A new documentary titled The Cote Photo has been released on major streaming platforms, marking the 55th anniversary of an unexplained aerial photograph taken over northern Costa Rica. The 76-minute film is directed by Adam Pillon and produced by filmmaker Megan Woomer.
The project follows Esteban Carranza, a Costa Rican attorney and researcher, as he investigates the original film preserved in the national archive in San Jose. The documentary centers on an official survey image captured on Sept. 4, 1971, over Lago de Cote by a government mapping aircraft.
During the flight, a camera mounted in the belly of the plane captured a metallic, disc-shaped object between survey frames. Cartographer Sergio Loaiza, who took the original aerial photograph, speaks on camera in depth for the first time about the flight and the resulting image.
The photograph was examined by Dr. Jacques Vallée and former NASA Ames researcher Dr. Richard Haines, who published two peer-reviewed papers on the image in the Journal of Scientific Exploration. Because the photo was taken from above the object and remains on the original film, researchers ruled out several conventional explanations.
The documentary is distributed globally in both English and Spanish across more than 80 countries. It features an unbroken chain of custody for the original film, documenting the history of the image from its capture through decades of scientific study.
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