The photograph of Templeton's daughter
Elizabeth shows a white figure projecting at an angle behind her
back.
The
Solway Firth Spaceman (also known as the
Solway Spaceman and the Cumberland
Spaceman) refers to a photograph taken in 1964 at Burgh
Marsh, situated near Burgh by Sands
and overlooking the Solway Firth
in Cumbria
, England
. The
image, which shows in the background a white figure in what the
photographer Jim Templeton took for a
space
suit, remains unexplained. While it has been suggested by some
that the figure is merely someone with their back to the camera,
perhaps wearing a hat or helmet, Templeton insists that he did not
see anyone present when the photograph was taken. The image has
attracted interest from
ufologists and has
become a "source of international fascination".
Origin
On 23 May
1964, Jim Templeton, a firefighter from Carlisle
, Cumberland
, (now part of Cumbria,) took three
photographs of his five-year-old daughter while on a day trip to
Burgh Marsh. The only other people on the marshes that day
were a couple of old ladies, and although cows and sheep would have
normally been plentiful, they were huddled together at the far end
of the marsh. In a letter to the
Daily
Mail in 2002, Templeton recalled, "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.
Aftermath
Templeton tells of a visit after the photograph was published by
two men who, he says, claimed to be from Her Majesty's Government,
but refused to show their identification. He says that they
referred to each other as numbers and asked him questions about the
weather conditions on the day of the photograph and about the
activities of local bird life. They drove Templeton to the marsh,
where he says they tried to make him admit that he had in fact
photographed a passer by — a suggestion that he strongly rejected.
The men then became angry and drove away leaving him stranded on
the marsh five miles from home.
Templeton spoke to the
Daily Mail in December 2002. He
said of the photograph: "I took the picture to the police in
Carlisle who, after many doubts, examined it and stated there was
nothing suspicious about it. The local newspaper, the
Cumberland News, picked up the story and within hours it
was all over the world. The picture is certainly not a fake, and I
am as bemused as anyone else as to how this image appeared in the
background. 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." Templeton asserted that he had experienced no
financial gain as a result of distributing the photograph, nor did
he ever pursue it. In an interview recorded for
BBC television, Templeton spoke candidly about the
photograph, saying: "Who is he? Where's he from? Those are the two
questions we want answered." The case was also covered in the
BBC One series
Secrets of the
Paranormal, presented by
Jenny
Randles.
Australian connection
A
Blue Streak launch at the
Woomera Test Range, using
Cumbrian-built weaponry, had been aborted because of two large men
seen on the firing range. Technicians at the time did not know
about Templeton's sighting until it appeared on the front page of
an Australian Newspaper, and they said that the figure in Cumbria
looked the same as the ones they had seen on the monitor at
Woomera. Templeton told the BBC that technicians considered the two
figures to be "exactly the same type of man: same dress, same
figure, same size" as in the original photograph.
References
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