The Solway Firth Spaceman refers to a figure seen in a photograph taken in
1964 by fireman, photographer and local historian Jim Templeton.
The famous photo was taken on Burgh Marsh, situated near Burgh by Sands,
overlooking the Solway Firth in Cumbria, England. Templeton claimed the
photograph shows a background figure wearing a space suit and insisted that
he did not see anyone present when the photograph was taken. The image was
reproduced widely in contemporary newspapers and gained the interest of
ufologists. A contemporary analysis suggested that the figure was probably
the photographer's wife, standing with her back towards the camera, her dress
appearing white due to overexposure. Photograph
On 23 May 1964, Jim Templeton, a firefighter from Carlisle, Cumberland,
took three photographs of his five-year-old daughter while on a day
trip to Burgh Marsh. Templeton said the only other people on the marshes that
day were a couple of old ladies sitting in a car at the far end of the marsh. In
a letter to the Daily Mail in 2002, Templeton stated, "I took three pictures
of my daughter Elizabeth in a similar pose – and was shocked when the middle
picture came back from Kodak displaying what looks like a spaceman in the
background." Templeton insists that he did not see the figure until after his
photographs were developed, and analysts at Kodak confirmed that the photograph
was genuine. = Explanation of the "spaceman" =
According to Sheffield Hallam University journalism lecturer and writer David
Clarke in 2014, the "spaceman" is most likely Templeton's wife, Annie, who was
present at the time and was seen on other photographs taken that day. "I
think for some reason his wife walked into the shot and he didn't see her
because with that particular make of camera you could only see 70% of what
was in the shot through the viewfinder", said Clarke. Annie was wearing a pale
blue dress on the day in question, which was overexposed as white in the other
photos; she also had dark, bobbed hair. It has been argued that, when using
photo software to darken the image and straighten the horizon, the figure
increasingly appears to be a regular person viewed from behind. Of its
impact, Clarke said: "People will still be talking about it in another 50
years." Publicity
Templeton told reporters, "I took the picture to the police in Carlisle who,
after many doubts, examined it and stated there was nothing suspicious
about it. The local newspaper, the Cumberland News, picked up the story and
within hours it was all over the world. The picture is certainly not a fake, and
I am as bemused as anyone else as to how this figure appeared in the background.
Over the four decades the photo has been in the public domain, I have had many
thousands of letters from all over the world with various ideas or
possibilities – most of which make little sense to me."
Templeton said he was visited after the photograph was published by two men who
said they were from the government who refused to show their identification.
Templeton says: "They said they worked for the government and that they were
only identified by number." After taking the men to the site where the photos
were taken, Templeton said that when he explained he had not seen the figure at
the time, the men became angry and drove away, leaving him to walk home. In
September 1964, Templeton dismissed the two men as frauds, saying: "It all looks
like a leg pull to me. I'm sure the men were not security agents."
In a BBC Look North interview and a letter to The Daily Mail, Templeton also
said that a Blue Streak missile launch at the Woomera Test Range in South
Australia had been aborted because the figures of two large men were seen on
the firing range. Templeton alleged that technicians later saw his photograph in
an Australian newspaper and found the figures to be exactly the same.
Responding to a request from ufologists to know if the photo was of interest to
the authorities, a British Ministry of Defence official said that the Templeton
photo was of no interest to them. References
External links Story, Chris. "Suspected UFO sighting
leads to Cumbria hotspot claim.". News & Star.
RationalWiki: "Solway Firth Spaceman"