11 November 1987 onward; model controversy public in June 1990 / T162
Gulf Breeze and the Ed Walters photographs
Gulf Breeze, Florida
Witness account
Beginning with photographs dated 11 November 1987, Ed Walters supplied a series of images and encounter accounts that drew attention to Gulf Breeze. Local sightings by other residents became part of a wider wave. Some investigators endorsed Walters’s pictures, and the case generated books and extensive media coverage.
Public record
A contemporary May 1990 newspaper feature documents the competing views while the photographs were still being promoted. On 10 June, the Pensacola News Journal reported a model UFO found in Walters’s former home; additional testimony then alleged photographic fabrication. Walters denied making fraudulent pictures and maintained that the model had been planted.