Seeking informations about an unknown photographic case

Hello dear ATS members and friends!

With my partner Francois Louange, we are actually working on a very interesting photographic case that occurred back in March 1967, close to the little town of Yungay, Peru.

While there's little (and using the ATS search engine return zero results) if no information about it on the Internet, I can sum up briefly for you, mainly sourced from the defunct APRO Bulletins. This case involved some famous ufologists at the time, like Hynek, Fred Beckman, Richard Greenwell and John Hopf (APRO).

Extract from the APRO Bulletin Jan 1969:

The Story Behind The Yungay Photos By Richard Greenwell.
I think I can say that the Yungay photos, if proved to be genuine, are the most important photographs of UFOs that have been made public. I say this for the following reasons:
They are the first and only sequence of 4 color, day-time photos and it is the first time that 2 objects are depicted, clearly outlined. Naturally, the question arises: are they genuine? Up to this writing, we cannot prove it. But we may one day.

How these remarkable photos came to my attention is a long story and I will limit myself to outlining the bare facts. The photos were supposedly taken in March 1976, near the town of Yungay, which is located over 11.000 feet above sea-level in the Andes moutain range of Peru. The area is very desolate, populated mainly by Indians. The witness and photographer, as far as we can determine at this time, did not use his own camera, but that of a friend. The camera was a 40-years old Voigtlander and was returned to the owner with the comment that "flying saucers" had been seen and photographed. The witness returned to Lima, the capital, and sent his friend in Yungay copies of all the photographs of the mountains, and the UFOs, in a sealed album. The UFO photos had been placed at the end, as if the photographer did not attach much importance to them, and there they remained for nearly two years, until they were brought to my attention.

I must admit that we have failed so far to locate the witness, although I personally spent several weeks looking for him in Peru. APRO-Peru, our subsidiary, is continuing the search and we have reasons to believe that he will be traced soon. We will then have his report and, hopefully, the negatives.

But without the negatives and the witness' report, what can we tell? Now, I do not profess to bean expert in photography - the photos have already been examined by our Photographic Consultants, John Hopf, Fred Beckman, (an electron microscopist from the University of Chicago) and by Dr. Hynek himself, and while they agree that they are fine looking photos, they reserve final judgment at this time. What i use is human logic (and correct me if I am wrong) to determine if the photos are probably authentic or probably false. Let us consider the following negative points...

You can read all Greenwell's arguments for both negatives and positives points directly here as well as cropped versions of the four photographs. [NOTE: As the policies of ATS is not to allow direct link to the site, you'll have to replace the "nolink" by "o p e n m i n d s t v" with no space between the letters.]

Thanks to Tom Tulien, we manage to get the original first-hand version of the prints for full analysis with our IPACO software. Those are reproduced below:





Now, our problem is the following: I almost succeed in finding the original camera that was used, with the little information we've got about it (i-e 40 years-old camera, 6x9 format with 8 max expositions,...) BUT the problem is not mainly about the camera, but that about the possibility that it could be a hoax, i-e thrown hubcaps.

This hypothesis was submitted by researcher Larry Robinson in his page here quoting specifically Coral Lorenzen himself.
However, in spite of our efforts to get hold of the original source for this information, we failed as for now.

Now, the question for those of you who are familiar with this kind of research could be: "Are you aware of the case, and if so, could you provide some information about Lorenzen study of publication about the case to be a hoax?"
We search in our APRO Bulletin collection, with no luck, but some are missing. If some of you have the following bulletin, it could be great if you can check the possibility of such an information:
- Sept/Oct. 1971
- March/April 1974
- From Sept/Oct. 1974 to Feb. 1975
- May, August and October 1978
- February 1979
- Vol. 29 issue n°2 and n°6.

Thank you very much in advance! I will be glad to answer all the questions you may have.

a reply to: elevenaugust

Difficult to tell if they're real. I'd like to think so.
The angle of flight in some looks like they are travelling just like Bob lazar explained.

Unfortunately, in my opinion they look like early faked ufo pictures. They simply cover a frisby like object in reflective material, a partner throws It and the camera man snaps it, after a fair few attempts you can capture images like this one.

It was on a documentary I seen debunking old ufo pictures, it's do able and not very hard to accomplish. I notice there isn't really anything to gauge size of the object from either, nothing useful anyway. I suppose against the tree in the one picture it looks in the foreground of the tree making it very small.

I could be wrong and I hope I'm wrong though =)

In the close up of the two they really boggled it up. Damn near looks like two frisbees. In the other ones they made amuck better attempt, but sadly I think there are some clear signs of hoax here.

You will notice dozens of images from that era with the same tactics... Pie plate, frisbee, garbage can lid, etc, etc, etc.

Either tied to fishing lines or like in this case, thrown by someone else and captured on the upward trajectory. They set the aperture closed as possible and focus far off the object and it almost makes it look like it's off in the distance, but actually it's between the photographer and the background.



With sooo many floating around from back then, all of them looking really similar I wonder if it was a fad for star wars fans to do this kind of thing? Remember there was no internet, hardly any science fiction movies (consistently being released compared to today) and no video games... Think about it, what is a nerd to do with their time? Id love to say, "must be a mass invasion back in those days" but sadly the proof is in the pudding, or the fishing line dangling the garbage can lids space ships.

Funny how ufo pictures seem to change with the times and the latest depictions in Hollywood movies.

a reply to: Wolvo

Garbage can lids?

a reply to: elevenaugust

Im sure you know this by now, if any member here could help you it would be Isaac Koi.
He has every single book on the ufo subject ever published and probably every magazine as well.
I think he has his own website but im not sure about that

a reply to: elevenaugust

Well, it is some relief to not have half a dozen "first-responders" shouting, "CGI!< CGI! CGI!" as is typical these days.

I'll grant you there are some sharp, knowledgeable eyes out there that can discern the indiscernible, but also there are those that can never accept that UFOs are real and therefore, all such images HAVE to be faked in one way or another.

For today's group of detractors, I guess you need to be reminded that UFOs typically look like Frisbees (that's where the toys originated from, I believe) garbage can lids, hub caps, etc. Yes, there are a lot of fake images out there as well as fake entertainers, fake politicians, fake boobs, and self-appointed but fake UFO picture experts. ATS seems to be a real magnet for that last sort.

a reply to: boncho

Well I was only 9 in 1967, but I never knew anyone that faked a UFO picture. I never even heard of anyone doing that myself. We had all sorts of things to keep us busy before the internet. I have, however, seen something sitting in the sky in broad daylight, no hubcap or garbage can lid was involved.

originally posted by: wtbengineer
a reply to: boncho

Well I was only 9 in 1967, but I never knew anyone that faked a UFO picture. I never even heard of anyone doing that myself. We had all sorts of things to keep us busy before the internet. I have, however, seen something sitting in the sky in broad daylight, no hubcap or garbage can lid was involved.

You and your friends maybe not, but there was some pretty prolific hoxers 60s-90s.









Granted, the internet, cell phones, tablets, digital film, digital processing... all of these things have made it easy to hoax, with the simply push of a button. But skeptics and hoax killers are equally armed, with interconnectivity one side throws it up and the other shoots it down. Motive, a laugh at tricking people (the game), money from advertising or partner sharing, money for books and speaking, fame (albeit to a very niche crowd).

Pre 1990 though the market was far less saturated, so the UFO magazines were more exclusive, and a well planned hoax could go on for years without much to contradict it. Magazines were channels for dissemination which brings advertising money better than it would to a single youtube star posting crappy CGI footage inserted to news clips. And of course the speaking tours. People love getting just famous enough to speak. Get a paid trip to Vegas, Hawaii, Florida, etc, wherever the convention is. Get paid for speaking. Sign books, autographs, etc. Even on the bottom end they might not get all that but they get another place to market their books... HECK even run for president!

Maybe even some of them were legitimate?

He founded the California-based Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America, Inc. in 1957, approximately at the same time he announced his meeting with flying saucer crewmen from the hitherto unknown planet Korender, orbiting the triple star Alpha Centauri. Like George Adamski and most other contactees of the period, he said he was able to maintain continual telepathic links with the wise and helpful extraterrestrials he had met. In his 1960 run for US president, he claimed to represent the Universal Flying Saucer Party, and to base his political philosophy on "United World Universal Economics." He also ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1962 in California, claiming to have accumulated over 171,000 votes.

In 1967 he published his only book, Let's Face Facts about Flying Saucers. In 1972 he ran again, this time in Iowa, for US president, collecting less than 200 votes. Like most if not all of the 1950s contactees, Green was evidently far more interested in New Age/Theosophical topics such as reincarnation, channelling, Spiritualism and psychic phenomena than he was in being a prophet expounding wisdom supposedly acquired from friendly space-alien contacts. Also—like most of the more obscure contactees—he eventually dropped out of sight, moving to the vicinity of Yucca Valley, California after his last run for president, and very seldom thereafter appearing in public until his death about three decades later.

*****

originally posted by: wtbengineer
a reply to: boncho

Well I was only 9 in 1967, but I never knew anyone that faked a UFO picture. I never even heard of anyone doing that myself. We had all sorts of things to keep us busy before the internet. I have, however, seen something sitting in the sky in broad daylight, no hubcap or garbage can lid was involved.

Errm, you haven't heard of George Adamski?

a reply to: Aliensun

I wasn't aware UFO's have a typical shape, considering they've never been confirmed to exist yet..

a reply to: uncommitted

No, I hadn't heard of him when I was a kid and I never payed any attention to him until I joined ATS and read about him here. I said I never heard of anyone faking UFO pics when I was young and that is true.

a reply to: boncho

Yeah, that's a good point, but I think overall that those hoaxers were the exception. I don't think just everyone and his brother was hoaxing UFO pics back then. You know, sometimes I wonder if some of those people were maybe being hoaxed themselves and not trying to be deceitful. I think, at least in some cases, that the people actually believed what was happening was real and that maybe they were the subject of some kind of manipulation by someone else?

originally posted by: wtbengineer
a reply to: boncho

Yeah, that's a good point, but I think overall that those hoaxers were the exception. I don't think just everyone and his brother was hoaxing UFO pics back then. You know, sometimes I wonder if some of those people were maybe being hoaxed themselves and not trying to be deceitful. I think, at least in some cases, that the people actually believed what was happening was real and that maybe they were the subject of some kind of manipulation by someone else?

You mean like Paul Bennewitz? The majority of pics that float around are sooooo crap, which puts everything else into question from anyone who fell for a pie plate.

originally posted by: uncommitted

originally posted by: wtbengineer
a reply to: boncho

Well I was only 9 in 1967, but I never knew anyone that faked a UFO picture. I never even heard of anyone doing that myself. We had all sorts of things to keep us busy before the internet. I have, however, seen something sitting in the sky in broad daylight, no hubcap or garbage can lid was involved.

Errm, you haven't heard of George Adamski?

You mean... the master of the hub cap/garbarge-lid/tennis-ball man?

a reply to: boncho

Yes, they are so crap aren't they? But still, people fall for them all the time... I guess Bennewitz is as good a name to put in here as any.

a reply to: boncho

Or Billy Meier, another hoaxer, of course his "photos" were from the 70s, principle remains the same.

-SAP-

a reply to: elevenaugust

You may find the real and complete information about this case from Peru
in this link. Research by author J.J.Benitez from Spain including good size
photographs. Make translation with Google.
www.planetabenitez.com...

originally posted by: Wolvo
Unfortunately, in my opinion they look like early faked ufo pictures. They simply cover a frisby like object in reflective material, a partner throws It and the camera man snaps it, after a fair few attempts you can capture images like this one.

Quite so. The objects have way too much inherent contrast and sharpness compared to the backgrounds, and therefore appear to be small objects not very far away from the camera. Over the years and after seeing so many, many UFO photos, that is the general impression I get. Maybe people were less familiar with this kind of thing when the photos original came out.