It’s hard to believe but these two old photos are among the most famous UFO photographs ever taken. It was May 11, 1950, Paul and Evelyn Trent were on their farm about nine miles from McMinnville, Oregon. Evelyn saw it first, something strange flying in the sky. She got Paul, who grabbed his camera, and took two photographs of the flying object. A local newspaper first published them but then Life magazine heard about it and featured them in their June 26, 1950 edition. The Trents eventually passed away but their photos have continued to intrigue ever since.

Ever since they were first published, photo experts have analyzed the photos and negatives and they have all come to the same conclusion: The photos really depict a solid object in the sky. Is it an alien spaceship, secret military project, a plate thrown in the air? They don’t know, but whatever it is, it is in those photos. There is still so much that is unknown about conditions under which the photos were taken, such as the weather or camera settings. Experts only had the negative and the photo to go by.

When I was a child and saw the photos, they screamed hoax to me. But then I saw an in-depth examination on television where all my amateur theories of how it was done were all debunked. I thought I was smart – my little ideas had been thought of and checked many years before I came along. So what did the Trents see in the sky that morning? No one really knows. Is it really a hoax? No one can say for sure, but for the past 60 years the photographs have been ruled authentic.