The 1964 Solway Spaceman Photograph: Case Report

This is my investigation of the famous photograph, also known as the Solway Firth Spaceman photograph and Cumberland Spaceman photograph, taken on May 23, 1964 in northwest England by James P. Templeton (1920–2011). I prefer the term "Solway Spaceman photograph" because "Solway 'spaceman'" is how the first UK newspaper to publish the photograph and story, The Cumberland News, described it on its front page in 1964.

I located three examples of the digital photograph for this research and commentary. I also located an entry dated 1968 for "negatives" related to the photo in a government archive. On the day the photograph was taken in 1964, I was 3,223 miles away in Connecticut in the United States, age 9, the same age as Frances Templeton, one of the witnesses who was present with her family when the event happened.

As I began, one of the things that I noticed was that all three of the images had noticeable damage. The photos likely began as large physical prints that were then stored for decades in the filing cabinets of newspapers or magazines, taken out, and subjected to the physical effects of being processed for publishing. They exhibit scratching, scuffing, spotting, dirtying, and have faded over time. One of them appears to have writing residue and a torn area. I intentionally did not do any clean-up of the three full images or make any changes to the contrast or coloring or do any sharpening. I enlarged them to a uniform size and converted them to the lossless .png file format. They can easily be converted back to .jpg in any photo editor.

The smiling girl posing with a bouquet of freshly picked wildflowers (type: marsh valerian) is five-year-old Elizabeth Templeton, daughter of Jim and Annie Templeton, all citizens of the United Kingdom. The photographer Jim Templeton is quoted as saying that he considered this image to be in the public domain (see page bottom for his declaration). Mr. Templeton never recanted his story concerning the photo's genuineness right up until his death in 2011 at age 91. His wife and mother of the children, Annie Templeton (1929–2004), died at age 75 seven years earlier.

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon on May 23, 1964, the local newspaper The Cumberland News reported, when off-duty Carlisle Fire Service fireman Jim Templeton, 44, drove with his family to the expansive Burgh Marsh (*see pronunciation note immediately below) along the Solway Firth, a large inlet of water separating part of England and Scotland on their western coasts, in what is today known as the county of Cumbria in northwest England. In 1964, it was called the county of Cumberland; hence, the alternate description of the figure as the "Cumberland Spaceman." The name of the county officially changed to Cumbria in 1974.

* (Pronunciation note: Although the initial inclination by some speakers outside of Great Britain, especially American English speakers, may be to pronounce "Burgh" as "Burg," as in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania," that is incorrect. In Scotland and Northern England, "burgh" is pronounced "bur-uh" or more quickly (with a Scottish accent) as "bruh" as in "Edinburgh, Scotland" and meaning a municipal division, town, or city equivalent to the word "borough" in other parts of England and the United States. However, in the Cumbria area, the "gh" sound in "Burgh" is pronounced the same as in the words "enough," "rough," and "tough," meaning an "uff" sound. "Burgh Marsh" is pronounced locally as "Bruff Marsh," possibly an alteration over time of "Bruh Marsh." It basically means the town marsh.)

Accompanying Jim Templeton were his wife Annie, 35, and their two young daughters, Elizabeth, 5, and Frances, 9 (a third daughter, Anne, would be born in the summer of 1968). The purpose of the family outing was to photograph younger daughter Elizabeth in her new dress outdoors where the lighting would be good and the scenery full of open green grass, flowers, and blue sky. They chose a spot near a large concrete arrow embedded in the ground, which was a guide for RAF military pilots on World War II practice bombing runs, the target being in the Firth. The Burgh Marsh was not a typical wetland marsh in that many parts were dry enough to walk on and for livestock to graze from May until August. Templeton's 35mm SLR camera, a Pentacon F, also branded as Contax F in the eastern part of Europe, contained Kodak color film. The specific type of 35mm roll film was Kodacolor-X, introduced in 1963, which came in sizes up to 36 exposures. When Templeton wrote to the Daily Mail newspaper in 2002 that his camera was "loaded with the new Kodacolor film," he was referring to Kodacolor-X, which replaced Kodacolor. Kodacolor-X is perhaps the perfect name for a film that would become involved in the photographing of an unknown.

Recalling decades later in a television interview at his home conducted by author Jenny Randles, in which Annie Templeton also participated (Secrets of the Paranormal, episode 1: "UFOs — Britain's Secret Files," April 11, 1996, BBC 2, Jenny Randles presenter), Jim Templeton claimed that no one else was around except the normally scattered animals strangely huddled to a far side as if frightened by something and "two old ladies sitting in a car knitting" 300 to 400 yards away. A 1964 newspaper article that first reported the story and published the photograph in black and white on its front page ("Solway 'spaceman' poses picture puzzle for police experts," The Cumberland News, June 12, 1964), however, reported that he said the two other people were an "elderly couple sitting in a car reading a newspaper" (that is the newspaper's description of what he said, not a direct quotation of Templeton speaking). In fairness to Templeton, he could have described it initially in the form of a guess: a couple of old people reading a newspaper or knitting, being unsure, or the couple could have contacted him and told him the flat object he saw was knitting. At this late date it is not possible to question those involved about this minor discrepancy. One could assume he drove past in his car and he or Annie just got a quick glance through windows. The important information is that he claimed only two other people were visible in the area, which was expansive.

Jim Templeton said he took three photographs of Elizabeth on the Burgh Marsh with his 35mm camera, the exact duration between each we do not know. The timing is not something Templeton would have had any reason to mentally note with preciseness. When he got them back from being developed, the third one showed the shadow of his oldest daughter Frances in the left corner; Elizabeth in the center; and wife Annie on the right in what looks like a light-blue patterned dress. The dress does not appear to be one solid color. The sky in the background shows some white from overexposure (too much light entering the camera), as does parts of the backs of Elizabeth's and Annie's dresses. The white on the front edge of Elizabeth's dress appears to be white trim, perhaps on the underside. There does not appear to be any blooming (expanding outward) in any of the overexposed areas.

The middle photo had something strange in it. Behind Elizabeth's head on the upper right side was the upper back torso of a futuristic-looking male humanoid figure with a stout build. His right hand appeared to be on his hip and he was looking out across the Firth as if studying something. He was dressed in white wearing what looked like a helmet with dark areas on the back, perhaps ornamentation or technology or both. Some in the media originally perceived it to be a frontal view because of the dark area resembling a visor or window of a space helmet. The other two photos did not show anything unusual. Templeton said his wife was behind him when the photo was taken and he did not see anyone in the background. The astronaut-looking appearance of the figure resulted in him being called a "spaceman," with the term "Solway Spaceman" being coined by The Cumberland News, the first newspaper to report the story and publish the photograph.

Many skeptics have decided that the explanation for the mysterious figure is not that mysterious at all. They contend that the "spaceman" is actually Annie Templeton who walked into the background of the shot unnoticed and became overexposed and bloomed causing her to seemingly transform, or shape-shift, into a larger unrecognizable person. Overexposure (too much light) and blooming (expanding outward) would have been unwanted in-camera effects due to the bright sunlight that day reacting with adult Annie's light-blue dress, they say. They further contend she must have been wearing a small hat with her dark hair showing in the back below it. This explanation seems ludicrous to anyone making an initial visual examination and I am not aware of skeptics ever having offered, as of the date of this report, a similar photo from the history of 35mm color film photography as evidence that such a — very distinctive — transformative effect could occur on one multicolored subject in the background while the rest of the photo remains normal, especially a very blue sky with discernible clouds. I am not saying it is impossible, just that it would be helpful to see a convincing example that such a very distinctive effect has happened before using color 35mm film. Apparently, the experts at Kodak came to the same conclusion, as they had no comparative examples in the company's files to solve the mystery and neither did the forensic lab used by the Carlisle Police or The Cumberland News. It was such a strange anomaly and the source a respected local man whose job as a fireman was to protect lives and property that it was deemed front-page newsworthy.

The British nighttime television magazine The One Show attempted to recreate the photo in a segment (also called an insert in British TV terminology) that aired on November 30, 2017 using a 35mm still camera with the same aperture setting Templeton used of f/16 for a sunny day, at approximately the same location on the Burgh Marsh, but the best result they got was a washed-out sky and significantly blurry figure in the background. The girl's white, blue, and red patterned dress also came out mostly white. They were trying to get a match to test the hypothesis of overexposure and blooming. Despite the segment being promoted before broadcast as "Debunked: The Solway Spaceman" the report ended with a side-by-side comparison of the two photos (seen below in a photograph I took of my laptop and VLC Media Player) and viewers watching were asked to be the final judge by reporter Joe Crowley: "So, here is our attempt to recreate the phenomenon of the Solway Spaceman. Proof enough? You decide." Regardless of the outcome, the effort was a serious and worthwhile experiment and the report was done with high production values.

Continuing with the argument that the "spaceman" might be Annie Templeton or some other person, skeptics have also proposed that because the small viewfinder of Jim Templeton's camera only showed a portion of the actual image area to be recorded on film, someone could have walked or run into and out of the shot unnoticed. I do not give much credence to that argument either and here is why: If you are familiar with how a camera operates, taking a photograph holding the camera continuously to your face looking into its viewfinder only takes seconds, perhaps less than 15, which is on the long side. The viewfinder system on the type of 35mm SLR camera Jim Templeton was using did not have what is called an "instant return mirror." That means every time he pressed the shutter button, the photograph was taken and the viewfinder immediately went dark until he manually turned the wind knob on top of the camera clockwise to advance the film for the next shot, clearing the viewfinder. There would have been no reason for him to keep the camera to his face. He would have opened his eyes quickly, pulled the camera away, and looked at the scene to see if Elizabeth was still holding her pose and he got the shot he wanted. At that moment he would have seen someone in the background, whether it be his wife or a stranger, even in his upper peripheral vision if he was crouched down on the ground at Elizabeth's level. If the background was at a different location and busy with movement or had trees, rocks, or buildings then he might not have noticed someone. His wife and two daughters did not speak up about noticing a white-dressed stranger in their midst. The intruder would have had to have been someone with the fast-running abilities of The Six Million Dollar Man or The Flash to go unnoticed.  Image credit: Pentacon F user manual / Graphic James A. Conrad 2021.

I am also not convinced that this was an intentional hoax or out-of-control practical joke. Staging such an event in wide-open grazing land with no trees would not make sense. Templeton was an active-duty fireman, a government employee. The Cumberland News in its initial reporting on June 12 described him as someone "who does official photographic work for the service [Carlisle Fire Service]." He had a family to support and could easily have been fired if caught perpetrating a hoax on the community. During his life he received numerous medals for his military and fire and rescue services as a medic and fireman. These medals were shown in the aforementioned 1996 Jenny Randles BBC TV series episode framed and hanging on a wall inside his home.

I could not locate a copy of the third photograph of Elizabeth online or any reference to it ever having been made public as of the date of this report. Perhaps the simple explanation is that no one ever asked Jim Templeton for a copy of it to publish or the other pictures on the roll of film. Publishing photos in the pre-digital age was not as easy or inexpensive as it is today. These could have also been factors as to why there was only interest in the main photograph. I did not find anyone saying he refused such a request for the other photos. Templeton said three of the photos showed Elizabeth. However, without additional information on the other pictures, we have to wonder whether he took more shots on his roll of film on the Burgh Marsh that show only Frances or his wife Annie that might offer additional clues to the mystery. As James P. Templeton, he subsequently authored 14 local history books featuring his photographs (see list below), including a memoir. His collection of historical photographs 1834–2000s is in the county government Cumbria Archive Service Catalogue (search result). His Burgh Marsh photos are more in the category of personal family snapshots. In a Reuters wire service report dated June 15, 1964, Templeton had this to say about the forensic lab used by the Carlisle Police and his next step of submitting the negative to Kodak and what would have been the first photo of the three:

Police experts examined the negative and said it had not been tampered with. But now I am going to hand it over to the company that supplied the film for stringent tests. They say there is no possibility the film had been exposed before it reached me. The rest of the shots on the reel are perfect, and one taken in the same spot just before the mystery photograph shows my daughter alone. — James Templeton, Reuters wire story, June 15, 1964.

To recap, according to Jim Templeton, the order of photos taken is as follows:

• Photo #1. Elizabeth alone.
• Photo #2. Elizabeth alone but with a mystery figure that appeared after developing the film.
• Photo #3. An unposed group shot showing Frances (shadow only), Elizabeth (full), and mother of the girls Annie (partial).

Besides being an active duty fireman, Jim Templeton was also respected as a local amateur historian whose photographs often appeared in the region's newspapers accompanying stories and later books he wrote. This positive relationship with the news media led him to show The Cumberland News the photograph, which then decided to publish it as a front page story after the Carlisle Police had examined the negative. Kodak also took a look at the negative and determined that there was no indication of darkroom fakery. Nothing in their files matched the anomaly. Whatever was photographed was in the shot and not added later. The story quickly gained international interest, even continuing to this day, with many articles and videos available online discussing the mystery.

Various explanations offered, but as yet unproven, by skeptics:

• It is Mrs. Templeton, supposedly wearing a white or light-colored hat, who wandered into the back of the scene unnoticed by the three others present. Sunlight overexposed her on film — and only her — to such an extent that her body and light-blue patterned dress expanded, or bloomed, causing a strange transformation in appearance resembling a "spaceman."
• A jogger or runner decided to leave the safety of the distant road and run through the scene unnoticed. He is wearing a white hat and white jacket with a hood hanging on the back. Such items of clothing were available in 1964. He is unconcerned with tripping on uneven ground, jumping over streamlets, and possibly stepping on cow and sheep droppings while moving at a brisk pace.
• A motorcyclist out on a Sunday ride made a turn and rode out onto the marsh, stopped near the Templetons, got off his bike, left his white-and-black helmet (or half helmet) and white hooded jacket on, and walked around briefly for a scenic look out across the Firth behind the Templetons and then left. He later did not read newspapers and was unaware of the controversy he caused. (I have seen one modern-era YouTube video of someone riding a dirt bike on the non-grass shore of the Burgh Marsh.)
• It is a life-size spaceman dummy or mannequin set up in the background.
• It is a small doll attached to the back of Elizabeth's head, somehow made to photograph blurry.
• The photo lab that developed the film hoaxed the image during processing and the result was so good it fooled both the expert forensic lab used by the Carlisle Police and the Eastman Kodak Company, the manufacturer of the film.
• It is a friend or relative of the Templetons dressed in a simulated spacesuit. This is all a hoax or practical joke by Jim Templeton and his family that became too famous to deny. There was no couple sitting in a car. The event was staged in a wide-open area and by very fortunate happenstance (extremely so) no one else outdoors that day noticed.

Various explanations offered by the public that seem more like science fiction or the paranormal:

(Some of these are my science fictiony musings due to my having a connection to Hollywood.)

• The figure is an extraterrestrial humanoid traveler from outer space: a spaceman. His invisible spaceship is parked or hovering nearby, which is frightening the livestock to one side, as apparently only they can see or sense it. He was passing by overhead, saw the concrete arrow in the ground, and decided to land or transport himself down and investigate. He has seen other large concrete arrows embedded in the ground elsewhere in Great Britain and the western United States. It is a symbol that requires no language to understand. Additionally, his spaceship's instruments detected radiation on the other side of the Solway Firth (see next). Elizabeth Templeton's initials are "E.T."
• He is a time traveler from the future who is researching the history of nuclear weapons or nuclear energy. In May 1964, the Chapelcross Atomic Power Station, later renamed a Nuclear Station and which included the plutonium-producing Chapelcross Processing Plant for the United Kingdom's nuclear weapons program, was located inland across the Firth, its four cooling towers lined up in a row. If the mystery figure was a human time traveler, it is possible that the moment he was inadvertently recorded on film, the future he departed from was annihilated and him along with it. Or perhaps he otherwise could not return as a result and lived out his life among us or is still here somewhere.
• A visitor from a parallel universe or other realm.
• A ghost of some kind.
• A heavenly being, such as an angel or a god.
• A psychic projection; an astral traveler or manifestation of someone's dream or remote viewing.
• Some type of inserted clue or intelligence test if we are living in a computer simulation.

• 90th Birthday Thanks from Jim Templeton (News & Star, October 20, 2010).
• Obituary (News & Star, November 30, 2011).
• Obituary (News & Star, December 1, 2011; the News & Star and The Cumberland News are combined papers).
• Tribute to Carlisle man who took photo of Space Man in Cumberland (News & Star, November 30, 2011).
• Family Special Thanks (News & Star, December 14, 2011).

• 20th anniversary photos of Elizabeth (Templeton) Dobson, 25, and her father Jim Templeton, 64, on Burgh Marsh for a Daily Mail photo item, May 1984. (Shutterstock).
• Unveiling of Plaque at Longtown Fire Station (March 19, 2011, Jim Templeton attended the event that honored two deceased fireman, possibly the last published photo of him; age should be 91).
• History of Carlisle's Old Fire Station goes on permanent display (News & Star, October 12, 2017).
• Stunning photos showcasing history of Carlisle's Old Fire Station displayed on outside of building (News & Star, July 19, 2018).

• Old Carlisle: A Photographic Recollection, 1976, ‎by James P. Templeton.
• North Cumberland: Life in Villages and Towns Around Carlisle: A Photographic Recollection, 1977, ‎by James P. Templeton.
• Old Carlisle: A Second Photographic Recollection, 1978, ‎by James P. Templeton.
• 175 Years of Carlisle, 1990, by Laurie Kemp and ‎James P. Templeton.
• Carlisle People & Places, 2003 by Charlie Emett, ‎James P. Templeton.
• A Century of Carlisle, 2007 by Charlie Emett, ‎James P. Templeton.
• A Carlisle Lad — The Story of James Parker Templeton, 2007, by James Parker Templeton (memoir).
• Discovering Northern Lakeland, 2009 by Charlie Emett, ‎James P. Templeton.
• Discovering Southern Lakeland, 2010 by Charlie Emett, ‎James P. Templeton.
• Old Carlisle, 2010, by ‎James P. Templeton.
• Carlisle Through Time, 2010 by Charlie Emett, ‎James P. Templeton.
• Carlisle: A Photographic Recollection, 2011, by ‎James P. Templeton.
• North Cumberland through time, 2012, by James P. Templeton (published posthumously).
• Old Carlisle, 2012, by James P. Templeton (published posthumously; might be a reprinting of the 2010 title).

Confirmed source: "Rocket clue to spaceman," Daily Mail, London, England, Friday, December 13, 2002. Saved in the Internet Archive (calendar entry page) via the Archive for the Unexplained's collection of the UFO Newsclipping Service, issue date January 2003 (Internet Archive direct pdf link). The Archives for the Unexplained also has its own (pdf copy). The archived newspaper clipping is in black and white.

In my opinion, unless convincing evidence to the contrary surfaces, and it has not so far since 1964, the Solway Spaceman photograph remains unsolved and a mystery.

• I am inclined to support the position that the Templetons have always been truthful about this photograph and are not unreliable or incompetent observers as implied by the unstated inferences of some skeptics and the events on the Burgh Marsh on May 23, 1964 during the photographing of Elizabeth in her new dress occurred as they claimed.
• I am inclined to support the position that the photograph shows an unknown entity who was not visibly present to the photographer Jim Templeton and the other three members of his family: Frances, Elizabeth, and Annie on the sunny spring day of Sunday May 23, 1964 on the wide-open Burgh Marsh in the county of Cumberland (now Cumbria), England, United Kingdom.

Evidence that would help further the investigation:

• The missing photograph of Elizabeth alone taken on the Burgh Marsh on May 23, 1964 (Photo #1 of 3).
• Other color photographs of Annie Templeton wearing the same blue dress so that we can get a better look at the coloring and design.
• A statement from Frances Templeton (now Frances Marshall), the fourth witness who was nine years old at the time and whose shadow appears in one of the photographs, about what she remembers of the incident.
• The other photos shot on the same roll of film on May 23, 1964.
• A copy of the original letter or report to the Carlisle Police about the photograph from the "forensic laboratory in Preston."
• A copy of the original letter or report from the Eastman Kodak Company or its authorized representative to Jim Templeton discussing the results of its examination.
• Convincing evidence that the Eastman Kodak Company in 1964 offered a year's supply of free film or other reward to anyone who could prove that the photograph was a fake.
• Convincing evidence in the form of another color 35mm still photograph taken during the 1960s or earlier to show that the type of very distinctive overexposure and blooming transformative effect on one multicolor element in the image in the background is not unique to this one photograph.

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