The McMinnville
UFO Photographs
Date: May 11, 1950
Location: McMinnville, Oregon, United States
The McMinnville photographs remain to this day one of the highest quality photographs that capture an extraterrestrial aircraft. The photographs, which show a flying disk, are still the most iconic photographs in the study of the UFO phenomenon. The authenticity of the photographs is what makes this case indisputable proof of the existence of extraterrestrial life.
Evelyn and Paul Trent lived in a rural area just nine miles southwest of McMinnville, Oregon. The Trents led a very simple and humble lifestyle, depending on their livestock and farm for their livelihood. At around 19:30, Evelyn was walking back to her house after feeding the animals. The sun was setting, and Evelyn would never have thought that she would be a witness to one of the most important sightings in the study of UFO phenomenon.
Evelyn had almost arrived at the house when she noticed a “metallic looking, disk-shaped object” in the sky. 21 The sight startled Evelyn and she ran into the house, calling for her husband Paul to immediately come out and witness the disk-shaped object for himself—the aircraft was a captivating and fascinating sight. Paul quickly ran back into the house to get his camera and captured two photographs of the disk-shaped object, which sped away into the distance shortly after.
As the object disappeared, Evelyn and Paul were left bewildered; had they just caught an extraterrestrial aircraft on their camera? The couple immediately reported the sighting to the local authorities, who forwarded the case to the Condon Committee, a group of scientists from the University of Colorado in charge of studying UFO cases. Paul and Evelyn were interviewed separately and the two described the object as having a disk-shape and made of a silver metallic material. The surface was extremely bright and reflective, similar to aluminum. The diameter of the object was estimated to be between twenty to thirty feet, and it lacked the usual features of an aircraft such as wings, exhaust plumes, and windows. Although the object accelerated at an incredible speed, it did not emit any noise, nor did it leave a trail behind.
The Investigation
Apart from the interviews, Evelyn and Paul were also instructed to take a psychological test to indicate whether they were mentally well or not. The results indicated that both Evelyn and Paul were of sound mental health and the event was certainly not a hallucination caused by an underlying psychiatric condition.
In early June of the same year, Paul took his photographs to The Telephone Register Newspaper to get answers, as the authorities certainly had not provided any. Prior to publishing the photographs, the newspaper agency analyzed the photographs to confirm that the story was not a hoax and to ensure that Paul had not tampered with the film. On June 8, the following article was published on the front page of the gazette:
“In view of the variety of opinion and reports attendant to the sources over the past two years, every effort has been made to check Trent’s photos for authenticity. Expert photographers declared there has been no tampering with the negatives. The original photos were developed by a local firm. After careful consideration, there appears to be no possibility of a hoax or hallucination connected with the pictures. The Telephone Register believes them authentic.” 22
The photographs were analyzed for a second time in 1975 by Bruce Maccabee, a Navy optical physicist and avid researcher on the phenomenon of UFOs. To ensure reliability, Maccabee used densitometric measurements and the actual position of the objects in the frame. The investigation showed that there was no evidence that a string or a wire was suspended from the power lines to the flying saucer. This ruled out the hypothesis that the pictured flying disk was a model. Apart from that, Maccabee also highlighted the fact that the underexposed land and the properly exposed sky were consistent with the time Evelyn and Paul had reported seeing the object. At 19:30, the west would have been brighter than the east and this was the case in the photographs as well.
In the official Condon Report, William Hartmann, who was a well-noted planetary scientist and one of the scientists who made up the Condon Committee stated, “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.” 23
Conclusion
The McMinnville photographs are one of the few authentic photographs that captured an interplanetary flying object. Although the object is technically unidentified, it is not possible for a terrestrial aircraft to have the properties that the disk possessed. Apart from being some of the most iconic photographs in the study of the phenomenon, this case is a crucial one that supports the extraterrestrial hypothesis.