Right. So, there’s UFOs, are there?
What am I meant to do with this information, I wondered, as I read the Courier a few weeks back and looked at the cultishly famous ‘Calvine’ photographs.
Do I believe in UFOs? I asked myself.
I mean, I’m fairly sure I’ve seen one, back in Angus when I was wee.
But in my heart of hearts, do I actually believe in them? And should anyone?
Believing that the planet is being sporadically buzzed by interstellar life forms is quite a lot to swallow, and would require a massive recalibration of my understanding of the Earth, the universe, and our place in it.
But I’m open minded and have a lively sense of fun, so I’m very willing to at least entertain the idea of aliens.
Let’s take a look at the Calvine picture together for a second.
You’ve got a fence, and a sluggish grey sky. Then you’ve got a fighter jet wheeling round, its wings tipped in a tight turn. Nothing uncommon about any of that.
Then you’ve got this muckle oblong thing. It’s a similar colour to the jet, and either much bigger or much closer.
What direction would it go? It hasnae got a clear pointy ‘forward’ end like the jet.
Is there folk in there? There’s nae windaes so my inclination would be to say probably no.
The Soviets launched Sputnik back in the 1950s. It was a satellite – the first satellite – and was about the size of a space hopper. It birled aboot the earth beeping little signals back.
The oblong shape in the sky above Perthshire looks much more like a sputnik than a jet to me.
The boring explanations for Calvine UFO
The picture comes to life with the description of its capture.
According to The Courier: “The Calvine incident happened on August 4 1990 when two men saw a large diamond-shaped object hovering for about 10 minutes before it shot upwards at great speed.
“One of the witnesses took six colour photographs of the daytime incident, which have never been made public.”
I dinnae trust this story for one reason: the two hillwalkers have never come forward.
Where have these words come from?
And without that unverified testimony, we are just left with the image, which could be any matter of weird airborne thing.
Scotland was on the front line of the Cold War after all, being Russia’s first western coastline from their base at Kallingrad.
Any weird stuff they were sending over would likely end up on our doorstep.
We were also two days into our latest military expedition in the Middle East, the first Gulf War.
It would shock me not at all if the oblong in the picture was some mad military contraption, photographed at a weird angle, that the Ministry of Defence were desperate to unleash upon their desert enemy.
But those are the boring explanations. And really I’ve nae mair evidence for that than for the fun stuff.
Carnoustie library launched alien obsession
I did for a while believe quite credulously in complex theories of interstellar life. And for that I blame the Carnoustie library.
I’m no sure who filed the alien stuff next to the Nazi stuff at Carsnoot.
All I know is that around the age of 9 or 10, I was watching documentary films discussing how pyramids were the key energy booster points for flying saucers, and how the Ancient Egyptians were happily communing regularly with extra-terrestrials.
I learned about pyramids that are visible on the surface of Mars, built by the same aliens for the same refuelling purpose as our pyramids.
These diligent – if erroneous – learnings were buttressed by an actual UFO sighting of my own when I was wee.
My very own UFO sighting in Angus
A child passenger in the back seat of a pal’s dad’s car, on Drumsturdy Road, headed for Newbigging.
A very low, very slow, very bright and very quiet object dazzled us suddenly from the field to our right.
The dad mashed the accelerator and we fled.
I’ve never really interrogated the memory, as it is more fun to have it unexplained.
But now this Calvine photograph has come zipping back into my orbit.
And at first I felt fatigued by it.
Climate collapse, interest at 18% and you’re telling me that there’s aliens now?
But you know what? Good. I’m glad there’s aliens, and I hope they come back in numbers.
There’s so much more to the world than our own wee collapsing, fragmenting UK nation. So much more to imagine and enjoy that spiralling interest rates.
It is hard now to raise our noses from the terror and trepidation at times. So let’s take this Calvine photograph as an excuse to let our imaginations run away from us.
Have another look at that image. What’s inside the oblong, do you reckon?
Is there wee green mannies or wee green wifies? Or is it a Russian spybot or US military death capsule bound for the Middle East?
There is no right answer, and certainly no wrong ones.
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