Heysham, Lancashire, England
Incident period: 15 June 1967
A young Heysham witness reported watching a disc outside his bedroom window and taking one photograph before it rose out of sight. A contemporary interview and a photographer’s separate comments show how the case became an argument about focus, apparent size and what a blurred negative could really establish.
The view from an open window
At about 8.50 pm on Thursday 15 June 1967, eighteen-year-old Esplin noticed an object through his open bedroom window. Peter Haythornthwaite’s interview report places the house on the edge of a housing estate, looking towards fields beyond a railway line.
Esplin described a dark brown disc which first dropped slightly and then remained stationary. He thought it lay some three or four hundred yards away, above the countryside to the south-east. The object was darker than a pale sky and seemed to have a domed upper section.
The report estimates its elevation at about six degrees above the horizon. No distinctive feature in the field fixed its distance independently. The stated range was the witness’s estimate, and the apparent size was compared with roughly an inch held at arm’s length. This gave the investigators something to compare with the photographed image later.
One exposure, then a rapid ascent
The witness hurried to a drawer, took out his camera and exposed one frame without adjusting it. He thought about half a minute passed between first noticing the object and its departure. It then rose rapidly, becoming a speck after a further estimated eight seconds.
He described silence, with little nearby traffic noise to interfere, and a greenish tint as the object ascended. The dome appeared displaced to one side during the climb, although he suggested that might be an optical impression. He did not describe windows, occupants or surface detail.
The camera was a Halina using black-and-white Kodak 120 film. Because the exposure was taken in haste, the setting remained whatever had been used for the previous photograph. The report tentatively suggested an aperture around f/11 and a distance setting somewhere in the ten-to-twenty-five-foot range, while acknowledging that the setting was uncertain.
The frame the chemist did not print
A local chemist in Morecambe processed the film but apparently regarded this particular frame as unsuccessful and did not print it. Esplin subsequently sent the negative with a letter to the local Visitor newspaper, which published the image and account.
This sequence gives the case a specific photographic history: an ordinary processed roll, an initially unprinted negative, then newspaper attention. It does not establish that the processor carried out a technical examination or endorsed an unidentified craft.
According to Haythornthwaite, publicity brought forward no further witnesses. Esplin took trouble to correct details he thought the newspaper had reported inaccurately. The investigator found the account coherent and the witness sensible, but also considered whether an accidentally exposed image might have suggested a story afterwards. Both observations appear in the original discussion.
The interview’s unresolved questions
The witness worked as a cinema projectionist, a fact the interviewer considered when thinking about photographic knowledge and possible optical effects. Yet he did not appear particularly familiar with photographic technical vocabulary or film specifications. The report does not turn his occupation into proof either of expertise or of manipulation.
There is also a naming inconsistency within the printed article: its opening calls him Dennis Esplin, while the witness section gives Derek John Esplin. Keeping the surname here avoids silently choosing between those contemporary forms. It is a small example of why the original pages are useful even when the broad story seems straightforward.
The most concrete discrepancy concerned apparent size. The object extended across roughly a third of the negative. Under the interviewer’s assumption about the camera and viewfinder field, that implied approximately two inches at arm’s length, about twice the size in the witness’s verbal estimate. The discrepancy was flagged, not resolved by a measured distance to the object.
Percy Hennell’s optical assessment
The magazine printed separate comments by Percy Hennell. He thought the photograph looked consistent with the reported circumstances, while expressly declining to identify the object. His discussion concentrated on the practical optics of an unadjusted camera.
For a camera using 120 film he provisionally assumed a lens around 105 mm focal length. He worked through the implications of focusing at different near distances at f/11. An object hundreds of yards away could appear substantially out of focus if the lens had remained set for people or buildings much closer to the photographer.
Hennell suggested a practical next step: examine the preceding negative and establish the actual lens and focus setting. Those checks might show what the camera had been used for immediately before the UFO frame. His calculations were explicitly conditional on assumptions, not a completed laboratory test of known camera settings.
He also discussed how blur could alter the apparent outline in an enlargement and drew a possible underlying shape. Features he thought interesting in the darkened print remained interpretations of a soft image. They should not be turned into a photographed propulsion system or precisely resolved structural detail.
Why the original pages matter
The Heysham case brings together a short visual observation and a single negative. Haythornthwaite’s interview and Hennell’s commentary offer different kinds of information: the witness’s account on one side, and a conditional optical explanation of the image’s softness on the other.
The camera settings, size discrepancy and absence of another witness remain central questions. The contemporary discussion records them openly while taking the reported experience seriously. That makes the article more useful than a later caption simply calling the picture an authenticated saucer photograph.
The original image is linked through the source pages rather than copied here without a verified reuse licence. The case-map location is a broad Heysham reference, avoiding the precise residential address printed in the older magazine. It connects this Lancashire photographic case with the different image histories at Coniston and Calvine without assuming they share a cause.
Timeline
15 June 1967, about 8.50 pm: Esplin reports a disc seen from his bedroom and takes one frame.
After processing: the chemist does not print the frame; the negative is subsequently sent to the Visitor newspaper.
November–December 1967: Flying Saucer Review publishes Haythornthwaite’s interview and Hennell’s photographic discussion on printed pages 8–9.
Sources & further reading
Flying Saucer Review 13/6: The Heysham Sighting and Photograph — Primary interview by Peter Haythornthwaite with separate comments by Percy Hennell, printed pages 8–9.
Heysham: locality reference — Ordnance Survey Open Names-derived town location for a broad residential-case pin.
Related case files
Coniston, 1954: Stephen Darbishire’s photographs and the story behind the saucer
Calvine UFO photograph: the 1990 sighting and the surviving print
Location note: Broad Heysham town marker, protecting the residential viewpoint. It does not mark the object’s inferred position over the fields.
UKPX historical case file. Researched and checked 4 November 2026. Explore the UK case map · Links & Sources.