"UFO" photographed in Australia.

...But is it really a UFO?

Source: Diane Harrison

Story From the Sunday Mail 27th 1998

Is this proof that the truth is out there- and hovering over Surfers Paradise – or merely elaborate photographic trickery?

The tourist who took these photographs showing what could be a UFO over Cavill Ave swears he had no idea he'd captured anything on film until he received a call from a Surfers photo lab.

Photographic experts and the processors who developed the picture say the negative have not been altered and the images have not been enhanced. And UFO researchers say the photographs, taken from an Orchid Ave. Restaurant this month, could be among the most important ever-documented in Queensland. The photo, taken by a New Zealand tourist Oswald Raeder about 10.30am on September 11th follow mass UFO sightings over northern NSW in the past month.

Mr Raeder 58 accidentally captured the images with a $10.00 camera as he photographed the Dolphin Arcade building from the Search Rescue Service Club in central Surfers Paradise.

Two images, taken five seconds apart, show what appears to be a cloud of vapor in a perfect but blue sky. In the second, a saucer-shaped black object is visible. UFO researchers and Mr. Raeder have discounted the possibility that the object may be an aircraft and RAAF Amberley Spokesman Wing Commander John Steinbeck confirmed no military aircraft were in the area at the time.

A Civil Aviation Authority spokesman said there was no reported aircraft activity in the central Sufers area early on September 11th.

Above: enhancement of the previous picture..

As you can see after we have enhanced the picture and edited it in Adobe Photoshop, you can see there's hardly anything extra-terrestrial about that picture.

Note that the person who made the picture did not see the object while shooting it. Well, ofcourse he saw it, but just didn't notice it. Why not? Because it's nothing more than a bird, flying close to the camera. Hence the blurry shapeless blob it makes on the photo.

But on the Photoshop-enhancement you can clearly see it's wings and it's beak. Once again this picture shows how some UFO-"researchers" handle their cases since it made quite a tour on the Internet.

If it sounds like a UFO, looks like a UFO, moves like a UFO, it's probably... a duck ;-)

Research: Andy Denne