McMinnville (Trent) photographs
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The visual record
Illustrations, recordings and archival references — each with its own provenance. A documented source is a starting point for investigation, not a verdict on its explanation.
The first Trent photograph
An archival photograph of a disc-like object. Its size, distance and interpretation remain debated.
Paul Trent · 11 May 1950 ↗Public domain (US) — published in 1950 without copyright noticeLicence terms ↗Resized and WebP-converted for display; content unchanged.American Alchemy · 0:49:06
Open the source at the cited time. The episode thumbnail is video packaging, not a photograph of the reported subject.
American Alchemy / Jesse Michels ↗YouTube-hosted preview and player; not relicensedAmerican Alchemy · 1:49:20
Open the source at the cited time. The episode thumbnail is video packaging, not a photograph of the reported subject.
American Alchemy / Jesse Michels ↗YouTube-hosted preview and player; not relicensedJesse Michels · 0:51:21
Open the source at the cited time. The episode thumbnail is video packaging, not a photograph of the reported subject.
American Alchemy / Jesse Michels ↗YouTube-hosted preview and player; not relicensedOn 11 May 1950 Evelyn Trent called her husband Paul to photograph a metallic disc over their farm near McMinnville, Oregon; he took two frames. Published locally and in LIFE, the photographs were listed as unexplained by the 1968 Condon Report. Corpus speakers call the case hard to debunk while the skeptic suggests a thrown hubcap.
The event
| Date | |
|---|---|
| Place | 45.2101, -123.1987 approximate · United States |
| Official response | The University of Colorado Condon Report (1968) said the photographs were consistent with a large object at distance and that no plausible fabrication had been identified, while noting a model on a wire could not be ruled out. |
Reported by
- paul trent witness farmer, photographer
- evelyn trent witness farmer, first saw the object
Investigated by
- condon committee academic
- bruce maccabee researcher
Who spoke about it later
- Jesse Michels 0:49:06 I Debated UFOs With America’s Top Skeptic (It Got Ugly...) ▶ 2026
- Jesse Michels 0:51:21 NASA & UFOs: Pagan Rituals, Secret Science & Time Travel ▶ 2025
Mentioned in the corpus
Passages this record cites, with the stamp of the block each quote sits in.
I Debated UFOs With America’s Top Skeptic (It Got Ugly...) 9 July 2026
The Man Sitting On More UFO Evidence Than Anyone Alive 21 February 2026
NASA & UFOs: Pagan Rituals, Secret Science & Time Travel 20 September 2025
- 0:51:21 ▶ Jesse Michels
the site of one of the most famous UFO photographs ever taken in 1950. All
- 0:51:21 ▶ interview
- 0:51:21 ▶ Jesse Michels
On the map
McMinnville (Trent) photographs, McMinnville (Trent) photographs. Open the full map filtered to this record.
Sources on this record
- 0:49:06 I Debated UFOs With America’s Top Skeptic (It Got Ugly...) ▶
There are other cases like McMinnville where you it's really hard to debunk. >> The McMinnville one. I mean, really, this looks like a hubcap tossed into the >> but there's no way to ultimately debunk it. It's unfalsifiable in
- 1:49:20 The Man Sitting On More UFO Evidence Than Anyone Alive ▶
the McMinnville. >> that's like a holy grail you know that's >> it's very hard to find a picture can say that wow this
- 0:51:21 NASA & UFOs: Pagan Rituals, Secret Science & Time Travel · Jesse Michels ▶
the site of one of the most famous UFO photographs ever taken in 1950. All
- McMinnville UFO photographs