Ralph Ditter's Zanesville Saucer Polaroids

Ralph Ditter was a barber and an amateur astronomer. He lived in Roseville, a village sources describe as a suburb of Zanesville, Ohio. His shop was in Zanesville.

November 13, 1966. At his home in Roseville, Ralph Ditter took two Polaroid pictures. He reported an exposure of 1/125th of a second at f16. The prints showed a saucer in the sky near a house. Ditter called it a flying saucer. Then he went further. It was, he said, "an object from a solar system other than our own." He put it at about 30 feet in diameter, at a considerable distance. His account implied the two shots came in quick succession.

The prints went up in his barbershop. Dr. Benjamin Gilliotte, a Zanesville physician, former Air Corps officer and NICAP member, reported them to NICAP and told the news media. On February 6, 1967, wire photos carried the barber and his saucer across the country.

NICAP judged the photos hoaxes. Its Dick Hall lent them to Dr. Everitt Merritt of Raytheon's Autometrics Division in Alexandria, Virginia. Merritt brought ground survey techniques, mathematical analysis, photogrammetry and densitometric traces to bear on two small Polaroids.

May 5, 1967. 0900. At the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center, Merritt briefed Edward Condon of the Condon Committee, with Robert Low and William K. Hartmann among those present. A later CIA history put it plainly: "The analysis debunked that sighting." Condon reportedly remarked that for the first time a scientific analysis of a UFO would stand up to investigation. The committee concluded the photos were faked.

The findings were blunt. Sequence numbers on the backs of the prints were out of step with Ditter's story. The two exposures were not seconds apart. More than an hour separated them, and the scenery had changed. The object was small, and close to the lens. Asked for clarification, Ditter did not respond.

October 23, 1971. Morning. Warren B. Nicholson and Ronald Fisher, MUFON researchers from Ohio, walked into the barbershop unannounced and showed him the technical analysis. His answer was short. "I am the one who faked them. What do you think?"

The story came out. About a year before the photos, his young daughter had asked him to photograph a UFO for her. Months later, repairing her toy wagon, he noticed its hubcaps looked like saucer pictures he had seen in men's magazines like Saga and Argosy. He wire-brushed them and photographed them for her. Customers saw the prints. The ball began rolling.

The popular account credits the Rand Corporation with finding an object 3 to 4 inches across, 3 to 4 feet from the lens, with about one hour and ten minutes between exposures. In 2016, Brad Sparks, citing the report itself, called "Rand" a mistake. The work was Raytheon's. He said it gave only upper limits: less than 2 feet across, less than 20 feet away in one photo and less than 48 feet in the other, with 1 hour 17 minutes between shots. Both versions agree on the essentials. Small. Close. Taken an hour or more apart.

The hoax finding never travelled as far as the pictures. Patrick Gross observed that most of the media did not care to tell the public. Anthony Bragalia wrote in 2010 that the photos went on to appear in countless books and magazines and on numerous websites. Yet Zanesville left its mark. The analysis impressed Condon, and he sent Merritt on to the McMinnville pictures of 1950. Hartmann left those unexplained.