Status: Explained — widely suspected hoax; a reporter reproduced the photographs with a foam model found in the photographer's former house.
Credit: Tbrighamphd (own work, 2024) · Licence: CC0 (public domain dedication, Wikimedia Commons) · Source
The Gulf Breeze sightings began on November 11, 1987, when local contractor Ed Walters said a blue beam briefly immobilized him and he took five Polaroid photographs of an object hovering about 200 feet above the ground near his home. Photos were published in the community newspaper Gulf Breeze Sentinel.
Walters said he made many more sightings, taking 32 photographs and some videotape over the following months, and nineteen encounters were reported by him or his family. He also claimed to have communicated with aliens. After the publicity, other residents came forward with reports of UFOs in the area. Researchers such as physicist Bruce Maccabee believed the photographs were genuine, but others strongly suspected a hoax.
In 1990, after the Walters family had moved, the new owners of their house found a styrofoam model of a UFO in the attic. Pensacola News Journal reporter Craig Myers investigated and was able to duplicate the objects in the photographs almost exactly using the model. Walters later claimed that the model had been “planted.” The case remains a much-discussed example of how photographic evidence can be tested. The model is now on public display.
Sources: Wikipedia: Gulf Breeze UFO incident
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