Hello and welcome to the program, you have full morning
and this episode, we're looking at the 1950 Trent UFO, sighting,
that's correct. The 1950 Trent UFO sighting.
Now this is something we've covered before but we've got a
couple good articles on it and I think it bears looking into.
Of course, the Trent UFO sighting happened over there in
McMinnville Oregon. This would be about halfway
between Portland and Seattle. If you look on the map, I have
to think back 1950 this place probably wasn't that built up.
Had to been pretty rural. I don't know, almost getting
close to Bigfoot country, I think but what makes this
sighting so incredible. Is that the people that saw it
had the foresight to snap a couple pictures back of the
house and get the camera? Take the picture, you'll 1950,
you still doing with dealing with a lot of rudimentary stuff
at least on the retail level but the pictures are pretty good.
I mean, some people would say And that's what makes this case.
I think. So important, is that we have
these pictures and either you believe them, or you, think
these two simple farmers were able to pull off.
One of the biggest UFO photo scams known to man, and I don't
see how that could be the case, because these people, as far as
I know, never really were enriched off of this.
But let's get it in the article, it comes to us from k0i n.com.
Mom, it's written by Andrew foreign.
It says Oregon's extraterrestrial history, the
1950 Trent UFO sighting. He begins by saying Portland.
Oregon and scientists have long been kept up at Night by one
question. Are we alone in the universe?
The McManus UFO Fest, is celebrating its 23rd year this
weekend, but did you know that Oregon's extraterrestrial Roots,
Run much deeper. The UFO Fest found its home
Emmett Menville and 949 years after a local UFO sighting
became national news. Because on, it says, as the
story goes on May 11th 1950. Evelyn Trent was feeding the
chickens and rabbits on her Farm, just outside of the
medieval when she looked up to the sky and saw the disc-shaped
object, floating overhead. She quickly ran back to The
Farmhouse yelling for her husband.
Paul Tran to get the camera. Now, that's what you call Quick
thinking. So when the pair emerged from
their house camera in hand, they said the disc could still be
seen in the sky moving West. That is when Paul raise the
camera and took the now Infamous photos, you know, I don't know
why their Infamous I think they're fascinating myself
according to the UFOs Fest website.
It took another month for Paul to develop the photos and even
longer to share them with anyone because he was worried about
exposing a government experiment.
Our secret project, Remember, this is just after World War Two
during the week. The Korean conflict was going
on. You didn't have cell phones of
course and you had to send to your film way to get developed
and sometimes it took a while and you know 1950 that's a world
away from now. Finally, Paul shared the photos
with his friend. Frank Workman who then went on
to share the story with the local newspaper, the telephone
register. It's got a picture here of the
headline Farmers camera, captures movement of flying
object. Says the camera pole, Trent
Route, 3 McMinnville captured, the above photo of flying
objects, which might very well. Be the only pictures in
existence of the highly controversial and off scoffed at
flying saucers taken nearly a month ago from the backyard of
his farm home. 11 miles, Southwest of McMinnville
Trent's. Pictures were Unearthed.
What telephone rust reporter, followed tip given by Ralph and
Frank workmen, but Bentonville Bankers?
So okay. Well, local Banker.
This is a guy who has a reputation at risk anyway.
I assist from there. The story blew up spreading from
the small-town paper to other local sources in nearby
Portland, and then going National with features from the
Associated Press, in Life Magazine, the whole situation
became a media, circus with the trench traveling and appearing
on multiple national news shows. And of course with the photos
popularity came Skeptics of their authenticity.
You know, it's hard to believe these guys could affect these
things. I don't know, eventually the
media attention settle down but that didn't stop investigators
from the Air Force and Federal Bureau of Investigation from
allegedly looking into the situation.
And later sharing that they couldn't find anything.
To convince them that the photos were fake.
Later the 1960s, the condom committee a US Air Force, funded
UFO research, project based at the University of Colorado and
led by physicist, Edward, you Condon also looked into the
citing, the original negatives that Paul had developed in 1950.
Had disappeared sometime during the original frenzy allegedly
misplaced by the New York television program.
We the People however, it was during tania's investigation
that the negatives reappeared. You know how convenient the
condom commitment committee also went on to state that there was
nothing leading them to believe that the photos were fake.
There is no way to know for sure if the UFO sighting was real or
a hoax but those negatives have still never been debunked to
this day. You know this whole idea that
you have to prove something's not a hoax.
And it's kind of like, you know, proving that you're not guilty
of something, you don't prove, you're not guilty, they have to
prove that you are guilty. You know, this whole idea
proving a negative, U FS is already underway, various
locations, around McMinnville and ends on Sunday.
It is probably the best people-watching you could ever
imagine says, Daniel Chisholm director director district
manager for mechanics, history hotel, Historic Hotel and board
president. McMinnville Downtown Association
told k 0i n, 6 News, you'll see some great costumes, you'll see
people who speak their own little alien language and you
get to come to one of America's Best downtown's in McMinnville.
Looks like a nice small City or I think it's around 34. 35
thousand people. It's interesting how every time
you have one of these really famous UFO sightings The city
father, turned it into a weekend UFO event, which is fine, but
that doesn't seem to be a lot of serious discussion going on.
Just people when they're having fun, maybe attract some people
that are looking at the lighter side of the whole UFO thing,
really a fascinating case. Now, I want to look at one other
news report on this thing, which I thought was also interesting
about this case, just because we have these pictures and I'll go
ahead and I'll put Links of course, over there and they buy
me a coffee website and try to get some up on the UFO,
warning.com site as well, and you can take a look at these
pictures for yourself. I think they're fascinating.
Now, this other article comes to us from It dig my labs, it's eni
GMA La be s.o and I'll have a link to that over the buy me a
coffee website is dated April 28th 2023.
It's got a map here on the website.
Pretty cool. Shows you where the sighting
happened at? And then it's got the pictures
and these things are just I just love them, it's just so classic
1950. I just, you know, I just see two
simple farmers are hardworking. People saw this UFO came over
the Wife sees it. She's like, wow, they probably
had heard about Roswell. Maybe, I don't know.
They probably heard about the other Flying Saucer senior in
Washington, but she know what she knew enough to get her
camera. And, of course, that's when he
had these little retail cameras, were really starting to become
popular in the 40s and 50s that she snaps his classic black and
white photo. Got a couple pictures here and
the one close up. It's really neat.
It looks like. I've like you're just classic
classic 1950s. Flying Saucer.
It's got something on top of it, almost like a periscope.
Looks like maybe an antenna weird now.
It says Paul Trent's. First UFO photo that has a
picture of it and then it has a, it has the close-up.
And it says summary, the McMinnville UFO, photographs,
which are also known as a Trent UFO photos, refer to two
photographs of unidentified aerial phenomena.
UAP, they were taken by farming couple Paul and Evelyn Trent and
Yamhill County near the city of McMinnville Oregon and the
Northeastern United States on 11th of May 1950.
The photos were the photos are often considered by some to be
among the most famous photographs ever taken of a UAP,
a scientific investigation commission by a nuclear
physicist. Edward you Condon determine the
photographs to be consistent with eyewitness testimony and
that they had indeed seen and it Extraordinary flying object.
So, you know, the pretty much the export of the time Edward
conned and like I said, nuclear physicist, looks at the pictures
as yeah. They looks like a UFO to me
because on it says, background at around 7:45 p.m. on May 11th
1950, Evelyn Trent claims to have spotted an unknown object
in the sky. She had many feeding a family of
rabbits in the yard of the couple's form.
Of course, you know, back then people hate rabbits after doing
so Evelyn was walking back toward the house House, when she
looked up and saw a flying metallic disc moving in her
Direction, describing what she saw.
Evelyn said the object was like a good-sized parachute canopy
without the strings. Only silver bright mixed with
bronze later. She would recall it was as
pretty as anything I ever saw. It's funny how people develop,
sometimes you see, emotional connections that these things
you have that they think. Wow, that's beautiful or they
think? Well, it's pretty scary Evelyn.
Then ran into the house to find her husband.
Karin after finding Paul 11 Evelyn then picked up there.
Cody, their Kodak camera from the car and raced into the yard.
Paul described seeing a quote, a round shiny wingless object,
hovering in the sky. It was then that Paul a 43-year
old farmer took two photographs of the object before the UFO
disappeared, recounting what occurred after the UFO
disappeared Evelyn. When speaking to her husband,
Paul said, after you took the picture of it coming in, in and
then going back out the win that came down had No mortar or no
smoke or nothing, just like the wind after you the grammar seems
to become disorganized are after you took the picture of a coming
in and then going back out the wind that came down.
Had no motor or no smoke or nothing, just the wind.
In other words this thing was moving silently.
Like so many others. No sound no smoke, no mode or
nothing, just moving silently through the air, despite the
photographs being taken in may, they were not Until weeks
afterward, when the roll of film had been entirely used up.
Well, that's what you did back in the day, it says, they lived
12 miles from town, who knows what kind of car they had, and,
you know, it just, you just didn't make unnecessary trips
after developing, the photographs, the trance head,
the photographs thinking they had captured secretive military
aircraft, which may get them in trouble.
Remember 1950, I can totally understand why they would do
that. But the trench did mention the
photographs to some friends. Which led to what, which led one
of them to obtain and put them in the window of Melville's
United States. National bank.
I think that friend was actually the banker, it was then that a
reporter spoke to the couple, and persuaded them to provide
the - so they could be published to local.
Organ is papers. That McMinnville telephone
register and The Oregonian, published the photos in June
1950. A month after pole, Trent took
them the McMinnville telephone register, which published a
story first, on the 8th of June 1950 added.
Editor's note to accompany photographs which started in
view of the variety of opinion and reports attended to the
sausage over the past two years, every effort has been made to
check transfer photos for our 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 hoax or Lucia
Nation connected with the pictures, therefore the
telephone register believes them authentic.
Wow, the photographs quickly grabbed National Attention My
Life Magazine, publishing photographs on the 26th of June
1950. During this time, Skeptics
called the trance liars and poked.
So much fun at the couple that Community leaders from the area
offered to sign affidavits. Swearing to the trans character
soon after the photographs were published the United States, Air
Force and FBI investigators, visited the transform to
interview, the couple Paul Trent recalls telling the USAF
investigators. The object was coming in toward
us and seem to be tipped up a little bit Trent at it.
It was very Right almost silvery and there was no noise.
According to the trends to you, AP was estimated to be 20 or 30
feet in diameter. So they've seen this thing.
They, you know, that that get the pictures out there and it
sounds like the debunkers want on it and immediate campaign, 2D
person, these poor people, the trench became celebrities for a
brief time. Following the coverage, they
were flown to New York to appear on a television show named We
the People and Loan the photographic negatives to the
international news service. Which Circulated them,
worldwide, the Trent's. Apparently never received any
money for the photos, and the negatives were not returned to
them for decades. Supposedly having been
misplaced, got to wonder what happened there.
A 1967, the US Air Force, commissioned nuclear physicist.
Edward Uconn, and delete an exhaustive.
UAP study. The study is 950 page report
title, scientific study of unidentified flying objects, all
known as also known as a condor report.
Dismiss most other reported sightings covered but it stayed
Referring to the McMinnville photographs that at least one
showing a disc-shaped object in Flight.
Over Oregon, you guys class is difficult to explain in a
conventional way and otherwise it's a UFO in 1966 a panel
headed by Condon had sent an investigator named William K
Hartman to review the Trent. Siding Hartman had been known
for debunking many purported you AP images but he couldn't
explain the case Hartman wrote that the McMinnville case was
quote, one of the few UFO reports in which all factors and
Vesta gated appear to be consistent with the assertion
that an extraordinary flying object, silvery metallic disc
shaped tens of meters in diameter and evidently
artificial flew. Within sight of two witnesses,
one of the most compelling details highlighted by Hartman
involved photometric. Analysis of the images, he 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 analysis suggests, the
object was further from Camera. Then the tank, which can be seen
in the photographs, not small local objects.
In other words, this thing wasn't some sort of put up deal
with a hung up. I can take a picture of it.
He says if the object is a model suspended from The Wire only a
few metres away its surface is some 37 percent brighter than
that of the tank and the Shaded side is probably more than 40
percent brighter than the side of the tank.
But this is nearly impossible to maintain in the face of the
foot. Mm, and in the photometry.
And although the distance houses surface, although the distance
houses surface is roughly twice as bright as a tank surface.
Its shadow can be only a few percentage brighter and trinsic
lie than those on the tank. This is basically the problem
that was suggested by isil inspection of the photos.
The shadowed side of the UFO appears to be so bright that it
suggests significant scattering between it and the Observer,
although refusing to rule out the possibility of a hoax
Hartman concluded that his tests argue.
Against fabrication. So here we have a world-famous
debunker saying doesn't look like it's hoax to me the Condon
report reach this conclusion despite Evelyn French history of
seeing strange objects in the sky.
Having told that we're going in 1950 that she had seen flying
saucers by the coast on three separate occasions.
But no one would believe me doesn't make her less
believable. I mention more believable to me
because some people just see these things a lot more often
than other people do, and then it goes on and it has a little
bit of skepticism. We don't really care about that.
It says, the Legacy, the photographs remain contentious
with Skeptics continuing to argue that they were hoaxed or
fake while Believers control contend that the photographer's
show evidence of real UAP is claimed that the Trent's never
change their story up until their deaths, Evelyn died in
1997, and Paul and 1998, the interest in the case led to an
annual, UAP Festival established and make big bill which is
reportedly. The second largest Festival in
the USA after the one held in Roswell, New Mexico, look.
The pictures are there? They're in your face.
You can either believe them, not believe them or say, I just
don't know. But I think this is one of the
most convincing recorded UFO cases. 1950, you have a couple
of like I said, simple Farmers out here in the middle of
nowhere. They don't have Photoshop, they
don't have computers, they just got there a little Kodak camera
and it had the presence of mind to snap a couple pictures and
that's why I just love this Trent UFO case until next time.
Have a warning over and out. Have a warning over and out.