The Cote Photo Comes to Apple TV September 4 - 55th Anniversary of the Most Credible UFO Photograph

The Cote Photo traces the most credible UFO photograph ever taken, with the cartographer speaking on camera.

DETROIT, MI, UNITED STATES, September 3, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Fifty-five years ago, on the morning of September 4, 1971, a government aircraft carrying cartographer Sergio Loaiza passed over Lago de Cote in northern Costa Rica. The mapping camera in the belly of the plane captured an image on the official aerial survey film. Between frames 299 and 301, there is a photograph of a metallic, disc-shaped object that has never been explained.

That single frame became the centerpiece of decades of scientific inquiry, two peer-reviewed papers in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, and a quiet, persistent question: what was photographed above Lake Cote that morning?

The Cote Photo, a documentary from filmmaker Megan Woomer and director Adam Pillon, releases September 4, 2026 on major streaming platforms. The film follows Esteban Carranza, a Costa Rican attorney and UAP researcher, as he traces the photograph from the national archive in San Jose to the mountains surrounding the lake.

Carranza spent years earning the trust of Sergio Loaiza, the cartographer who shot the original film. Now 83, Loaiza speaks on camera in depth for the first time about what he saw, or did not see, from the aircraft that morning.

What makes the Cote Photo different is the provenance. This is not a screenshot from a phone. It is not a story passed down through secondhand witnesses. It is an official government photograph with an unbroken chain of custody in the national archive. It was analyzed by Dr. Jacques Vallée and Dr. Richard Haines, formerly of NASA Ames, who published two peer-reviewed papers on the image. The object was photographed from above, which rules out most conventional explanations. No Photoshop. No drones. No AI. The image exists on the original film.

The Cote Photo runs 76 minutes and will be available in English and Spanish across 80+ countries, including France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Japan, and Latin America.

Michael Moriarty
Pursuing X
+1 623-341-3931
michael@pursuingx.com

The Cote Photo (official trailer)