The "Cumberland Spaceman"

I started work for the BBC in Newcastle, England, in 1975. My job was in the Archive/Film Library. This photograph was there then. It had been used in a TV programme about UFOs. At the time it was said that the pic was taken in Cumbria in the North-West of England. That particular County was in our transmission area which is why the photo was used.
Now it pops up again but this time it is supposed to be from Cumbria in Australia. Now that is weird!

This is my first reply on ATS so "Hello everybody!"_javascript:icon('')

reply to post by OzChris


Let's not allow the facts of the case to muddy the waters. After all, given it's been knocking around for almost 5 decades and remains a true unknown we should of course have realised the great and good on ATS would only take 30 seconds to dismiss it as an obvious fake. Of course, no actual proof and not a lot of reasoning either, but hey why change the habits of a lifetime. You obviously know exactly what eh figure is, despite umpteen experts having a go at it.

The witness has never claimed to have seen anything at the time. They have no idea how the figure appeared on the single frame amongst 2 others taken virtually simultaneously. The British secret military and scientific intelligence community thought it was so fake they sent a memo to check whether the figure was the similar to the figures seen at Woomera a couple of days later that caused the cancellation of a rocket launch.

The witnesses' story has remained rock solid in the intervening years neither embellished and they don't claim to have become a channel for the space people. Further more, the witness had nothing to gain and everything to lose by faking the photo. They held a responsible job in an area of, at the time, unusually high employment for Britain.

BTW Cumbria is in England not Australia, you might well be confusing the the report with the contemporaneous one from the Woomera testing sight. The so called attempts at debunking have resorted to outright lying and a complete distortion of the facts in an attempt to explain it.

I don't know what the figure is, if it is indeed a figure, there's no empirical evidence to suggest it is actually one. However, what ever the great unwashed ranks of casual opinion are wholly and totally wrong in dismissing it as an "obvious fake". As yet, no-one has managed satisfactorily, to explain how the picture came to be as it is.

This was Cumbria in the early 60s, in other words, the back end of nowhere in a part of the country that was still, pretty much, coming out of the crippling effects of a World WAR and one of the worst winters on record. The nearest department store of any note, was probably well over an hours drive from the witnesses' location.. No one had ever found a contemporary toy that could be commensurate with the appearance of the figure so the mystery still remains.

There are at least a couple of other threads on the forum about this figure which go into some considerable detail, so it is worth checking.... "The Cumberland Spaceman"..Cumbria didn't exist in 1964.



Don't bother with the so called explanation posted on youtube, as the person who did it is quite simply a liar and has totally changed the actual facts to suit their theory. When challenged on their analysis being a hoax all they could say was. "Well the witness was lying about where the photo was taken". In other words, I can;t actually explain it given the facts so I'll just resort to name calling. This video has the interviewer in exactly the same place the photo was taken. It makes you realise that the horizon is, in actual fact, 100s of feet behind the girl not 20-30 feet as some have suggested and that the land because it is a marsh, is as flat as a pancake.

reply to post by MiStErBeLLaTrIx


The Templeton photo I don't believe for a moment to be a hoax. I do, however, think it is an example of simulacra.

I've spent quite a bit of time trying to work out what it could be and always fail to come up with a solution. I then tire of looking and forget about it until it resurfaces again. I enjoy the photo as a puzzle or Gordian knot that requires unravelling.

Now, looking at it again, I've just had a new idea...

Quick note: this is an old thread, and the original links are dead.

I've looked at this photo a lot, and nothing ever really made me change my original thought of it being the back of a man. There's also no other context to believe it is alien in nature (other than perhaps resembling an astronaut looking figure, if taking it as the front of a figure).

Of course, up to each to decide for themselves...but I'm for the simplest solution (a man with his back to the camera, who then walked away), being the right one on this.

reply to post by Gazrok


A 25 foot tall man?

Hi from Australia

There is mention in this thread of a 1964 sighting and photograph from Woomera. I took a look into trying to locate the photograph in official Australian Government files, but there was no record of it in the National Australia Archives office in Adelaide, South Australia. Then a potential solution came up recently, see a post I wrote at

ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com...

Please also take a look at the Australian UFO blog at
ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com...

Happy reading.

Hi from Australia

There is mention in this thread of a 1964 sighting and photograph from Woomera. I took a look into trying to locate the photograph in official Australian Government files, but there was no record of it in the National Australia Archives office in Adelaide, South Australia. Then a potential solution came up recently, see a post I wrote at

ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com...

Please also take a look at the Australian UFO blog at
ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com...

Happy reading.

reply to post by keithb

But newly-released files from the MOD reveal far from being an unidentified flying object, the flying saucer was just a trick of the light. "When they actually looked at the papers back in 1964, British Pathe Film, who were actually there at the rocket launch and made the film, they wrote in to the MOD and said, 'yeah there was something on the film but it's quite clear to us looking at it that it's an internal camera fault, like a reflection in the lens'," said David Clarke, author of The UFO Files and a senior lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University. "It just looks as if it's an object next to the rocket, but really it's just a trick of the light.

So let me get this right. Cos of a trick of the light they abandoned the launch and asked for a photo to be sent from England to Australia to compare it to the figures who appeared in the self same film in Woomera?. I have a lot of respect for Clarke and his work however at times, he does make some absolute king sized gaffs and this is one of them. Clarke obviously hasn't actually seen the film and is believing the MOD released report despite the records Jenny Randles dug up saying something wholly different.

Hi

I have just posted a lengthy piece on the 5 June 1964 British Pathe Film of the Blue Streak UFO at Woomera at ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com...

This blog post advises that I have located a copy of the relevant film on the net, which you can view for yourself and form your own opinion.

Happy viewing.

reply to post by keithb


Good find Keith.

Clearly a "UFO" lens artifact.

Here's a frame from a Bluestreak launch film showing mystery Spacemen interfering with the rocket. Note their similarity to the Cumberland Spaceman. But in reality they're just two technicians going about pre-launch checks.



Obviously there was no real link between the Templeton photo and Woomera other than one brought about by the press due to confusion and misinterpretation of real events... and the desire for a good story!