The Ministry of Defence no longer hold records about the mysterious Calvine UFO photograph, says the UK Armed Forces minister, James Heappey MP.

Rt Hon James Heappey MP, Minister of State for the Armed Forces and Veterans (credit: UK government/Wikipedia)

The government minister was responding to a Parliamentary enquiry to the MoD submitted by my Sheffield Heeley constituency MP and Shadow Transport minister Louise Haigh. I asked Louise to send a list of questions to MoD after one of the original photographs was revealed in my story published by the Daily Mail on 13 August.

In his letter Heappey says that ‘due to the historic nature of this alleged incident’ the only surviving papers are those in DEFE 24/1940/1 opened at The National Archives in 2009.

‘The Calvine photographs were discussed in 1996 in the House of Commons where the then Minister of the Armed Forces [Nicholas Soames MP] confirmed that while the negatives were examined by staff responsible for air defence matters, they were not retained by MoD as they contained “nothing of defence significance”,’ his letter adds.

In his response the Minister ignored my question, submitted via Louise Haigh: ‘was the UK Air Defence Quick Reaction Alert system triggered on 4 August 1990 by the presence of an intruder aircraft’.

But he did respond to another question concerning whether authorisation had been given to the US Air Force – or any other US military – to fly or land an experimental aircraft in the UK, by passing the buck.

‘While we are aware that the existence or otherwise of a “secret American Aurora aircraft” was linked to this alleged event, with a number of theories suggesting that it was this aircraft that was allegedly seen, this is not a matter for the MoD, rather it would be a matter for the US Government,’ he said.

‘However, the UK Government has given no authority for any such aircraft to fly over or land in the United Kingdom and has no evidence to suggest that any such aircraft has’.

Louise Haigh also asked, on my behalf, whether a D-Notice was served on the Scottish Daily Record newspaper in 1990 to ensure the six images were not published.

His response says D-Notices are the responsibility of an independent body, the Defence Media Advisory Committee. The DSMA is administered by representatives of the UK military, secret services and Press – one of whom in 1990, was the serving editor of the Daily Record, Endell Laird, who died in 2015.

In 2018 I asked the current secretary of the DSMA if he would comment on a 22 March 2000 memo by Ron Haddow, author of the MoD’s Condign report, that referred to ‘a press D-Notice issued’ to deal with media questions relating to a secret US ‘ASTRA/AURORA’ project.

Extract from a formerly classified UAP Policy file that refers to a D-Notice issued during the 1990s relating to ASTRA/AURORA (credit: UK Ministry of Defence)

The secretary’s response was ‘there is no standing DSMA (and before that DA or D) notice that solely relates to US stealth aircraft in UK territory but that does not mean that a D/DA notice could not have been issued in connection with such an event’.

DSMA was aware that when in development, the US B2 Stealth bomber was a top secret programme. Among a number of issues ‘the shape of the aircraft was very sensitive and thus publication of Stealth bomber photographs would have been discouraged’. He added:

‘I do not know of any DA or D notice issued in connection with a US stealth aircraft on UK territory. Records before 2005 are incomplete and in any case, advice to editors is confidential’.

Meanwhile the former News Editor at the Daily Record has described the Calvine photos as ‘the strangest story imaginable’. He admitted his paper had missed ‘one of the biggest exclusives we ever had’.

Malcolm Speed, news editor of the Daily Record in 1990 says he cannot explain why his newspaper failed to run the story (picture credit: mirrorpensioners.co.uk)

Malcolm Speed retired in 2015 after 40 years as a journalist working for the Mirror Group newspapers. He was news editor in 1990 when the paper had a daily circulation of 700,000.

Speed said he saw the Calvine photograph in August 1990 shortly before he left the Glasgow office on his annual summer holiday.

‘I did see the photograph and can confirm the story is true,’ he told me. ‘One of the images was shown to me by picture editor Andy Allan, now deceased. It looked amazing then and I was surprised that it was not published’…

‘Later when I returned from holiday and quizzed Andy about the photographs he told me he had sent them to the RAF who had told them they were fakes.

‘I was surprised he sent them to the RAF before they were published, especially given issues such as copyright and ownership.

‘Andy was very reluctant to talk about the photographs and said he had given his word to the photographers to protect their identity. I was never told their names.

‘After that all discussions about the photos were discouraged. None of this makes any sense if the photographs were simple fakes’.

Speed said he later raised the issue with the paper’s editor, Endell Laird, who was close friend of Andy Allan. He denied all knowledge of the photographs.

‘Even if they were fakes I still find it hard to believe why they were not published. We published all sorts of images if they were newsworthy. These photos should have been a front page teaser and blasted over a spread inside for every day of the week.

‘There is something very odd about the decision not to use them that I cannot explain.‘

Speed says he thinks the mystery will never be resolved as most of the people ‘at the epicentre’, including Laird and Allan, are now deceased.

Since the Calvine photograph went viral on social media the internet has been buzzing with ingenious and contradictory theories that seek to debunk the image as just another fake UFO photograph.

Perhaps the most bizarre theory suggests the photo is actually an inverted image not of an object hovering in a cloudy sky, but of something partly submerged in a body of water. The promoters of this theory believe the ‘UFO’ is actually a small island or rock in a Scottish loch: the bottom of the ‘diamond’ is actually a reflection of the island and the Harrier is a man sitting in a rowing boat.

Photography lecturer Andrew Robinson, who produced hi-resolution images of the print in Sheffield Hallam University‘s photo laboratories, says the image does superficially look like a reflection of a flat object sticking up from a body of water.

‘But your gut instinct tells you that it isn’t an inverted image. The other items in the image and all the angles are wrong for this to be a reflection. Quite apart from this the mirror stillness of the lake with not a single ripple and the lack of any surface debris (leaves, twigs, bubbles etc) whilst not impossible would be highly unlikely.

‘There is a distant landscape clearly visible beyond the fence line. This would not appear if this was a reflection’.

My view is that both the island (and the man in the boat) are all in the eye of the beholder.

The Calvine photograph. A rock sticking out of a loch, or a Christmas ornament suspended from a tree branch. Every photograph tells a story (credit: Sheffield Hallam University/Craig Lindsay)

Sceptics rightly say the most straightforward explanation is that the diamond-shaped UFO is actually a small model hanging from a thin thread near the camera. Belgian sceptic Wim van Utrecht believes he has identified the UFO as a five-pointed cardboard ‘Christmas star’ ornament suspended from the overhanging trees visible in the photograph.

But as the Calvine photo includes both the large UFO and a tiny Harrier jet, a more ingenious arrangement would be required.

According to Utrecht the two pranksters, after suspending the ornament from the tree, produced a fishing rod and while one of the men ‘moved the small Harrier [model] around the “saucer”, his companion snapped the pictures’.

As of writing, scrutiny of a high resolution TIF version of the Calvine image has failed to detect any evidence of strings, wire or other suspicious anomalies although experiments by Utrecht have found that fishing line is very difficult to detect in any camera image.

If correct the clever hoaxer would have had to produce six convincing images in sequence including one that included a second fainter Harrier jet that was identified by the RAF’s JARIC photo agency, according to the UK MoD records.

The Calvine UFO mystery, unlike many other UFO legends, presents us with only two possible explanations.

(1) The photographs are or were a clever hoax – most likely involving a small object (or objects) suspended in front of the camera, as Utrecht has suggested. If true then perhaps the prank got out of hand when it initially fooled the UK Defence Intelligence staff and RAF photo experts.

(2) They are genuine photographs of something unusual in the sky. There are many possible ‘somethings’ quite apart from secret military technology (for example a kite, a blimp or UAV). There are no other possibilities as far as I can tell. 

My position is that even if the photographs are fakes it makes no difference to their status as an evolving modern legend – or their news-worthiness.

Some people say the camera never lies. But that is not true. In reality, every photograph tells a story.