Man Wins eBay Auction of the First Known Photo of a UFO [1871]

The oldest known UFO photo comes from a time when humanity was still trying to figure out how to fly.

The photo was taken by Amos F. Clough and Howard A. Kimball in 1871 while on a meteorological expedition on Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. The expedition spent the winter of 1870-1871 on the summit making scientific observations of the environment, while the photographers Clough and Kimball were documenting the trip in a compilation of stereo view photographs.

The photo was first highlighted in 2002, when an article from the Filer’s Files announced that it has been purchased on eBay in an online auction for the amount of $385 by Samuel M. Sherman, president of Independent International Pictures Corp. The article describes the photo as a stereo view of clouds over Mount Washington, with a long cigar-shaped object clearly visible in the middle.

The proud owner of the photograph declared afterwards that:

This photograph will not be locked up in some collection, but will be submitted to scientists for detailed analysis, and the results made available to the public…the debunkers are already circling around the photo on the internet, even though they have only been able to see poor low resolution computer images and not photographic enlargements of the actual photo.

The scientific report of the photo never arrived, but it still represents valuable proof of UFO activity in the 1800s even without an official report. In the years that followed, reports involving cigar-shaped UFOs became numerous. They are depicted as having a solid and metallic aspect, with windows present on each side, similar to a commercial airliner, but without the wings.

Witnesses reported these abnormal type of UFOs during the Belgian Wave of sightings in 1989-1990, and later on over Yucatan, Mexico, when Captain Irvin Pena Vidal together with his friends encountered this peculiar type of UFO. He was part of a group named FIEPAL – Latin American Spatial Research Group – when this happened, and was fortunate enough to have a telescope at his side. He stated that:

We had already seen several cases involving traditional UFOs, but on that occasion we were able to see a cigar-shaped one, which I also believe served as a mothership, as several spheres emerged from its interior. It was impressive and could not be seen with the naked eye, only with the telescope.

A more recent report of such an encounter came from NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who recently tweeted a photo from the ISS which had a strange looking cigar-shaped UFO on the top right of the frame.

Since the first photo with this UFO dates back to 1870, it’s unlikely that this is a secret military craft, and if we exclude the possibility of a camera anomaly or other natural phenomenon, only the alien craft explanation remains. Do you think this is the case?