Abdoullah sends us this little blob of C#, which maybe isn't a full-on WTF, but certainly made me chuckle.

if (file!= null) { if (file.name.StartsWith(userName)) { if (file.name.StartsWith(userName)) { url = string.Format(FILE_LINK, file.itemId, file.name); break; } } }

Are you sure the file name starts with the user name? Are you really sure?

This code somehow slipped by code review, helped perhaps by the fact that the author was the senior-most team member and everyone assumed they were immune to these kinds of mistakes.

No one is immune.

[Advertisement] Utilize BuildMaster to release your software with confidence, at the pace your business demands. Download today!

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Jalopnik: Experimental submarine the Titan sank in June 2023 while exploring the wreck of the Titanic. The controversial craft imploded while deep beneath the surface of the ocean killing five people onboard, and now a recording of the Titan's final moments has been shared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. [...] In the clip, which is available to hear [here], the static sound of the ocean is shattered by a great rumble, which sounds almost like a wave crashing against the beach. It's this noise that is thought to be the total failure of the Titan, as LBC adds: "It is believed that the noise is the 'acoustic signature' of the sub imploding on 18th June 2023. It was recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration device about 900 miles from where the sub was last seen on radar, south of Newfoundland, Canada, US Coast Guard officials announced. The five crew members who died onboard the sub were British explorer sub were Hamish Harding, 58, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19, French deep-sea explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet (known as 'Mr Titanic'), 77, and and co-founder of the submarines owner's company OceanGate, Stockton Rushton, 61."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader JoeRobe writes: Scientists associated with the Kilometer Cube Neutrino Telescope, or KM3NeT, have reported detection of an ultra-high energy neutrino deep in the Mediterranean sea. The neutrino reportedly had an energy of 120 million billion electron volts (1.2x10^17 eV, or 120 PeV). This is similar to the energy of ping-pong ball traveling ~5 m/s, but all that energy was packed into a single subatomic particle. According to the New York Times, "Here, squeezed into one of the tiniest flecks of matter in our universe, that energy amounted to tens of thousands of times more than what can be achieved by the world's premier particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN." According to the authors of the Nature paper, the direction of the neutrino "is compatible with the extension of the galactic interstellar medium," but they did not find any catalogued source that would produce such a high energy neutrino, within the Milky Way or from about 40 other galaxies that could be candidates. Phys.org describes the impressive scale of the KM3NeT detector array: "It is located at 3,450 m depth, about 80 km from the coast of Portopalo di Capo Passero, Sicily. Its 700 m high detection units (DUs) are anchored to the seabed and positioned about 100 m apart. Every DU is equipped with 18 Digital Optical Modules (DOM) each containing 31 photomultipliers (PMTs). In its final configuration, ARCA will comprise 230 DUs. The data collected are transmitted via a submarine cable to the shore station at the INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud. The KM3NeT/ORCA (Oscillation Research with Cosmics in the Abyss) detector is optimized to study the fundamental properties of the neutrino itself. It is located at a depth of 2,450 m, about 40 km from the coast of Toulon, France. It will comprise 115 DUs, each 200 m high and spaced by 20 m. The data collected by ORCA are sent to the shore station at La Seyne Sur Mer." "This ultra-high energy neutrino may originate directly from a powerful cosmic accelerator," surmises Phys.org. "Alternatively, it could be the first detection of a cosmogenic neutrino. However, based on this single neutrino it is difficult to conclude its origin."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader theodp writes: Monday brought chilling news reports of the all-count trial convictions of three individuals for a conspiracy to rob and drug people outside of LGBTQ+ nightclubs in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, which led to the deaths of two of their victims. The defendants were found guilty on all 24 counts, which included murder, robbery, burglary, and conspiracy. "As proven at trial," explained the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in a press release, "the defendants lurked outside of nightclubs to exploit intoxicated individuals. They would give them drugs, laced with fentanyl, to incapacitate their victims so they could take the victims' phones and drain their online financial accounts [including unauthorized charges and transfers using Cash App, Apple Cash, Apple Pay]." District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. added, "My Office will continue to take every measure possible to protect New Yorkers from this type of criminal conduct. That includes ensuring accountability for those who commit this harm, while also working with financial companies to enhance security measures on their phone apps." In 2024, D.A. Bragg called on financial companies to better protect consumers from fraud, including: adding a second and separate password for accessing the app on a smartphone as a default security option; imposing lower default limits on the monetary amount of total daily transfers; requiring wait times of up to a day and secondary verification for large monetary transactions; better monitoring of accounts for unusual transfer activities; and asking for confirmation when suspicious transactions occur. "No longer is the smartphone itself the most lucrative target for scammers and robbers -- it's the financial apps contained within," said Bragg as he released letters (PDF) sent to the companies that own Venmo, Zelle, and Cash App. "Thousands or even tens of thousands can be drained from financial accounts in a matter of seconds with just a few taps. Without additional protections, customers' financial and physical safety is being put at risk. I hope these companies accept our request to discuss commonsense solutions to deter scammers and protect New Yorkers' hard-earned money." "Our cellphones aren't safe," warned the EFF's Cooper Quintin in a 2018 New York Times op-ed. "So why aren't we fixing them?" Any thoughts on what can and should be done with software, hardware, and procedures to stop "bank jackings"?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has released an official Apple TV app for Android phones and tablets that's now available in the Google Play Store. You can download it here. 9to5Google reports: The newest Apple app on Android has a bottom bar with Apple TV+, MLS (Major League Soccer), Downloads for offline viewing, and Search. [...] The video player takes after Apple TV on other platforms, with a portrait mode available. There are convenient shortcuts to activate picture-in-picture, which works inside the app (while browsing) and system-wide, and mute to bring up the system volume bar. Playback is smooth and more stable than other streaming services. At launch, the Apple TV app lacks Casting support and there do not appear to be new episode notifications. If you're already signed into Apple Music, you have to log in again to Apple TV. Another notable aspect is support for Google Play Billing instead of requiring out-of-app sign-up on another device. This applies to both the Google TV app (and Apple Music) today.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from People: Scarlett Johansson is urging U.S. legislators to place limits on artificial intelligence as an unauthorized, A.I.-generated video of her and other Jewish celebrities opposing Kanye West goes viral. The video, which has been circulating on social media, opens with an A.I. version of Johansson, 40, wearing a white T-shirt featuring a hand and its middle finger extended. In the center of the hand is a Star of David. The name "Kanye" is written underneath the hand. The video contains A.I.-generated versions of over a dozen other Jewish celebrities, including Drake, Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Spielberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Black, Mila Kunis and Lenny Kravitz. It ends with an A.I. Adam Sandler flipping his finger at the camera as the Jewish folk song "Hava Nagila" plays. The video ends with "Enough is Enough" and "Join the Fight Against Antisemitism." In a statement to PEOPLE, Johansson denounced what she called "the misuse of A.I., no matter what its messaging." Johansson continued: "It has been brought to my attention by family members and friends, that an A.I.-generated video featuring my likeness, in response to an antisemitic view, has been circulating online and gaining traction. I am a Jewish woman who has no tolerance for antisemitism or hate speech of any kind. But I also firmly believe that the potential for hate speech multiplied by A.I. is a far greater threat than any one person who takes accountability for it. We must call out the misuse of A.I., no matter its messaging, or we risk losing a hold on reality." "I have unfortunately been a very public victim of A.I.," she added, "but the truth is that the threat of A.I. affects each and every one of us. There is a 1000-foot wave coming regarding A.I. that several progressive countries, not including the United States, have responded to in a responsible manner. It is terrifying that the U.S. government is paralyzed when it comes to passing legislation that protects all of its citizens against the imminent dangers of A.I." The statement concluded, "I urge the U.S. government to make the passing of legislation limiting A.I. use a top priority; it is a bipartisan issue that enormously affects the immediate future of humanity at large." Johansson has been outspoken about AI technology since its rise in popularity. Last year, she called out OpenAI for using an AI personal assistant voice that the actress claims sounds uncannily similar to her own.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A BBC study published yesterday (PDF) found that AI news summarization tools frequently generate inaccurate or misleading summaries, with 51% of responses containing significant issues. The Register reports: The research focused on OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft's Copilot, Google's Gemini, and Perplexity assistants, assessing their ability to provide "accurate responses to questions about the news; and if their answers faithfully represented BBC news stories used as sources." The assistants were granted access to the BBC website for the duration of the research and asked 100 questions about the news, being prompted to draw from BBC News articles as sources where possible. Normally, these models are "blocked" from accessing the broadcaster's websites, the BBC said. Responses were reviewed by BBC journalists, "all experts in the question topics," on their accuracy, impartiality, and how well they represented BBC content. Overall: - 51 percent of all AI answers to questions about the news were judged to have significant issues of some form. - 19 percent of AI answers which cited BBC content introduced factual errors -- incorrect factual statements, numbers, and dates. - 13 percent of the quotes sourced from BBC articles were either altered from the original source or not present in the article cited. But which chatbot performed worst? "34 percent of Gemini, 27 percent of Copilot, 17 percent of Perplexity, and 15 percent of ChatGPT responses were judged to have significant issues with how they represented the BBC content used as a source," the Beeb reported. "The most common problems were factual inaccuracies, sourcing, and missing context." [...] In an accompanying blog post, BBC News and Current Affairs CEO Deborah Turness wrote: "The price of AI's extraordinary benefits must not be a world where people searching for answers are served distorted, defective content that presents itself as fact. In what can feel like a chaotic world, it surely cannot be right that consumers seeking clarity are met with yet more confusion. "It's not hard to see how quickly AI's distortion could undermine people's already fragile faith in facts and verified information. We live in troubled times, and how long will it be before an AI-distorted headline causes significant real world harm? The companies developing Gen AI tools are playing with fire." Training cutoff dates for various models certainly don't help, yet the research lays bare the weaknesses of generative AI in summarizing content. Even with direct access to the information they are being asked about, these assistants still regularly pull "facts" from thin air.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OpenAI has canceled the release of o3 in favor of a "simplified" product lineup. CEO Sam Altman said in a post on X that, in the coming months, OpenAI will release a model called GPT-5 that "integrates a lot of [OpenAI's] technology," including o3. TechCrunch reports: The company originally said in December that it planned to launch o3 sometime early this year. Just a few weeks ago, Kevin Weil, OpenAI's chief product officer, said in an interview that o3 was on track for a "February-March" launch. "We want to do a better job of sharing our intended roadmap, and a much better job simplifying our product offerings," Altman wrote in the post. "We want AI to 'just work' for you; we realize how complicated our model and product offerings have gotten. We hate the model picker [in ChatGPT] as much as you do and want to return to magic unified intelligence." Altman also announced that OpenAI plans to offer unlimited chat access to GPT-5 at the "standard intelligence setting," subject to "abuse thresholds," once the model is generally available. (Altman declined to provide more detail on what this setting -- and these abuse thresholds -- entail.) Subscribers to ChatGPT Plus will be able to run GPT-5 at a "higher level of intelligence," Altman said, while ChatGPT Pro subscribers will be able to run GPT-5 at an "even higher level of intelligence." "These models will incorporate voice, canvas, search, deep research, and more," Altman said, referring to a range of features OpenAI has launched in ChatGPT over the past few months. "[A] top goal for us is to unify [our] models by creating systems that can use all our tools, know when to think for a long time or not, and generally be useful for a very wide range of tasks." Before GPT-5 launches, OpenAI plans to release its GPT-4.5 model, code-named "Orion," in the next several weeks, according to Altman's post on X. Altman says this will be the company's last "non-chain-of-thought model." Unlike o3 and OpenAI's other so-called reasoning models, non-chain-of-thought models tend to be less reliable in domains like math and physics.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last night, Apple posted a new support document about migrating purchases between accounts, something that Apple users with long online histories have been waiting on for years, if not decades. If you have movies, music, or apps orphaned on various iTools/.Mac/MobileMe/iTunes accounts that preceded what you're using now, you can start the fairly involved process of moving them over. "You can choose to migrate apps, music, and other content you've purchased from Apple on a secondary Apple Account to a primary Apple Account," the document reads, suggesting that people might have older accounts tied primarily to just certain movies, music, or other purchases that they can now bring forward to their primary, device-linked account. The process takes place on an iPhone or iPad inside the Settings app, in the "Media & Purchases" section in your named account section. There are a few hitches to note. You can't migrate purchases from or into a child's account that exists inside Family Sharing. You can only migrate purchases to an account once a year. There are some complications if you have music libraries on both accounts and also if you have never used the primary account for purchases or downloads. And migration is not available in the EU, UK, or India. The process is also one direction, so you have to give some real thought to which account is your "primary" account going forward. If you goof it up, you can undo the migration. "The list of things you need to do on both the primary and secondary accounts to enable this migration is almost comically long and detailed: two-factor authentication must be turned on, there can be no purchases or rentals in the last 15 days, payment methods must be updated, and so on," notes Ars' Kevin Purdy.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Oracle co-founder and chairman Larry Ellison said governments should consolidate all national data for consumption by AI models, calling this step the "missing link" for them to take full advantage of the technology. From a report: Fragmented sets of data about a population's health, agriculture, infrastructure, procurement and borders should be unified into a single, secure database that can be accessed by AI models, Ellison said in an on-stage interview with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the World Government Summit in Dubai. Countries with rich population data sets, such as the UK and United Arab Emirates, could cut costs and improve public services, particularly health care, with this approach, Ellison said. Upgrading government digital infrastructure could also help identify wastage and fraud, Ellison said. IT systems used by the US government are so primitive that it makes it difficult to identify "vast amounts of fraud," he added, pointing to efforts by Elon Musk's team at the Department of Government Efficiency to weed it out.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Property group startup Opendoor has cut 65 jobs, mostly in India, and is shifting technical hiring to Bay Area and Krakow (Poland). Opendoor said in a statement: "As part of our ongoing efforts to enhance efficiency, optimize talent, and streamline operations, we have made the decision to consolidate our Engineering, Product, and Design (EPD) team structure. Moving forward, we will focus our technical hiring efforts in two main hubs: the Bay Area, California and Krakow, Poland."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google will soon use machine learning to estimate the age of its users. From a report: In an update on Wednesday, Google said it's testing a machine learning model in the US to help determine whether someone is under 18, allowing it to "provide more age-appropriate experiences" across its platforms. The age estimation model will use existing data about users, including the sites they visit, what kinds of videos they watch on YouTube, and how long they've had an account to determine their age.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Most corporate tech leaders are hesitant to deploy AI agents despite vendors' push for rapid adoption, according to a Wall Street Journal CIO Network Summit poll on Tuesday. While 61% of attendees at the Menlo Park summit said they are experimenting with AI agents, which perform automated tasks, 21% reported no usage at all. Reliability concerns and cybersecurity risks remain key barriers, with 29% citing data privacy as their primary concern. OpenAI, Microsoft and Sierra are urging businesses not to wait for the technology to be perfected. "Accept that it is imperfect," said Bret Taylor, Sierra CEO and OpenAI chairman. "Rather than say, 'Will AI do something wrong', say, 'When it does something wrong, what are the operational mitigations that we've put in place?'" Three-quarters of the polled executives said AI currently delivers minimal value for their investments. Some companies are "having hammers looking for nails," said Jim Siders, Palantir's chief information officer, describing firms that purchase AI solutions before identifying clear use cases.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Children working in India's fruit and vegetable markets can perform complex mental calculations with ease, yet struggle with basic written math tests that determine their academic future, according to new research that raises troubling questions about mathematics education worldwide. The study, published in Nature, reveals how traditional education systems are failing to tap into the mathematical talents of students who develop practical skills outside the classroom, particularly those from lower-income families. MIT economist Abhijit Banerjee, who grew up watching young market vendors deftly handle complicated transactions, led the research. His team found that while these children could rapidly perform mental arithmetic, they performed poorly on standard written assessments like long division problems. The findings come at a critical moment when mathematics education must evolve to meet modern demands, incorporating data literacy and computational skills alongside traditional mathematics. The research points to systemic issues, including a global shortage of trained mathematics teachers and assessment systems that reward memorization over reasoning. Without addressing these challenges, researchers warn, naturally talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds may never reach their potential in fields like research, entrepreneurship, or teaching.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple is developing robots for its smart home ecosystem, though mass production is unlikely to begin before 2028, according to widely reliable TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The project remains in early proof-of-concept testing, with Apple exploring both humanoid and non-humanoid designs, he wrote in a post on X. The company is focusing on how users interact with robots rather than their physical appearance, prioritizing sensing hardware and software as core technologies, Kuo said. The tech giant has taken an unusual approach by publicly sharing some of its robotics research during this early stage, possibly to recruit talent, the analyst noted. The proof-of-concept phase, which precedes formal product development, serves as Apple's testing ground for product ideas and core technologies. Apple's foldable phone project is also currently in the proof-of-concept phase, he said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Google has fixed two vulnerabilities that, when chained together, could expose the email addresses of YouTube accounts, causing a massive privacy breach for those using the site anonymously. The flaws were discovered by security researchers Brutecat (brutecat.com) and Nathan (schizo.org), who found that YouTube and Pixel Recorder APIs could be used to obtain user's Google Gaia IDs and convert them into their email addresses. The ability to convert a YouTube channel into an owner's email address is a significant privacy risk to content creators, whistleblowers, and activists relying on being anonymous online.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Former Google chief Eric Schmidt has warned that western countries need to focus on building open-source AI models or risk losing out to China in the global race to develop the cutting-edge technology. From a report: The warning comes after Chinese startup DeepSeek shocked the world last month with the launch of R1, its powerful-reasoning open large language model, which was built in a more efficient way than its US rivals such as OpenAI. Schmidt, who has become a significant tech investor and philanthropist, said the majority of the top US LLMs are closed -- meaning not freely accessible to all -- which includes Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's GPT-4, with the exception being Meta's Llama. "If we don't do something about that, China will ultimately become the open-source leader and the rest of the world will become closed-source," Schmidt told the Financial Times. The billionaire said a failure to invest in open-source technologies would prevent scientific discovery from happening in western universities, which might not be able to afford costly closed models.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Popular Science: In 2021, NASCAR unveiled its Next Gen platform that included a number of rule changes from the previous iteration. Now fully symmetrical and using composite body panels instead of metal, the latest NASCAR vehicles are more like the street versions of the Chevrolet Camaro, the Ford Mustang, and the Toyota TRD Camry. Race car driving isn't an inexpensive sport, and one of the goals for the Next Gen platform was to reduce operating costs and create parity across the board. Technique Chassis, the sole chassis manufacturer for the NASCAR Cup Series, builds a modular offering in three parts. As a result, everyone is starting with the same platform, and finding a competitive advantage is in the tiniest details. One smart way to differentiate from the competition is 3D-printed parts. But this isn't your hobbyist level 3D printing. Minnesota-based Stratasys specializes in "additive manufacturing," the process of creating an object by building it one layer at a time. Stratasys Senior Global Director of Automotive & Mobility Fadi Abro explains that this term is synonymous with 3D printing. However, the industry often reserves that description for hobby-level projects on smaller, non-industrial printers, while additive manufacturing represents robust industrial solutions. Additive manufacturing is the exact inverse of subtractive manufacturing, which requires cutting away at a solid chunk of material to achieve a final product. In art terms, additive manufacturing would be like sculpting with modeling clay while subtractive is akin to carving a shape from a block of marble. As it relates to NASCAR, Stratasys provides parts like ducts, covers, brackets, and tubing. Together with the racing organization, Stratasys reviews the current driver needs and makes recommendations for other parts and modifications. [...] The kind of printers Stratasys builds aren't the type you buy at your local electronics store, either. Each industrial-grade 3D printer costs anywhere from $20,000 to $600,000. Using this kind of equipment isn't without precedent, and builds at SEMA's annual extravaganza feature 3D parts we wouldn't have dreamed of a few years ago. [...] In the past few months, Stratasys has been on a roll, signing an extension to its 20-year partnership with the Joe Gibbs Racing team and earning the title of "Official 3D Printing Partner of NASCAR." Competition for this market continues to heat up, however, as there are startups and legacy companies pushing hard. Around the world, 3D printing companies abound. Stratasys has one major factor on its side: 35 years of experience. What's new is that today's printing is more accurate, it's faster, the materials are more robust, Abro says. "I think what's changed drastically over the past five to seven years has been all about material development," Abro explains. "We're seeing materials that are just incredible, whether it's how resistant to heat they are or how strong they are compared to how much they weigh." "It's better, faster, cheaper. It's faster to print something than to mill it, and then it's certainly cheaper in a multitude of different ways. Number one, there's not as much skill required for 3D printing as there is in CNC machining; you need a more traditional manufacturing method."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Eric Council Jr. pleaded guilty to identity theft and access device fraud after hijacking the SEC's X account to falsely announce Bitcoin ETF approval. He was compensated in Bitcoin by co-conspirators, and while the Justice Department continues its investigation, Council faces up to five years in prison. Gizmodo reports: According to the Justice Department, Council accessed the SEC's account using an attack called SIM swapping, in which a perpetrator uses social engineering to trick a phone carrier's customer service representatives into transferring an individual's phone number to a new device. Basically, they call into a support line and use pieces of personal information about a victim they have gathered online to convince the representative they are the person they are targeting. Once perpetrators take the number and can begin receiving text messages, they are able to reset the passwords of accounts on services like X. It is not really a "hack" in the traditional sense that they are not finding flaws in software but rather exploiting human trust. Unfortunately for individuals like Council, all Bitcoin transactions are logged on a blockchain for anyone to see, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for investigators to find. If he did make out with a lot of crypto, it would be hard to keep it hidden forever. Council allegedly did not post the message himself to the SEC's X account, but conducted the SIM swap and left the rest of the work to his co-conspirators who compensated Council in the form of, of course, Bitcoin. The price of the cryptocurrency rose by $1,000 after the fake announcement, according to the Justice Department, and fell by $2,000 after the SEC issued a correction. That could have led to a big windfall depending on how much Bitcoin the perpetrators held at the time.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In August 1990, two hikers in Scotland captured photographs of a mysterious diamond-shaped aircraft accompanied by a Harrier jet, but the images and story were suppressed by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for decades. Was it a prank, a hoax, an optical illusion or something else entirely? The Guardian's Daniel Lavelle reports on "what really happened in Calvine." Here's an excerpt: On a misty evening in August 1990, two men hiking on the moors surrounding Calvine, a pretty hamlet in Perth and Kinross, claimed to have seen a giant diamond-shaped aircraft flying above them. It apparently had no clear means of propulsion and left no smoke plume; it was silent and static, as if frozen in time. Terrified, they hit the ground and scrambled for cover behind a tree. Then a Harrier fighter jet roared into view, circling the diamond as if sizing it up for a scuffle. One of the men snapped a series of photographs just before the bizarre craft shot away vertically and disappeared. Craig Lindsay was a press officer at the RAF base in Pitreavie Castle in Dunfermline, 50 miles away, when the Daily Record got in touch a few days later. The hikers, who worked as chefs at Fisher's Hotel in Pitlochry, had sent six photos of the diamond to the newspaper and told their story. The Record's picture editor, Andy Allen, sent Lindsay the best of the bunch. Lindsay had never seen such a clear photograph of a supposed UFO, so he forwarded the picture to the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which told him to ask the Record to send the other five photographs and their negatives. The MoD also instructed him to phone the hikers, which he did. One of them told Lindsay the whole story: the diamond, the jet, how it levitated eerily with no sound and accelerated with no obvious propellant. The MoD told Lindsay to leave the case with them. He pushed the diamond to the back of his mind. That autumn, Lindsay attended a routine meeting in London. On his lunch break, he went for a wander around the MoD's offices and saw something familiar. "There, on the wall in front of me, was a great big poster-size print of the best of them [the photographs]. So, I spoke to the guys that were there and I asked them what their other photographs were like." The ministry's staff placed the other photographs on a windowsill. The snaps showed the Harrier jet moving from the right side of the frame to the left, while the diamond didn't move an inch. He quizzed some of the specialists who had investigated the photos. They told him there was no evidence of a hoax, but they didn't know what the diamond was. "I gradually forgot all about the thing," says Lindsay. "Nothing had appeared from the first inquiry ... I assumed that everything had just been forgotten." The Record didn't run the story, the hikers never spoke publicly about the photos and the images weren't seen by the public for 32 years. "It is the 35th anniversary of what has been described as the best UFO photo ever taken. Now is the time to come forward and tell us what really happened," says Prof David Clarke, a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University who worked as a reporter in the 1990s.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.