One of the McMinnville UFO photographs. Skeptics have concluded that the UFO was a small model suspended by wires or string from the power lines visible at the top of the photo.
The McMinnville UFO photographs were taken on a farm near McMinnville, Oregon, United States, in 1950. The photos were reprinted in Life magazine and in newspapers across the United States, and are often considered to be among the most famous ever taken of an alleged UFO.[1] Experts have concluded that the photos are a hoax, but many conspiracy theorists continue to argue that the photos are genuine, and show an unidentified object in the sky.[2]
For some ufologists, the photographs depict a metallic-looking artifact, discoidal in shape, several tens of meters in diameter, located about a kilometer from the lens and moving across the sky from northeast to west, as Trent recounted in his story.
All scientists who have examined the prints and negatives agree that they have not been falsified or retouched, and all scientific studies and analyses have concluded that the photographs show a scale model or similar object, of small size, suspended from an overhead power line close to the lens. The most recent analyses highlight the existence, with an extremely high probability, of a suspension thread.
Until his death in 1998, Paul Trent always defended the sincerity of his account. His testimony is confirmed by Evelyn, his wife, who was present at his side at the time.
A festival dedicated to UFOs was created in McMinnville in 1999. After that of Roswell, it is the most attended in the United States.
Although these images have become known as the "McMinnville UFO Photographs", Paul and Evelyn Trent's farm was actually just outside Sheridan, Oregon, approximately 13 miles (21km) southwest of McMinnville, which was the nearest larger town.[3]
According to astronomer William K. Hartmann's account, on 11 May 1950 at 7:30p.m., Evelyn Trent was walking back to her house after feeding caged rabbits on her farm. Before reaching the house she claimed to see a slow-moving, metallic disk-shaped object approaching her from the northeast.[3] She yelled for her husband, Paul Trent, who was inside the house; upon leaving the house, he claimed to have also seen the object. After a short time, he went back inside their home to obtain a camera already loaded with film; he said he managed to take two photos of the object before it sped away to the west. Paul Trent's father claimed he briefly viewed the object before it flew away.[3]
Hartmann's version of the incident traces back to an interview the Trents gave to Lou Gillette, of radio station KMCM (later KLYC) in McMinnville and quoted in The Oregonian newspaper on 10 June 1950; however, two days earlier on 8 June, the Trents had given a slightly different version of the incident to the McMinnville newspaper, the Telephone Register. In that version, Evelyn Trent stated "We'd been out in the back yard. Both of us saw the object at the same time. The camera! Paul thought it was in the car but I was sure it was in the house. I was right—and the Kodak was loaded with film..."[4]
Initial publicity
The roll of film in the Trent's camera was not entirely used up, so the film was not developed until the remaining frames were used in shooting family photographs for Mother's Day.[5][1]
In a 1997 interview, the Trents claimed that they initially thought the object they had photographed was a secret military aircraft, and feared the "photos might bring them trouble".[1] When he mentioned his sighting and photographs to his banker, Frank Wortmann, the banker was intrigued enough to display them from his bank window in McMinnville.[3]
Powell published the story and photos on the front page of the June 8, 1950, edition of the local daily, the Telephone Register. The story and photographs were then picked up by the news agencyInternational News Service, which publicized them by distributing them nationwide. The magazine Life published, on 26 June 1950, cropped versions of the photos from the negatives as well as a portrait of Paul Trent holding his camera; the object was described as a "Chinese coolie hat". In the Life magazine of 26 June 1950, the American farmer is described as an honest person; furthermore, the magazine assures that the negatives show no signs of alteration.[6] While the original photographs are reminiscent of the style of those taken by the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s, the retouched versions following the era's standards for UFO photography present blurred shapes and a restricted horizon line partially describing the aerial trajectory without the observer being able to fully restore the scale.[7]
The story and photos were subsequently picked up by the International News Service (INS) and sent to other newspapers around the nation, thus giving them wide publicity. Life magazine published cropped versions of the photos on June 26, 1950, along with a photo of Trent and his camera.[8] The Trents had been promised that the negatives would be returned to them; however, they were not returned—Life magazine told the Trents that it had misplaced the negatives.[9]
Condon Committee investigation
In 1967, the negatives were found in the files of the United Press International (UPI), a news service which had merged with INS years earlier. The negatives were then loaned to Dr. William K. Hartmann, an astronomer who was working as an investigator for the Condon Committee, a government-funded UFO research project directed by Edward Condon and based at the University of Colorado Boulder.[3] The Trents were not immediately informed that their "lost" negatives had been found. Hartmann interviewed the Trents and was impressed by their sincerity; the Trents never received any money for their photos, and he could find no evidence that they had ever attempted to profit from them.[3]
In Hartmann's analysis, he wrote to the Condon Committee that "This is one of the few UFO reports in which all factors investigated, geometric, psychological, and physical, appear to be consistent with the assertion that an extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and evidently artificial, flew within sight of two witnesses."[3]
One reason for this conclusion was due to the photometric analysis of the images. Hartmann noted that the brightness of the underside of the object appeared to be lighter than the underside of the oil tank seen in the images. This could be due to the effects of atmospheric extinction and scattering, the same effects that make distant mountains appear "washed out" and blue. This effect suggested the objects were further from the camera than the tank, not small, local objects."[3]
Hartmann did, however, also point out the possibility that the images were manufactured. He noted that "The object appears beneath a pair of wires, as is seen in Plates 23 and 24. We may question, therefore, whether it could have been a model suspended from one of the wires. This possibility is strengthened by the observation that the object appears beneath roughly the same point in the two photos, in spite of their having been taken from two positions." and concludes "These tests do not rule out the possibility that the object was a small model suspended from the nearby wire by an unresolved thread."[3]
Hartmann also noticed a discrepancy that would later become the main point of objection for later skeptics. He noticed that the overall lighting of the image was consistent with the lighting that would be expected around sunset, but noted that "There could be a possible discrepancy in view of the fact that the UFO, the telephone pole, possibly the garage at the left, and especially the distant house gables (left of the distant barn) are illuminated from the right, or east. The house, in particular, appears to have a shadow under its roof that would suggest a daylit photo, and combined with the eastward incidence, one could argue that the photos were taken on a dull, sunlit day at, say, 10 a.m."[3]
After Hartmann concluded his investigation he returned the negatives to UPI, which then informed the Trents about them. In 1970, the Trents asked Philip Bladine, the editor of the News-Register (the successor of the Telephone-Register), to return the negatives; the Trents noted that they had never been paid for the negatives and thus wanted them back. Bladine asked UPI to return the negatives, which it did. However, for some reason, Bladine never contacted the Trents to inform them that the negatives had been returned.[9]
Ufologist analysis
In 1975, negatives from the files of the News-Register were studied by ufologist Bruce Maccabee,[10] who concluded that the photographs were not hoaxed and showed a "real, physical" object in the sky above the Trent farm.[10] According to Maccabee, his analysis was based on densitometric measurements, similar to the photometric analysis done by Hartmann. Maccabee argued that the relative position of nearby power lines and the brightness of the object's underside suggested it was a large object at some distance from the camera. Maccabee said he could find no evidence of a suspending thread or string, and rejected skeptical conclusions that the photo was staged.[11][10][12]
Hoax explanation
The wing mirror on this 1961 Ford F-100 bears a strong resemblance to the object seen in the photos. Note the slight offset of the mounting screw, which matches the offset of the "antenna" detail in the images. Similar mirrors had been used for decades on many vehicles.
In the 1980s, Philip J. Klass and Robert Sheaffer, journalists and notable skeptics, concluded that the photos were faked and that the entire event was a hoax.[5]
Their primary argument was that shadows on a garage on the left-hand side of the photos proved that the photos were taken in the morning rather than in the early evening, as the Trents had claimed. Klass and Sheaffer argued that since the Trents had apparently lied about the time the photos were taken, their entire story was thus suspect.[5] They also noted that the Trents had shown an interest in UFOs prior to their claimed sighting.[5]
Additionally, their analysis of the photos indicated that the object photographed was small and likely a model hanging from power lines visible at the top of the photos. They also believed the object may have been the detached side-view mirror of a vehicle.[5] The object has a shape that is very similar to the round mirrors that were used on Ford vehicles for decades, or similar models on almost all vehicles of the era.[13]
Additionally, Klass found several contradictions in the Trents' story of the sighting and noted that their version of the incident changed over the years. He concluded that the Trents had hoaxed the event.[5]
When Sheaffer sent his research and conclusions to William Hartmann, Hartmann withdrew the positive assessment of the case he had sent to the Condon Committee.[14]
In April 2013, three researchers with IPACO posted two studies to their website entitled "Back to McMinnville pictures" and "Evidence of a suspension thread."[15] They argued that the geometry of the photographs is most consistent with a small model with a hollow bottom hanging from a wire suspended from the power lines above. They stated that they had detected the presence of a thread above the object. They concluded that "the clear result of this study was that the McMinnville UFO was a model hanging from a thread."[16]
2013: the implementation of IPACO software
In 2013, three researchers, the Frenchmen Antoine Cousyn and François Louange and the Briton Geoff Quick, re-examined Trent's photos using IPACO software. This software, which uses military intelligence techniques, was developed specifically for the analysis and study of unidentified aerospace phenomena.[17]
First study
The scientists concluded that the geometry of the model presented in the photos was compatible with that of a small object placed near the lens and potentially suspended by a transparent thread (for example a nylon fishing line) from the power lines. These conclusions were nevertheless rejected by Bruce Maccabee, who contested the IPACO analysis and reaffirmed his previous conclusions: there was no suspension thread and the object was not a model. In 2015, Sheaffer responded to Maccabee's claims by citing the analysis of an American researcher, Jay J. Walter, who had, according to him, detected traces of a thread above the object.[18]
Sheaffer stated that the most recent analyses demonstrated that Trent's photos did not depict a UFO, acknowledging however that it would be good, to put an end to contradictory debates, for these claims to be confirmed by other researchers using high-resolution scanners from the negatives or the first published photos.[18]
Supplementary study
Photo No. 1 visualizing the suspension thread.
An improvement to a module of the IPACO software reinforced the team's conclusions; it showed that the pixels in the photo located at the potential location of this thread, and particularly near the object, appeared darker than the sky background, even if the difference was not visible to the naked eye, proof, according to the researchers, of the existence of an obstacle to light; it even allowed estimating the angle of the suspension thread relative to the vertical (on the order of ten degrees) due to the wind.
The researchers developed two other arguments in support of their thesis. In a photo taken a month later in the same place by the Life photographer, the lower power line connecting the house to the garage was in a slightly higher position at the level of the object, as if relieved of the weight of the model while the upper line had retained the same tension. Furthermore, the lines of sight of Nobbr intersected directly below the power lines or nearby: the photographed object could have been almost motionless, only subject to wind sway. Weather information, collected by Maccabee from meteorologists' archives, moreover reported the existence of a light wind blowing from the east or northeast, i.e., sensibly from left to right in the photographs, at a speed of about 4.5 metres per second (15ft/s).
Conclusions
A suspended model
The results of these two studies affirming the existence of a suspension device were detailed in November 2014 in the magazine Ufomania; Didier Gomez, responsible for the publication of this ufological quarterly, synthesized and commented on this publication.[19]
According to the authors of these works, the scale model (estimated size 12 centimetres) would be suspended 70 centimetres (28in) below the lower power line, at a distance of about 4.60 metres (15.1ft) from the lens.[20]
Obstinacy of ufologists
However, Bruce Maccabee and ufologist Brad Sparks persisted in contesting the scientific results, the method used, and the results obtained, both for the initial analysis and the supplementary study. Sparks even evoked, without the slightest proof, falsification of raw numerical data and inconsistencies in the conclusions.
Legacy
Paul and Evelyn Trent
Evelyn Trent died in 1997 and her husband Paul on 13 February 1998; they had left their farm for a retirement home in McMinnville. Until the end, they maintained the truthfulness of their account and the authenticity of their photographs[21] without ever, however, seeking to spontaneously mention this episode unless questioned. They did not seek any publicity around this event and showed no particular interest in ufology in general. According to Popular Mechanics magazine, in an article published in July 1998, despite the in-depth analysis by skeptics, they had found nothing to cast doubt on the Trents' integrity nor any financial interest for them in fabricating fake UFO photos.[22]
Photographs that generated much ink
The McMinnville photographs are undoubtedly the first of their kind to have been studied so thoroughly and to have sparked such controversies in the scientific community. In the 21st centuryth century, the debate about their interpretation is not closed; proponents and opponents of the unidentified flying object thesis continue to produce contradictory studies.[21] Some even go further by reinterpreting already completed works; thus in 2021 Warren Agius, in his book Evidence of Extraterrestrials, claimed that the McMinnville object was indeed an interplanetary flying object;[23] he only cited sources favorable to this thesis (the Condon Report but especially Bruce Maccabee). Yet these certainly concluded the reality of the photographed object but did not pronounce on its exact nature and the Trents themselves never put forward the hypothesis of an extraterrestrial spacecraft. In any case, the McMinnville photographs reinforced in public opinion the image of extraterrestrial vessels in the shape of "flying saucers", the figurative expression having appeared in 1947, three years before McMinnville, following the testimony of Kenneth Arnold.[24]
The Rouen flying disc photo
In March 1954 (or 1957) a UFO is reputed to have been photographed above Rouen by an anonymous pilot; no element of the setting in which it evolved is visible in the photo, which shows the object in tight framing; its shape is very similar to that observed in McMinnville.[25] An article titled Something in the sky published in July 1957 in the Royal Air Force Flying Review is the only publication mentioning this sighting. Two interpretations are given: a UFO belonging to the same "family", or a fake reusing the Nobbr from McMinnville cropped and distorted.[26]
Several decades after the events, the McMinnville case continues to arouse public curiosity and interest, beyond scientific studies; the photos are widely reprinted and published. Thus, Time magazine devoted the cover of its 3 May 2010 edition to evoking the 60th anniversary of the photos.[27]
McMinnville UFO Festival
McMinnville UFO Festival 2018.
The interest aroused by these photographs, among the most publicized of those supposed to represent UFOs,[21] led in 1999, one year after Paul Trent's death, to a ceremony in memory of him and his wife, celebrated in a McMinnville hotel.[28]
The following year, fifty years after Trent's photos, the tribute evolved into a more organized and commercial form: the "UFO Festival", initiated by the chain of hotel and brewing establishments McMenamins, was created.[29] This festival, held over a weekend in May, grew in scale over the years; its program includes lectures, debates, and film screenings, a parade, and a costume contest, but it also welcomes sellers of UFO-related objects and McMinnville memorabilia. It became the second largest national event on this theme in the United States behind that of Roswell and attracts thousands of visitors.[28]
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