Are we alone? Is our planet being visited by alien beings from another world? A 2008 poll conducted by Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University shows that 56% people believe the answer to the question of whether aliens exist to be “very likely” or “somewhat likely.” When it comes to actual visitation, the percentage is lower. So how does one go about proving the existence of aliens to a skeptical world population?
Pictures. Pictures have long been lauded as the best proof of UFO/alien visitation. Ever since the first UFOs were reported in ancient art thousands of years ago, people have striven to capture them visually in one way or another, whether in artwork or on camera. The problem is, while cameras do not lie, photographers often do. Some of the greatest hoaxes in history have used photography as a basis.
The Cottingley Fairies caused quite a stir in 1919 when two girls went public with the story that they had had seen fairies in the woods, and had the photographs to prove it. While there were always skeptics, nothing could be proven until the girls, now old women, confessed to the hoax in the early 1980s. However, both still maintained that they had seen real fairies, though.
In 1934, a photo said to show the Loch Ness Monster surfaced. This picture, dubbed the “surgeon's photo,” would become the definitive image of “Nessie.” The image of a monster's long neck and head sticking above the water was, for believers, irrefutable proof of Nessie's existence for over 60 years. This changed in an instant in 1994 with a deathbed confession by one of the men involved with faking the photo. The monster turned out to be a toy submarine with a one foot long neck attached.
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