Are the Trent photos legit?

This is a good if somewhat annoying video that covers the photos pretty well. Of course I am a true believer in the photos, not just because of their appearance and qualities, but because of the connection to my own experience.

pigfarmer said:

nice truck mirror. haven't watched that video yet

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This reminds me of the controversy around the Heflin photos where some have claimed it is a model train wheel --it is similar but when closely analyzed, no cigar is to be had. I've encountered a lot of people on forums --scientifically minded folks, who seem perturbed by the apparently simple forms of many UFOs --they seem to think they should have more bells and whistles, protrusions, solar sails etc. like sci-fi movies. In the Trent photo where the saucer is departing, --that's where you see the haze, (atmospheric or aerial perspective), that shows it is far away. Evelyn Trent also mentions that it went on its edge before shooting off --this has been reported with many other disc UFOs, including those discs in the Monon encounter.

I live and have grown up in Oregon and have seen many cloudy early evenings that look like the Trent photos. The same atmospheric haze can be seen in the Woonsocket and Cocoyoc, and Heflin photos too.

My goal for 2022 is to set up a Gofundme account for two polygraph tests concerning my two UFO experiences --especially the first one near McMinnville.
I think, because of the connection with the 60th anniversary of the McMinnville UFO photos, the fact that my office mate for many years lived next door to the Trents, and the festival was going on at the time --and the objects came / were seen to come from McMinnville, and the fact that I was alone on I-5 would make it difficult for me to pass because of how improbable and strange the encounter was. I'll provide a link to the Gofundme page on all related forums I participate it when it is ready.

Skepticide123 said:

My goal for 2022 is to set up a Gofundme account for two polygraph tests concerning my two UFO experiences --especially the first one near McMinnville.
I think, because of the connection with the 60th anniversary of the McMinnville UFO photos, the fact that my office mate for many years lived next door to the Trents, and the festival was going on at the time --and the objects came / were seen to come from McMinnville, and the fact that I was alone on I-5 would make it difficult for me to pass because of how improbable and strange the encounter was. I'll provide a link to the Gofundme page on all related forums I participate it when it is ready.

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Do they still use Sodium Pentathol for lie detector tests ? I saw on a recent UFO documentary they are are using AIs to tell if your fibbing.

August said:

Do they still use Sodium Pentathol for lie detector tests ? I saw on a recent UFO documentary they are are using AIs to tell if your fibbing.

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Wow, I don't know about the Sodium Pentathol, but I do think AI is used now. I have a number of questions I will need to ask first. It looks like it's not too terribly expensive --but I didn't see price breakdowns for UFO sightings...

Skepticide123 said:

concerning my two UFO experiences

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I know you described them but I am not operating at full speed just yet, could you provide a link so I can read them again?

thanks.

pigfarmer said:

I know you described them but I am not operating at full speed just yet, could you provide a link so I can read them again?

thanks.

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You bet! I'll link to the account at Fortean Forum as it is more complete:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/my-ufo-experience-feinman.65904/

And the account of it posted on this forum:
On 60th anniversary of McMinnville UFO sighting: 2010

Before my first encounter I didn't post a single thing about UFOs on the Internet, that I remember.

Just went a reread all that. Very cool indeed.

IMO I wouldn't put too much effort in hypnosis and truth serums. No matter what some will believe you and some won't whether you go through the effort and expense or not. For what it's worth I believe you.

Out of curiosity, did you look to see if any local papers ran any stories about sightings from that period ?

I think this is that dividing line between something as straightforward as a physical object (no matter how exotic or where it comes from) and something else. In a podcast I was listening to about ghosts an investigator mentioned how the observer's frame of mind is somehow directly related to how an external phenomenon interacts. That's pretty much what John B Alexander said in his takeaway from the Sherman ranch.

pigfarmer said:

Just went a reread all that. Very cool indeed.

IMO I wouldn't put too much effort in hypnosis and truth serums. No matter what some will believe you and some won't whether you go through the effort and expense or not. For what it's worth I believe you.

Out of curiosity, did you look to see if any local papers ran any stories about sightings from that period ?

I think this is that dividing line between something as straightforward as a physical object (no matter how exotic or where it comes from) and something else. In a podcast I was listening to about ghosts an investigator mentioned how the observer's frame of mind is somehow directly related to how an external phenomenon interacts. That's pretty much what John B Alexander said in his takeaway from the Sherman ranch.

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After the UFO encounter I did search (including NUFORC) for possible reports by others of the objects and didn't find much, other than the same formation of objects has been seen in the past and by Leroy Chiao from the ISS. It was only years later when I decided by chance to read the rectangular UFO sightings listed in NUFORC, that I found others who had seen them the same year or the next in the same area --as in my post on the experience. The other witnesses only saw the objects in a row, as I first did, they didn't see them in the second formation, as I did. I think the objects were gravitically entrained to each other --as the Monon objects were, and many other formations of these devices seen in the past and in the literature.

The McMinnville photos are a tough nut to crack for me. On one hand, the craft sure does look like a truck mirror or too much like a classic 1950's flying saucer to be legit. On the other hand, alot of folks who know way more than I do such as Bruce Maccabee say they are probably real plus I don't recall anyone offering a good explanation for how they were hoaxed or are a misidentified ordinary phenomena.

Truck mirror

As one who has been examining UFO pictures since the age of 8, I always was torn between the fact that I wanted so much to believe all those pictures were real and yet there was always something ambiguous about them that made me feel "maybe not".

What I have found over the years was that just about all UFO pictures that appear in the media were most likely hoaxes. And this for the most part was not the result of individuals "plotting" to make fake pictures and mislead the public. Most likely, it started out as ordinary people hearing about UFOs in the news and then coming across a roundish object in their midst. They pick up a camera, attach the object to a string or throw it in the air and take a picture...

Then it turns out the picture looks pretty neat. They show it around and find people are impressed. So they submit it to a local newspaper, tack a little story around it and... it gets published !

Wow ! They get their picture in the paper, it gets lots of people excited and you get interviewed. Suddenly from your anonymity, you become a personality. Lots of fun to be had.

So it all starts out as innocent fun with no ill intent and then it ends up in numerous UFO magazines and gets blown out of proportion.

As I have said in previous posts, one needs to remain objective when looking at UFO pictures. What does the object look like ? In this case, yes, it looks like a truck mirror. So... is it likely that an alien spacecraft would look like a truck mirror ? You decide. In my view, it's problematic.

In regards the stepladder, it is not the fact that they owned one but that it was photographed set up in the vicinity where it could have been used to set up a model. This is especially significant to me because when I was thirteen, I experimented with suspended models and used a similar stepladder and fishing pole to suspend my model. So yes, when I saw the stepladder in the Trent pictures, it immediately brought to mind what I did with it !

... and without any real equipment beyond a little 110 camera I spent time throwing things, putting pieces of tape on storm windows, etc in between reading issues of UFO magazine. I still try and take shots of very low level aircraft and helicopters, of which we have in abundance around here, and it isn't so simple. A dedicated camera would be a necessity for anyone expecting to take a quick shot of something anomalous, although I don't know anything about photography and have no idea how a modern digital image would 'stand up' against a real piece of film in terms of authentication.

August said:

Do they still use Sodium Pentathol for lie detector tests ? I saw on a recent UFO documentary they are are using AIs to tell if your fibbing.

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No. SP is no longer manufactured and is prohibited by law. It has been replaced by other more effective drugs.

iirc, the photo with the stepladder was a staged photograph; there is no proof that that the Trents used it to suspend a model. The Trents never sought publicity or fame and the photos went missing for a period. A lot of UFOs look like simple metallic forms there are tons of them described like that in the old articles. Evelyn Trent can be seen in an interview describing how the saucer tilted up on edge before shooting off --this is a not uncommon feature of some UFO sightings and it would be hard to believe she was familiar with those.
There are also mass sightings with photos, such as the event in Florence where the UFOs were seen by everyone in the stadium and photos were taken and can be seen in the photo of the neswpaper.
Take a look at the Heflin pics too --it is NOT a train wheel. All one has to do is mark the screen with the apparent width of the saucer and then move that apparent width mark to the edge of the car windshield to see that it is much too large to be a train wheel.
Same goes for the Trudel photos:
Woonsocket saucers with Cocoyoc and Yorba Linda modules

The truck mirror theory has been rebutted, as well --the proportions are off.
And just to put the Heflin train wheel thing to rest: Here

The reason why I do not believe the Heflin pictures are likely to be genuine is not so much the suggestion by some that they are of a model train wheel but because of the way the pictures were taken from inside the truck. It would be very easy to tie a small object dangling from outside the truck window to take such pictures.

Also the object doesn't move much. It seems to be the lateral camera movement that makes it look in a different position. Some years ago, one UFO researcher showed that if the second and third picture are viewed stereoscopically, the object comes off as being very tiny and just outside the window. Of course, the object could have moved horizontally between shots, but it's still interesting that we get an image that very much confirms the size of a miniature train wheel.

So again, I am not declaring these to be fake. I am simply stating that when I look at these pictures with the eye of a photographer, I am not seeing any strong evidence that these are of a large object high up in the sky.

I paint and draw --plein air, portraits and figures and have a degree in illustration. I am aware of forced perspective and other distortions and have used photo reference for painting for years. Before that, I was in architecture school where we drew things by hand --no CAD yet. I do appreciate your opinions on the UFO pics, UFO Scan.

Let me just add a little more...

If you read my article on the Kibel picture, I first came across it in 1966, shortly after it was taken. As I describe in the article, I originally thought the UFO in that picture was gold colored because it looked that way in the picture in that magazine. But of course I later realized that the copies of that picture I was seeing then and over later years were actually snapshots of the original taken under different lighting conditions. Some were even very much out of focus.

The thing that made me take a serious second look at this picture is that Kibel was still alive until recently and kept the original Polaroid print all this time. So it was possible to do a digital scan of the picture. Unfortunately, the person who did the scan made a low resolution one but still, we did end up with a pretty good scan from the original.

Most UFO pictures from the film era that we saw published in period books and magazines were just snapshots of prints of the original. Some were even doctored by book and magazine editors to make them look more impressive, while others ended up more blurry than the originals were.

And that's the problem we face nowadays when we look at these old pictures. We seldom if ever have access to the original prints or original negatives. To my knowledge, since the Rex Heflin pictures were also Polaroid snapshots, the copies we see of them are pictures of the original or of copies of the copies. There were no negatives. And unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, there never were any digital scans of the original pictures.

But here is another few reasons why I have a hard time with the Heflin pictures...

Since they were taken with a Polaroid camera and are in black & white, then just about the only model camera he could have used was in the Polaroid Land series of cameras (again refer to my article on Kibel). This type of camera produced instant prints that needed to be very carefully pulled out of the camera and then - again, very carefully - they had to be peeled from their negative... after waiting around sixty seconds.

Therefore this means there had to be at least sixty seconds between each picture. Yet the object hardly moved and remains at the same distance. I would have been much more impressed if say... the object had moved substantially between images so that he would have needed to take some pictures with the object facing the front window or the back window or.. if he had gotten out of his truck and taken pictures of the object over his truck where a suspension line might have been harder (although not impossible) to set up.

Also, I would have liked to see pictures of the object at different distances. When I look at these pictures I ask myself: How is it that the UFO is just there already close by and at that one distance in all three pictures ? I would have liked to see pictures of it either arriving or departing.

In a way, that's also what frustrated me about the Kibel picture. There is just a single one close-up and nothing else. It's very frustrating that it's almost impossible to find an ideal UFO picture case where we would see multiple clear images of an object at various distances.