HISTORICAL

McMinnville UFO photographs — Farmer Paul Trent photographed a metallic disc over his farm in Oregon. The two surviving images were analyzed by Project Blue Book and the Condon Committee, with no definitive explanation.

On the late afternoon of May 11, 1950, an Oregon farmer's wife, Evelyn Trent, called her husband Paul out of the house to see a metallic disc gliding silently over their farm near McMinnville. Paul took two black-and-white photographs of the object — the so-called "Trent photographs" — which became among the most-analysed and least-resolvable UFO photographs in the modern era. 【Background】 The Trent farm sat outside the small town of McMinnville, Oregon, about an hour southwest of Portland. Paul was a farmer; Evelyn raised rabbits at the back of the property. The late afternoon of May 11 was clear and breezy. 【The Encounter】 Evelyn was outside feeding rabbits when she saw a metallic, disc-shaped object gliding slowly from the northeast across the property. She called Paul, who emerged with the family's Roamer I roll-film camera. Paul took two photographs from different angles before the object accelerated away to the west. Neither Paul nor Evelyn sought publicity; the local McMinnville Telephone-Register newspaper learned of the photographs from the Trents' banker. 【Investigation】 The original prints were lent to Life magazine, which published them in 1950. The case was studied by the University of Colorado UFO Project in 1968 and analysed in detail by physicist William K. Hartmann, who concluded that the photographs "appear to represent an extraordinary flight by a disc-like object of high reflectivity, sharp definition, and substantial size" not explainable by known natural phenomena or as a deliberate hoax. Subsequent re-examinations have proposed that the disc may have been a small object (such as a side-view mirror) hung from overhead wires. 【Modern Assessment】 The Trent photographs are commonly listed among the most credible UFO photographs ever taken. The Trents lived modestly, never profited from the case, and maintained the same simple account until their deaths. Skeptical reanalyses centring on shadow geometry remain contested by independent reviewers. McMinnville now hosts an annual UFO festival every May. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_McMinnville_UFO_photographs

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Source: Wikipedia