The prints used in O Cruzeiro have obviously been cropped since, unlike the film frames, they are not square. Frame 1 shows the UFO above the sea, some distance from the island; Frame 2 shows the UFO above rocky crags, at the right of a peak. Frame 3 shows it at the right of the peak but at lower altitude. Frames 4 and 5, not reproduced, did not show the object, and in Frame 6 the UFO is a mere speck low on the horizon.
Frame 3, the only one showing the Saturn-like shape, deserves special attention. In the published print the mountains in the foreground are quite clear, while the UFO is little more than a dark line with an indistinct beginning and end, with a faint suggestion of rounding at top and bottom; without the dark line the curves would scarcely be visible, so completely does the object merge into the background of overcast sky. The picture widely distributed by news agencies is a further enlargement of the section containing the UFO. In the enlarged section, the foreground rocks are a mere black blur, but the UFO has gained greatly in clarity. The central band is darker, particularly at the left, and the outlines of the object are no longer vague.
The Navy’s study of the negatives revealed several dubious features. The details of the land in the foreground were very sharp but the UFO disk was hazy, showed little contrast, and was essentially without shadows. The object in Frame 2 seemed to have been inverted, as compared with Frames 1 and 3. From the reported high velocity of the saucer and the fast shutter speed, some lateral haziness might have been expected, but no such blurring appeared.
Exactly when and how the fraudulent images were produced—if they were fraudulent—cannot be known. Experienced photographers can easily think of a dozen possible devices. The probability that they were faked is overwhelming and, but for the embarrassing fact that the Brazilian President had seemed to sponsor them publicly, the Naval Ministry would undoubtedly have exposed the entire hoax.
In summary, the facts are these: The man who made the Trindade pictures had no connection with the Brazilian Navy; he was a professional photographer noted particularly as an expert at trick photography. No officer or crewman of the Brazilian Navy reported seeing the UFO; in addition to the photographer, only two persons are on record as actual eyewitnesses; both of them were personal friends of the photographer; neither of them had any connection with the Brazilian Navy. The photographer had ample time and many opportunities to fake the pictures. A Rolleiflex camera can easily be used for double exposures. A series of pictures of a model saucer against a dark background could be rerolled and exposed a second time to provide the background, an old and well-known photographic trick. The pictures themselves show internal inconsistencies. The Brazilian Naval Ministry never accepted the pictures as authentic records of a flying saucer.[[C]]
[[C]] During a visit to Rio de Janeiro in February 1963, Dr. Menzel discussed this case with some of Brazil’s leading astronomers; they concurred in the view that the Trindade saucer was a hoax.
The final paragraph from a United States Intelligence report provides perhaps the most appropriate comment on the affair:
“It is the reporting officer’s private opinion that a flying saucer sighting would be unlikely at the very barren island of Trindade, since everyone knows that Martians are extremely comfort-loving creatures.”
Project Ozma
Astronomers have found no evidence suggesting that intelligent life exists on any of earth’s sister planets. Most scientists would agree, however, that life of some kind probably does exist in other parts of our galaxy and in other galaxies. Even if this probability were certainty and space travel were possible over the vast distances we measure in light years, the chance that earthman and alien will ever establish physical contact remains infinitesimally small. An explorer (whether from earth or from a planet of another sun) would have to begin by locating, among the millions of stars in the heavens, a particular star that had a family of life-bearing planets. If he were able to identify one of these needles in the cosmic haystack, he would next have to find out which of the planets supported living, intelligent organisms. If he could find the planet and set down his spaceship, the explorer would then have to try to identify and to communicate with creatures that might be unimaginably strange—so strange that he would not recognize them as either living or intelligent.