The Mystery of the Cumberland Spaceman

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

One other thing. That's the first time I'd seen this enhanced blow-up, and I noticed a detail I'd not spotted before.

WTH is that?



If this was an ordinary human being, where is the neck? To me this resembles a dark metal ring, as if connecting the 'helmet' to the suit.

[jaybee]

Posted by Mark (Star Mariner) (here)
One other thing. That's the first time I'd seen this enhanced blow-up, and I noticed a detail I'd not spotted before.

WTH is that?

Attachment 51095

If this was an ordinary human being, where is the neck? To me this resembles a dark metal ring, as if connecting the 'helmet' to the suit.

(image of modern astronaut snipped - see above)

Good observation - something I hadn't noticed before - could it possibly be a chimpanzee ? or similar - Poor animals get used and abused for experiments with space travel - I'm just chucking that in because it crossed my mind reading your post...

I feel a bit silly even saying the above but one has to prepared to go anywhere with this mystery - Boyd Bushman used to say - 'follow the data and be damned..'

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

I think with good reason we can rule out a chimpanzee. What would one be being doing in a field, in Cumbria, in a spacesuit? And why would it be invisible to the naked eye? Also this figure is at least as tall as a human, if not higher, maybe seven feet or more, with an erect (very un-simian) posture.

I think we have to conclude it is a humanoid, but having several characteristics atypical of what you'd expect in a human, i.e. a member of the public accidentally captured in the background. If we accept Mr. Templeton's story that no such person was visible in the frame when he took the photo, we'd struggle to arrive at a 'rational' explanation.

Speaking purely hypothetically, and wearing a Ufologist's hat, the most likely one (to me) is paranormal: this is an extra-terrestrial. It's either shielded (from visual sight) via technology, or he/she/it is non-physical or inter-dimensional in nature. What's more it's appearance is by design. It's allowing itself to be photographed here. For what reason we can only speculate (the Australian connection perhaps, or the nearby nuclear power station).

[Brigantia]

I can't remember where I read it, possibly in one of the UFO magazines that Gary Heseltine edits - I read an article that analysed the photo and came to the conclusion that it is a woman with dark hair in a white dress and white hat with her back to the camera. Look at the bend of the right elbow, her back is to the camera. This was 1964, an era when a lot of women still wore hats as a matter of course, even on holiday - I remember even that when I was a kid, old men would wear a shirt, tie and jacket to the beach.

I'll try to track down that article. (Update on this - I think I read it in UFO Truth magazine, May/June 2016, as IIRC I got a limited-time free access to back issues after attending the UFO conference in 2017. Contents image added below.)

Update - I haven't found the article yet but on this forum thread on the topic there is a post with comments by the person who tweaked the photo and how they did it (click the text to enlarge, it's loaded on here in tiny text:

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Posted by Brigantia (here)
I read an article that analysed the photo and came to the conclusion that it is a woman with dark hair in a white dress and white hat with her back to the camera.

Afraid I don't buy it, and for several reasons.

First, it's sort of telling that a photoshop job was required to make it look like a woman. But that ignores the fact that only one woman was present, Jim Templeton's wife Annie, and she was sitting somewhere behind him when the photo was taken. The only other life around were sheep/cattle and they were, according to Templeton, "huddled to a far side as if frightened by something". I wonder what..

If this being was a woman, she's a giant. The fact she's out of focus means she's standing a significant distance behind the subject, and yet her whole upper body is visible. I can't speak to the exact geometry or mathematics, but as a photographer myself, I contend this 'person' must stand in excess of seven feet, if not higher.

So definitely not someone Templeton and his family would 'miss'. But no one was visible in the area when the photograph was taken - and that's why the photo was a mystery to him in the first place.

Another tie in: there is a long history of UFO sightings in this area, they were, so say at this time, (1960s) spotted "frequently" by fishermen, specifically in proximity to the nearby nuclear power plant.

And another: Templeton was later harassed by what we can only assume were MiBs (from here)

According to Templeton, two men wearing dark suits pulled up to the firehouse where he worked in a dark Jaguar. The strange men, who referred to each other by numbers instead of names, claimed to be agents of Her Majesty’s Government.

The mysterious men asked Templeton to take them to the site where the photo was taken. During the five mile drive to the location, Templeton was bombarded by a series of bizarre questions pertaining to the weather and the behavior of the birds and other animals on the day in question.

After they arrived at the scene, the MIB attempted to force Templeton to confess that he had photographed nothing more than an ordinary man. When Templeton refused to make such an admission, the men became angry and stormed off, leaving the befuddled firefighter to walk the five miles back to work. A question that stands out in particular was "Where did you see the second spaceman?". Templeton had never reported a second alien. When he attempted to explain this to the MIBs, they became visually aggressive.

And what happened to the negatives? After Templeton sent them away to be examined, he never saw them again. Repeated attempts to get them back failed. As happens so frequently in such cases evidence - like negatives - are confiscated by "powers that be". If was this simply a woman, a cyclist, a member of the public that had wandered into frame, why did "they" make such a fuss?

The Australian connection:

According to eyewitness reports, on the very same day that Templeton took his picture, a rocket launch countdown was aborted at a rocket test facility in Woomera, Australia.

The launch was halted when two automatic survey cameras caught a pair of large, unidentified, humanoid figures — clad in what appeared to be white spacesuits — walking around the launch pad. It should be noted that at the time of the launch the Templeton photo had not reached Australia and the crew had no knowledge of the image. Templeton described the incident as he heard it:

“They saw the monitors. Somebody (was) in the firing area and, of course, the countdown was stopped. They searched the area — nobody to be found, not a soul. And it was put down to a technical fault… but it was exactly the same type of man — same dress, same figure, same size as the picture that was taken over in Burgh Marsh.”

The aborted launch was part of a huge space project known as Blue Streak and reporters soon discovered that the rocket to be used in the launch was manufactured in Spadeadam, England, which is just a few miles from the Burgh Marsh [where Templeton's photo was taken].

When Australian reporters asked to view the security camera footage taken at Woomera on May 23rd, they were informed that out of all the canisters of film taken during the entire Blue Streak project, the only canister missing was the one containing the requested footage.

Really, there are so many "tells" here that to those well-versed in Ufology and how things work, there is little doubt.

All the "alternative" explanations (mental gymnastics included) are the result, purely, of debunkers being unable to cope with that alternative factor, being the extraordinary, the fantastic, and the paranormal. They can't make sense of phenomena because they can't see around their blinkers.

[Brigantia]

Posted by Mark (Star Mariner) (here)

Posted by Brigantia (here)
I read an article that analysed the photo and came to the conclusion that it is a woman with dark hair in a white dress and white hat with her back to the camera.

Afraid I don't buy it, and for several reasons.

First, it's sort of telling that a photoshop job was required to make it look like a woman. But that ignores the fact that only one woman was present, Jim Templeton's wife Annie, and she was sitting somewhere behind him when the photo was taken. The only other life around were sheep/cattle and they were, according to Templeton, "huddled to a far side as if frightened by something". I wonder what..

If this being was a woman, she's a giant. The fact she's out of focus means she's standing a significant distance behind the subject, and yet her whole upper body is visible. I can't speak to the exact geometry or mathematics, but as a photographer myself, I contend this 'person' must stand in excess of seven feet, if not higher.

I respect your view Mark, but should we accept everything we come across without scrutiny? Are we not truth seekers here on PA, scrutinising and pulling apart official narratives, and also disinfo agents? I do wish that I could access the UFO Truth magazine article that I referenced, as they are definitely not dismissive debunkers as they report extensively on UFO phenomena, but it did come to the conclusion that it was a person and not an alien.

The 'spaceman' moniker came about because it looks at first glance that the person is wearing a helmet. However, the position of the elbow cannot be denied - it was someone with their back to the camera. That bulge in the middle of the back (or chest if you would believe that it's the front of a spaceman) definitely looks like the fastening part of a bra, as they were bulky, unwieldy things back then.

What if it was Templeton's wife, or another woman, they joked about it being a spaceman when they got the developed film and then went too far with the joke? Would it have gone too far to have to admit to the joke? I have no doubt that he would have been hassled by the men at the ministry as at that time there was absolutely no official admission of any UFO phenomena. Maybe the negatives were buried away to stifle the story - or maybe they were simply lost. They are small, flimsy things.

Also if you look at the photo in the OP, you can see that Templeton's daughter is sitting on the ground and there is a rise in the landscape behind her. He would have had to sit or crouch down in order to take that photo. The figure does look to be some distance away so it really doesn't look like a 7 feet tall figure to me. I don't doubt that there was a history of high strangeness in the area - the same could be said of the whole of Britain that has a rich history of paranormal events and UFO hotspots, such as the high occurrence of UFO phenomena in places like the Peak District.

We'll just have to beg to differ!

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Posted by Brigantia (here)
Are we not truth seekers here on PA, scrutinising and pulling apart official narratives, and also disinfo agents?

Absolutely we are! I've done my fair share of invalidating cases/claims - there are many hoaxes, this one just doesn't have those hallmarks.

Jim Templeton was not the sort of man to perpetrate a hoax. He was a fireman, a trusted member of the community, and a photographer doing official photographic work for the Carlisle fire service. Behind the lens he was no novice. Neither was he an entrepreneur, or a UFO fanatic, he never made a penny - or asked for one - from his story. All he got for it was harassment, and ridicule, yet his story never changed for the 47 years up to his death.

Posted by Brigantia (here)
What if it was Templeton's wife, or another woman, they joked about it being a spaceman when they got the developed film and then went too far with the joke?

That comes from conjecture, not 'scrutiny'. It's true, beyond the photographic evidence all we have is personal testimony, and we must use our best judgement when critiquing it. To me, his credentials are very good (cited above), and he and wife Annie categorically deny she was in the picture - or anyone else - when it was taken. As an experienced photographer, I also don't believe Templeton would specifically pose his daughter for this shot and go ahead and take it with someone in the way.

No one else was 'visible' when he took the shot. We either believe them in that, or we don't. To me a lie does not add up, because you always have to look at what might be gained by such a lie. He put his career on the line by coming forward, and his reputation.

Posted by Brigantia (here)
I have no doubt that he would have been hassled by the men at the ministry as at that time there was absolutely no official admission of any UFO phenomena.

They never waste their time with hoaxers. And you're assuming 'they were from the government'. What if they were not, and from somewhere else? And these guys don't show up with hoaxers - because they know. They only knock on the door when they know something (genuine) has happened; they come to silence the witness. And they tried with Templeton but he refused to recant his story. We have decades of accounts with these mysterious MiBs, and this case is consistent with those.

If this was a hoax, there's no way it would've made it almost sixty years without being exposed as one. Not with all the scrutiny it's had. Even exhaustive study by Kodak couldn't come up with an explanation - including the wife theory! They even offered a reward to the public - free film for a year to any person that could solve the mystery or reproduce the photo. No one ever did.

This is definitely not Annie Templeton.

Posted by Brigantia (here)
I do wish that I could access the UFO Truth magazine article that I referenced, as they are definitely not dismissive debunkers as they report extensively on UFO phenomena, but it did come to the conclusion that it was a person and not an alien.

I put no stock in their conclusion. The evidence, as I see it, points the other way.

Posted by Brigantia (here)
We'll just have to beg to differ!

Yup, and no problem with that!

[jaybee]

Posted by Mark (Star Mariner) (here)
I think with good reason we can rule out a chimpanzee. What would one be being doing in a field, in Cumbria, in a spacesuit? And why would it be invisible to the naked eye? Also this figure is at least as tall as a human, if not higher, maybe seven feet or more, with an erect (very un-simian) posture.

- what would anyone be doing in a field in Cumbria - invisible to the naked eye but their image captured by camera - I made the chimp remark when I was on a line of speculation that the image could have been connected to reverse engineered ET craft (or teleportation experiment) - poor chimps (and other animals) were used to test out things for Space Exploration and I would expect them to be used for experiments with reverse engineering projects and teleportation experiments... BUT... the figure does look human rather than ape - - - - your remark about the rim of the helmet indicating a short or no neck made me think of an ape but I've had a look at helmets on spacesuits and the rim often goes high up the neck because of the bulkiness of the suit over the shoulders...

for example - Neil Armstrong in this pic... (sorry it's a bit big...)


source



Isn't it typical that the lower half of the figure is hidden behind Elizabeth's head - we don't really know what position the lower half is in - it could even be in a seated posture - but it is much more likely to be in a standing position - although it doesn't appear to be standing on the ground but hovering above it - - - - suggesting that it is perhaps breaking through from another dimension and it was a complete fluke that Jim got the shot of it - the presence of nuclear material in the area could also be important - - creating some kind of time, space displacement ( possibly connected to an experiment -) ??


Mark...

I think we have to conclude it is a humanoid, but having several characteristics atypical of what you'd expect in a human, i.e. a member of the public accidentally captured in the background. If we accept Mr. Templeton's story that no such person was visible in the frame when he took the photo, we'd struggle to arrive at a 'rational' explanation.

Speaking purely hypothetically, and wearing a Ufologist's hat, the most likely one (to me) is paranormal: this is an extra-terrestrial. It's either shielded (from visual sight) via technology, or he/she/it is non-physical or inter-dimensional in nature. What's more it's appearance is by design. It's allowing itself to be photographed here. For what reason we can only speculate (the Australian connection perhaps, or the nearby nuclear power station).

At the moment I'm leaning towards the figure being human, involved in an advanced technology experiment - probably based on knowledge gleaned from reverse engineering retrieved ET craft - but it could still be ET operating in another dimension keeping an eye on nuclear developments... that remains a possibility -

The video below is good, put together by 'Professor Simon' - adding more to the whole story with some great historic footage - especially of the Blue Streak link -

He comes up with what he calls a 'new twist' - of his own at the end - speculating on the suit maybe not being a space suit but protective gear worn by workers in the near by nuclear facility ...

His video (I like Prof Simon) - has sparked another line of speculation for me - but I will talk about that in another post as this is getting long...

Solway Spaceman - Prof Simon (13:59)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=hUjy2sC70YQ

video description...

On May 23rd 1964 Jim Templeton took a photograph of his daughter Elizabeth near the Solway Firth. There appeared to be a mysterious spaceman standing behind her. This is the story about the Solway Spaceman. A mystery that involves, Britains Blue Streak rocket, Woomara rocket range in Australia, Men in Black from the British government, Kodak, and the nuclear facilities of Windscale and Chapelcross. Prof Simon investigates this strange photograph and offers his NEW idea about why there was a strange figure in this classic photograph mystery.

[ExomatrixTV]

• The Solway Firth Spaceman Mystery - NEW Evidence! We Deconstruct This Fascinating Photo Riddle:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=FkAjr4cJ6jI

The Solway Firth Spaceman - it's fascinated and intrigued thousands of armchair detectives around the world. It's been hotly debated for over 60 years but here's some new evidence that casts light on the mystery.

Were we really visited by an alien from outer space on 23rd May 1964 or is there a more earthly explanation to this riddle? It was 'debunked' some years ago but many still do not believe the explanation.

The photograph has been unexplained for decades - but this video gets us closer to the truth than ever before. It's one of the most famous photos of all time and we're going to deconstruct it like never before.

Thank you so much for watching! Please do consider subscribing to Very Nearly Interesting.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Posted by ExomatrixTV (here)
The photograph has been unexplained for decades - but this video gets us closer to the truth than ever before.

What did you think of it, John? Is this your opinion too? Fair enough if it is. No harm, no foul. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

Just curious why you posted it.

Mine opinion is this is a straight up hit-job, and not in the least compelling.

Debunkers have treated Ufology like this for decades. I call this sort of material "copium for skeptics". They dismiss the extraordinary, and any chance for it, because the mundane is much more comfortable. And this fellow does just that, and it's infinitely tedious.

[ExomatrixTV]

Posted by Mark (Star Mariner) (here)

Posted by ExomatrixTV (here)
The photograph has been unexplained for decades - but this video gets us closer to the truth than ever before.

What did you think of it, John? Is this your opinion too? Fair enough if it is. No harm, no foul. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion.

Just curious why you posted it.

Mine opinion is this is a straight up hit-job, and not in the least compelling.

Debunkers have treated Ufology like this for decades. I call this sort of material "copium for skeptics". They dismiss the extraordinary, and any chance for it, because the mundane is much more comfortable. And this fellow does just that, and it's infinitely tedious.

Attachment 51445

What part is "obvious" a hit job? What part is examining all possibilities with an open mind "for or against" combined? We all have our projected filters to a degree ... to be really neutral is rare nowadays!

• I am leaning towards it being debunked the correct way as I do photography for over 33 years myself, photographing 100,000s of pictures and experienced plenty of photographic anomalies myself!

If others can make a better case, it to be a "space man" am always open for that!

cheers,
John 🦜🦋🌳

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Posted by ExomatrixTV (here)
If others can make a better case, it to be a "space man" am always open for that!

Mate, where's your ufology hat!? I think it must have fallen off your head!

I think the case for this being real is strong. The video claims it's just misidentification. The figure in the image is his wife.

BUT...

• Annie's dress has short sleeves and her pink skinny arm is visible (in the other image we have of her that day). She is inconsistent with the "spaceman"
• Templeton has claimed for more than 50 years NO ONE was visible in the image when he took it
• HAD someone been visible -- thus spoiling the image -- he wouldn't have taken the picture in the first place
• For the same 50 years, Templeton has claimed his wife -- the only other person present -- was sitting behind him at the time
• At the time, Templeton says the only other life around were sheep/cattle and they were "huddled to a far side (of the field) as if frightened by something"
• There's a long history of UFO sightings in this area, in the 60s they were spotted "frequently" by fishermen in proximity to the nearby nuclear power station
• Templeton was later harassed by MiBs
• These MiBs attempted to FORCE Templeton to back-track and admit he'd photographed a normal person
• Kodak examined the image and detected no fakery
• When Templeton sent off the negatives to be further examined, they were never returned
• Attempts to track them down failed. They disappeared
• On the very same day (as picture) a rocket launch countdown was aborted at a test facility in Woomera, Australia -- surveillance cameras captured unidentified humanoid figures -- almost identical to the Spaceman -- walking around the launchpad
• The rocket used for the launch was manufactured in Spadeadam, England, just a few miles from where Spaceman picture was taken
• When reporters asked to view the security footage from Woomera on May 23rd, the ONLY canister that was missing was the one containing the footage

Personally, John, as a researcher myself (and a pro photographer myself), the number of "tells" here SHOULD appeal very strongly to those well-versed in Ufology, and to how things work.

This case is very compelling.

But ALL this evidence was ignored by the video, making it very clearly a hit-piece from start to finish.

The only clear and logical reason to dismiss this as a hoax is that you don't believe Templeton's testimony or that of his family. That they're lying.

Imagine doing that, and for no apparent reason, with ALL UFO-related cases... The UFO phenomenon as a reality would effectively fall apart -- meaning they don't exist. It would be to say "the whole world is full of liars".

But we don't just have his word to go on, we have physical evidence in the picture itself. And it informs us something very unusual occurred here. Because it cannot be explained by conventional means, i.e. that it was his wife who wandered into frame.

If it was Annie, what sort of clothing is she wearing here?? It's like a band of dark metal circling her neck.



If you do believe Templeton, that all his memories and experiences are correct, and when you couple them with corroborating ancillary evidence, like UFOs being spotted in the area near a nuclear power plant, the Australian connection, the frightened animals, disappearing negatives, Men in Black, and so and so forth...you are left with only one conclusion.

The figure in the photograph is an unknown being. It was real.