Were the pictures made back in the 1970's and before capable of being manipulated? I do not know much about the available technology back then but I do know that computers and such things as this were not available for the use of the public. At least I believe it wasn't at the publics disposal. There were others things people could do but I cannot think of a way they could create almost perfect pictures with the technology they had. This applies to only the fairly good ones that noticably could not be manipulated like they were. Does this mean those picture of UFO's or even perhaps the vague pictures of extraterrestrials are real?

There are many types of special effects and "trick" photography that has been in use since as early as the 1850's. Double exposure, over-exposure (very easy in the days of manual shudders), and intentional light refractions being among the most common...

There are also tricks that can be done during the developing process, such as burning, dodging, and exposing photopaper to two negatives, which is also a type of double exposure. You'd be surprised at how crafty some pre-computer hoaxers were. Hope that answers your question

Let's see how many I can come up with:
Pre Processing film; double exposure, multiple exposures, fogging film, filters, back ground projector, fast shutter "freeze an image", Slow shutter "blur moving subject or adding ghost effect if subject stands still then moves of the frame while shutter is open, over exposure, under exposure, lighting, shadows, diffusing, out of focas, dust,

Processing film; fogging, weak chemicals, strong chemicals, toners, to much aggitation, to little aggitation. temp, using color chemicals for black and white film, using black and white chemicals for color film, cross processing,

Printing; sandwiching negatives, filters, multiple enlargers used on one sheet of paper, solarizing, burning, dodging, under exposure, over exposure, diffusing, toners, not fixing the paper long enough. scratching the emultion, out of focas enlarger, dust,

You can do almost all of the same stuff that computers can do in the darkroom but it takes a hell of a lot longer.

I didn't know it could turn out so well. I have hard a lot of those tricks come out terrible and therefore are instantly labeled fakes. I have seen pictures from the past that don't look so bad. I guess it takes a fairly good photographer to pull it off.