Lago Cote

I guess the only minor pushback, it was like a funny story.

We were actually going to film at Lake Cote.

And on the way, it's not that we got a flat tire.

The tire was absolutely destroyed.

There's hotels.

There's a lot of visitation.

But Lake Cote, to get from Arenal to Lake Cote is a 45-minute drive.

And not that many folks that are visiting tourism in Arenal, they even know that Lake Cote might be a place that they can visit.

It's called the Cote UFO photo.

It was taken right over Lake Cote in Costa Rica.

And it's just an amazing image, as you can see here.

A lot of people have tried to debunk it, but it's passed the test of all these different things that could explain it.

For that part, German government had donated a very precise camera and the functionality of that camera is further exploring the documentary as to why it has so much precision.

So they were flying over Lake Arenal, Lake Cote, surroundings, taking pictures and That's it.

They went back home.

They didn't see anything.

Every 13 seconds, the camera will snap a shot.

So when you see that picture, the picture has an immense size, has a lot of ground covered in just one picture.

So a few years later, The Costa Rican government was examining the pictures to determine whether Lake Cote could be used for flooding the nearby Lake Arenal for an electrical project.

And when they were reviewing the pictures, again, that's when the same cartographer, Sergio Loaiza, was checking the pictures and they were like, what is this thing that appears in this picture? Because you had picture 299, nothing.

Um, we're- today we're gonna be talking about a very famous photo of a UFO that was taken at 8:25 AM on the morning of September 4th, 1971.

A Costa Rican government mapping plane was flying over Lake Cote at a recorded altitude of 10,000 feet.

It's...

The camera that was used was a Zeiss RMK 1523, built for, specifically built for aerial photography.

And really, that's kind of, uh, the ethos of, of the people there, like, spend time being connected to the Earth and natural things and spending time with family.

And, uh, which is a little different for me, being, uh, you know, living in the States and always feeling like I have, you know, the next thing I have to do just to keep up.

And, like, there, there's a different pace and energy in, in Lake Cote.

Now, before you saw or were aware of the Cote photo, uh, I have a double question here.

[mysterious music] Welcome to the UFOs and Aliens podcast.

In 1971, a Costa Rican hydrographic survey team captured an uncanny disc-shaped object hovering over Lake Cote, now a staple of UFO lore.

And today we unpack the evidence, explanations, and lingering mysteries.

What's intriguing about the Lake Cote photo is that it was captured not by a hobbyist or an enthusiast, but by a state-run hydrographic survey team flying over a Costa Rican lake in 1971 using a large format camera mounted on a fixed wing aircraft.

The National Geographic Institute of Costa Rica operated the plane, and its camera was set to expose a frame every thirteen seconds as part of a systematic mapping program aimed at producing topographic data for future development plans.

Because the camera triggered automatically, any object in the field of view at that moment, regardless of whether an observer on board noticed it, would be recorded with no opportunity for human interference or post-flight editing before capture.

A glance at the same series of negatives reveals frames two hundred and nine and three hundred and one.

One with ordinary sky over water, the next where the disc-shaped object disappears without a trace.

Welcome to the UFOs and Aliens podcast.

In this episode, we investigate the baffling Lake Cote photograph from nineteen seventy-one, where a metallic disk appears hovering over a crater lake in Costa Rica.

Now let's examine the evidence, testimony, and competing explanations behind today's case.

The Lake Cote photograph is one of those images that has floated between skepticism and intrigue for more than half a century.

It was taken on September four, nineteen seventy-one by an unmanned cartographic camera flying over the crater lake in northern Costa Rica.

That day, the National Geographic Institute of Costa Rica launched an automated survey to map the lake's bathymetry and surrounding terrain.

An alternative hypothesis proposes that the disk is actually a boat, but its dimensions and angle relative to the lake surface don't align with any known vessels.

Consider the possibility of an underwater glider floating above.

Actually, one that I was not familiar with prior to about a month ago, so that's kind of cool because through this I get to learn about something new.

Uh, new to me, maybe new to you, certainly new to my audience, is the September 4th, 1971 incident in which a Costa Rican government mapping plane photographed a metallic disk over Lage- Lago Cote, which is, uh, Lake Cote.

Uh, the cartographer on board, Sergio, uh, Loaiza, uh, didn't really know what he had captured until later on.

The image was cataloged, uh, into the National Archives that day, and has stayed there ever since.