UFO Oregon: The Trent Case

One of the classic UFO cases is the Trent/McMinnville UFO sighting. On May 11, 1950, approximately 7:00 pm, Evelyn Trent was outside feeding their rabbits when she spotted a flying saucer, or UFO, above their tiny farm in McMinnville, Oregon. She ran and called to her husband Paul, who came out, armed with his camera. He managed to take two photos of the object before it sped off.

This event made news around the world. Popular Mechanics determined the photos appeared genuine, as did the local newspaper, the Telephone Register's Bill Powell, who did his own analysis of the photos. Years later, Dr. Bruce Maccacbee, well known in the UFO field as an investigator who analyzes photos and images of UFOs, has also determined the event to be genuine.

More than fifty years after this UFO event, the Trents stick to their story, despite the usual efforts by the skeptics to disprove or debunk the photos. There is a good DVD about this case. It's entitled, simply, The Trent Photos, and includes interviews with Mrs. Trent. It is clear that Evelyn Trent saw something unusual that day, and the memory of that event has stayed with her all these years.

One interesting aspect of this case is the appearance of government spooks. On more than one occasion following the publication of the photos, the Trents were visited by men who said they were "from the government." No warrants of any kind, just walked in and searched their home. Watching Mrs. Trent relate this experience on the DVD, one is touched by her emotions, after all this time, their presence and attitude still makes her uncomfortable. And of course we have to wonder why was "the government" so interested? Paul Trent thought the UFO might have been a classified military object, which of course is possible. He told UFO researcher Leonard Stringfield (as reported in his book Situation Red) that he was nervous about given his photographs to anyone. "I'm afraid I'll get in trouble with our government," he told Stringfield.

The Trents, naturally enough, have been accused of hoaxing. But there were witnesses to UFOs with a similar description in the area at the time Trent took the photos. which are in the public domain, and neither one of them wrote a book about the experience. In fact, their lives were disrupted from intrusive visits by government agents, UFO investigators, debunkers attacking their character, and the plain curious.

We can be sure that the Trents saw and photographed something unusual that day. That is not in question. As Dr. Bruce Maccabee says "The bottom line, from my point of view, is that they are real. . . now, what do we do about it."

Whatever it was was interesting enough to get the attention of the U.S. government. Classified military craft, as Paul Trent once suspected, or something other worldly? Either way, the Trent UFO case remains one of Oregon's mysteries.