Saucer Gossip: A Bit of History and Silliness About the Trent Case

In my previous article (my first one for AC!) I wrote about the Trent UFO case in McMinnville, Oregon. (1950, Paul and Evelyn Trent saw, and took two photos, of a UFO or "flying saucer' above their small farm.) The photos made global news. Popular Mechanics and Life magazine featured their photos and their story. Newspapers everywhere picked it up. It was the topic of discussion for some time, making the mainstream news, and it's a case that is still alive among those crazy enough to delve into UFOlogy in any serious way. (That includes me.)

Only two photos were taken of the craft that day. These photos have become iconic in the world of UFOs. Certainly there's been endless debate about them, and whether or not they're of a real UFO or something like a hubcap suspended from a string. So far, no one's been able to successfully prove that the photos have been hoaxed.

So here we, more than 50 years after the famous photos were taken, and -- gasp! -- a scoop! A revelation! There is a third Trent photo! Who knew?

According to a blog calling itself the UFO Iconoclasts, (who I've always suspected of being a combination of trollish and Dadaist UFO performance artists;, but mostly trollish) they said they had been contacted by someone with a "third, lost" Trent photo.

This was big news! Or so you'd think, but it really didn't go anywhere, to my surprise.

The photo was e-mailed to UFO Iconoclast by someone calling himself SMC, from Arizona. In the photo, the saucer is close to the ground, which had the bloggers asking if the object (or model?) nearer to the ground, and "at an angle precluding a bona fide aerodynamic craft?" They also seemed confident that the photo "predates any digital manipulation programs" and that "It is not computer generated."A link to analysis was provided, along with promises of more to come on this news were provided.

The bloggers even sent me this e-mail:

Regan,

Please take a look at the analysis of the so-called lost Trent photo by Denver Page (not an RRRGroup member) at the blog --

It's interesting we think.

And yes, there is more to come.

Peter (for Rich Reynolds)
RRRGroup
The UFO Iconoclast(s)

A question I had immediately when reading this about the "lost" photo, was why wait 50 years to reveal this? We can only assume it was truly lost and only recently discovered. But the bloggers had no further information. Why was SMC from Arizona being so cloak and daggerish about the whole thing? And who is this Denver Page; is he/she the secretive SMC?

I smelled a rat.

Well, as it turned out, shortly after the item about the "lost" photo appeared, came the news it wasn't a third lost Trent photo. (surprise!) It was a photo of a UFO taken in Germany in 1977!

Whether or not this was a stunt by the UFO Iconoclast, or a stunt by the mysterious SMC (or Denver Page) from Arizona, who knows. But this kind of thing is typical in the fields of esoterica and UFOlogy. And, a bit of the Trickster effect as well, as a reminder to not take ourselves too seriously all the time.

Notes
UFO Iconoclast: The lost Trent/McMinnville Photo?
http://ufocon.blogspot.com/2007/03/lost-trentmcminnville-photo.html
Regan Lee on Trickster's Realm of Binnall of America: The Trent Trickster Three
http://binnallofamerica.com/tr3.26.7.html