1966 UFO Photograph by James Pfeiffer -

reply to post by smurfy
Any information you can find is appreciated.

reply to post by CardDown

This photo is interesting, just for the source alone. This guy was unlikely to be hoaxing. For it to be featured in Life magazine is a pretty big deal. What I'd like to know is if there are any reports in Brazil of this event.

The context of *why* it was published intrigues me although a 'slow news day' could be the likeliest explanation.

I haven't found any reports from Brazil that occurred in, or around, October '66. Apparently there was a UFO flap during March of that year, but the reporter was Dr. Olavo T. Fontes and I've read some woeful accounts by him.

reply to post by Kandinsky


Frustrating that the info is so scant. Maybe I missed it, but is there anything to show the date this photo was taken? Maybe it was as old as March. Also, it'd be interesting if Life just published this best of his photos.

Originally posted by blueorder
far too poorly defined to warrant serious consideration, it could be one of any number of things

Pretty much. And while the eyewitness account is intriguing and there's no reason to doubt its truthfulness (not necessarily its accuracy), there's still not enough information here to change the ultimate assessment of the sighting from "unknown" to anything else.

Secret experimental Nazi Telsa/Vril ship? Sure, why not? Time probe? Whatever. I would say that "aliens" would be low on the list here.

Originally posted by dejarmaX
There doesn't seem to be a reflection of the object in the water... Though it could be further away than it looks I guess

The lack of a reflection is a bit problematic, although the water appears to be turbulent enough to ruin it. Also, there's no particular reason to doubt the story. There's just not enough information.

P.S. -- Upon further "reflection," I ran the image through the Color Range finder in Photoshop. As it turns out, the lack of reflection is a big problem. Not only is there no reflection in the water that looks like the thing, there's no reflection of any of the color of the thing.

The UFO is a pretty obvious bright yellow. If you select only that yellow color and expand it to see if there are any other similar spots of yellow in the picture, you get yellow from the green bushes and trees, including their reflections in the water -- but you get no yellow in the water where the reflection of the object would be. And that really does suggest that the object was not actually in the air above the water. Here:


I replaced the yellow with bright red. Not a speck of it in the water where it should be.

Why the guy would make up a story, who knows? Maybe there was some mix-up.

reply to post by Kandinsky


I'm still looking, it's not Fortean times as I thought, at least not online. BTW, as another poster said Life features were a pretty big deal, (not to say that they were always correct, or printed all stories) but as good as you were likely to get, but more importantly, I think they were a weekly publish at that time.

reply to post by Kandinsky


You may have already worked this one out Kandinsky but I think the " In mirror, bad silver, mounting stud " refers to his belief that the picture was a wall mounted mirror reflection of the scene , the silver backing on the mirror was worn and the object in thee picture was a mirror stud holding it to a wall showing through ....How unlikely is that