Some people believe that the white figure in the photo Jim Templeton took in England in 1964 is a spirit or an alien.
On a bright, sunny summer day in 1964, firefighter Jim Templeton of Carlisle, England took a photo of his daughter on the lawn.
“We sat down on the grass and I said ‘now I’m going to take a picture of you wearing your new dress’. I didn’t expect the photo that followed would cause such a stir,” Templeton said.
His photo attracted media attention worldwide. Debate about the mysterious figure behind his daughter, Elizabeth, has lasted for decades.
For those who study unidentified flying objects (UFOs), the answer is clear. White suit, helmet, dark visor. They believe it is an astronaut or alien.
Apart from his wife, Annie, and two elderly people in the car, Templeton saw no one else at the photo shoot that day at Burgh Marsh, overlooking Solway Bay in Cumbria. It was only when the two photographers said there was a white figure behind Elizabeth that he realized someone or something was present.
UFO conspiracy theorists claim that there are invisible aliens all around us and that Templeton accidentally captured them on film.
Templeton took the photos to police in Carlisle but police said there was nothing unusual. He also brought the photo to camera film manufacturer Kodak for examination. They claim that the photo was not tampered with and offered a reward to anyone who can prove this photo is fake. No one has ever done that.
The photo quickly became a hot topic in the media. “It attracted the attention of the local newspaper Cumberland News, then the Daily Mail and Express also reported it,” said David Clarke, a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University and author of books about UFOs. The photo was named “Solway Bay astronaut”.
Templeton received letters from all over the world. “Some people think it’s a spirit, others believe Jim or his daughter has spiritual powers that they themselves are not aware of,” Clarke said. “There are more and more strange theories every day.”
Two men approached Templeton and asked him to lead them to the place where the photo was taken. They said they belonged to a government agency but did not reveal their identities, only calling each other number 9 and number 11. Templeton later said that these two people were not really government employees but wanted to come and prank him.
A notable detail is that a few days after Templeton took photos in England, technicians in Australia had to cancel the Blue Streak ballistic missile launch at Woomera after seeing “two men” near the missile.
After seeing Templeton’s photo on the front page of an Australian newspaper, they were stunned because the figure looked similar to “the two men” they had seen.
The Blue Streak missile was built at British air base Spadeadam in Cumbria, just a few kilometers from where Templeton took the photo. Some locals later also said they saw UFOs at Woomera.
Clarke met Templeton in 2002. He said the photo was not edited or staged. “I absolutely believe he was telling the truth,” Clarke said.
In 2014, Clarke offered an explanation to refute the argument that the characters in the photo were aliens or spirits.
“Templeton said that his wife, Annie, was standing behind him when he took a picture of Elizabeth. However, I think that Annie may have accidentally entered the frame without Templeton noticing. With the type of camera he used used, you can only see 70% of what is captured through the viewfinder”.
Clarke claims that Annie stood with her back to the camera and the photo was overexposed, causing the blue dress Annie was wearing to appear white.
Whatever the truth, “to me, it’s one of the most impressive paranormal images in paranormal investigations and people will still be talking about it in 50 years,” Clarke said.
