Stephen Pratt's Conisbrough "three saucers" photograph

Conanby was a 1920s estate of about 400 houses, built for the families of Denaby miners in Conisbrough, near Doncaster. The Pratt family lived at 11 Leslie Avenue. Stephen C. Pratt was 14, a pupil at Conisbrough North school.

Monday, 28 March 1966. Evening. "It was about 9 PM when I saw them," Stephen told the South Yorkshire Times. Three orange lights in the sky. "I thought at first they were the lights of a plane, but they were too far apart and they were travelling very slowly over Conanby."

His father, Walter Pratt, watched too. "Two of the three objects moved further away, but one remained stationary, quite close, for about 10 minutes. It was glowing and it appeared to be circular, like a tyre, with a dome shape in the centre." His mother, Teresa, and his brother Kevin, aged 10, were also named as witnesses.

Stephen took a photograph outside his home with a cheap camera. "I took the photograph, although I didn't think it would turn out." He watched for about 40 minutes. Then the lights disappeared in the direction of Rotherham and Sheffield. The print showed three dark objects, roughly oval, apparently hanging in the sky over the Conanby estate.

No one on the estate outside the Pratt family reported seeing it. By August, Stephen was a trainee miner at Cadeby Colliery and the British UFO Research Association, BUFORA, had scrutinised his photos. He was invited to its conference in Bradford on 10 September. "I still believe the three objects I saw were genuine flying saucers and not just a trick of the light."

In December a wire story carried the picture as far as the Edmonton Journal in Canada. BUFORA chairman Dr Geoffrey Doel had studied it for six months. His verdict: probably genuine. "It is most unlikely that 15-year-old Stephen, using a cheap camera, could have made a fake negative like this."

The family's later account, kept by Conisbrough & Denaby Main Local History, tells it differently. Stephen and his mother were returning home from a fish and chip shop. Teresa noticed a strange orange light. It became stationary. Stephen used the family's Kodak Instamatic 50, set for cloudy. Only one object was seen, this version says, yet the negative showed three UFOs in formation. It adds that a six-month examination, including analysis by Kodak, found the photograph genuine. No Kodak report has been traced.

In 2012 the FOTOCAT project of V.J. Ballester Olmos published a review by John R. English of NARCAP. He worked from digital copies of the negatives and prints, with background from David Clarke. Several researchers had already voiced doubts. English concluded it was "a highly probable hoaxed photo." A Mary Evans Picture Library caption reportedly says it "proved to be a fake", but that wording could not be checked. No confession, retraction or demonstrated method has ever surfaced.

The closest parallel is the Alex Birch photograph, taken at Mosborough near Sheffield in 1962. Another South Yorkshire teenager. Another fleet of saucers. Birch confessed in 1972, then recanted in 1998. Stephen Pratt never confessed at all. His family stands by the account and the photograph to this day.