UFOs One Year at a Time: 1971

Computer scientist and ufologist Jacques Vallée participated in this photograph's analysis and stated in an interview:

"Digital enhancement of photographs is very useful. In my book, Confrontations, I mention the photograph that I brought back from Costa Rica, which was unusual because the object was over a lake [Lago de Cote], so there was a uniform black background. Everything is known about the aircraft that took the photo. At the time the picture was taken, nobody on the plane had seen the object. It was only after the film was developed that the object was discovered. The camera used was exceptional: It produced a very large negative - ten inches, very detailed. You can see cows in the field. The time is known; the latitude, longitude and altitude of the aircraft is known. So we spent a lot of time analyzing that photograph, without being able to find any obvious natural answer to the object. It seems to be a very large, solid thing."

"I obtained the negative from the government of Costa Rica - if you don't have the negative, analysis is a waste of time. I also obtained the negative of the picture taken before and the picture after, all uncut. I took negatives to a friend of mine in France who works for a firm that digitally analyzes satellite photographs. They digitized the entire thing, and then analyzed it to the extent that they could, and could not find an explanation for the object."