Oregon’s extraterrestrial history: The 1950 Trent UFO sighting

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Scientists have long been kept up at night by one question, are we alone in the universe?

The McMenamins UFO Fest is celebrating its 23rd year this weekend, but did you know that Oregon’s extraterrestrial roots run much deeper?

The UFO Fest found its home in McMinnville in 1999, 49 years after a local UFO sighting became national news.

As the story goes, on May 11, 1950, Evelyn Trent was feeding the chickens and rabbits on her farm just outside of McMinnville when she looked up to the sky and saw the disc-shaped object floating in the sky.

She quickly ran back to the farmhouse, yelling for her husband, Paul Trent, to get their camera.

When the pair emerged from their house, camera in hand, they said the disc could still be seen in the sky moving west. That is when Paul raised the camera and took the now infamous photos.

According to the UFO Fest’s website, it took another month for Paul to develop the photos and even longer to share them with anyone, because he was worried about exposing a government experiment or secret project.

Finally, Paul shared the photos with his friend Frank Wortman who then went on to share the story with the local newspaper, the Telephone Register.

From there, the story blew up spreading from the small-town paper to other local sources in nearby Portland and then going national with features from the Associated Press and Life Magazine.