Cumberland

Solway Firth and the Spaceman Behind the Girl

On 23 May 1964 the fireman Jim Templeton photographed his daughter Elizabeth on Burgh Marsh beside the Solway Firth. On the developed frame a white figure in something like a spacesuit stands behind the girl. Kodak confirmed the negative had not been tampered with, and for forty years the picture was offered as evidence. The explanation is in the frame itself: it is Templeton's wife in a pale blue dress, photographed from behind and heavily overexposed — she was standing there, and she is in the same spot on other shots from the roll. Templeton never accepted it, and died in 2011 still convinced.