![]() Responding to a request from ufologists to know if the photo was of interest to the authorities, a British Ministry of Defence official said that the Templeton photo was of no interest to them. He alleged that technicians later saw his photograph in an Australian newspaper and found the figures to be exactly the same. In a BBC Look North interview and a letter to the Daily Mail, Templeton also said that a Blue Streak missile launch at the Woomera Test Range in South Australia had been aborted because the figures of two large men were seen on the firing range. I'm sure the men were not security agents." In September 1964, Templeton dismissed the two men as frauds, saying: "It all looks like a leg pull to me. ![]() Templeton said that after the photograph was published he was visited by two men who said they were from the government who refused to show their identification and that "They said they worked for the government and that they were only identified by number." After taking the men to the site where the photos were taken, Templeton said that when he explained he had not seen the figure at the time, the men became angry and drove away, leaving him to walk home. Over the four decades the photo has been in the public domain, I have had many thousands of letters from all over the world with various ideas or possibilities – most of which make little sense to me." The picture is certainly not a fake, and I am as bemused as anyone else as to how this figure appeared in the background. The local newspaper, the Cumberland News, picked up the story and within hours it was all over the world. Templeton stated, "I took the picture to the police in Carlisle who, after many doubts, examined it and stated there was nothing suspicious about it. Of its impact, Clarke said: "People will still be talking about it in another 50 years." Publicity It has been argued that, when using photo software to darken the image and straighten the horizon, the figure increasingly appears to be a regular person viewed from behind. Annie Templeton was wearing a pale blue dress on the day in question, which was partially overexposed as white in another photo she also had dark bobbed hair. "I think for some reason his wife walked into the shot and he didn't see her because with that particular make of camera you could only see 70% of what was in the shot through the viewfinder", said Clarke. Explanation of the "spaceman" Īccording to UFO book author David Clarke in 2014, the "spaceman" is most likely Templeton's wife, Annie, who was present at the time and was seen on another photograph taken that day. In a letter to the Daily Mail in 2002, Templeton stated, "I took three pictures of my daughter Elizabeth in a similar pose – and was shocked when the middle picture came back from Kodak displaying what looks like a spaceman in the background." Templeton insists that he did not see the figure until after his photographs were developed, and analysts at Kodak confirmed that the photograph was genuine. Templeton said the only other people on the marshes that day were a couple of old women sitting in a car at the far end of the marsh. On, Jim Templeton, a firefighter from Carlisle, took three photographs of his five-year-old daughter while on a day trip to Burgh Marsh. Journalist David Clarke posited an explanation for the anomaly in the photograph in a 2014 BBC interview, concluding that the figure was the photographer's wife, standing with her back towards the camera, her blue dress appearing white due to overexposure. The image was reproduced widely in contemporary newspapers and gained the interest of ufologists. Templeton claimed the photograph shows a background figure wearing a space suit and insisted that he did not see anyone present when the photograph was taken. The picture was taken on Burgh Marsh, situated near Burgh by Sands, overlooking the Solway Firth in Cumberland, England. The Solway Firth Spaceman (also known as the Solway Spaceman or the Cumberland Spaceman) is a figure seen in a photograph taken on by fireman, photographer and local historian Jim Templeton (13 February 1920 – 27 November 2011).
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