On 60th anniversary of McMinnville UFO sighting: 2010

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
On May 14, 2010, I had a UFO experience. My dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer (he's okay now), and he was to get robotic surgery soon. For a week I had been traveling from Eugene, Oregon each day to work in Lake Oswego, and then driving all the way back to Eugene to stay with my parents, waking up and driving back to Lake Oswego early in the morning for work. Nothing unusual had happened until Friday, May 14... I was working an early schedule, and finished work at about 2:30 that day, iirc. I merged onto I-5 South and headed for Eugene. It was a sunny day with blue skies, and no real clouds. Near milepost 276 - 279, there are large open fields scattered with farmhouses, and one can see all the way to the mountains in front of the coast range; it's a regular and busy stretch of highway, and I don't remember ever being alone there, the thousands of times I have made the trip from Portland to Eugene. As I neared the area, I watched the car in front of me disappear into the distance --as if I had somehow slowed down, or was stuck in some kind of time warp. Everything was lush and green, and as I drove past a grove of trees on the right, I turned to look out to the distance, and.. I was confronted with five bright glowing objects. They appeared to be round and were in a slanted straight line about 15° from the horizontal. The objects were initially extremely bright (like arc lamps), but I could still look directly at them, and they had distinct edges (this is a feature of other UFO reports too). The objects were perhaps 30' in diameter. As I looked, I could see that the tops seemed to be slightly reflecting the blue sky, and I thought they were metallic spheres, or at least had a metallic object within the glow. As I watched, shocked out of my mind, they seemed to slowly become more level and it appeared as if they might be approaching my car, very slowly. Initially I moved my head back and forth to see if they were some kind of reflection --no.. Then my mind raced to another possible mundane solution; a line of fighter jets moving away from me in formation --no. There they were. I looked around to see if there were other people seeing this; though I could see farmhouses and other structures, there was an eerie silence and no one was around. I was alone on the highway for I think the first time in my life and that was equally strange.. As I realized after a few moments that I was actually seeing UFOs, and they seemed to be slowly appproaching, I became worried. I had the uncanny feeling that I was being watched by them; I've never felt anything like it before or since. Worried, I kept driving very slowly ahead and then lost them as I passed another grove of trees. Suddenly they reappeared ahead of me on I-5 (further south) in Echelon formation (just as in my avatar), this time glowing orange-red, and hanging in the sky, hovering. Then they either shot off further south or suddenly lost their luminosity (not sure which), and I couldn't see them anymore.. Then things were to get very strange indeed.

Later, arriving at my parents house, it was much later in the day than I think it should have been (almost evening). I didn't mention anything to my parents that evening, I was still in shock. The next day I did some Google searching and found out that that night was the first night of the McMinnville UFO festival; I didn't know that at the time. I'm a librarian and when I described the events to my office mate of about 20 years (now retired), he mentioned that his family owned a farm literally right next door to the Trents, and his parents knew them, as they were direct neighbors. I asked him to show me his house and the Trent farm on Google maps, so I could see where it was. It turns out that the objects I saw were coming from directly over the area of the Trent farm, as the crow flies... What is the chance of having and office mate who grew up next door to the Trents? And the McMinnville UFO festival had was beginning that night --also in the same direction.. I had no idea where McMinnville was located relative to I-5. So, when I came back to work later that month, I passed the magazine section --an the freaking Trent photo was on the front of Time magazine... It was the 50th anniversary of the photo being taken, I had no idea. Shocked me again.
After sojme Googling, I discovered that Leeroy Chiao saw the same formation fly past the ISS, though he later changed his story to "fishing boats":


index.php




Then in The UFO evidence by Hall, the same formation was seen flying in 1956 in Boulder NV:


index.php

I tried for some months in vain to find corroborating evidence, or sightings, then, about three years ago, I was in one of the databases (NUFORC), randomly looking at sightings sorted by object shape, and I was looking in the "rectangle" section, and I found it...

Five months later, and 250 miles further south on the same Highway.. I think the objects were cloaked in Roseburg, hanging out over the hill, until they powered up and headed back to where they came from.


Occurred : 10/20/2010 00:10 (Entered as : 10/20/10 00:10)
Reported: 7/30/2011 6:15:29 PM 18:15
Posted: 8/7/2011
Location: Roseburg, OR
Shape: Rectangle
Duration:3 min
5 round white lights hovering over I-5.

Driving south on I-5 in Roseburg at 1205 at night I saw 5 very large round white lights in a long row floating in air about 300 feet up. They were even with top of hill and extended out of river. I could not understand what they were since it was silently hovering there. Others were pulled over on side of highway looking at it. As I got closer it started to float north above I-5. As it passed over me I could not see the stars or clouds between the lights so I believe it was a long solid object with the 5 lights. The lights did not illuminate the ground or send out a beam like a car light.

It continued to head north above the highway.

I am in law enforcement and my husband is an ex air force pilot. We have observed planes of every description as a hobby and I know that this was nothing either of us have seen before.


((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate. PD))

((NUFORC Note: Report from law enforcement officer. PD))

Sometime after my sighting I got shingles and was out for nearly a month; I attribute it to the stress from experiencing the objects.
I think about them every day --even when I don't want to.

Last edited: Jun 1, 2019
My UFO Experience: My UFO Experience
 

The shadow

The shadow knows!
On May 14, 2010, I had a UFO experience. My dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer (he's okay now), and he was to get robotic surgery soon. For a week I had been traveling from Eugene, Oregon each day to work in Lake Oswego, and then driving all the way back to Eugene to stay with my parents, waking up and driving back to Lake Oswego early in the morning for work. Nothing unusual had happened until Friday, May 14... I was working an early schedule, and finished work at about 2:30 that day, iirc. I merged onto I-5 South and headed for Eugene. It was a sunny day with blue skies, and no real clouds. Near milepost 276 - 279, there are large open fields scattered with farmhouses, and one can see all the way to the mountains in front of the coast range; it's a regular and busy stretch of highway, and I don't remember ever being alone there, the thousands of times I have made the trip from Portland to Eugene. As I neared the area, I watched the car in front of me disappear into the distance --as if I had somehow slowed down, or was stuck in some kind of time warp. Everything was lush and green, and as I drove past a grove of trees on the right, I turned to look out to the distance, and.. I was confronted with five bright glowing objects. They appeared to be round and were in a slanted straight line about 15° from the horizontal. The objects were initially extremely bright (like arc lamps), but I could still look directly at them, and they had distinct edges (this is a feature of other UFO reports too). The objects were perhaps 30' in diameter. As I looked, I could see that the tops seemed to be slightly reflecting the blue sky, and I thought they were metallic spheres, or at least had a metallic object within the glow. As I watched, shocked out of my mind, they seemed to slowly become more level and it appeared as if they might be approaching my car, very slowly. Initially I moved my head back and forth to see if they were some kind of reflection --no.. Then my mind raced to another possible mundane solution; a line of fighter jets moving away from me in formation --no. There they were. I looked around to see if there were other people seeing this; though I could see farmhouses and other structures, there was an eerie silence and no one was around. I was alone on the highway for I think the first time in my life and that was equally strange.. As I realized after a few moments that I was actually seeing UFOs, and they seemed to be slowly appproaching, I became worried. I had the uncanny feeling that I was being watched by them; I've never felt anything like it before or since. Worried, I kept driving very slowly ahead and then lost them as I passed another grove of trees. Suddenly they reappeared ahead of me on I-5 (further south) in Echelon formation (just as in my avatar), this time glowing orange-red, and hanging in the sky, hovering. Then they either shot off further south or suddenly lost their luminosity (not sure which), and I couldn't see them anymore.. Then things were to get very strange indeed.

Later, arriving at my parents house, it was much later in the day than I think it should have been (almost evening). I didn't mention anything to my parents that evening, I was still in shock. The next day I did some Google searching and found out that that night was the first night of the McMinnville UFO festival; I didn't know that at the time. I'm a librarian and when I described the events to my office mate of about 20 years (now retired), he mentioned that his family owned a farm literally right next door to the Trents, and his parents knew them, as they were direct neighbors. I asked him to show me his house and the Trent farm on Google maps, so I could see where it was. It turns out that the objects I saw were coming from directly over the area of the Trent farm, as the crow flies... What is the chance of having and office mate who grew up next door to the Trents? And the McMinnville UFO festival had was beginning that night --also in the same direction.. I had no idea where McMinnville was located relative to I-5. So, when I came back to work later that month, I passed the magazine section --an the freaking Trent photo was on the front of Time magazine... It was the 50th anniversary of the photo being taken, I had no idea. Shocked me again.
After sojme Googling, I discovered that Leeroy Chiao saw the same formation fly past the ISS, though he later changed his story to "fishing boats":


index.php




Then in The UFO evidence by Hall, the same formation was seen flying in 1956 in Boulder NV:


index.php

I tried for some months in vain to find corroborating evidence, or sightings, then, about three years ago, I was in one of the databases (NUFORC), randomly looking at sightings sorted by object shape, and I was looking in the "rectangle" section, and I found it...

Five months later, and 250 miles further south on the same Highway.. I think the objects were cloaked in Roseburg, hanging out over the hill, until they powered up and headed back to where they came from.


Occurred : 10/20/2010 00:10 (Entered as : 10/20/10 00:10)
Reported: 7/30/2011 6:15:29 PM 18:15
Posted: 8/7/2011
Location: Roseburg, OR
Shape: Rectangle
Duration:3 min
5 round white lights hovering over I-5.

Driving south on I-5 in Roseburg at 1205 at night I saw 5 very large round white lights in a long row floating in air about 300 feet up. They were even with top of hill and extended out of river. I could not understand what they were since it was silently hovering there. Others were pulled over on side of highway looking at it. As I got closer it started to float north above I-5. As it passed over me I could not see the stars or clouds between the lights so I believe it was a long solid object with the 5 lights. The lights did not illuminate the ground or send out a beam like a car light.

It continued to head north above the highway.

I am in law enforcement and my husband is an ex air force pilot. We have observed planes of every description as a hobby and I know that this was nothing either of us have seen before.


((NUFORC Note: Witness indicates that the date of the sighting is approximate. PD))

((NUFORC Note: Report from law enforcement officer. PD))

Sometime after my sighting I got shingles and was out for nearly a month; I attribute it to the stress from experiencing the objects.
I think about them every day --even when I don't want to.

Last edited: Jun 1, 2019
My UFO Experience: My UFO Experience

an amazing experience have you had any follow up encounters of strange visits like MIB?
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
an amazing experience have you had any follow up encounters of strange visits like MIB?
Thanks Shadow, yes it was pretty crazy. I was worried about some kind of issue or visit as I post about UFOs a lot in forums too, but nothing so far, and I am preparing to kind of leave the UFO field for a while, to get a break. I'd recommend folks take a look at the Historic Newspapers thread at Fortean Forum --I spent a number of years scouring the newspaper databases and collecting articles after my experience --there are a number there that I don't think have been seen before. I am aware that some folks here have left that forum. The most important thing I have discovered, is the Woonsocket / Cocoyoc / Yorba Linda connection. Under people's noses for so long. I was able to track down Trudel's grand-niece and show her what I found. I was mostly worried about posting about that on forums, actually. The Sternenschiff is very important too:
The Sternenschiff Of 1851
It has been nearly forgotten. The "Ghosts of Everest" are also important, and almost forgotten too. Sorry to ramble I just wanted to share a few things with folks here.
Best regards,
Todd
 
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Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
A few more things I've thought about my experience. I've thought the objects might have been cloaked for perhaps a long time and then powered up to move and then glowed, or they were coming in to atmosphere and giving off energy in one direction only from the forces exerted on them from moving through atmosphere. Perhaps this was done when the fewest people were on the highway at that place, and it was daylight with no clouds, but I'd think think there would be a better time and way to do it, and I'm not so sure that's what happened anymore. I think it was a deliberate showing on the 60th anniversary of McMinnville, made more compelling by the fact my office mate for about 20 years was the Trent's direct neighbor growing up. I felt ambushed. The objects were first in a line at a slight angle to horizon and glowed with a silvery magnesium-like light extremely bright but you could look at it as it was contained somehow --just as the folks in Roseburg later mentioned, and so many other people. I felt observed, and like I was standing in front of a tribunal, all planned. Then after I managed to drive away apparently they reappeared further south in the echelon formation seen in my avatar, (they were a bit oranger than what is seen in my avatar, and I should fix the lower object on the left to be a bit smaller perhaps, as I think the configuration was more tilted southward and I got the impression the bottom one was observing something on the ground, but I don't know). I was In a daze and freaked out after seeing this, and slowly started to notice other cars around me over time, (I must have been driving slowly) .
The circumstances around the sighting are what has haunted me.
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
Great work being done on this forum here I am taking a break from UFO stuff but I wanted to get a few things out. I enjoy all of the great posts here, it is very comforting to see other folks with the same knowledge.
 

The shadow

The shadow knows!
Great work being done on this forum here I am taking a break from UFO stuff but I wanted to get a few things out. I enjoy all of the great posts here, it is very comforting to see other folks with the same knowledge.

no need to lurk but post as you can!
 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
I'd recommend folks take a look at the Historic Newspapers thread at Fortean Forum

I had pretty good results checking the local paper online archives when I was looking into the Hudson Valley Wave sightings. It helped that there really was only one newspaper in the area and that they had digitized their collection. Did you say you were a librarian and living in the area of the Trent farm? ? Maybe there are physical records available that aren't online moldering somewhere ?
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
I had pretty good results checking the local paper online archives when I was looking into the Hudson Valley Wave sightings. It helped that there really was only one newspaper in the area and that they had digitized their collection. Did you say you were a librarian and living in the area of the Trent farm? ? Maybe there are physical records available that aren't online moldering somewhere ?
Yes, I am a librarian and have been working at LO library for about 26 years --I shared the office with a fellow librarian who happened to literally be the Trent's next door neighbor. I was perhaps a good person to reveal to, as I am also active in forums and interact with a LOT of people. I have since made many UFO presentations at the local community center and engaged in endless combat at Historum with skeptics for years --where I first began to post the articles that would end up in the historic Newspaper articles archive at Fortean Forum. I did take a look to see if there were sightings reported in the area at the time --it was of course the first night of the McMinnville UFO Festival.. And probably 60 years to day of original McMinnville UFO sighting/ photo. All I could find was mention of orange lights descending on a car near Salem a long time ago, and the woman apparently passed out. It was only by CHANCE that I browsed onto the sighting reports page where the folks in Roseburg had seen them --I almost passed out when I read it! Other weird coincidences I've thought of: I saw five objects on I-5 (eye-five!), and when I fist saw them the they were in the line as seen in Roseburg later, and then they appeared 1 and 4 in the echelon formation in my avatar, so it is easy to remember the date: 5.14 or May 14, 2010! :)

Isolating people or small groups on roads is a common feature of UFO tactics as part of a larger strategy of maintaining a certain level of contact. Read the articles in the thread at Fortean Forum and you will see many shocking examples of this over time. Happened to Duchovny too, and del Toro and so many others.
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
I'd actually like to take a series of lie-detector tests if someone were to schedule them and it was convenient. My story is pretty strange --at least to me. In my mind it validates the McMinnville UFO photo and connects it to those lights flying in formation that were mentioned in the declassified MOD documents I saw after my even --and shows that the same objects (I actually mean the very same devices flying in that formation), have been seen around our planet for a long span of time. And as they were seen flying in space by the ISS by Chiao (before the fishing boat nonsense), it reinforces the ET hypothesis as the least strange possibility. "Advanced" means being able to function like the ideal interplanetary drone, making surgical appearances, with active camouflage, allowing some to see you while remaining cloaked to others --we will achieve this soon too, so not a big deal.
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
This greeted my sight when I was back at work and passed by the magazine area --You can imagine it was pretty shocking.


Time_trent_image.jpg
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
The shocking thing about my experience was how contrived it appears to be in retrospect.. Appeared on the 60th anniversary of McMinnville pics, coming from that direction on that day. Managed to show themselves at a time when only I could see them and was alone on highway to heighten the "alien" experience so that there was NO doubt. Then the mind"hump" about my long-term office mate growing up literally next door to the Trents. And then I was able to find the formation or the same objects in different times and places --even in space via Leroy Chiao.... Damn. Enough to make one take to drink again. Device are like a godlike AI, able to appear surgically. We are hamsters... These are some amazing abilities and tactics.
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
Remember that paper about our universe and ourselves being a simulation? Well imagine what kind of information world UFOs exist in, have access to.. They would know more about us than we do --able to see connections far in advance of anything our current AI could dream of.. That's how these things are done. The Internet and all human information? Known instantly.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Remember that paper about our universe and ourselves being a simulation? Well imagine what kind of information world UFOs exist in, have access to.. They would know more about us than we do --able to see connections far in advance of anything our current AI could dream of.. That's how these things are done. The Internet and all human information? Known instantly.

In regards to AI, I don't consider anything we have now as AI, they're just algorithms...That being said yes we are so primitive as a species, these visitors to our world are leagues ahead of us, some may be millions of years ahead of us...Its astounding to ponder over, what their possible capabilities are, how they perceive our universe in comparison to our knowledge and understanding...We are no match for them in this physical world...

...
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
In regards to AI, I don't consider anything we have now as AI, they're just algorithms...That being said yes we are so primitive as a species, these visitors to our world are leagues ahead of us, some may be millions of years ahead of us...Its astounding to ponder over, what their possible capabilities are, how they perceive our universe in comparison to our knowledge and understanding...We are no match for them in this physical world...

...
Agreed! :)
Nothing like a generalized AI has been created and it is far off.
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
Hi folks,
I'll mention another thing that happened probably two years later after the first experience in 2010, and I think it is related; the end of surveillance or something.,. It was just as amazing in its own way, as the first experience. It is the only other experience I have had.
I was living in my house in Portland near Multnomah Village area, but up on a hill, and it got pretty dark where I lived. It was evening and I was taking the dog out in the backyard to poop. I stood there staring at the stars above, and actually thinking about the experience and wondering if I would ever experience it again, and.. Suddenly one of what appeared to be stars directly overhead moved suddenly and took off into space. I watched it move away into space in a Southerly direction. It was clearly moving into space away from earth, and I watched for about two seconds as it did this.. I haven't mentioned it before, because the previous event was so bizarre, but it did happen. I first thought it could be some earthly technology like a secret defense satellite or something, but it wasn't in orbit --it was heading out into space. That is the only other possible UFO experience I have had. I used to hike a lot and have seen many meteors, but this was not one of those. I've watched meteor showers before etc. The only thing it reminds me of is one of the old articles where the evening star moved suddenly and scared folks.
 
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Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
Looks like year before I saw UFOs associated with the McMinnville UFO photo / festival, that the objects may have made an appearance at another event dedicated to them. (Video set to particular time).
 

Todd Feinman

Show us the satellite pics...
I've been thinking a lot recently about how the UFO experiences I've had have changed my life. There are people who see UFOs and then never speak about them to anyone, and UFOs have different kinds of impacts on the different kinds of people who experience them. I think it took me about a year after the first encounter to start posting on forums online about what I saw, but I began to feel more compelled to post about it and tell people about it. After all, if these things had happened to you, wouldn't you feel almost obligated to tell others about it? Given the implications? Nothing would be more important than telling others abut it, and it would be irresponsible to do otherwise and keep it a secret. I also told my three best friends about it, and an old childhood friend who is now a computer scientist and professor about it --or tried to. Of my two best friends, one treated me as though I were crazy, making a little face and nodding when we drove that stretch of highway together when I drove him down to Eugene from Portland after a visit. The other was a bit more open-minded, but really hadn't been exposed to the subject, and I think he leaned toward explaining it as a natural phenomenon. Our paths diverged at that point, though I certainly enjoy thinking about them having to read about UFOs in the news now, every day </schadenfreude>
My friend the computer scientist and I spoke over the phone, and he behaved in a manner similar t0 my less open-minded friend. To be fair, I have always been interested in unusual things and the occult, but hey, that is kind of the demographic down in Eugene, isn't it? So not a long shot. And I have driven that stretch of highway thousands of times, between Portland and Eugene. Even when I was a kid. One divorced parent in Portland, the other in Eugene. I hope my scientist friend is also enjoying the news these days,.. And the corroborating encounters of the same objects I saw that I found in NUFORC.
My parents believe me, especially my mother who saw me right after the first experience. UFOs frighten them a bit, and they don't want to talk about them, though. I read them some of the articles from the Old Encounters thread and it spooked them. So, by communicating with others about UFOs, they have changed my life by freeing me of all of my friends! :ohmy8: Well... More time for art I guess...
I made a calculated decision to use my real name online to give more credence to my sightings. Of course folks Google you, and about a year ago as I was walking out of my apartment complex, some drunk millennial girl pointed at me and said "look! There is that strange man!" I gave her a withering look, and went on my way.
I never expected the stuff to come out of the Pentagon or for things to hit the fan --by the time that happened I had already been talking online about the reality of UFOs and my experiences for years.
Some people will never believe until they have their own experiences --the old articles show that too, and that is also partially why this type of long-term contact can occur without causing a tipping point.
UFOs have changed my outlook on things completely. I had an interest in them over the years as many boys do, and thought they were probably real, but thought that sightings of them were exceedingly rare --so I was just like many other people in my beliefs about UFOs. Now it is very hard not to think about them. Every day I can't help but remember them. Overall, I think it was worth it to have the experiences, though it is basically PTSD that happens after one sees them, seeing them is traumatic but also strangely elating. A very strange kind of PTSD. And there can be physical effects or illnesses too for experiencers. I attribute the shingles I got to seeing them the first time. with the second sighting the object was further away and then just took off into space.
One of the shocking things for me about the experiences is that they were so improbable. Looking back at other sightings in history showed me that they had often happened that way --isolating individuals, appearing in places and ways that put them in control of the situation and with an easy egress. This is why I developed the idea of a form of algorithmic AI contact that doesn't cause a tipping point, involves displays and demonstrations, road encounters, etc.
But. If I was an ancient seeing what I saw in ancient times, with my ancient paradigm in my ancient head, I would certainly have thought that I was seeing gods, or angels, or spirits. And their ability to make contacts with us in the ways they do would only reinforce my belief that I was witnessing something "supernatural" or divine. I'm just trying to grok what I experienced and understand it with our current paradigm, so I define them as alien technology; AI super-drones, operating algorithmically so as not to cause a tipping point, but with a lot of ephemeral contact. But they might be something even stranger. We will see what the future holds.
 
I had shingles about a month following my encounter, which I believe was caused by the emotional strain of seeing the UFOs. Even though I try not to, I find myself thinking about them often.
 
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