GULF BREEZE

Opening

On 11 November 1987, Ed Walters, a building contractor in Gulf Breeze, Florida, across the bay from Pensacola, said he saw a glowing, structured craft hovering near his house and took five Polaroid photographs of it.

Over the next six months he reported 19 more sightings and encounters, took dozens more photographs and some video, and said he had been frozen and lifted by a blue beam and contacted by small beings. Other people in the area reported lights. Walters's pictures were published, then a book, and then, in 1990, the new owners of his old house found a model UFO in the attic.

Timeline

11 November 1987Walters takes his first five Polaroids of a craft hovering about 200 feet up, which he says looked "right out of a Spielberg movie". He sends them anonymously, as "Mr. Ed", to the local weekly, the Gulf Breeze Sentinel, which publishes them.

November 1987 to May 1988He reports 19 encounters, including being immobilised by a blue beam, being lifted off the ground, photographing the craft landing on Soundside Drive, and beings who spoke to him by telepathy in English and Spanish and showed him a book of pictures of dogs. Other residents report sightings during the same months.

1 May 1988Walters's last reported encounter, in a local park, where he says he lost about an hour and the object left a liquid residue behind.

1989Pensacola News Journal reporter Craig Myers criticises the Sentinel's original coverage as uncritical and sensationalist.

1988The Center for UFO Studies says the photos are fake, pointing to unevenly spaced windows on the craft and signs some were taken near or reflected in water. MUFON's international director, Walter Andrus, calls Gulf Breeze "the best case we've ever had".

1990The Gulf Breeze Sightings is published, with a reported $200,000 advance. ABC is reported to offer $450,000 for miniseries rights.

March 1990Florida governor Bob Martinez pardons Walters for 1967 convictions for forgery and car theft, for which he had served 18 months.

10 June 1990The Pensacola News Journal reports that the new owner of Walters's former home found a model in the attic: four foam plates and some drafting paper. The paper's photographers use it to closely reproduce some of Walters's pictures. The drafting paper carries plans in Walters's handwriting for houses on Jamestown Drive, where he had worked. Walters says the model was planted.

1990 and afterA friend, Tommy Smith, says he saw Walters fake UFO photographs. Walters and MUFON's leadership deny it. MUFON investigators Rex and Carol Salisberry, reopening the case, conclude that at least some photographs were faked.

Key figures

Ed Walters took every photograph and reported every encounter. He has always said they were genuine.

Walter Andrus and Florida MUFON director Donald Ware were the case's strongest institutional backers. Optical physicist Bruce Maccabee analysed the Polaroids and thought there was a good chance they were real.

Craig Myers of the Pensacola News Journal reported the model. Tommy Smith and the Salisberrys made the strongest cases against Walters.

Physical and documentary trail

The sources: dozens of Polaroids and a videotape, all from Walters; the CUFOS critique; MUFON's reports; the attic model and the News Journal's reproductions; Smith's statements; and the Salisberrys' report.

Still missing: a single photograph of the craft taken by anyone else, and a confession.

Things you might not know

• The aliens showed him dogs. Walters said the beings held up a book with pictures of dogs. He never learned why.
• The model was made of dinner plates. Four foam plates and drafting paper, about nine inches across.
• The model came with house plans. The drafting paper had his handwritten plans for houses on Jamestown Drive.
• He signed his first photos "Mr. Ed". Like the TV horse.
• The pardon came first. Walters was pardoned for his 1967 convictions in March 1990, three months before the model story broke.
• The divorce split $2.5 million. When Walters and his wife divorced in 1992, they divided about $2.5 million in assets.

Competing explanations

A hoax. A single photographer, a model in his attic that reproduces his pictures, plans in his handwriting, a friend who says he saw the fakery, and investigators from both major UFO groups who concluded the photos were faked.

Real sightings and a planted model. Walters's view, and the view of his supporters at MUFON. Maccabee found the model didn't match every photograph exactly. Nobody has shown who would have planted it, or how they would have had Walters's house plans.

A real flap, a fake set of photos. Other residents saw lights during the same months. Their sightings don't depend on Walters's Polaroids.

Later life of the case

Gulf Breeze split American ufology: CUFOS against, MUFON for, and then MUFON's own investigators against. Reports of lights over the area carried on into the early 1990s.

Finding

The evidence points strongly to a hoax: every photo comes from one man, and a model that reproduces his photos was found in his old attic with his handwriting on it. Walters has never admitted it, and some people in Gulf Breeze did see lights that winter that the model can't explain.

What still will not resolve: what the other witnesses in Gulf Breeze saw in 1987 and 1988, separate from Ed Walters's pictures.