THE “best” ever photograph of a UFO was published 50 years after it was first taken.
The original photo was taken from a plane flying over the jungles of Costa Rica and shows what appears to be a metallic disc hovering below the plane.
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And the image has now been retouched and released in a new high-resolution print half a century after it was first captured.
Aerial photographer Sergio Loaiza was using a 100-pound mapping camera as he flew over Costa Rica at an altitude of around 10,000 feet on a land surveying mission.
Sergio was exploring the terrain before a hydroelectric project was built near Arenal Volcano in the country’s northern highlands.
As it flew over Lake Cote, it took several high-resolution black-and-white photos of the lake and surrounding rainforest at 20-second intervals.
In this frame, time stamped at 8:25 a.m., a shiny metallic disc that looks suspiciously like a classic alien “flying saucer” can be seen between the ground and Sergio’s plane.
The strange object is only visible in frame number 300 of the images and there is no sign of it in the two frames immediately before or after.
Neither the pilot nor his three crew members saw anything during the actual flight.
Based on the estimated altitude of the object, it is believed to have measured between 120 and 220 feet in diameter.
Sergio’s image has sparked talk of aliens, but despite extensive analysis by UFO skeptics, it has never been explained.
Critics were understandably trying to figure out how the image could have been doctored.
But despite theories that the “UFO” could have been a chance reflection on a lake, attempts to create a “fake” version of the image using technology of the time have failed.
Oscar Sierra, a Costa Rica-based ufologist said, “This is one of the most compelling scientific confirmations that UFOs are real.”
Sergio’s mysterious photo started to be forgotten over time, but it came back to the fore in April 2021 thanks to some media coverage.
New York Times reporter Leslie Kean described the image as “the best UFO photograph ever taken”.
He said: “There was this disk object and you can clearly see the sun reflecting off this round object which has a little dot on top and what is important is that it was a government photo.
“There’s a clear chain of custody. It’s always been in the possession of the Costa Rican government, so you know it’s genuine and it’s completely unexplained.”
It comes after Google Maps users believe they spotted a crashed UFO on a mysterious uninhabited island.