The 1870 Photo
Winter, 1870 - Coös County, New Hampshire
The famous "1870 UFO photograph" from Mount Washington is not an alien spacecraft, but a debunked image showing an intricate frost formation on a wooden ruler or rock.
Long touted on internet forums as the "oldest UFO photograph ever taken", the object became the subject of widespread internet mystery after a copy resurfaced and sold on eBay in 2002.
The History of the Image
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The Origin: The picture was taken during the winter of 1870–1871 at the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. It was officially copyrighted and deposited with the U.S. Copyright Office in 1871.
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The Format: It was originally part of a stereograph (a side-by-side double image meant to be looked at through a stereoscope to create a 3D effect).
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The Resurfacing: In March 2002, an original copy of the stereograph was auctioned on eBay for $385 USD to an independent film producer.
How the Hoax/Misconception Worked
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The Crop: The "UFO" image circulated online is actually a heavily cropped and isolated section of the larger stereograph.
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The Illusion: When isolated out of context, a narrow, dark wooden apparatus covered in a spike of white rime ice looks remarkably like a long, cigar-shaped "mothership" floating against a blurry, gray background. Ufologists argued it couldn't have been faked because complex photo manipulation was nearly impossible with 1870s wet-plate technology.
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The Reality: Local researchers and historians cross-referencing the full, uncropped Wikimedia Commons stereograph confirmed that the camera was pointing directly at a close-up frost formation on a physical object at the mountain's weather station. The "sky" in the background is actually fog or snow blanketing the ground just feet away.
★★★★★ — DEBUNKED
Score: 0/10
Category
Witness Reliability:
Contemporary Documentation:
Independent Corroboration:
Physical/Instrumental Evidence:
Resistance to Conventional Explanation:
Score
0/2
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Assessment
There is no known 1870 eyewitness testimony identifying the photographed formation as an anomalous aerial object.
The photograph itself is historical, but there is no contemporary UFO claim associated with it.
No independent witnesses or observations support the later UFO interpretation.
The photograph is genuine, but it does not constitute evidence of an aerial craft once its original context is restored.
The uncropped stereograph provides the context necessary to identify the supposed "UFO" as part of the foreground scene rather than a distant object in the sky.