The truth behind the astronaut of Solway : Mystery Solved

On May 24, 1964 Jim Tempelton was with his wife and daughter spending the day in Solway, England. The following Story has gone around the World. Here we close the case.

Jim was fond of photography, and like every first-time father his main motive was his daughter Elizabeth, 5 years old. That afternoon he took three photos, and when he went to reveal them he found that the best photo of his daughter was ruined because someone had left walking behind. But who was that person? Jim was completely sure that the three of them were alone.

The photo was published in a local Cumberland newspaper on June 12 of that year, and the next day also in the Daily Mirror and Daily Express. It soon attracted the attention of popularizers who contributed their “creativity” to explain photography. They proposed that an extraterrestrial spacecraft had landed in that meadow and that both the ship itself and the aliens were protected by a field of invisibility that made them imperceptible to the human eye, but not to the objective of Jim’s camera.

As is often the case, when disseminators get involved, strange stories began to emerge around them. In this case, it is said that two people dressed in black came to Jim’s house and asked him to take them to the exact area where the events took place. It is also said that Jim took a photograph and negative to Kodak so they could check if it could be manipulated in any way. For Kodak, photography was authentic, and he even offered a free movie for life for anyone who could prove otherwise.

The real key of this story is in another photograph that was taken that same afternoon in which the mother appears.

Annie, who was called Elizabeth’s mother, appears kneeling on the meadow, dressed in a light blue sleeveless suit. Overexposure makes the suit appear almost white, but if we increase the contrast and correct the color, we notice that the suit has a large surcoat.

Jim’s reflex camera required manual focusing, so all the attention was placed on his daughter’s face. If his wife had gotten clueless, Jim would not have noticed.

If Jim can not be, because he is doing the photo, Elizabeth either, because it comes out in the foreground, then it can only be Annie. If in addition the clothes and the color of the hair coincide, little more remains to be added .. No?

Case closed