The Trent Photos

1. On the evening of May 11, 1950, farmer Evelyn Trent says she sees a slow, metallic, disc-shaped object gliding toward her farm near McMinnville.
2. Her husband Paul grabs the family camera and takes two photos before, the couple says, the object speeds off to the west. The pictures run in the local paper and then in Life magazine.
3. The Air Force-funded Condon study later calls it ‘one of the few UFO reports’ where everything examined appears ‘consistent with’ a real, artificial flying disc. It adds that the evidence cannot ‘positively rule out a fabrication’.
4. Skeptics argue that shadows show the photos were taken in the morning, not the evening, and that the object sits right under an overhead wire, which fits a small model hung on a thread. The Trents never profited from the photos and stood by their story until they died.

Key witnesses: Evelyn Trent, Paul Trent (photographer), Paul’s father (briefly)
Status: DEBATED