McMinnville UFO photographs facts for kids
The McMinnville UFO photographs are also known as the Trent UFO photos. A farming couple, Paul and Evelyn Trent, took these pictures near McMinnville, Oregon, United States, on May 11, 1950. The photos became very famous after being printed in Life magazine and many newspapers. Many people think they are some of the most well-known pictures ever taken of a UFO.
Some people who doubt UFOs believe these photos are a hoax, meaning they were faked. However, many ufologists (people who study UFOs) still argue that the pictures show a real, three-dimensional unidentified flying object in the sky.
Even though these pictures are called the "McMinnville UFO Photographs," the Trent farm was actually outside Sheridan, Oregon. This was about nine miles (15 km) southwest of McMinnville, which was the closest big town.
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How the Trents Saw the UFO
On May 11, 1950, at 7:30 p.m., Evelyn Trent was walking back to her farmhouse. She had just finished feeding her rabbits. Before she reached the house, she saw a slow-moving, shiny, disk-shaped object. It was coming towards her from the northeast.
She quickly called for her husband, Paul, who was inside the house. Paul said that when he came out, he also saw the object. They watched it for a short time. Then, Paul went back inside to get his camera. He said he took two photos of the object before it quickly flew away to the west. Paul Trent's father also said he saw the object for a moment before it left.
The Trents told a slightly different story to a local newspaper, the Telephone Register, on June 8, 1950. In that story, Evelyn Trent said, "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..."
How the Photos Became Famous
The Trents did not develop the film right away. There were still some unused pictures on the roll. They waited until Mother's Day, May 14, 1950, to use the rest of the film for family photos.
In an interview years later, the Trents said they first thought the object was a secret military aircraft. They were worried the photos might cause them trouble. Paul mentioned his sighting and photos to his banker, Frank Wortmann. The banker was very interested. He even displayed the photos in his bank window in McMinnville.
Soon after, a local newspaper reporter named Bill Powell heard about the photos. He convinced Mr. Trent to let him borrow the negatives. Powell looked closely at the negatives. He found no signs that they had been changed or faked.
On June 8, 1950, Powell's story and the two photos were printed on the front page of the McMinnville Telephone-Register. The headline asked: "At Long Last—Authentic Photographs Of Flying Saucer[?]"
Spreading Across the Nation
The story and photos were then picked up by a news service called the International News Service (INS). They sent the pictures to other newspapers all over the country. This made the photos very well-known.
Life magazine printed parts of the photos on June 26, 1950. They also included a photo of Paul Trent with his camera. The Trents had been promised that their negatives would be given back. However, Life magazine told them the negatives had been lost.
Government Investigation of the Photos
In 1967, the original negatives of the Trent photos were found. They were in the files of United Press International (UPI), a news service that had joined with INS. The negatives were then loaned to Dr. William K. Hartmann. He was an astronomer working for the Condon Committee. This was a government-funded project that studied UFOs at the University of Colorado Boulder.
The Trents were not told right away that their "lost" negatives had been found. Hartmann interviewed the Trents. He was impressed by how honest they seemed. The Trents never asked for money for their photos. Hartmann also could not find any proof that they wanted to be famous because of the pictures.
Hartmann's Early Thoughts
Hartmann wrote to the Condon Committee about his findings. He said, "This is one of the few UFO reports where everything seems to fit." He thought the photos showed an "extraordinary flying object, silvery, metallic, disk-shaped, tens of meters in diameter, and clearly artificial." He believed it flew in front of two witnesses.
One reason for his conclusion was how bright the object looked. Hartmann noticed that the bottom of the object seemed lighter than the bottom of an oil tank in the pictures. This could mean the object was farther away from the camera than the tank. This suggested it was not a small object close by.
However, Hartmann also thought the pictures might have been faked. He saw that the object appeared under some wires in the photos. He wondered if it could have been a model hanging from one of the wires. He also noticed the object was in roughly the same spot in both photos, even though they were taken from different places. He concluded, "These tests do not rule out the possibility that the object was a small model suspended from the nearby wire by an unresolved thread."
A Lighting Mystery
Hartmann also found something odd about the lighting. The overall light in the pictures matched what you would expect around sunset. But he noticed that the UFO, a telephone pole, and a distant house seemed lit from the right, or east. He thought the house, in particular, had shadows under its roof that looked like a daytime photo. This made him wonder if the photos were taken on a cloudy morning, like at 10 a.m.
After Hartmann finished his study, he returned the negatives to UPI. UPI then told the Trents that their negatives had been found. In 1970, the Trents asked Philip Bladine, the editor of the News-Register, for the negatives back. They said they had never been paid for them. Bladine asked UPI to return the negatives, which they did. But for some reason, Bladine did not tell the Trents that the negatives were back.
Why Some Think It Was a Hoax
In the 1980s, journalists and UFO skeptics Philip J. Klass and Robert Sheaffer said they believed the photos were faked. They thought the whole event was a hoax.
Their main argument was about the shadows on a garage in the photos. They said these shadows proved the pictures were taken in the morning, not in the early evening as the Trents claimed. Klass and Sheaffer argued that if the Trents lied about the time, then their whole story might not be true. They also said the Trents had been interested in UFOs before their sighting.
Also, their study of the photos suggested the object was small. They thought it was likely a model hanging from the power lines that can be seen at the top of the pictures. They also believed the object might have been a side-view mirror from a car. The object's shape is very similar to the round mirrors used on Ford vehicles for many years, and on other cars from that time.
Klass also claimed he found many differences in the Trents' story over the years. He concluded that the Trents had made up the event. After Sheaffer sent his research to William Hartmann, Hartmann changed his earlier positive opinion of the case.
In 2013, three researchers from IPACO posted two studies online. They argued that the photos' angles fit best with a small model. They thought it had a hollow bottom and was hanging from a wire attached to the power lines. They also said they found a thread above the object. Their conclusion was that "the clear result of this study was that the McMinnville UFO was a model hanging from a thread."
What Happened Next
The McMinnville UFO photographs are still among the most famous in UFO history. People who doubt UFOs continue to say the photos are hoaxes or fakes. But ufologists still argue that the Trent photos are real proof that UFOs are a true, physical thing.
Paul and Evelyn Trent were always described as honest, simple farm people. They never tried to make money from their photos or the fame they brought. Evelyn Trent passed away in 1997, and Paul Trent in 1998. Both of them insisted until the end of their lives that the 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 biggest such gathering in the Pacific Northwest. It is also the second-largest UFO festival in the nation, after the one in Roswell, New Mexico.
See also
In Spanish: Fotografías de ovnis de McMinnville para niños
