1 00:00:01,560 --> 00:00:03,240 I'm Tim Tate. 2 00:00:03,400 --> 00:00:05,120 I've been an investigative journalist 3 00:00:05,280 --> 00:00:07,160 for almost half a century. 4 00:00:08,480 --> 00:00:13,280 And what I specialise in is exploring official archives, 5 00:00:13,440 --> 00:00:17,680 unearthing dusty old files from government departments, 6 00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:20,320 spy agencies, the police. 7 00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:23,680 This strange figure looked very much like an astronaut. 8 00:00:23,840 --> 00:00:26,920 And what I have found in those collections, 9 00:00:27,080 --> 00:00:30,440 both in Britain and in the United States, 10 00:00:30,600 --> 00:00:33,200 is a truly extraordinary collection 11 00:00:33,360 --> 00:00:36,320 of real-life X-files. 12 00:00:36,480 --> 00:00:39,680 True cryptids, like the Yeti and the Mongolian death worm. 13 00:00:40,880 --> 00:00:43,520 And those files disclose... 14 00:00:43,680 --> 00:00:48,200 investigations by the police, by governments, by spy agencies... 15 00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:50,320 Shortly after that transmission, 16 00:00:50,480 --> 00:00:53,440 Captain Schaffner's radio went dark. 17 00:00:53,600 --> 00:00:56,880 ...to examine and uncover the truth... 18 00:00:57,040 --> 00:01:01,160 about phenomena which are truly... out of this world. 19 00:01:01,320 --> 00:01:03,200 It's a great piece of branding. The death ray. 20 00:01:03,360 --> 00:01:06,120 Everyone knows where they stand with a death ray. 21 00:01:15,720 --> 00:01:19,920 The first X-file we open takes us above the clouds, 22 00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:23,880 where an examination of a spate of frighteningly similar air crashes 23 00:01:24,040 --> 00:01:26,200 can't ignore the possibility that their cause 24 00:01:26,360 --> 00:01:28,720 has otherworldly origins. 25 00:01:29,560 --> 00:01:31,440 In the wake of World War II, 26 00:01:31,600 --> 00:01:33,800 passenger air travel really took off 27 00:01:33,960 --> 00:01:36,640 due to new technology, the jet engine. 28 00:01:36,800 --> 00:01:38,720 Comet jetliner, pioneering the first 29 00:01:38,880 --> 00:01:40,960 pure jet commercial airline service. 30 00:01:41,120 --> 00:01:44,320 Britain sought to lead the way with the de Havilland Comet, 31 00:01:44,480 --> 00:01:47,120 but then a series of crashes saw the project halted. 32 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:50,960 What was causing the Comets to mysteriously fall out of the sky? 33 00:01:51,120 --> 00:01:54,240 Was there an as-yet-unidentified design flaw? 34 00:01:54,400 --> 00:01:58,360 Or could the answer have an otherworldly explanation? 35 00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:02,480 On Thursday, November 4th 1954, 36 00:02:02,640 --> 00:02:05,480 one of the strangest exchanges ever recorded 37 00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:08,280 in Britain's remarkable collection of X-files 38 00:02:08,440 --> 00:02:12,040 occurred at the Institute of Civil Engineers in Westminster, 39 00:02:12,200 --> 00:02:14,960 presided over by Sir Lionel Heald. 40 00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:19,000 And Sir Lionel Heald's question in the august halls... 41 00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:21,520 of a public inquiry... 42 00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:23,960 asked whether... 43 00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:26,440 the plane crashes could have been caused 44 00:02:26,600 --> 00:02:30,320 by contact... with a flying saucer. 45 00:02:38,600 --> 00:02:40,920 The de Havilland Comet was the first... 46 00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:43,520 jet passenger airliner. 47 00:02:43,680 --> 00:02:46,760 The world now had its first passenger jet air service. 48 00:02:46,920 --> 00:02:49,800 Prior to the Comet, all passenger aircraft were 49 00:02:49,960 --> 00:02:54,040 piston-engined aircraft, as used in bombers during the war. 50 00:02:54,200 --> 00:02:58,360 The airliners were noisy, couldn't fly particularly high, 51 00:02:58,520 --> 00:03:02,160 so they'd be buffeted in the winds as they flew along. 52 00:03:02,320 --> 00:03:06,320 The Comet airliner was able to get up to much higher heights, 53 00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:10,240 which was a much more stable journey for the passengers. 54 00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:12,720 So all in all, the Comet was 55 00:03:12,880 --> 00:03:16,680 a much, much improved airliner. 56 00:03:16,840 --> 00:03:20,280 In fact, some of the advertising actually showed somebody building 57 00:03:20,440 --> 00:03:24,240 a stack of cards on one of the tables. 58 00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:27,720 And here, 40,000ft over the Alps, 59 00:03:27,880 --> 00:03:31,480 en route, Rome, first of five stops on the 6,700-mile flight. 60 00:03:31,640 --> 00:03:34,120 London to Rome, two-and-a-half hours. 61 00:03:34,280 --> 00:03:37,120 On Sunday, January 10 1954, 62 00:03:37,280 --> 00:03:39,080 at 10:30am, 63 00:03:39,240 --> 00:03:43,880 BOAC Comet G-ALYP took off from Rome airport. 64 00:03:44,040 --> 00:03:49,000 It climbed to 31,000ft and headed off over the Mediterranean Sea, 65 00:03:49,160 --> 00:03:51,800 but barely 200 miles into its journey, 66 00:03:51,960 --> 00:03:54,120 it exploded, killing all on board. 67 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:57,280 Local fishermen reported seeing a ball of light in the sky 68 00:03:57,440 --> 00:03:59,520 and hearing an enormous bang. 69 00:04:01,560 --> 00:04:03,800 The initial mystery that surrounded the Comet 70 00:04:03,960 --> 00:04:06,320 was the fact that they couldn't find the cause. 71 00:04:06,480 --> 00:04:09,160 They had tested the aircraft considerably 72 00:04:09,320 --> 00:04:11,480 prior to its entering of service, 73 00:04:11,640 --> 00:04:14,280 and this was actually the first Comet to enter commercial service, 74 00:04:14,440 --> 00:04:16,800 so it was a trusted aircraft. 75 00:04:16,960 --> 00:04:19,640 So then the investigators had to look for this deadly problem. 76 00:04:24,160 --> 00:04:26,600 It would take several months to reassemble the parts 77 00:04:26,760 --> 00:04:30,240 of the Comet to try and determine the cause of the disaster. 78 00:04:30,400 --> 00:04:33,440 All of the fleet were taken out of service for ten weeks, 79 00:04:33,600 --> 00:04:37,520 and 60 modifications were made to the aircraft 80 00:04:37,680 --> 00:04:39,760 to allow them to fly again. 81 00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:42,840 Once they flew again after the ten weeks, 82 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:45,320 a further three weeks elapsed, 83 00:04:45,480 --> 00:04:48,000 and another plane crashed... 84 00:04:48,160 --> 00:04:52,920 that was on charter to South African Airways, in exactly the same way, 85 00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:56,960 oddly enough, in the same area off Elba. 86 00:04:57,120 --> 00:05:01,040 Following this second Comet air crash of April 1954, 87 00:05:01,200 --> 00:05:03,360 the fleet was grounded indefinitely. 88 00:05:03,520 --> 00:05:05,400 The fact that this was such a trusted aircraft 89 00:05:05,560 --> 00:05:07,880 added to the mystery and the intrigue, 90 00:05:08,040 --> 00:05:11,160 as well as the fact that the crew was so experienced. 91 00:05:11,320 --> 00:05:14,560 These were pilots that had served in the Second World War, 92 00:05:14,720 --> 00:05:17,680 that had Distinguished Flying Crosses, flying medals. 93 00:05:17,840 --> 00:05:20,840 And so for this aircraft to have such a disaster, 94 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:23,560 it was very unsettling for the aviation industry, 95 00:05:23,720 --> 00:05:25,680 and particularly in Britain. 96 00:05:25,840 --> 00:05:28,480 There was a lot of speculation. What was it? 97 00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:31,120 Was it sabotage? Was it terrorism? 98 00:05:31,280 --> 00:05:33,320 What had caused these two aircraft to explode 99 00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:35,800 and all these people to die as a result? 100 00:05:35,960 --> 00:05:38,720 But the investigation into the reassembled Comet 101 00:05:38,880 --> 00:05:42,160 ruled out both sabotage and a terrorist bomb. 102 00:05:42,320 --> 00:05:44,400 The rational... 103 00:05:44,560 --> 00:05:46,960 if excitable, newspaper coverage... 104 00:05:47,120 --> 00:05:48,920 gave way... 105 00:05:49,080 --> 00:05:51,840 to more conspiratorial thinking. 106 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:56,920 And British government files, files maintained by the Air Ministry... 107 00:05:58,360 --> 00:06:01,280 ...began filling up with claims... 108 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:05,480 that something supernatural, or paranormal, 109 00:06:05,640 --> 00:06:07,480 had been involved. 110 00:06:07,640 --> 00:06:09,960 So this was something that was actually, amazingly, 111 00:06:10,120 --> 00:06:13,640 taken seriously by the board of inquiry. 112 00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:15,640 So in the National Archives, 113 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:18,920 there are files of letters from members of the public saying, 114 00:06:19,080 --> 00:06:22,200 'Have you looked at the possibility that the Comet was struck 115 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:25,000 by a flying saucer over the Mediterranean?' 116 00:06:25,160 --> 00:06:27,520 And people saw a big flash and explosion in the sky, 117 00:06:27,680 --> 00:06:29,680 so it was perhaps quite logical 118 00:06:29,840 --> 00:06:33,000 that maybe there was another object involved. 119 00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:36,680 And that goes some way to explaining the extraordinary exchange 120 00:06:36,840 --> 00:06:39,680 between Sir Lionel Heald, QC, 121 00:06:39,840 --> 00:06:43,160 and the Director of the Aircraft Establishment... 122 00:06:43,320 --> 00:06:47,320 during the inquiry into the Comet disasters. 123 00:06:47,480 --> 00:06:49,440 From this point on, 124 00:06:49,600 --> 00:06:52,600 stories spread that the doomed Comets may have been victim 125 00:06:52,760 --> 00:06:54,920 of some kind of alien attack. 126 00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:00,440 The higher and faster the jet planes went, 127 00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:02,760 the stranger their encounters became, 128 00:07:02,920 --> 00:07:05,160 all adding to the UFO myth. 129 00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:08,480 When the report into the Comet disasters was finally finished, 130 00:07:08,640 --> 00:07:11,200 it was indeed a tale of the unknown. 131 00:07:11,360 --> 00:07:13,600 But this was a case of pushing the envelope 132 00:07:13,760 --> 00:07:15,840 beyond the capacity of the plane. 133 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:18,680 The flight reached operating height, 134 00:07:18,840 --> 00:07:21,440 which was around about 35,000ft. 135 00:07:25,440 --> 00:07:27,600 At that height, the... 136 00:07:27,760 --> 00:07:30,280 structure of the hull failed, 137 00:07:30,440 --> 00:07:32,840 which is likened to... 138 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:37,160 sitting somewhere and a 500lb bomb going off. 139 00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:39,480 So it exploded... 140 00:07:44,120 --> 00:07:47,600 ...and blew the whole plane apart, effectively, at that height. 141 00:07:47,760 --> 00:07:51,840 The aircraft in pieces... 142 00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:55,040 with the passengers all on board, 143 00:07:55,200 --> 00:07:57,200 who would have been dead by then... 144 00:07:57,360 --> 00:08:01,600 then fell to the sea off the isle of Elba. 145 00:08:01,760 --> 00:08:03,520 The real culprit? 146 00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:07,400 It wasn't a spacecraft from another planet or little green men. 147 00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:10,360 Thousands of tests revealed a catastrophic weak point 148 00:08:10,520 --> 00:08:12,360 in the Comet's design: 149 00:08:12,520 --> 00:08:15,720 tiny flaws in the riveting around the Comet's windows. 150 00:08:15,880 --> 00:08:18,880 What they eventually discovered going through all of these tests 151 00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:22,480 was that actually 70% of the stress on the aircraft 152 00:08:22,640 --> 00:08:25,000 that came from the pressurisation cycles 153 00:08:25,160 --> 00:08:27,800 was actually located at the front. 154 00:08:27,960 --> 00:08:29,760 It was around where the windows were. 155 00:08:29,920 --> 00:08:32,400 The reason why they burst was because... 156 00:08:32,560 --> 00:08:37,480 the rivets had been punched into the metal, 157 00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:41,800 creating the hole by which the rivet was sealed. 158 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:44,640 But around it were minute cracks, 159 00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:47,520 which elongated over a period of time. 160 00:08:47,680 --> 00:08:49,760 The phenomenon of metal fatigue 161 00:08:49,920 --> 00:08:53,160 was not yet fully known in this era. 162 00:08:53,320 --> 00:08:56,920 So as a result, this was a case of trying to over-engineer it, 163 00:08:57,080 --> 00:08:59,080 but also using metal that was, ultimately, 164 00:08:59,240 --> 00:09:02,000 far too thin to take these strains. 165 00:09:02,160 --> 00:09:04,520 The Comet jetliner pioneering the first pure 166 00:09:04,680 --> 00:09:06,560 jet commercial airline service. 167 00:09:06,720 --> 00:09:08,920 In this footage of early jet passengers, 168 00:09:09,080 --> 00:09:12,800 you can see that unlike modern jet planes, the windows are not round. 169 00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:16,000 This also played a part in both disasters. 170 00:09:16,160 --> 00:09:18,720 The windows were slightly square. 171 00:09:18,880 --> 00:09:21,160 Where you get a window that's round, 172 00:09:21,320 --> 00:09:26,080 there's less pressure on all points around the window. 173 00:09:26,920 --> 00:09:29,480 When the window is slightly square, 174 00:09:29,640 --> 00:09:32,000 there's more pressure on the corners 175 00:09:32,160 --> 00:09:35,240 than there is on any other section of the window. 176 00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:44,360 Hatfield, England, the 72-ton, 4-jet Comet 3, 177 00:09:44,520 --> 00:09:46,720 destined for transatlantic service, is unveiled. 178 00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:50,800 This giant is the latest improvement of the original Comet airliner. 179 00:09:50,960 --> 00:09:54,000 The Comet 1 was grounded due to a series of accidents. 180 00:09:54,160 --> 00:09:58,240 They uprated the engines to make them more powerful engines, 181 00:09:58,400 --> 00:10:00,640 and they also reskinned the plane, 182 00:10:00,800 --> 00:10:03,680 so they put a thicker skin on the aircraft. 183 00:10:03,840 --> 00:10:06,960 And they obviously modified the way they made the windows, 184 00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:09,680 but the skin made it more able to... 185 00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:12,800 withstand any pressure situations. 186 00:10:12,960 --> 00:10:14,880 The Comet 3 will be modified 187 00:10:15,040 --> 00:10:17,520 to comply with the inquiry's suggestions. 188 00:10:17,680 --> 00:10:20,320 Both disasters had been caused by metal fatigue: 189 00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:23,280 an ill-understood problem at the time... 190 00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:25,880 and were definitely not... 191 00:10:26,040 --> 00:10:28,880 the result of attacks by... 192 00:10:29,040 --> 00:10:31,320 spacecraft from Mars. 193 00:10:32,160 --> 00:10:34,640 Non-stop New York to London in six hours, 194 00:10:34,800 --> 00:10:37,040 as Britain hopes her commercial jetliners 195 00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:39,200 will set a new pace over the Atlantic. 196 00:10:40,200 --> 00:10:42,120 But while the cause of the crashes 197 00:10:42,280 --> 00:10:44,000 appeared to have been identified, 198 00:10:44,160 --> 00:10:47,680 it couldn't save the makers of the doomed airliner, 199 00:10:47,840 --> 00:10:51,600 de Havilland, or the British aircraft industry. 200 00:11:15,920 --> 00:11:19,520 We often hear eyewitness accounts of strange things at sea, 201 00:11:19,680 --> 00:11:23,280 but if we take a closer look, and they become even stranger, 202 00:11:23,440 --> 00:11:27,080 then they might well make their way into the British X-files. 203 00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:37,800 Paranormal encounters on land, or in the sky, 204 00:11:37,960 --> 00:11:39,960 are difficult enough to understand, 205 00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:42,040 but when something strange happens at sea, 206 00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:44,640 the possibilities that lurk in the fathoms below 207 00:11:44,800 --> 00:11:48,960 conjure even greater primordial fears in our fragile minds. 208 00:11:49,120 --> 00:11:51,080 The sea is a very alien 209 00:11:51,240 --> 00:11:53,480 and dangerous environment for human beings. 210 00:11:53,640 --> 00:11:55,880 It's filled with dangerous animals, 211 00:11:56,040 --> 00:11:57,520 things like giant squid, 212 00:11:57,680 --> 00:12:00,080 the great white shark, the saltwater crocodile: 213 00:12:00,240 --> 00:12:03,320 an animal that makes the great white shark look like a pussycat. 214 00:12:04,440 --> 00:12:07,480 And it's deep. We can't see beneath the waves. 215 00:12:07,640 --> 00:12:11,000 It's a psychological thing. We never know what's lurking there. 216 00:12:11,160 --> 00:12:14,000 There could be anything, something ready to devour us. 217 00:12:14,160 --> 00:12:16,320 We could be dragged down by undercurrents. 218 00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:18,440 We could be caught in a storm. 219 00:12:18,600 --> 00:12:22,480 So the turmoil of the depth of the seas, and what lurks there, 220 00:12:22,640 --> 00:12:26,800 is as much psychological as it is an actual physical thing, 221 00:12:26,960 --> 00:12:30,120 and we populate it with monsters, perhaps with good reason: 222 00:12:30,280 --> 00:12:33,080 perhaps because there are monsters. 223 00:12:37,400 --> 00:12:40,480 Sometimes, sailors get a glimpse of these monsters. 224 00:12:40,640 --> 00:12:44,520 These are often dismissed because they are so fleeting and vague. 225 00:12:44,680 --> 00:12:48,080 But that is not the case of a sighting made in 1848 226 00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:51,000 by the British frigate HMS Daedalus. 227 00:12:52,800 --> 00:12:57,880 HMS Daedalus was a mid-19th century navy warship. 228 00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:00,840 And it was on a long voyage. 229 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:04,120 And it was had a very experienced Captain 230 00:13:04,280 --> 00:13:06,360 and a very experienced crew. 231 00:13:06,520 --> 00:13:10,880 The HMS Daedalus had been employed fighting pirates 232 00:13:11,040 --> 00:13:13,200 off the coast of Borneo, 233 00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:16,320 and she was on the long voyage back to England. 234 00:13:16,480 --> 00:13:18,320 About halfway there, 235 00:13:18,480 --> 00:13:21,520 on August 6th 1848, 236 00:13:21,680 --> 00:13:23,840 at about 5:30 in the evening... 237 00:13:24,760 --> 00:13:27,320 ...Captain Peter M’Quhae... 238 00:13:27,480 --> 00:13:31,080 and six other people saw what they said... 239 00:13:31,240 --> 00:13:33,320 was a sea serpent. 240 00:13:33,480 --> 00:13:36,240 It was a long, straight-bodied... 241 00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:39,680 creature, they described, with a head and neck... 242 00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:42,720 just above the water's surface. 243 00:13:42,880 --> 00:13:47,160 The visible portion that they could see above the waves 244 00:13:47,320 --> 00:13:49,640 was approximately 60ft long, 245 00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:52,360 and its head was... 246 00:13:52,520 --> 00:13:55,680 held out of the water at around 4ft high. 247 00:13:55,840 --> 00:13:58,440 The witnesses thought that... 248 00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:02,240 there was considerably more of the creature below the water. 249 00:14:02,400 --> 00:14:06,280 And it had a mane resembling seaweed. 250 00:14:06,440 --> 00:14:09,080 They said that it didn't move side to side... 251 00:14:09,240 --> 00:14:12,760 like a snake, or up and down like a marine mammal, 252 00:14:12,920 --> 00:14:16,120 but it just seemed to slide along in the water. 253 00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:19,360 They described the head of the sea serpent, 254 00:14:19,520 --> 00:14:22,120 and an estimate of what the tail would have been, 255 00:14:22,280 --> 00:14:25,680 and assume that it was about a 60ft-long sea serpent. 256 00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:29,040 Captain Peter M’Quhae said that... 257 00:14:29,200 --> 00:14:31,880 if it was on land, 258 00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:35,920 and it was a man he'd have known, he would have been close enough 259 00:14:36,080 --> 00:14:38,360 to recognise his face: that's how close it was. 260 00:14:38,520 --> 00:14:41,240 And it was in view 261 00:14:41,400 --> 00:14:44,040 for a good 20 minutes, which was a long sighting. 262 00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:47,800 If only one person sees it, then it's only one person's opinion. 263 00:14:47,960 --> 00:14:49,920 But in this case, it was the Captain, 264 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:51,840 the Lieutenant... a couple of men. 265 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:53,880 But what's really interesting about this 266 00:14:54,040 --> 00:14:56,320 is that he was a really proper Captain, 267 00:14:56,480 --> 00:14:59,360 and so he recorded latitude, longitude, 268 00:14:59,520 --> 00:15:01,520 and of course, being an experienced Captain, 269 00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:04,120 all of this information is very, very accurate. 270 00:15:04,280 --> 00:15:07,760 Whilst the Captain's log records all the nautical details, 271 00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:10,800 such as position, speed and weather conditions, 272 00:15:10,960 --> 00:15:13,280 it makes no mention of the sighting, 273 00:15:13,440 --> 00:15:15,920 but there was a very good reason for this. 274 00:15:16,080 --> 00:15:20,200 There was a ship's superstition, 275 00:15:20,360 --> 00:15:23,320 dating probably from about that time, 276 00:15:23,480 --> 00:15:27,640 that mentioning a sea serpent in the log 277 00:15:27,800 --> 00:15:30,560 would bring a lot of very bad luck. 278 00:15:30,720 --> 00:15:33,720 Tongues wagged. Somehow, the story got out. 279 00:15:33,880 --> 00:15:36,520 And the media seized on it in a feeding frenzy 280 00:15:36,680 --> 00:15:39,000 not unlike the tabloids of today. 281 00:15:39,160 --> 00:15:42,760 A letter was published in the Times, 282 00:15:42,920 --> 00:15:46,200 so there was a much exaggerated account in the Times. 283 00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:48,360 The stories reported in the newspapers 284 00:15:48,520 --> 00:15:50,240 might have been exaggerated, 285 00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:53,120 but these were accompanied by illustrations based on drawings 286 00:15:53,280 --> 00:15:56,080 made by the ship's first Lieutenant, Edgar Drummond. 287 00:15:56,240 --> 00:15:58,240 There were some illustrations produced 288 00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:01,400 by the Illustrated London News, 289 00:16:01,560 --> 00:16:03,520 which were very detailed. 290 00:16:05,040 --> 00:16:07,680 But, of course, not necessarily very... 291 00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:10,640 representative of what was seen. 292 00:16:10,800 --> 00:16:15,440 What was more representative of what was seen was... 293 00:16:16,320 --> 00:16:19,120 ...the diary of Lieutenant Drummond, 294 00:16:19,280 --> 00:16:22,640 which only resurfaced recently. 295 00:16:22,800 --> 00:16:27,440 There's an illustration in the diary which is a lot less elaborate... 296 00:16:28,320 --> 00:16:31,880 ...than the Illustrated London News... 297 00:16:32,880 --> 00:16:34,800 ...pictures. 298 00:16:34,960 --> 00:16:36,880 Drummond's illustration does not show 299 00:16:37,040 --> 00:16:41,040 the typical representation of a sea serpent with a long body and humps, 300 00:16:41,200 --> 00:16:45,000 which might have been expected if he was following nautical tradition. 301 00:16:45,160 --> 00:16:47,960 There have been sightings of sea serpents 302 00:16:48,120 --> 00:16:52,520 as far back as ancient Babylon and Mesopotamia. 303 00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:56,600 They're seen all over the world, in every sea and ocean. 304 00:16:57,440 --> 00:16:59,920 And sightings have continued to the present day. 305 00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:03,200 There seem to be a number of different types, 306 00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:06,520 but the two primary ones are an animal with a long neck 307 00:17:06,680 --> 00:17:08,400 and a bulky body, 308 00:17:08,560 --> 00:17:11,680 and an elongate animal that throws its body 309 00:17:11,840 --> 00:17:14,800 into a series of loops or humps. 310 00:17:14,960 --> 00:17:17,240 There was a lot of speculation as to 311 00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:21,040 are these things an unrecognised animal? 312 00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:24,800 Not are these things real, but are they an unrecognised animal? 313 00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:27,600 In an attempt to try to explain the sighting, 314 00:17:27,760 --> 00:17:32,200 numerous experts came forward offering their own interpretations. 315 00:17:32,360 --> 00:17:36,440 Henry Lee, who was directing the Brighton Aquarium, 316 00:17:36,600 --> 00:17:39,360 and wrote a book about giant squid 317 00:17:39,520 --> 00:17:43,600 possibly being the subject of sea serpent encounters... 318 00:17:43,760 --> 00:17:46,360 so he thought it was a squid perhaps... 319 00:17:46,520 --> 00:17:50,160 trailing its tentacles across the surface. 320 00:17:50,320 --> 00:17:52,200 In the meantime, 321 00:17:52,360 --> 00:17:54,920 there is the discovery of... 322 00:17:55,080 --> 00:17:57,960 marine reptiles from the Jurassic... 323 00:17:58,120 --> 00:18:01,760 on the South Coast of England, which are now being publicised. 324 00:18:01,920 --> 00:18:05,000 And people began to think of the sea serpent 325 00:18:05,160 --> 00:18:09,920 not as a mythical Scandinavian tradition, 326 00:18:10,080 --> 00:18:13,160 but more as a plesiosaur, 327 00:18:13,320 --> 00:18:17,480 with a much longer neck but a much shorter body. 328 00:18:19,280 --> 00:18:22,800 Even the Natural History Museum in London got involved. 329 00:18:22,960 --> 00:18:25,120 Richard Owen made suggestions 330 00:18:25,280 --> 00:18:28,000 that angered the Captain and crew of the Daedalus 331 00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:31,360 and ended in an angry exchange of letters. 332 00:18:31,520 --> 00:18:34,520 Owen suggested that he'd seen an elephant seal, 333 00:18:34,680 --> 00:18:38,360 which doesn't grow to nearly that size and is not found in the area. 334 00:18:38,520 --> 00:18:42,280 Then he suggested it was a native canoe that had harpooned a whale, 335 00:18:42,440 --> 00:18:44,480 and it was being dragged along by the whale. 336 00:18:44,640 --> 00:18:47,480 And then he said it was a whale shark, 337 00:18:47,640 --> 00:18:51,960 which doesn't remotely resemble what the people saw. 338 00:18:52,120 --> 00:18:55,720 And the Captain and his crew argued quite fiercely against that. 339 00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:58,800 Eventually, it was decided... 340 00:18:58,960 --> 00:19:01,680 that no, that's not what this is. 341 00:19:01,840 --> 00:19:05,960 It's an anomaly. And it stayed an anomaly for a very long time. 342 00:19:06,120 --> 00:19:08,120 I don't think the crew were lying. I think... 343 00:19:08,280 --> 00:19:10,360 they reported accurately what they saw, 344 00:19:10,520 --> 00:19:12,400 and I'm a believer in sea serpents. 345 00:19:12,560 --> 00:19:15,840 I think there are a number of large, unknown animals 346 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:19,760 that we call sea serpents living in the seas and oceans 347 00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:21,680 right up to the present day... 348 00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:24,360 that we have no explanation for. 349 00:19:25,200 --> 00:19:28,120 But in this case, I think there is an explanation. 350 00:19:34,360 --> 00:19:38,120 Recently, because there was so much precise information, 351 00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:40,160 someone had a look at this 352 00:19:40,320 --> 00:19:42,480 and sort of said, 'Well, if you look at this, 353 00:19:42,640 --> 00:19:45,400 and think of it in terms of the animals we do know, 354 00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:48,400 this sighting, and the behaviour of the animal, 355 00:19:48,560 --> 00:19:51,240 is consistent with a rorqual whale, a sei whale, 356 00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:54,840 which is a baleen whale, who eat plankton, basically. 357 00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:58,800 In order to do this, they skim along the surface with their mouths open. 358 00:19:58,960 --> 00:20:03,360 And so the top of this animal's jaw would be above the water, 359 00:20:03,520 --> 00:20:06,440 and they would be going along at just about... 360 00:20:06,600 --> 00:20:10,520 the same speed that the Captain suggested. 361 00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:14,680 And indeed, if you see pictures of the sei whale sort of going along, 362 00:20:14,840 --> 00:20:17,080 and you kind of don't know that it's a whale, 363 00:20:17,240 --> 00:20:19,080 then it does look very mysterious. 364 00:20:19,240 --> 00:20:22,080 It does look very, very strange because you can't see the eyes 365 00:20:22,240 --> 00:20:24,640 because of the way it's going. 366 00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:29,360 But it's taken a very long time to really come to an explanation. 367 00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:32,480 And one of the reasons you can come to such a good explanation, 368 00:20:32,640 --> 00:20:35,600 which is very rare, is because it was such interesting 369 00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:38,360 and specific information to start with. 370 00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:42,360 But not everyone is convinced that we can explain away 371 00:20:42,520 --> 00:20:45,440 the phenomena of sea serpents quite so easily. 372 00:20:47,280 --> 00:20:50,960 These things have been reported since time immemorial. 373 00:20:51,120 --> 00:20:54,520 And we must remember the ancient legends of dragons 374 00:20:54,680 --> 00:20:56,520 all over the world... 375 00:20:56,680 --> 00:21:01,800 in ancient cultures like Babylon, Sumeria, China, Japan. 376 00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:06,080 They all associate them with water, the ancient element of water, 377 00:21:06,240 --> 00:21:09,280 rather than fire, and there could be a reason for that. 378 00:21:10,320 --> 00:21:14,360 Just because one sea serpent sighting has an explanation, 379 00:21:14,520 --> 00:21:17,000 it doesn't mean that all of them do. 380 00:21:17,160 --> 00:21:20,760 It's like saying that if one Rembrandt painting 381 00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:24,200 turns out to be a hoax, there's no such thing as Rembrandt. 382 00:21:47,760 --> 00:21:50,440 Logic tells us that you can't kill something 383 00:21:50,600 --> 00:21:52,480 that isn't alive. 384 00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:56,640 But if you could, it would change more than just the laws of physics. 385 00:21:56,800 --> 00:21:59,920 It would change the way we think of death itself. 386 00:22:04,480 --> 00:22:08,320 Most ghost stories are told late at night in an eerie atmosphere 387 00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:10,720 designed to create fear in the listener. 388 00:22:10,880 --> 00:22:14,720 But one ghost story not only resulted in a very real death... 389 00:22:14,880 --> 00:22:19,680 but also had consequences that were still reverberating 180 years later. 390 00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:23,080 The tale of the Hammersmith Ghost, 391 00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:25,440 and the murder which resulted from it, 392 00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:30,040 has a unique place in Britain's collection of X-files. 393 00:22:30,200 --> 00:22:35,160 Because although the arrest, trial and conviction of the ghost's killer 394 00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:39,080 were all wrapped up within a space of just ten days, 395 00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:41,720 in January 1804... 396 00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:44,960 ...the case itself... 397 00:22:45,120 --> 00:22:49,000 would pose substantial legal problems 398 00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:52,440 for the next 180 years. 399 00:22:57,280 --> 00:23:01,880 Hammersmith, which was still very much part of the countryside 400 00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:04,000 rather than the great metropolis, 401 00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:06,600 became awash with rumours... 402 00:23:06,760 --> 00:23:12,400 that the ghost of a suicide had left its grave in the churchyard 403 00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:15,480 and was menacing the neighbourhood. 404 00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:27,000 There were several notable sightings of the ghost itself. 405 00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:29,240 One of them was a man by the name of Thomas Groom, 406 00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:32,360 who was the Drayman to the local brewer, Mr Burgess. 407 00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:34,720 He was actually walking through the churchyard 408 00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:37,160 of Hammersmith one night when suddenly, 409 00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:39,560 the ghost came out from behind a tombstone 410 00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:41,560 and grabbed him by the throat. 411 00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:43,560 He said he struggled with the ghost for a few moments. 412 00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:46,040 Then he hit out at it with his fist and connected with something. 413 00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:48,920 He said that was... it felt very soft, like a great coat. 414 00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:52,280 He managed to then wriggle free, but he was actually took to his bed. 415 00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:54,400 When he got home, he took to his bed for over a week, 416 00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:56,480 he was that terrified by his experience. 417 00:23:56,640 --> 00:24:00,800 The ghost, on one occasion, attacked a wagon full of people 418 00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:03,360 travelling by night through Hammersmith. 419 00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:07,360 It also appeared to one woman who was pregnant 420 00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:11,440 and threw her into a terrible state of hysterics 421 00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:13,720 and was blamed for a miscarriage. 422 00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:17,000 One of the appearances that was reported at the time 423 00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:19,800 was a man called Thomas Millwood, who was 22 years old. 424 00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:22,960 He was a bricklayer. Some accounts said a plasterer. 425 00:24:23,120 --> 00:24:25,680 He was walking along Hammersmith Terrace one night 426 00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,800 when a couple going past in a coach started screaming, 427 00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:31,240 saying, 'It's the Hammersmith Ghost, it's Hammersmith Ghost.' 428 00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:33,520 And he became quite irate and told them off. 429 00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:36,360 'I'm no more a ghost than you are.' 430 00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:39,320 He thought it was hilarious and went home and told his mother-in-law. 431 00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:42,920 His mother-in-law said, you know, 'You really have to be careful,' 432 00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:45,280 cos he was dressed, being a bricklayer, 433 00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:49,840 he was dressed in his regulation outfit or work clothes, 434 00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:54,160 which consisted of a white canvas overcoat, white waistcoat, 435 00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:56,320 white trousers hanging over his shoes. 436 00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:59,360 So that's what the people had seen and why they thought he was a ghost. 437 00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:05,120 Whilst the British X-files don't contain the name of the ghost, 438 00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:07,840 they do tell us why he was attacking people. 439 00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:12,240 As far as we can ascertain, the... 440 00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:16,720 actual person who came back from the dead as a revenant 441 00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:20,000 had committed suicide the previous year. 442 00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,360 Now, up until 1824, 443 00:25:23,640 --> 00:25:28,800 it was a practise that suicides were buried not in churchyards 444 00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:33,840 but at crossroads, sometimes with a stake through the heart. 445 00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:36,520 The ghost had become so commonplace - 446 00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:40,160 nightly appearances were happening all around Hammersmith - 447 00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:42,840 that in early January 1804, 448 00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:45,960 a clergyman and a gentleman offered a reward of five guineas 449 00:25:46,120 --> 00:25:49,440 to anybody who would go out and capture the ghost. 450 00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:52,600 So in early January 1804, you get lots of young men 451 00:25:52,760 --> 00:25:55,520 going out into the dark of night, armed with guns, 452 00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,120 and fowling pieces and pistols, 453 00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:00,720 determined to apprehend the ghost. 454 00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:06,800 On December the 29th, a Night Watchman called William Girdler 455 00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:11,000 stumbled into the taproom of a local pub 456 00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:13,840 and said he had just seen... 457 00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:16,320 the Hammersmith ghost. 458 00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:19,800 And he regaled the customers in the bar 459 00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:23,160 with the spine-chilling details 460 00:26:23,320 --> 00:26:25,720 of the white-clad spectre. 461 00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:32,000 One of those in the bar that night was Francis Smith, 462 00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:34,880 and he resolved that over the next few nights, 463 00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:37,040 he would go ghost hunting. 464 00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:40,640 After first fortifying himself with drink, 465 00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:44,520 he went out and sat waiting for the ghost, 466 00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:47,920 having first collected his fowling piece: 467 00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:50,720 basically a gun which was used 468 00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:53,640 for shooting ducks and geese. 469 00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:57,640 And he sat there until he saw a white figure 470 00:26:57,800 --> 00:26:59,760 coming up the lane... 471 00:26:59,920 --> 00:27:01,960 about 10 o'clock in the evening. 472 00:27:02,120 --> 00:27:04,200 He was shocked... 473 00:27:04,360 --> 00:27:07,600 by the sudden appearance of the ghost. 474 00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:12,120 He was hunting. It rose up in front of him. 475 00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:17,360 And Smith cried out, 'Damn you, who are you? Damn you, I'll shoot you.' 476 00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:20,120 And when the ghost didn't reply, 477 00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:22,400 he fired a single shot. 478 00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:26,640 The shot hit the ghost, 479 00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:31,440 which crumpled to the path in front of him. 480 00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:36,760 And Thomas Millwood was dressed in his work outfit, 481 00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:40,400 his white waistcoat, his white overcoat, his white trousers. 482 00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:44,680 And Francis Smith simply cocked his fowling piece, demanded who he was, 483 00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:48,440 Millwood made no reply, so Francis Smith shot him. 484 00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:51,640 And he died instantly. 485 00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:53,640 He was killed instantly by the bullet. 486 00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:56,440 It actually hit him under the chin, and he died instantly. 487 00:27:56,600 --> 00:28:01,080 Smith very quickly, and to his credit, realised what he'd done, 488 00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:05,800 that he had shot to death someone posing as a ghost... 489 00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:09,280 ...and he confessed his crime. 490 00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:19,160 In January 1804, he appeared at the Central Criminal Court, 491 00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:24,120 or the Old Bailey, on a charge of wilful murder of Thomas Millwood. 492 00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:26,320 Francis Smith's defence was... 493 00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:29,200 that he hadn't intended to shoot Thomas Millwood. 494 00:28:29,360 --> 00:28:31,560 He'd simply gone out and intended to shoot the ghost, 495 00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:34,240 and his defence was he bore no malice whatsoever 496 00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:37,640 against Thomas Millwood, so therefore, he hadn't murdered him. 497 00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:41,360 Unfortunately, the court took a different view. 498 00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:43,880 As the law stood at the time... 499 00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:48,000 ...deaths had to be the fault of somebody. 500 00:28:48,160 --> 00:28:50,600 And this was a case of murder. 501 00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:52,640 As the Judge said, the law is the law. 502 00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,120 And the law states that if you shoot somebody dead, 503 00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:59,320 and it's not self-defence, if it's not done under official sanction, 504 00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:01,480 then it's murder. 505 00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:03,880 The jury returned with a verdict. 506 00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:07,560 It convicted Francis Smith of wilful murder. 507 00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:11,520 And the Judge donned the black cap... 508 00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:14,000 and imposed the only sentence... 509 00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:16,320 allowed by law: death. 510 00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:20,600 Fortunately, a recommendation of mercy 511 00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:23,680 was made to the King. 512 00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:26,880 The pleas reached His Majesty... 513 00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:31,000 King George III, who granted a royal pardon, 514 00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:33,680 and so the sentence was commuted 515 00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:37,160 to one of hard labour for six months. 516 00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:39,480 The trial of Francis Smith, 517 00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:42,360 and the tragedy of the shooting dead of Thomas Millwood, 518 00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:45,800 did lead to information being given to the local magistrate, 519 00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:48,240 whereby at least one of the perpetrators, 520 00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:50,400 who may have been the ghost, was identified. 521 00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:52,920 And it was a local man by the name of John Graham. 522 00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:55,720 John Graham was very religious. He attended a local chapel. 523 00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:57,960 He had a family. 524 00:29:58,120 --> 00:29:59,920 In short, he was the last person you'd expect 525 00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:02,000 to go out at night disguised as a ghost. 526 00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:04,560 And the Magistrate asked him why he'd done it, and he said, 527 00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:07,320 'Well, I did it to take revenge on my apprentices 528 00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:10,240 because they've been terrifying my children with stories of ghosts. 529 00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:12,840 So consequently, I decided to get revenge on them. 530 00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:14,800 That's why I went out as a ghost.' 531 00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:17,280 But he maintained he'd only ever done it once, 532 00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:21,480 so that meant that the ghost was still out there somewhere. 533 00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:26,000 It might have started out as a prank 534 00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,160 and ended up in a tragic death, 535 00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:31,960 but the Hammersmith Ghost would reverberate across the centuries. 536 00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:35,000 Then in 1949, 537 00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:38,360 a leading academic lawyer called Glanville Williams 538 00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:42,120 rediscovered the curious case of the Hammersmith Ghost. 539 00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:46,480 Glanville Williams raised the case of the Hammersmith Ghost 540 00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:49,800 as part of a wider debate 541 00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:52,800 about reforming the law of manslaughter. 542 00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:56,920 This led to the Homicide Act 1957, 543 00:30:57,080 --> 00:31:01,200 which introduces the plea of diminished responsibility. 544 00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:04,440 And similarly, the law on mistake developed, 545 00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:07,040 until finally, in 1984, 546 00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:11,560 it was accepted that an unreasonable mistake 547 00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:16,200 might also provide some degree of mitigation, or excuse, 548 00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:19,600 as much as a reasonable honest mistake. 549 00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:21,960 And at that point, 550 00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:24,240 the case of the Hammersmith Ghost... 551 00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:27,120 became one of, effectively, 552 00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:29,520 a historical precedent. 553 00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:32,080 Because that was a real-life case 554 00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:35,400 where the situation of a mistake, 555 00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:37,880 an unreasonable one, 556 00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,400 suddenly came into its own. 557 00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:44,240 But it took 180 years... 558 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,160 ...for the law to actually evolve to recognise it. 559 00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:16,600 Famously, the camera doesn't lie, 560 00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:20,000 so when a photograph seems to show something extraordinary, 561 00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:23,320 we tend to look for an extraordinary explanation. 562 00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:26,200 But that isn't always where the truth is to be found. 563 00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:31,360 When we think of photographs of paranormal phenomena, 564 00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:34,880 we expect to see dark, blurry, mysterious images. 565 00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:39,200 What we don't expect is a little girl holding a bunch of flowers. 566 00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:42,880 But that is exactly what we see in one of the most mysterious images 567 00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:47,080 ever taken that has remained an enigma for over 60 years. 568 00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:50,760 Jim Templeton was a firefighter, 569 00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:54,440 who was based near Carlisle, in Cumbria. 570 00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:57,400 And he was also a very keen photographer. 571 00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:01,040 And during the 1960s, he took one of the... 572 00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:05,280 the most bizarre, baffling, iconic mystery photographs 573 00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:07,840 in the history of anomalous photography. 574 00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:10,080 In May 1964, 575 00:33:10,240 --> 00:33:12,840 he was out with his wife and daughters. 576 00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:15,480 Not only was he trying out his new camera 577 00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:17,800 but he wanted to take some pictures of his wife, 578 00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:20,520 because she'd just bought a new dress, 579 00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:24,280 so it seemed an ideal opportunity for him to... 580 00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:28,360 play around with his camera and spend some time with his family. 581 00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,800 Jim was there with his wife and his young daughter, 582 00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:34,960 and they were in Solway Firth in Cumbria. 583 00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:38,640 And as far as Jim can remember, there was nobody else around. 584 00:33:38,800 --> 00:33:40,720 They were there by themselves. 585 00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:43,160 So he'd set up his camera, 586 00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:46,200 and he got his daughter, Elizabeth, 587 00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:48,440 to pose and really lovely photo. 588 00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:50,880 His wife was standing behind him. 589 00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:52,840 And took a series of pictures 590 00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:55,320 and didn't see anything unusual. 591 00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:58,440 In the days before mobile phones, 592 00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:02,200 pictures taken on a film camera weren't instantly accessible. 593 00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:05,120 You had to take the film to a specialist laboratory 594 00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:07,720 and have it developed, which normally took a week or so 595 00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:09,920 before they were sent back to you. 596 00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:12,360 About a week later, he went back to the chemist 597 00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:16,000 to collect the pictures, and he spoke about the photographs, 598 00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:19,960 and the assistant looked through the photographs with him, 599 00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:24,120 and the assistant pointed out that one of the pictures was ruined 600 00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:26,160 by somebody in the background. 601 00:34:26,320 --> 00:34:28,280 And then when Jim looked at the picture, 602 00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:32,480 he realised this strange figure looked very much like an astronaut. 603 00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:36,640 When the assistant handed them back to him, 604 00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:40,760 she said, 'It's just a pity about that one picture 605 00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:43,880 which was spoiled by the spaceman... 606 00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:45,840 in the back of the shot. 607 00:34:46,000 --> 00:34:48,520 And he thought, 'What?' As you would. 608 00:34:48,680 --> 00:34:51,520 And looked through the photographs, and lo and behold, 609 00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:53,480 standing in the background, almost, like, 610 00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:56,280 floating behind the head of Elizabeth, 611 00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:59,560 is this figure that you can only describe as a spaceman. 612 00:34:59,720 --> 00:35:02,160 It looks very much like a NASA... 613 00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:04,640 astronaut of that period, 614 00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:07,720 wearing a big white spacesuit, 615 00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:11,000 a helmet with a black visor. 616 00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,480 Everyone had been watching it on TV, astronauts in their spacesuits. 617 00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:17,080 So everyone knew what an astronaut looked like: 618 00:35:17,240 --> 00:35:20,440 silvery-white suits and the domed helmets. 619 00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:23,560 And this figure that is standing behind Elizabeth 620 00:35:23,720 --> 00:35:26,960 looks like an astronaut that's sort of turned. 621 00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:31,040 You can see the helmet almost, and you can see the white suit. 622 00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:33,600 And so he was absolutely baffled. 623 00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:35,640 What on earth is this figure? 624 00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:37,760 When he wasn't taking photographs, 625 00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:39,920 Jim Templeton was a fireman, 626 00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:42,520 and he was used to dealing with the police. 627 00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:45,320 So that was his first port of call. 628 00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:48,760 'I've got this weird photograph, with this strange figure on it, 629 00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:51,360 and it was taken overlooking the Solway Firth, 630 00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:54,080 where there's these Ministry of Defence establishments. 631 00:35:54,240 --> 00:35:57,640 Could it be something we need to let the Ministry of Defence know about?' 632 00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:00,680 So they looked at it. They couldn't explain it. 633 00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:04,840 They didn't think it was a double exposure or anything of that kind. 634 00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:08,280 The head of Carlisle CID told Templeton 635 00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:11,800 that it wasn't a hoax: it was a genuine photograph. 636 00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:14,240 They thought that someone had wandered into the shot 637 00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:16,920 and had been caught momentarily by Jim, 638 00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:19,760 and that Jim hadn't seen them when he took the photograph. 639 00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:22,600 Templeton was adamant that that was not the case, 640 00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:24,840 and no-one could have wandered into the photograph 641 00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:27,200 without him and his wife noticing. 642 00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:34,000 When the story of the Solway Spaceman, 643 00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:37,520 ...and the picture that Jim had took... 644 00:36:37,680 --> 00:36:41,000 appeared in national and local newspapers, 645 00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:45,680 the family became instant media celebrities. 646 00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,560 Newspaper reporters, television crews... 647 00:36:48,720 --> 00:36:51,240 trekked to the Templetons' house 648 00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:54,360 to interview Jim and Alice and Elizabeth. 649 00:36:55,240 --> 00:36:58,160 The photo got into the media. It went all around the world. 650 00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:01,920 He had people writing to him from Australia, from South America. 651 00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:04,080 He was absolutely open about it. 652 00:37:04,240 --> 00:37:07,600 He used to... He had a collection of prints of his famous photo, 653 00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:10,200 and he was happy to give them to people randomly 654 00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:12,280 who was interested in the subject. 655 00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:14,480 Never tried to make any money out of it. 656 00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:17,160 He said, if you use the print, if you publish it, 657 00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:19,240 make a donation to charity. 658 00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:22,720 So he had no financial sort of interest 659 00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:25,680 in making money out of that image. 660 00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:27,560 He just wanted to get to the bottom of it. 661 00:37:27,720 --> 00:37:30,440 Who was that figure in the photograph? 662 00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:33,880 As well as people who believed the face value of the story, 663 00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:36,480 there were people who also thought it was a fake. 664 00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:39,440 Back in those days, you couldn't just take a digital print. 665 00:37:39,600 --> 00:37:42,040 You had to have negatives. There was original material. 666 00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:44,680 And Jim was unwilling to part with it, 667 00:37:44,840 --> 00:37:47,160 but Kodak could see the prints. 668 00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:49,760 Kodak's technicians came back and said, 669 00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:52,000 'What we can tell you... 670 00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:54,440 is that the film hasn't been altered. 671 00:37:54,600 --> 00:37:57,400 What it shows is what you captured. 672 00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:00,520 There's been nothing superimposed... 673 00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:04,400 or modified about that still frame. 674 00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:08,880 They actually offered a reward of a free year's supply of film 675 00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:13,880 if somebody come up to explain how it was faked, 676 00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:17,520 I don't think he was a hoaxer, even though he admitted to me 677 00:38:17,680 --> 00:38:20,280 that he liked playing around with trick photography, 678 00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:22,800 I didn't detect any... 679 00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:26,040 idea that he deliberately faked that photograph. 680 00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:27,960 That is all I can say, 681 00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,840 and as someone who's worked as a journalist for decades, 682 00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:32,800 I can read people. 683 00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:35,400 I can tell when someone is spinning a yarn, 684 00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:38,360 and I didn't pick that up from Jim Templeton. 685 00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:41,760 What had started as a day out at a local beauty spot 686 00:38:41,920 --> 00:38:44,320 was fast becoming a media sensation. 687 00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:46,440 And it wasn't long before the story 688 00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:49,280 found a strange resonance on the other side of the world. 689 00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:53,720 In Woomera, Australia, they were testing 690 00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:55,840 a missile called the Blue Streak. 691 00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,120 And the Blue Streak had been partially built 692 00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:00,240 at Cumbria, so there was this link. 693 00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:03,280 There were two technicians there who said they saw something 694 00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:06,440 like the Solway Spaceman actually there. 695 00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:08,800 The mission had to be aborted, 696 00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:12,760 and technicians saw on the rocket range 697 00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:16,320 two figures that looked exactly like the figure 698 00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:18,800 in Jim Templeton's photograph. 699 00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:21,400 So this got back to Jim in England, 700 00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:23,960 and he took it on board as being significant. 701 00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:25,840 I mean, he was looking for an answer. 702 00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:28,080 'Is this connected to my photograph?' 703 00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:33,160 But reports of strange goings on in Australia 704 00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:36,400 weren't the only incident that made Jim Templeton wonder 705 00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:38,360 how far his story had travelled. 706 00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:40,880 He was about to get some unwanted visitors. 707 00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:43,680 Jim Templeton did say that he was visited 708 00:39:43,840 --> 00:39:47,200 by two strange men who wore black suits. 709 00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:50,600 So, these two guys dressed all in black, 710 00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:53,240 the classic men in black, MIB, 711 00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:55,960 said, 'Yeah, we're from the Ministry. 712 00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:58,720 You're not to talk about this. We're interested in the photograph. 713 00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:03,120 Can you take us to where you took the photograph?' 714 00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:06,520 When he asked them their names, they refused to give them. 715 00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:09,040 They said, 'We don't use names. 716 00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,200 We use numeric designations.' 717 00:40:12,360 --> 00:40:14,960 'I am number nine,' said one of them. 718 00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:18,360 'And I am number 11,' said the other. 719 00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:22,720 So they drove him out to the Solway Firth in this Jaguar car, 720 00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:26,280 and one of the guys said to him, 'When you saw the spaceman, 721 00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:28,880 what did it look like? What did you see through the camera?' 722 00:40:29,040 --> 00:40:32,400 And he says, 'I didn't see anything. That's the whole point. 723 00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:35,600 I didn't see anything until we had the photos developed.' 724 00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:38,160 And he said, well, at that point, the guy just said, 725 00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:41,160 'OK, thank you very much,' and they both turned around, 726 00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:43,960 trotted off back to the car, leaving him there thinking, 727 00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:46,480 'Hold on a minute. Are you giving me a lift back to the fire station?' 728 00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:48,760 They got in the Jaguar, disappeared, 729 00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:53,040 leaving him to walk back to the road about five miles. 730 00:40:53,200 --> 00:40:56,920 This could, of course, have been just a couple of UFO fans 731 00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:58,840 who were... 732 00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:01,440 drilling Jim for extra information, really. 733 00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:05,000 He was convinced at that time that these were genuine... 734 00:41:05,160 --> 00:41:07,040 officials from the Ministry of Defence. 735 00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:09,360 He said, 'No, I'm convinced they were from the MOD, 736 00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:12,320 and they were looking into how the photograph was taken 737 00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:14,160 and whether there was any... 738 00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:16,840 significance from an intelligence point of view. 739 00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:25,600 If these really were government officials, 740 00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:28,280 then the reason the photograph would have been of interest 741 00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:32,120 could be that it was taken in the vicinity of a nuclear power station, 742 00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:34,800 and that also provides a possible explanation 743 00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:36,880 for how a man from outer space 744 00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:40,480 has wandered into the back of Jim's incredible photograph. 745 00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:43,240 Because of the power station nearby, 746 00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:46,400 there were inspectors who wore... 747 00:41:46,560 --> 00:41:48,760 spacesuit-type outfits 748 00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:51,240 to test the radioactive levels 749 00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:53,720 in the nearby Solway Firth. 750 00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:57,600 One theory is that one of them appeared in the scene 751 00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:01,120 just as Jim was taking the photograph. 752 00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:04,480 I think the most logical explanation for it 753 00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:09,080 is the one that was suggested by the CID in Carlisle 754 00:42:09,240 --> 00:42:12,600 at the time when they looked at the image, 755 00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:16,560 because they had access to the stripper negatives, 756 00:42:16,720 --> 00:42:18,880 not just the one with the 'spaceman'... 757 00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:21,120 in inverted commas on it. 758 00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:25,280 They could see what Jim had photographed before and after. 759 00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,640 I've seen some of the other images, and they don't often get published. 760 00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:31,640 And what you see on the other images is Jim's wife... 761 00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:33,600 kneeling down beside him 762 00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:36,800 as they're getting Elizabeth to pose with the flowers. 763 00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:39,320 And she's got a very distinctive... 764 00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:43,200 blue-and-white patterned dress on. 765 00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:45,240 And I think what happened was... 766 00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:48,120 his wife sort of momentarily walked 767 00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:50,320 behind the camera into the background, 768 00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:52,680 turned her back, and that's when he took the shot. 769 00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:55,720 And what you're seeing is the light reflecting off her dress 770 00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:59,280 as she turns around and walks back behind the camera. 771 00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:02,080 And if he was concentrating on getting a really good shot 772 00:43:02,240 --> 00:43:04,400 of his daughter, he wouldn't necessarily... 773 00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:06,320 remember his wife... 774 00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:09,600 getting into the background of the shot just for a few seconds. 775 00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:11,640 And she might not have even realised 776 00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:13,800 that that's what had happened herself. 777 00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:16,520 So that is my best guess. 778 00:43:16,680 --> 00:43:20,000 But apart from that, I haven't a clue. 779 00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:26,680 Next time on Britain's X-Files... 780 00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:31,640 did an angel rescue British soldiers in World War I? 781 00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:35,240 Can people really foresee terrible tragedies? 782 00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:39,320 Why was a woman charged with witchcraft during World War II? 783 00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:41,640 And did a reckless climate experiment 784 00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:43,760 destroy a Devonshire village? 785 00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:12,080 Subtitles by Sky Access Services