The Case of the UFO of Lake Cote in Costa Rica
There are many cases in which surveillance planes, or photography planes for cartographic work, are involved in UFO cases. Precisely these detect the phenomenon, offering us photographs or filming of unidentified flying objects.There is a very famous case, the inexplicable photo of a UFO on September 4, 1971 in Costa Rica. The image of the “flying saucer” has been submitted to the most critical experts, defining it as “high quality UFO image” . It is the cover image of the famous book “Unusual Files”. Until now, the origin of the image has not been explained. Richard Haines was one of the experts who studied it. He is the world’s foremost authority on UFO cases involving pilots. It is one of the few cases in which the Government of a country is the one that shows it, and it is also a high-quality photograph.
The inexplicable photo of a UFO was taken on September 4, 1971 in Costa Rica, over Lake Cote.
At 08:25 on September 4, 1971, a Costa Rican government mapping plane was taking aerial photographs in the Lake Cote area . The photographs were taken with a RMK 15/23 camera at 20 second intervals. But one of them showed a surprise that was not discovered until 8 years later and by chance.
Someone asked the official archive for a photo of the area and, at that moment, they realized that there was an unknown object there. Its shape was conical and flattened. and seemed to float on the water of the lake. The object had a shiny metallic appearance and did not appear in either the earlier or later shot of the sequence. First they opted for an alleged stain on the negative. The saved original negative was checked and did not have any blemishes.
At 08:25 on September 4, 1971, a cartographic plane of the Costa Rican government showed a surprise that was not discovered until 8 years later and by chance. It was a UFO in flight.
In May 1979, a collaborator from the Department of Photography of the Geographical Institute of Costa Rica called Ricardo Vilchez, who was a photographer and analyst of the UFO phenomenon. He checked the photograph. The camera with which it was made was mounted on a small plane that flew at 3,000 meters of altitude. It was done automatically by professionals . The forgery was ruled out. At the end of May, Vilchez sent it to the US for digital analysis. It had strange aspects that were seen with the naked eye.
At the time the photograph was taken, the sun was 16º above the horizon. The detail of the north-facing area of the object has a higher definition than the rest of the objects on the ground. The object appears to be coming out of the water, with the part oriented towards the West (the one above) still submerged. The object has a metallic appearance, but the brightness is inverted. The part that is directed towards the Sun is the one that appears darkest. The part that should be shadowed (more so if the object is tilted) appears bright. There is no shadow on the water, although it should. The object must have been about 210 meters in diameter. Analyzing the shadows on the ground, the plane was turning and the camera was not pointing perpendicular to the ground.
Its shape was conical and flattened and seemed to float on the water of the lake.
In 1989, the expert Richard Haines published an analysis of the photo in the Journal of Scientific Exploration in which he was unable to reach any conclusion about the origin of this object . The negative was printed on Kodak Safety aerial film, type 3665.
On board the plane were 4 men:
-Sergio LV, specialist in aerial photography.
-Omar A. the pilot of the plane.
-John BC Geographer.
-Francisco R., Topographer.
In 1989, the expert Richard Haines published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration an analysis of the photo in which he was unable to reach any conclusion about the origin of this object.
The conclusions of the case would be the following. The UFO photo shows light and shadow effects typical of a three-dimensional object, which is illuminated by sunlight . At this time and location the azimuth of the sun was 85.4 degrees (clockwise from north) and the altitude was 16.7 degrees.
The triangular region that appears dark on the object cannot be a sun shadow. The zones must have that tonality originally. The conical section of the object ends in a thicker area. The West-facing part appears blurred and the North-facing part very, very well defined. The sharpness of the image indicates that the object was not moving at the time of the shot.
In the 70s, the sightings were multiple. UFO captured from an airplane over the Brazilian Amazon in 1976.
Haines, again in 1990, published a new article entitled: “Photo Analysis of an Aerial Disc Over Costa Rica: New Evidence” . He comments that the analysis of the original negative confirms the initial suspicion that the UFO image is not the result of a double exposure, a reflection, a montage or any other type of forgery. There is no change in the surface of the water either.
The famous photograph in question has since appeared in thousands of reports, and remains an open case without explanation to this day. The results of all the analyzes suggest that it is a photographic artifact (an object that, although it appears impressed, is not real), but no one has found its origin.
The mystery continues, then, around the case of the UFO of Lake Cote in Costa Rica…
