The forgotten Mark Coltrane UFO photo case - April 19, 1978. Colfax, Wisconsin

Here's another old case that deserves, IMO, a complete new investigation, at least to try to clear up odd things about the impressive photos and to gather the more possible informations about it, before they will be lost.



The description of the case, as it can be found everywhere, whatever the source is:

Date: April 19, 1978
Location: Colfax, Wisconsin, United States

On April 19, 1978, police officer Mark Coltrane was on patrol in the vicinity of Colfax. He then noticed a metallic looking disc raising towards the the sky at a short distance from the parking space. While the object seemed to move towards him, Coltrane picked up his Polaroid camera, came out of the car and snapped some photographs. The object was so close in one of the images that it is possible to notice some details of its lower surface.

On April 19, 1978, police officer Mark Coltrane was on patrol in the vicinity of Colfax, a small town with a thousands of inhabitants in Wisconsin, USA. At midday, he decided to stop the car to eat something, in a small isolated area. He noted that his radio was emitting crackles.

He then noticed a metallic looking disc raising towards the the sky at a short distance from the parking space.

While the object seemed to move towards him, Coltrane picked up his Polaroid camera, came out of the car and snapped some photographs. The object was so close in one of the images that it is possible to notice some details of its lower surface.

In [the second] photograph the object is starting to move away.

The total observation lasted a few minutes, the object being being lost from his sight when it accelerated and fled in the distance.

Coltrane, shocked by the sighting, remained in amazement for two hours without saying anything, by fear of being ridiculed when he would have to submit his report to his chiefs.

I've searched at first for ATS threads were the case was mentioned. To my surprise, there's only (Well, I was able to find only...) 3 threads that briefly evoke it:

- PRUFOS -´Police Report UFO Sightings´Organisation. from my friend Karl12, back in November 2008, quoting UFOEvidence (link hidden as it seems that there's some problems with it, I can give the full link by PM for anyone)
- Photo Analysis of an Aerial Disc Over Costa Rica 1971 by Firemoon, in October 2010, quoting Ufologie.net (Unfortunately, the site is down...) and Nawewtech
- 7 Photos of a UFO from Wisconsin from the 70's in July 2011. Zorgon here quote this blog (angelesovni) and the same link that Karl12 gave almost two years earlier. (UFOEvidence). Later, on the same thread (p4), Lowneck gives another new link to the story and photo: unexplainable

UFOEvidence refers to Ufologie.net as the source of the article (Source: Wendelle Stevens - credit: UFOs at Close Sight (Ufologie.net) ) Unfortunately, since Ufologie.net is down, we can only guess that UFOEvidence copied/pasted the whole article from it, with the original source to be Wendelle Stevens.

Angelesovni blog do not provides any useful information as it don't gives its source and as the two photos that illustrates the paper can be found in greater resolution in UFOEvidence (and maybe elsewhere)

Now, the two interesting links to look at are unexplainable.net and nawewtech that are the only one that shows more photos for the case that are ....b&w photos!

Nawewtech refers to NICAP for the original source, but as the link given leads only to the main page, I had to search by myself for the original NICAP page and finally, I got it here
As for Unexplainable, it shows the exact same b&w photos that Nawewtech, but gives for source the same as that of UFOEvidence (Source: Wendelle Stevens - credit: UFOs at Close Sight (Ufologie.net) ).

Now, the photos and the oddities that surround them.

Ufologie.net is the primary source for the colored version of the photos (see above).

As for the b&w photos, seems like it's NICAP, but since Ufologie.net site is down there's no way to check this.
Moreover, photo n°3 is repeated twice on the NICAP site. Is it a mistake? Possibly, as there's a photo n°4 in Nawewtech.

The full set:











A Google Image search for each one of the picture only gives for results the links quoted above.

Now the questions are:

1- Why the two versions, colored and b&w?
2- Why the colored two photos are not on the NICAP site?
3- Is someone knowns how to have access to the Wendelle Stevens archives, if available?
4- Where the colored versions come from?
5- Two of the b&w version photos appears to be cropped versions of the two colored version. If so, where are the full colored version of the other b&w photos?

I'll try to work on all the photos, searching for the best resolution and more information. If anyone have such infos, it will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Good job putting together what you could find.

I notice in the color and b/w photos the light source is on the right in one shot, and light comes from the left side on another.
Image flipped horizontally?
Strange that one set would be color and the others b/w, Polaroids have always been color yes?

Have you checked them with filters or bright/contrast yet?

If you google image search for the URL of any image on the internet, it will find similar images for you. When search for these images there is a larger resolution version, about 800x450 px.

I did some date-range searching and it looks like the photo was posted online in 2001 at this page:
portal-ufo.blogspot.com...

However it's hard to find a cached copy of the page from that far back. There are likely more sources for this story online earlier then that but in my kinda-short search I didn't see any.

Very interesting photos, though. Don't think it could be an accidental UFO, looks to be either genuine or purposeful hoax. I always side on purposeful hoax, though, when the photos are just sky and metallic disk UFO, because (as much as it pains me to say) none of those photos can, IMO, be logically defended as being UFO photos and not photos of the lid to a cooking pot tossed into the air. Maybe some can, but unfortunately, for my personal investigations, I feel I cannot give any weight to these types of photos as they seem to be so commonly fakes.

Originally posted by Lonewulph
Good job putting together what you could find.

I notice in the color and b/w photos the light source is on the right in one shot, and light comes from the left side on another.
Image flipped horizontally?
Strange that one set would be color and the others b/w, Polaroids have always been color yes?

Have you checked them with filters or bright/contrast yet?

edit on 3-2-2013 by Lonewulph because: (no reason given)

Good catch, the first color photo posted and the second b/w photo are the same photo, but the lighting is coming from the right-hand side as opposed to left-hand side as in the other photos.

The color depth/range in the color photos indicates to my unprofessional eye that they are not artificially colored. Also, the black and white photos are far lesser in resolution and image quality, indicating they are derivatives of the larger color originals. I suspect the black and white photos are scans from some printed media which was presenting the photos (really looks that way).

reply to post by ArMaP


Awesome info,

very useful indeed, thank you

Thank you for your reply!

@Armap: thank you for the link, but I finally found that this site have changed its address.
Here is the new one.

The best resolution for both colored images comes from it. And, to my surprise, there's also another colored photo to add to the set:



A Google search for this image do not provides more sources.

About the b&w photo, I think that you're right, seems like they are only screen captures.

Anyway, as Lonewulph and tetsuo rightly pointed out (thanks BTW! ) these b&w photos are indeed low-res versions of the colored one and were flipped. To graphically see this, I've done two composition using the best available resolution:

For photo 1, I had to up-size the b&w photo at about 14.6% to scale it to the colored one, and to flip it 90° clockwise:



For photo 2, I had to up-size the b&w at about 64% to scale it to the colored one:



In both cases, and this add to the mystery to what have been done to these photos, there are missing parts in the colored version...


So, what's left are these photos:









I suspect that the last three are in fact only one, not really sure yet though...

Edit to add:

OK, just finished to check and, yes, there are cropped versions of only one photo:

reply to post by elevenaugust
I've just about lost my interest in the subject as it holds no promise of an overall explanation. Picking through the old files and the commentaries of (sometimes excellent) researchers has mostly become stale.

I recently lost 40 to 50 gigabytes of files and correspondence relating to UFOs, ufology and ufologists...collected over years. A year ago and it would have been profound but it only registered as mildly disappointing. C'est la vie?!

Nevertheless, your threads are frequently enough to coax the small flame of interest into light and I enjoy reading them. Not many are out there doing the type of investigations you are doing and that's worth the applause.

Regarding the Wendelle Stevens archives, I'll PM you.

reply to post by elevenaugust


I can only guess that the black and white pics are copy's from the coloured originals done on a black and white photo copy machine.

Love and harmony
Whateva

Yes, you could buy a black and white only Polaroid camera. I had one in the early 70s (wish I still had it for nostalgia).
By 1978, colour was the norm.
Nice photos, certainly more believable than the current blurfos, cgi, lens flare etc.

Looks like your typical 40s-80s shiny hubcap type UFO...(not saying it is of course).

Also seems to show the same detail that other "craft" have shown in photos from those times.

I can see little bumps, half circular structures that appear under the craft......these seem to appear on many photos of the time, and on drawings from so called contactees (eg the Koldas messages).

They have been described as the portal (?) for the Magnetic drive engines/motors (usually 4), that provide the thrust and maneuvering. I doubt that a random series of photographs by a respected policeman (assumed), would include such detail if it was faked......
I certainly would like to know more details from the witness, ie was there any noise? Hum or not...Was any rotation noticed ie top or middle rotating, what was the estimated size and distance from camera, which direction did it travel..any colour changes, etc..
Well to me, looks like a Real UFO. Alien or not.

For those who are interested about the original photos, and thanks to my friend Ballester-Olmos, I finally succeed in finding these, from the Wendelle Stevens found.

Sources:
- Wendelle Stevens. Michael Hesemann, UFOs. Besucher aus dem Weltall, Könemann, 2001, pp 174-175.
- Wendelle Stevens, UFO Photographs in Color Vol 1, UFO Photo Archives, pp 9 and 80-81.
- Wendelle Stevens & August Roberts, UFO Photographs Around the World Vol 3, UFO Photo Archives, 1993, pp 185-193.

There are 15 photos (with some that are just cropped/resized/modified versions of others) that can be downloaded for free in my Divshare account -------> HERE.

Anyone who wants to work on these photos with me will be more than welcome, of course!

In the meantime, a quick look at these:

1- In colors:





















2- In black and white:











More to come!

I seem to recall that one of the most problematic aspects of this sighting/series of photos is the way the background clouds so radically change between shots, suggesting that a lot more time passed between them than as described by the witness.

reply to post by elevenaugust


I just saw your second photo on a Youtube video last night. I was wondering if those bright spots on the edges were lights. Looks like they are sunlight reflection.

After some more comparative work on the whole photo set, I think that there are 7 different photos:















If the photo was taken with a Polaroid back in 1978, they could have been taken either with:

1- A pack film ("colorpack") type 100 series with a 3 ¼ x 4 ¼ inch (85 x 108 mm) film size (1.270 ratio aspect) with an image area of 2.88 × 3.75 inch (73 x 95 mm and 1.3 ratio aspect) or
2- A pack film ("colorpack") type 80 series with a 3.250 x 3.375 inch (83 x 86 mm) film size (1.036 ratio aspect) with an image area of 2 3 /4 × 2 7 /8 inch (69 x 72 mm and 1.043 ratio aspect) or
3- A SX-70 film with a 3.5 x 4.2 inch (88 x 107 mm) film size (1.216 ratio aspect) with an image area of 3.1 x 3.1 inch (79 x 79 mm and 1 ratio aspect) or
4- Possibly a 4 x 5 inch (122 x 127 mm) film size (1.041 ratio aspect) with an image area of 3.5 x 4.6 inch (90 x 117mm and 1.3 ratio aspect) or
5- A 8x10 inch (203 x 254 mm) film size (1.251 ratio aspect) with an image area of 71/2 x 91/2 inch (190 x 240 mm and 1.263 ratio aspect)

Source for the Polaroid references.

The higher resolution version of the composited photos above have a ratio of respectively 1.333, 1.374, 1.425, 1.410, 1.128, 1.436 and 1.416.

So, the closer aspect ratio for some of the photos to camera films is around 1.3 for either a 4x5 inches film or a colorpack type 100 film.

Anyway, the problem remains as it appears that most of the photo have been cropped, resized, etc... with no possibility yet to find better resolution.

Originally posted by Blue Shift
I seem to recall that one of the most problematic aspects of this sighting/series of photos is the way the background clouds so radically change between shots, suggesting that a lot more time passed between them than as described by the witness.

edit on 6-2-2013 by Blue Shift because: (no reason given)

Interesting, do you have anymore informations/links whatever to this?

Originally posted by elevenaugust

Am I seeing a monofilament?