have said anything if there were more than just those two there. I mean, really, I'm sure he'd remember his wife riding a horse and wearing something that looks like human cosplay R2-D2! haha. IDK.

Just my two cents

I really like your theory!
Slightly envious as your pic explains precisely what your getting at,brilliant and very possible i say!

(just for fun;i have thought in the past that this is a zookeeper,keeping an eye on us all,an inner earth being,a future man,a Bruce Willis from twelve monkeys or even someone 'sliding' from one dimension to another.)

I always thought it was an Evel Knievel toy stuck to the back of her head.

samuel1990
This was an entire field that had nothing but hills, grass, a father and a daughter.

You left out mother/wife from that sentence, as well as a fourth person:




There's also another shadow to the right of the girl (at left in image), indicating four people were present: the father/photographer, mother, daughter, unknown shadow.

Here are some color-enhanced images:







No matter how many ways the colors are enhanced, the person in the background is still wearing a dress with their back facing the camera. It may not even be the mother. It could be the fourth unknown person. But it's most-definitely a woman with a dress.

No spaceman here.

reply to post by brianporter

The photographer claimed he never saw anything in the picture at the time that could be the truth maybe he thought the horse rider was out of shot by the time he took the photo and later completely forgot about the rider passing its plausible in my opinion what do you think?

Could be the truth? Why do people distrust his word? Did he ever profit from this?

Here we go again, yet another person believing they have discovered something that Kodak couldn't. People do realise that one of the things that Kodak could not explain was that this photo was one of three prints and that the three frames must have been taken almost sequentially? You see the original 3 photos, which mysteriously seem to have vanished from online if someone can provide a genuine link please do, show that the girl's hair and the tiny details are almost exactly the same in each print.

if the the photo with the object in it was taken totally out of context then yes, it would be easy to come up with any number of possibly explanations and you don't think Kodak thought of that when they originally offered the prize for a solution?

In other words, as far as Kodak were concerned, the photo had not been faked and manipulated and yet, the photos either side of this one on the film, show nothing. That is, given how little the girls hair has moved between print 1 and 3, they could not work out how anyone or anything could make it across the background without appearing in all three photos. That is partly why initially, Kodak were convinced they would find evidence of the negative of this single frame having being tampered with.

Of course the actual evidence as it really is, does nothing to support the ever more labyrinthine explanations that people have come up with so i guess, it's no surprise people neglect to reference them when they deign to go public with their "explanation".

Myself, the only figure I believe it truly looks like and this could just be, a lot more than coincidence, is that of a firefighter from the period equipped to deal with aviation fuels and working at somewhere such as a Nuclear Power plant.

icpbardmfa.files.wordpress.com...

Now, if you really know your paranormal stuff and are not some dilettante who thinks they can dip in and out of the field to "solve things in 5 minutes" all those poor suckers who have spent decades trying to do you would know this. Two of the best photographs of "ghosts" are those of dead airmen appearing weeks after they died in a photograph. That is, for some reason , high stress situations and jobs, seem to lend themselves to strange events. Meaning that, it could well be that, we as humans when in an heightened emotional state might well be able to have some effect on technology beyond that we as yet, understand.

So Templeton's job was? A fireman and directly behind the girls head on the horizon is what? Oh yes, a Nuclear Power Station. In other words jobs involving high stress and at times, the sudden loss of a work comrade because of the nature of the work. I wouldn't be that surprised to learn that, a fireman working at the nuclear station had died or been seriously hurt in some accident that was never reported to the public. So, if you're workings for the MOD and this in the wake of accident that has been recently hushed up this photo appears on your desk, of what looks like it could be someone in fire fighting gear specific to a nuclear power station you might well think..... "Errrkkk, we really don't need this and the guy who took it knows about said accident" then, the "Spaceman" thesis provides a perfect cover for not directing anyone's attentions to an accident you don't want to talk about at all. It's not beyond possibility Templeton knew of the accident and himself, was sworn to secrecy and has kept that secret to this day. That, a combination of Templeton's emotional state and the, maybe even subconscious realisation that the nuclear plant was directly behind the girl, caused that image to appear? The reason it is not that clear is because Jim himself didn't even realise he was doing it.

As mad as that might sound, that actually would tick all the boxes if and I admit it's a huge if, there's some "accident" Jim knew of we, to this day, still are unaware of and a colleague was injured or killed during it.

AthlonSavage
Could be the truth? Why do people distrust his word? Did he ever profit from this?

He could be telling the truth that he didn't see his wife in the frame, yet she still could have appeared in the photo:

Solway Firth Spaceman

Since the Zeiss Contax Pentacon F SLR camera he used only displayed 70% of the actual photograph in the viewfinder, it would be possible for him to take the image without noticing his wife in the periphery of the shot.

Another thing of interest regarding his credibility however is his admission to faking something else a few weeks earlier, to demonstrate his photographic skills.

The Solway Spaceman Photograph

Neither can we prove that Jim Templeton faked the photograph himself but there is evidence that he enjoyed playing practical jokes. For example he told us that he had created a faked five pound note for amusement only weeks before the photograph was taken, to demonstrate his photographic skills.

So there's that which may cause some to question if that one fake is the only one he ever did. However I don't see evidence of fakery in this case. Back to the first link:

Annie was wearing a pale blue dress on the day in question, which was overexposed as white in the other photos taken that day. She also had dark, bobbed hair. Using photo software to darken the image and straighten the horizon, the spaceman increasingly appears to be the figure of a normal person viewed from behind.

So, maybe he's telling the truth about not seeing his wife in the frame due to the viewfinder hiding her, but she still could have appeared in the photo. Dr. David Clarke apparently is cited for that explanation, and he's looked into it more than I have, but I don't see any reason to disagree with him about that.

_BoneZ_
reply to post by brianporter

 

Interesting and plausible theory. It has been shown quite conclusively in other threads that the person in the back is the mother/wife with her back to the camera. She's wearing the same dress in all the photos.

Mom's got a pretty muscular back...

Yea I know right?! LOL she must lift. Love how this was dregged out from the archives of history

Mom's got a pretty muscular back...

AthlonSavage
reply to post by brianporter

 

The photographer claimed he never saw anything in the picture at the time that could be the truth maybe he thought the horse rider was out of shot by the time he took the photo and later completely forgot about the rider passing its plausible in my opinion what do you think?

Could be the truth? Why do people distrust his word? Did he ever profit from this?

The man could have been concentrating on the subject of the image (his daughter in the foreground) that he did not notice his wife in the background when he snapped the image.