The Cote UFO Photo: The Clearest UFO Image Ever Captured?

Summary

In 1971, a Costa Rican government aerial mapping mission over Lake Cote captured a sharp, disc-shaped object on a single frame of high-resolution cartographic film, and no one aboard saw it. Filmmakers Adam Pillen and Megan Woomer discuss their documentary The Cote Photo, which traces the image's unbroken chain of custody, its analysis by researchers like Jacques Vallée and Richard Haines, and the lifelong UFO experiences of cartographer Sergio Loaiza. The conversation explores why this photo has held up to scrutiny for decades and why it may be one of the clearest UFO images ever taken.

Key takeaways

• 1The photo was taken in 1971 by cartographer Sergio Loaiza's mapping team aboard an Aero Commander plane flying at 10,000 feet for Costa Rica's National Geographic Institute. The object appears only on frame 300 of a camera that fired roughly every 13 seconds.
• 2The 23x23 cm negative is at a 1:20,000 scale. The 0.42 cm disc would measure about 84 meters (roughly 275 feet) across if it were at ground level.
• 3The Vilchez brothers, pioneers of Costa Rican ufology, obtained an early copy and passed it to J. Allen Hynek. Richard Haines and Jacques Vallée later wrote two reports concluding it was a physical 3D object with a real sun glint.
• 4Michael Strickland, of Liberal, Kansas, drum-scanned the negative with a Heidelberg Tango scanner. Researcher Esteban inherited a rare contact copy of the negative from his late uncle's UFO archive.
• 5Locals regard Lake Cote as a place where the gods live and claim a craft lives in the lake. Italian experiencer David believes he was taken to Costa Rica during a 1971 abduction and later opened an alien-themed restaurant in Nuevo Arenal.
• 6The guests cite the 2017 New York Times article by Leslie Kean, Helene Cooper, and Ralph Blumenthal as pivotal, along with whistleblowers Lue Elizondo and David Grusch. They also discuss the Calvine photo and compare the object to Bob Lazar's 'sport model' craft.

Glossary terms

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Transcript excerpt

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Excerpt from Somewhere in the Skies, Sep 7, 2026. Rights remain with the original creators. Hear the full episode at the source.