OK.
Je reproduis une partie du mail de Jenny Randle, qui est en fait une partie d'un article qu'elle a proposé au Daily Mail, publié le 11 mai dernier sous le titre "Alien Invasion or Clever Hoax?"
J'essaierai de traduire dès que possible, mais bon, il n'y a rien de très nouveau, sauf peut-être ce que j'ai mis en gras.
Ensuite, je donnerai deux hypothèses qu'a fouillées et que m'a envoyées J. Carpenter (la personne qui a écrit, entre autre, la chronologie de l'affaire des "fusées scandinaves").
Q: What is the story of the 'Cumberland Spaceman?
A:
On the fine Sunday of 24 May, 1964, fireman Jim Templeton took his Pentacon camera onto Burgh Marsh, on the Solway Firth north west of his home at Carlisle. With him were his wife and two young daughters - including 5 year old Elizabeth, whom he wanted to film wearing her new pink dress.
Jim positioned her on a grassy bank, holding a bunch of freshly picked spring flowers and took several shots whilst his wife and elder daughter observed. They saw nobody else in the area at the time - this area being a tidal estuary and so risky unless you knew it well. However, they did notice that the cows and sheep were behaving strangely - huddling close as if there was an imminent storm. But the weather remained clear.
When the processed film was collected from the chemist about a week later the young woman handing it over said to Jim that he had taken some nice shots but it was a shame that the best one of Elizabeth was spoiled by the man in the background wearing a 'spacesuit.' As an experienced photographer of many years Jim was baffled - given the semi transparent and slightly distorted upper form of someone in a white astronaut like suit above and beyond his daughter's left shoulder. It appeared to be 'floating' off the ground at a slight angle.
Having worked with the police taking images of fire scenes, Jim took the mystery photo to them and they were equally bemused. It appeared in the local Cumberland News and briefly became the talk of the UK. Meantime the police had sent the photo for analysis to a CID lab in Penrith. Kodak, whose Kodocolor X film had been the source of the photo, also became intrigued and tried to duplicate it using a double exposure or another technique. Although Jim had taken the odd trick picture in the past the police were sure that he would not dare risk his job or reputation by asking them to waste time and resources. In the end a puzzled Kodak lab offered free film for life to anyone who could persuade them of how the photo came about. It was never won.
All sorts of people offered ideas. An investigating police officer noted that there had been reports of hot weather mirages on the Solway and mused about some kind of meteorological distortion, Japanese scientists got in touch to suggest it might have been a 'projected hologram' from the Chapel Cross nuclear plant across the water (though checks revealed nobody was wearing a white protective suit that day). Even the famous physicist, Sir Lawrence Bragg. unsuccessfully tried to find an answer. But the police ultimately concluded it had to be a real man - possibly a streaker - who had just briefly strayed into shot during the one hundredth of a second exposure. The not entire solidity of the image is not easy to square with that idea and Jim's wife, who was looking straight at the position where the 'man' would be - told me with a smile: 'I think I would have noticed a naked man'.
I was personally attracted to the case during the 1990s when researching a book about 'Men in Black' - mysterious figures alleged to visit witnesses to strange phenomena and ask them baffling questions. The eponymous Will Smith movie franchise adopts a sensationalised adaptation of similar claims. I established contact with the Templetons and later filmed them for a BBC documentary that I presented in April 1996. Jim was very convincing and stood by his story until his death in 2011. He and his wife had encountered the UK version of the Men in Black a month or so after taking the photo when a well spoken person called the house and asked to come to see them in order to 'investigate these things'. He and a colleague duly arrived in a shiny black Jaguar car and wearing smart black suits. They behaved oddly, referring to one another only by numbers and not using names (such quirks are common in such cases). Although their origin was unclear Jim came to believe that they were from a government department and could not understand the subterfuge.
The men drove with Jim to the marshes, walked out to the spot and posed many questions. They were keen to know about the behaviour of the animals and the weather and asked over and over about the man that he had seen. When Jim insisted there was no man present when he took the photo - they marched off to their car and drove away, leaving him stranded to walk five miles home.
Many other puzzles surround the case - including a second photo that Jim took on the marsh that summer revealing a blur of light climbing skyward like a rocket. This has similarity with Pathe footage captured during the launch of a Blue Streak missile from the Woomera test site in Australia about this date in June 1964. Intriguingly, these very same missiles were assembled at RAF Spadedam close to the spot on Burgh Marsh where the Spaceman photo was taken. Jim told me that police had warned him of government interest in his photos because of these coincidences involving the Blue Streak - which began as a ballistic missile but developed into an early UK attempt to join the lucrative space race.
In reality, the Woomera footage shows what looks like a lens flare reflection caused by the outback sun on the camera optics (although the launch site cameras used hoods to guard against this) and Jim's second Marsh shot could have a similar origin. No records appear to exist indicating that the government ever officially followed up the Cumberland Spaceman case and the identity of the two mystery men remains unsolved. Suggestions range from a covert government agency to eccentric UFO hunters or even hoaxers hoping to provoke Men in Black folklore.
To this day people still attempt to resolve Jim Templeton's photos with recent proposals including a hoax using an astronaut figurine or that a person in a golf jacket was simply caught in strange pose walking away. Another possibility is a deliberate trick played on Jim by one of his colleagues double exposing his shot with one of a fireman in a protective suit. They may perhaps have become too scared to own up once Jim got the police involved.
I have no idea what really happened, but was persuaded on meeting them that the Templetons were telling the truth as they knew it.
Jenny Randles, presenter of, Britains Secret UFO Files (BBC, 1996) and author of 'Investigating the truth behind the Men in Black Phenomenon' (Piatkus Books 1997)
Joel Carpenter, lui, a travaillé deux hypothèses. La première concerne un trucage à partir de petits jouets "poupées/figurines d'astronautes" ou similaires, des années 60, comme par exemple les figurines Marx ou bien Dan Dare, mais selon lui aucune n'est assez grande ou ne présente un "style" correct.
Sa seconde piste de recherche a été celle d'un "cycliste". Il explique qu'il y aurait une passerelle près de l'endroit où la photo a été prise. Il ne sait cependant pas si les gens faisaient du hors route (tout terrain) à l'époque. Et selon lui, un autre argument contre est que les casques n'étaient sans doute pas portés à cette époque (perso, je pense qu'il n'y a pas besoin de "casque", une capuche "coupe-vent" fait l'affaire aussi).
C'est parfois ce genre de choses "improbables"
a priori qui fait les plus grands mystères
a posteriori.
Voici le petit montage photo qu'il a réalisé pour illustrer son propos :
https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/img407/2697/solwaybike.jpg
Et puis, ce sont au moins deux pistes proposées de plus, qui valent ce qu'elles valent (Lapalice ^^).
Gilles
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