Calvine UFO Incident

One of the most intriguing cases in the Ministry of Defense’s files, dubbed the “Best UFO Picture Ever”

Name	Calvine UFO Incident
Occurred on	August 4, 1990
Seen by	Two unnamed chefs at Fisher’s Hotel who were out hiking
Investigated by	Multiple people, including the Ministry of Defense

“Object unexplained. Case closed. No further action.”

These were allegedly the conclusions the Ministry of Defense drew after analyzing the photos taken from the Calvine UFO Incident. The case remains one of the most remarkable mysteries in the history of extraterrestrial encounters, and it continues to be heavily debated to this day.

UFO researchers, investigators, and military officials alike can’t precisely identify whether the mysterious object was an alien craft, a military aircraft, or a simple reflection of a rock.

Nobody can genuinely validate what’s in the photograph, especially since the key witnesses can’t be traced. What exactly happened during the Calvine UFO Incident, and why is it dubbed the “Best UFO Picture Ever”?

What Is the Calvine UFO Incident About?

“To see is to believe.” When it comes to UFO cases and alien encounters, people first look for evidence before they give credence to an incident.

This is what the Calvine UFO Incident is: clear proof of what could be an extraterrestrial craft. However, as humans are, it has been met with scrutiny and doubt, rather than awe and trust.

A photograph of a single diamond-shaped object with a small jet in its background, the Calvine photo is as clear and detailed as it gets, but decades later, it’s still surrounded by extreme opinions in favor of and against its authenticity.

What Happened in Calvine, Perthshire, on August 4?

The whole Calvine UFO incident began on August 4, 1990, when two chefs from Fishers Hotel in Pitlochry were hiking on the moors in Calvine and saw a giant diamond-shaped aircraft hovering above them, which they described as:¹  

• Having no clear means of propulsion
• Leaving no smoke
• Silent and static, as if frozen in time

Minutes after, a Harrier fighter jet allegedly came after and circled the craft before it left. Right as it departed, one of the men fortunately managed to take clear shots of it, which soon became some of the most popular and scrutinized photos out there.

These six photos were sent to the Daily Record, a national newspaper based in Glasgow, and were received by the then-editor, Andy Allen. However, instead of immediately publishing a story about these and the men’s statements, the newspaper notified the Ministry of Defense, which altered the entire course of the incident.

What Happened to the Calvine UFO Photographs?

The then-RAF Press Officer, Craig Lindsay, was among the first people to see the photographs when the Daily Record phoned him, asking for a comment to use in their exclusive story. When he said he had no idea what they were talking about, the newspaper sent him copies of the photos, which he immediately forwarded to the Ministry of Defense’s UFO Desk in London.

The MoD then tasked Lindsay with obtaining the negatives of the prints, along with the names and contact information of the witnesses.

Surprisingly, the Daily Record didn’t question the request and handed over all the necessary information, even before they could run a story based on it. This was known to be the last day the photos were seen, until more than three decades later.

A more detailed account has been provided by Lindsay, who heard it directly from the witness. Here’s what he shared in an interview with investigator and journalist, David Clarke:

They were holiday workers at the hotel, mainly washing dishes for pocket money. They parked the car and went on a walk, not a very long distance. They went through the woods, came to the edge of it, climbed over a barbed wire fence, and started walking over a moor, and realized there was something in the air.

After they hid, they looked at the thing that just sat in the sky. After two or three minutes, they heard a jet aircraft, which went by going north, and a minute or two later, they heard the jet again circle anti-clockwise three or four times and then headed off back in its original course. The thing started to move before it shot vertically upwards and disappeared way up in the sky.

The Progress of the Case After the Photos’ Disappearance

Nobody knew about the photographs except for the Daily Record, Craig Lindsay, and the MoD. No news was released about it. No other witnesses came forward to share their testimonies, not even the key witnesses directly involved in it.

1996: Nick Pope Published It in His Book

For years, it seemed as if the Calvine UFO Incident had never existed, until in 1996, when Nick Pope mentioned it in his book, Open Skies, Closed Minds.

The Ufologist and MoD civil servant discussed the case, naming it as “one of the most intriguing cases in the MoD’s files.” He also made mention of the MoD’s analysis of the photos, which were concluded as “not fakes,” but “unexplained.” This was the first time that anything related to the Calvine case had been mentioned to the public.

2009: A Photocopy of the Image Was Released

By 2009, the MoD’s UFO Desk was shut down, and thousands of files were released to the public through the National Archives.

Coincidentally, journalist David Clarke was working as a curator for the archives at the time and came across a photocopy of the unidentified object. It came along with a note intended for the defense ministers in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet, with the heading “Defensive Lines to Take.”

The note read:

Have looked at the photographs, no definite conclusions reached regarding large diamond-shaped object. Confident that jet aircraft is a Harrier. Have no record of Harriers operating in location at stated date/time. No other reports received by MoD of unusual air activity or sightings at location/date/time.

This was what sparked Clarke’s enthusiasm to investigate the Calvine UFO Incident.

He started by tracking the photo’s source, but, unfortunately, reached a dead end. Fortunately, this didn’t stop the journalist’s pursuit, which, ultimately, led to grand theories about the case.

2018: David Clarke Met a Defense Intelligence Officer

After a decade of finding no additional information about the Calvine UFO Incident, Clarke struck gold in 2018. He discovered that one of the MoD’s documents had an unredacted name of a Defense Intelligence officer, whom he later contacted.

Clarke asked him if he had seen anything unexplainable during his time at the MoD, and the officer mentioned the Calvine photos.

When probed about it, the man mentioned he couldn’t share anything except that the MoD discovered what it was; it wasn’t the aliens. It was the Americans’ secret reconnaissance jet escorted by the British jets.³

The officer also linked the Calvine vehicle to the Belgian UFO wave, where witnesses allegedly reported seeing a diamond or triangular-shaped object, including two F-16s, an event that’s relatively similar to how the witnesses reported the Calvine UFO case.

2022: The Original Photo was Published

A year later, Clarke was led to Craig Lindsay, who found a copy of the photo after going through a pile of papers in his garage. He gave the photo to Clarke under two conditions:

• It should be kept in Sheffield Hallam’s Library.
• If one of the hikers came forward, it should be returned to them.

In 2022, Clarke published an image and a comprehensive look into the Calvine UFO Incident through The Daily Mail, which immediately went viral.

The story also included an interview with Richard Grieve, who allegedly worked with the two key witnesses. He shared an instance where a car pulled up outside the hotel while they were on a break, and two men in suits approached them. After that night, they were never the same.

Their demeanor changed. They stopped showing up for work, went off the rails, and one began drinking heavily. He was sacked soon afterwards. The other, who was usually outgoing and larger than life, became introverted and sullen. Within a few months, they both left the hotel. I haven’t seen them since.

Investigations and Theories About the Photo

For 32 years, the image was hidden from the public. By the time that David Clarke resurfaced it, it wasn’t long before investigations and theories were released about it. Some of these were allegedly even done immediately after the events occurred.

Ministry of Defense’s Investigation

We consistently played down the true level of our interest in UFOs while all the time, behind closed doors, we struggled to make sense of cases like the Calvine Incident.

These were Nick Pope’s statements when asked about the case. The Calvine UFO Incident was already on the UFO Desk before he joined the office, but it was not exhaustively investigated. This led him to question whether the MoD was blocking the truth from being revealed.

When the photos were sent to the ministry, they were immediately sent to the Joint Air Reconnaissance and Intelligence Center (JARIC), a department specializing in imagery analysis. However, they were unable to identify the diamond-shaped object. The consensus was that it was a reasonably large, solid object, but that was it.

The most interesting details the JARIC noted about the object were:

• The lack of conventional aerospace parts
• Its shape
• The lack of wings, tail, or fuselage

It was also mentioned that a Harrier jet (and apparently, a second one) appeared in the photo. However, the MoD couldn’t identify them at that time because there were no operational jets in the area. An internal memo was also allegedly released, remarking on the absence of any unusual aerial activity at that time.

Defense Intelligence’s Investigation

Throughout his research, David Clarke has discovered other relevant documents that prove the government was involved in the investigations.

He found the DI55, or files from the Defense Intelligence, another department that covered UFO investigations. The document mentioned conducting another photo analysis process, but no further details were provided.

The only other item in the file was a response to a parliamentary question about what they knew, to which the Defense Intelligence answered that they had only examined the image and sent the negatives back to the Daily Record after being unable to identify what was in the photo.

Andrew Robinson’s Photo Analysis

Once the photo was in David Clarke’s hands, he and his colleagues immediately examined its content. Andrew Robinson, Sheffield Hallam University’s photography specialist, conducted an analysis and concluded that the image hadn’t been manipulated in any way.

He added that if the photo were constructed, the manipulation would’ve been in the scene rather than in post-production.

Robinson’s investigation established that the object didn’t have a symmetrical shape, but due to the poor resolution, it wasn’t possible to certainly identify the features. He listed the following details of the craft:

• Having some variation in its tonality and length
• Having a dividing line along its length, with the upper surface lighter than the lower
• At either end, approximately a fifth of the distance, a lighter area of tone is present
• The left-hand area is both larger and lighter
• To the right of the center, a darker circular area of tone is present
• Along the top right-hand slope close to the peak is a small, darker, raised area
• The far-right hand extremity of the object has a circular nose-like form
• No smoke or fumes are seen
• The top half of the object isn’t a mirror image of the lower half

Skeptics’ Arguments About the Photo

It has long been believed, by both researchers and officials, that the image is genuine. However, what has been debated is what the object was, and many skeptics have developed their theories and explanations.

The Photo Is Inverted

Some believed that the Calvine photo was inverted and captured a reflection in the lake. They proposed that the diamond object was a piece of wood that had been sticking out of the water.

However, Robinsons countered this by stating that if the image were to be darkened, clouds could be seen.⁹ Going by the theory of it being a lake, he also mentioned that there should be a landscape reflected in the water, but there wasn’t.

The Photo Isn’t Inverted, But It’s Still a Lake

Others argued that the photo shouldn’t be inverted, but still firmly believed that it was of a lake. The object was a rock, and the jet would be a rowboat with a person. Robinsons acknowledged that it could be possible, but only if one zooms in and focuses on the object. However, if one looks at the photo as a whole, the fence and other items wouldn’t make sense in the argument.

Overall, Andrew Robinson concluded:

If we look at the photograph, aside from the difficulty of explaining what this thing in the middle might be, the photograph, to my eyes, stands as a convincing image of a highland landscape, and all of the alternative explanations seem to be attempts to explain the unidentified object, but they create other problems. The most convincing explanation is that there is something flying in the sky, and it was captured directly on film. What the object is, I can’t say, but the image itself feels genuine.

American Warplane: Hopeless Diamond Theory

Like most UFO events, one theory that surfaced about the Calvine UFO Incident is that the craft was an experimental reconnaissance aircraft by the U.S. military. The event coincidentally happened two days after Iraq invaded Kuwait, triggering a period of heightened military activity, and the belief that it must’ve been connected to the Gulf War.

The rest of the year, thousands of warplanes and military personnel were mobilized, which included the futuristic American F1171 Stealth Fighter. Some prototype designs of this aircraft, including the Hopeless Diamond, which resembled the Calvine vehicle.

In 2024, the Pentagon also claimed, “some of these systems had a ‘saucer’ or triangle-shaped appearance and were capable of hovering aloft.”

Salvatore Cezar Pais Theory

Aside from the Hopeless Diamond prototype, the Calvine vehicle was also associated with a patent filed by aerospace engine Salvator Pais. This further fueled the belief that the craft was nothing but an experimental U.S. technology.

Pais worked for the U.S. Space Force and had filed numerous patents for experimental aircraft and propulsion systems, including one that featured a diamond-shaped design.

The D Notice Theory

One of the most widely believed conspiracy theories is that the reason the Daily Record never published the story was that it was instructed not to. This was bolstered by the fact that the newspaper’s then-editor, Endell Laird, was a member of the MoD’s D Notice committee.

D Notices were allegedly issued by the Defense and Security Media Advisory Committee over stories that might jeopardize national security.

Although there are no documents to support this claim, in a 2024 UFO documentary, Nick Pope mentioned that the Daily Record was told to stop publishing the story. He stated that if they ran the story, “it would have blown our (MoD) standard line out of the water.”

Nick Pope’s Statement

Throughout its unraveling, statements from Nick Pope contributed the most, especially since he was an insider from the ministry. In one of his interviews, the ufologist revealed the sensational conclusion in one of their secret briefings. While he couldn’t divulge every detail as the Official Secrets Act binds him for life, he claimed that the object in the photograph was neither Russian nor American, and left the rest at that.

The Calvine UFO Incident’s Significance in Ufology

To this day, the Calvine UFO Incident remains one of the most baffling events in UFO history. Calls for complete transparency have grown louder, and advocates have firmly argued that declassifying documents on investigations should be necessary.

While it’s still debated, it’s undeniable that the Calvine case is one of the rarest cases where physical evidence was presented. It’s also one where government interception attempts were evident, raising questions about their involvement in these situations.

How Does the Calvine UFO Incident Compare to Other UFO Cases?

The Calvine case has been investigated in a manner that has proven the authenticity of the photos. However, the identification of the object in the image hasn’t been done primarily because the key witnesses haven’t come forward.

If you’re fascinated by the Calvine UFO Incident, you’ll want to explore how it stacks up against other mysterious cases. Check out more UFO encounters and in-depth investigations on UFO Connect to see the broader picture of unexplained aerial phenomena.

FAQ

Are the Calvine UFO photographs real?

Yes, it has been proven by multiple experts that the Calvine photographs are real and haven’t been manipulated or tampered with.

Why are the Calvine UFO files sealed until 2076?

According to David Clarke, the National Archives should’ve opened them in 2020, but due to its interpretation of data protection, the witness’s name cannot be disclosed until 2076.

Has the Calvine UFO incident ever been explained?

The Calvine case has been investigated in a manner that has proven the authenticity of the photos. However, the identification of the object in the photo hasn’t been done primarily because the key witnesses haven’t come forward.