1996: Hungarian UFO Photo

THINK ABOUTIT SIGHTINGS REPORT

Date: October 27, 1996

Sighting Time:

Day/Night: Day

Location: Erpatak, Hungary

Urban or Rural: Rural

Hynek Classification: CE-I (Close Encounter I) Observation of an object in close proximity to the witness (i.e. within 500’)

Duration:

No. of Object(s): Single

Size of Object(s): several meters

Distance to Object(s): 1/2 mile

Shape of Object(s): Disc

Color of Object(s): Silverish

Number of Witnesses: 2

Source: Hungarian UFO Network (HUFON) / Philip Mantle,

Summary: The luminous spheres during the storm were described as a “very large object hovering over a nearby house about a 1/8 of a mile from our house. It was larger than the house, seemed to be at an angle to her view with the bottom exposed and had lights all around it evenly spaced.”

Full Report

By Laszlo Kiss & Philip Mantle

On October 27th, 1996, Lajos Kosina was visiting his girlfriend’s parents’ house in the small village of Erpatak in the county of Szabolcs-Szatmar, Hungary. Lajos’s girlfriend posed for one snapshot in her parent’s garden and no one noticed anything unusual in the sky at the time.

Upon having the photograph developed some weeks later Lajos was surprised to see a ‘disc-shaped’ object in the sky behind his girlfriend. Although curious they did not show the photograph in question to anyone for several months. They were not really interested in it. Eventually, via a friend of the photographers, the photograph in question found it’s way to the Hungarian UFO Network (HUFON) who have conducted some preliminary research.

HUFON has studied the photograph using both optical and computer techniques on the original negative and has concluded that that the UFO is not a result of a film fault, nor is it a small model suspended on a wire. HUFON researchers are convinced that it is a genuine UFO and not the result of a hoax.

Further study of the photograph by HUFON revealed that the UFO was not blurred. To them, this indicated that it was either stationary or moving very slowly and was not a model being thrown through the air behind the young lady in the picture. Having questioned the photographer HUFON could find no evidence to support the idea that he may have hoaxed the photo.

HUFON researchers were left with the conclusion that this is a genuine UFO photograph, and that a real, flat, disc-shaped object, several meters in diameter can be seen in the photo, the surface of which appears to reflect the autumn sunshine.

Laszlo Kiss is a Director of the Hungarian UFO Network.

Philip Mantle is the former Director of Investigations for the British UFO Research Association.