The unknown 70-year-old photos have sparked a worldwide frenzy. Who are these two?

The discovery of some 70-year-old photographs sparked a worldwide frenzy in late December 2020 to find the identity of the couple seen in the images. Leading magazines and TV stations around the world have been trying for months to unravel the mystery. Irish camera collector William Fagan stumbled across undeveloped footage when he bought a vintage Leica Illa camera. He was surprised to find that the photos on the camera were of a young woman and an older man on a road trip through Switzerland and northern Italy.

Fagan explains, “Given the ages of the couple at the time, there is a very good chance they are no longer with us. I’ve thought long and hard about whether to publish these photos, even though it’s been so long since they were taken, but there doesn’t seem to be any other option if I want to find out who they are.”

Fortunately, the developed photos provide some clues that might help identify the man and woman. Already, Fagan and his friend Mike Evans, founder of the photography and technology website Macfilos, have been able to identify the car seen in the photos as a BMW 315 convertible, manufactured in 1935–1937. In addition, they were able to confirm that the car’s license plate was issued in Munich in 1948, during the American occupation of southern Germany after World War II.

The couple apparently spent time in Zurich, Lake Como and Bellagio — a town in northern Italy. Fagan and Evans were able to examine the locations in the photos and tentatively date the mysterious road trip to May 1951. However, the couple’s identity remains a mystery.

“The two people are a woman in her 20s or maybe early 30s and a man about 10 years older,” Fagan says. As the story went viral on the Internet, the original article received hundreds of comments with varying theories about the identity of the two individuals. So far, none of the comments have led to any useful conclusions.

“So many questions remain unanswered — like why was the film never developed? Was this a borrowed camera returned to its owner? Or was the camera stolen at some point?” Fagan wonders at the end of his blog post.

At this point, Fagan and Evans are still looking for the identity of the people in the images, so if anyone has information, they can contact him at the original article — https://www.macfilos.com/2020/12/07/swiss-roll-update-on-the-70-year-old-mystery-film/