In 1971 a Costa Rican government mapping aircraft photographing the ground at altitude captured a large disc-shaped object over Lake Cote. No one aboard reported seeing it. This is the record of a photograph and its analysis, not a verdict on what it shows.
In 1971, an aircraft operated by Costa Rica's national geographic institute was flying a mapping survey over the north of the country, photographing the ground automatically at fixed intervals from around 10,000 feet. One frame, taken over Lake Cote, captured a large, symmetrical disc-shaped object below the aircraft, reported elsewhere as roughly 200 feet across. No one aboard reported seeing anything at the time; the object was found only later, on the developed film.
The photograph is the centre of the case. Because it came from a routine government survey with a calibrated camera and a documented flight, rather than a hand-held snapshot, it has been treated as one of the more serious photographic UFO cases. The original 9-by-9-inch negative was examined by researchers named across the tellings as Haines and Vallee, appearing genuine to them, though one telling renders the second name as "Dr Ville" rather than Vallee, a discrepancy the file does not resolve. Separately, one telling reports that locals described a disc operating around and below the lake surface, a claim that sits alongside the photograph rather than inside it. The archive resolves a single claimant, Sergio Loaiza, attached across three tellings; the record does not spell out his part in the case beyond that.
Lake Cote grades L2, multiple channels but the same witness. Three channels carry the case, yet all three tie back to Loaiza rather than to three independent people, which is why it does not reach the independent-witness tier despite the spread of coverage. There are no documents in the file to lift it further. What the record holds is a government survey photograph, examined and not dismissed, with a single named claimant behind its retelling. What the disc is remains open.
Everything this file draws on, in the open — reports, not reality. Check us.
Each opens the source video at the exact moment this case is covered.
CASE FILES STATE THE RECORD AS OUR ARCHIVE HOLDS IT — FACTS, NOT OPINION. REPORTS, NOT REALITY.
