Les frères Jaroslaw ont décroché un jackpot photographique un matin d'hiver près de Detroit.
Monday, January 9th, was a cold wintry day on the shores of Lake St. Clair about 15 miles due north of Detroit, but the weather didn't keep 17-year-old Daniel Jaroslaw and his 15-year-old brother, Grant, from having some outdoor fun with their Polaroid camera. True, it was cold enough to numb their fingers a bit, but they still could click the lens shutter as they stood in the backyard of their Harrison Township home, looking for something to photograph. And little did they realize they were about to make a sensational picture record of what appeared to be the best, and clearest, UFO sighting of the New Year.
The time was about 2:30 P.M., when Dan looked out across the ice-clogged lake and suddenly saw something that caused him to grab his brother's arm.
"Look !" he fairly shouted, pointing to a dark object in the sky about a quarter of a mile offshore. There, hovering over the ice but near open water, was a hamburger-shaped aerial craft with an "antenna" clearly visible on its tail. From that distance, the object seemed to be about the size of a helicopter, but Dan and Grant had no way or determining its exact measurements.
Quickly, they brought their camera into action and made four pictures in rapid succession, pulling out the prints and examining them as they shot the photos, one by one. The UFO proved to be an obliging camera subject and continued to hover over the icy lake for a full ten minutes before speeding off to disappear in the southeast without making a sound.
Then, a new object came on the scene to hover above the same spot, but this was clearly identifiable. It was a helicopter on a training mission from nearby Selfridge Air Force Base. The two brothers made a picture of the copter, too, but it bore no resemblance to the strange craft recorded on the other four prints.
The following day, the Detroit News published a picture of the UFO along with the story of how the Jaroslaw brothers happened to have their camera in the right place at the right time. The photo immediately came under intensive investigation by officials of Project Blue Book, the Air Force's highly active UFO study unit. And they had to admit that the Jaroslaw brothers had snapped one of the most realistic UFO pictures on record.
Although the radarscope at Selfridge Air Force Base, only a mile from the scene, had picked up nothing unusual, and the helicopter pilot said he had seen nothing hovering in the area, the Jaroslaw prints were called "pictures of a believable UFO." Among the first to comment was Dr. J. Allen Hynek, chairman of Northwestern University's Astronomy Department, who for years has been consultant to the-Air Force on UFOs. After viewing the pictures, the bearded, bespectacled Dr. Hynek made several important points at a news conference in Detroit.
"The striking thing to me is the similarity these pictures have to other photos t have seen. Also to the verbal descriptions taken from ostensibly reliable people. To the best of my recollection, even the antenna shown on the tail has been previously reported. Being a Polaroid print offers less chance for darkroom chicanery. Adding to the credibility is the, fact that a series of pictures were taken, rather than just one shot."
Dr. Hynek went on to say that "in all honesty, at this moment, I have no knowledge of whether the pictures are authentic, but I cannot call them a hoax. Most of the pictures we get require just one look to say they are a hoax, but this case is a little different. If it's a hoax, it will be a little more difficult to establish."
An assistant to Dr. Hynek at Northwestern University, Dr. William T. Powers, said that "right now we can't even say how big the Thing was. It may have been anything from three inches to five feet wide that was on front of the Jaroslaw brothers' camera." Dr. Powers explained that the opaqueness or resistance to light in various parts of the negatives, and the relation to various sites in the background, would have to be examined.