45°06′03″N 123°20′04″W / 45.10072°N 123.33439°W / 45.10072; -123.33439

The McMinnville UFO photographs were taken at a farm near McMinnville, Oregon, United States, in 1950. The photos were reprinted in Life magazine and in newspapers throughout the United States. They are often considered some of the most famous UFO photos ever taken. Experts have concluded that the photos are a hoax. However, many people who believe in conspiracies continue to argue that the photos are real and show an unidentified object in the sky.

Alleged sighting

Although these images are known as the "McMinnville UFO Photographs," Paul and Evelyn Trent's farm was actually near Sheridan, Oregon, about 13 miles (21 km) south and west of McMinnville, which was the closest larger town.

According to astronomer William K. Hartmann's account, on May 11, 1950, at 7:30 p.m., Evelyn Trent was walking home after feeding rabbits on her farm. Before reaching the house, she said she saw a shiny, disk-shaped object moving slowly toward her from the northeast. She called for her husband, Paul Trent, who was inside the house. When he came out, he also saw the object. After a short time, he went back inside to get a camera that already had film inside. He said he took two photos of the object before it moved quickly to the west. Paul Trent's father said he saw the object briefly before it flew away.

Hartmann's description of the event comes from an interview the Trents gave to Lou Gillette of the radio station KMCM (later KLYC) in McMinnville. This interview was reported in The Oregonian newspaper on June 10, 1950. However, two days earlier, on June 8, the Trents gave a slightly different account to the local newspaper, the Telephone Register. In that version, Evelyn Trent said, "We had been in the backyard. 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…"

Initial publicity

The film in the Trents' camera was not completely used, so the film was not developed until the remaining frames were used to take family photographs for Mother's Day.

In a 1997 interview, the Trents said they first believed the object they photographed was a secret military aircraft and worried the "photos might bring them trouble." When Mr. Trent shared his sighting and the photos with his banker, Frank Wortmann, the banker was interested enough to show the photos in his bank window in McMinnville.

Later, Bill Powell, a local reporter, asked Mr. Trent to let him borrow the negatives. Powell looked at the negatives and found no signs that they were altered or fake. On June 8, 1950, Powell's story about the event—along with the two photos—was published as a front-page story in the McMinnville Telephone-Register. The headline read: "At Long Last—Authentic Photographs Of Flying Saucer[?]"

The story and photos were then shared by the International News Service (INS) and sent to newspapers across the country, giving them wide attention. Life magazine published edited versions of the photos on June 26, 1950, along with a photo of Trent and his camera. The Trents were promised the negatives would be returned, but they were not. Life magazine told the Trents it had lost the negatives.

Condon Committee investigation

In 1967, the negatives were discovered in the files of United Press International (UPI), a news service that had combined with INS earlier. The negatives were then given to Dr. William K. Hartmann, an astronomer who worked as an investigator for the Condon Committee. This group studied UFOs and was led by Edward Condon at the University of Colorado Boulder. The Trents were not told right away that their "lost" negatives had been found. Hartmann spoke with the Trents and was impressed by their honesty. The Trents never received money for their photos, and Hartmann found no proof they had tried to make money from them.

In his report to the Condon Committee, Hartmann wrote, "This is one of the few UFO reports where all factors studied—such as shape, light, and physical details—seem to support the idea that an unusual object, silver and disk-like, about 30 meters wide, and likely man-made, was seen by two witnesses."

One reason for this conclusion was Hartmann's study of light in the photos. He noted that the bottom of the object appeared brighter than the bottom of an oil tank in the images. This could be because of how light is absorbed and scattered in the air, the same effect that makes distant mountains look pale and blue. This suggested the object was farther from the camera than the tank, not a small object nearby.

Hartmann also considered the possibility that the images were created. He pointed out that the object appears below two wires, as seen in other photos. This raised the question of whether the object could have been a model hanging from one of the wires. This idea was supported by the fact that the object appears in the same position in both photos, even though the photos were taken from different spots. Hartmann concluded, "These tests do not rule out the possibility that the object was a small model hanging from a nearby wire by a thin thread."

Hartmann also noticed a detail that later skeptics used to question the photos. He observed that the lighting in the images matched what would be expected during sunset. However, he noted that some objects, like a telephone pole and a house, were lit from the right side, which might suggest the photos were taken on a cloudy, sunny day around 10 a.m.

After completing his investigation, Hartmann returned the negatives to UPI, which then told the Trents about them. In 1970, the Trents asked Philip Bladine, the editor of the News-Register (a newspaper that replaced the Telephone-Register), to return the negatives. The Trents said they had never been paid for the negatives and wanted them back. Bladine asked UPI to return the negatives, which it did. However, Bladine did not inform the Trents that the negatives had been returned.

Ufologist analysis

In 1975, an expert in UFOs named Bruce Maccabee examined old photographs from the News-Register. He studied the images and concluded that they were not fake and showed a real, physical object in the sky above the Trent farm. Maccabee used special techniques to measure light and darkness in the photos, similar to methods used by another researcher named Hartmann. He explained that the position of nearby power lines and the brightness of the object's bottom suggested it was a large object far away from the camera. Maccabee found no signs of a thread or string used to hold the object in place and disagreed with people who claimed the photo was staged.

Hoax explanation

In the 1980s, Philip J. Klass and Robert Sheaffer, journalists who doubted UFO claims, concluded that the photos were fake and that the event was not real. Their main reason was that shadows on a garage in the photos showed the pictures were taken in the morning, not in the early evening as the Trents said. Klass and Sheaffer believed that if the Trents lied about the time, their whole story could not be trusted. They also noted that the Trents had shown interest in UFOs before their claimed sighting.

Klass and Sheaffer studied the photos and found that the object in the images was small and likely a model hanging from power lines seen at the top of the photos. They thought the object might be a detached side-view mirror from a car. The shape of the object was similar to the round mirrors used on Ford cars for many years or on other vehicles from that time.

Klass also found several problems in the Trents' story and noticed that their account of the event changed over time. He concluded that the Trents had faked the event.

When Sheaffer shared his research with William Hartmann, Hartmann changed his earlier positive opinion about the case and sent it to the Condon Committee.

In April 2013, three researchers from IPACO posted two studies online titled "Back to McMinnville pictures" and "Evidence of a suspension thread." They argued that the shape and angles in the photos best match a small model with a hollow bottom hanging from a wire attached to power lines above. They said they found a thread above the object and concluded that "the clear result of this study was that the McMinnville UFO was a model hanging from a thread."

Aftermath

The McMinnville UFO photos are some of the most famous in UFO history. Skeptics believe the photos are hoaxes or fakes. Ufologists say the Trent photos are real proof that UFOs exist as physical objects. Since 1950, the media has always described the Trents as ordinary farmers who never tried to make money from the photos or the attention they received. Evelyn Trent died in 1997 and Paul Trent in 1998. Both claimed until their deaths that their UFO sighting and the photos were real. The interest in the Trent UFO photos led to an annual UFO Festival in McMinnville. It is now the largest UFO event in the Pacific Northwest and the second-largest in the United States, after the one in Roswell, New Mexico.