The McMinnville case revisited - New analysis online

Originally posted by draknoir2
Farmers aren't stupid. Certainly not too stupid to dangle a tin plate from a fishin' line and snap a photo of it.

That was kind of my thought, as well. I could see where somebody at the time, regardless of their sophistication, might see it as a way to make a few bucks. Nobody buys UFO photos now, but back then it was possible to sell them to magazines.

I don't think the Trents ever made any money from the photos, though. Although they did get some attention, which might also have been a motivation. Pulling the wool over the eyes of city folk is a time-honored tradition among some rural people.

Originally posted by elevenaugust
I'm actually in touch with Bruce Maccabee about some points that need to be cleared up about this case (and thanks to him for the original hi-res photos):

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2- Oddly, I haven't found anywhere the mention of a possible underneath hollow model. What about this hypothesis (that is possibly not incompatible with the hypothesis of an outside rear-view mirror)?

3- I recently saw on an Internet UFO blog the mention of a 30s separation time between the two shoots, this blog quoting as the source of this affirmation a magazine: "Official UFO" from 1977. I have found the magazine and bought it and did find that this data was given by "David A. Kennedy" in an letter to the editor-in-chief of this magazine. Any input about this data?

Someone also suggested that the object could have been a late 1940s Ford Mirror (the mirror below is from 1948):

edit on 19-3-2013 by elevenaugust because: (no reason given)

Going by the convex shape it is not a good example, it's a bit clearer to see here,

the objects shape is more concave going down to the bottom tip, Plus the flatted part at the top only occupies half of the total area, as against about two thirds in the Trent picture.

Sorry I am forced to clip your post.

reply to post by elevenaugust

Ok, so for those who are still interested in the case, here are the answers from Maccabee to my questions:

1- Maccabee: To have a nearby object would require light emanating from the bottom, which makes the simple hanging of a pie-plate or truck mirror less likely.

Me: OK, but what about a translucent (or semi-translucent) model? You did mention the possibility in your on-line analysis, talking about some experimentation you have done about this point, but without exposing these further.

Maccabee: I recall (From nearly 37 years ago) that I experimented with a white paper model. My intent was to produce a bottom that was a source of light that would also be uniform in brightness. I found that the paper model that was simple to make and has the same basic shape as the UFO did not have a uniform brightness across the bottom. But then I realized that if one altered the shape appropriately one could probably make a model that would satisfy the bottom brightness requirement. But then the question becomes, would the Trent's have built it in such a way as to have a uniform bottom brightness? I don't think anyone would argue that Paul Trent designed his model to have a uniform bottom brightness.

More likely he grabbed something available to hang from the wire. Building a paper model would require some effort as opposed to hanging something that already exists.
The bottom line is that one could imagine that he hung a model that "accidently" had the required bottom brightness distribution under the sunset conditions at the time. Thus the distance calculation based on the bottom brightness and atmospheric effects must be considered biased in Trent's favor, but not absolute proof that the object was distant.

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2- Me: I'm not sure if you're aware of the work done by Mr Claude POHER back in 1977 about McMinnville (the report for the French CNES was unfortunately only written in French, but I can do a translation for you if necessary). To make it short, he agreed with the translucent model hypothesis, but its conclusion (mainly based on ground experimentations as well) was exactly the opposite of yours, i-e that a "translucent model made of opal plastic material" could have been used.
Anyway, if a hoax, one have to prove that the model/material used could be easily be found by the Trent back in 1950; I guess that a translucent plastic model would not be that easy to find.

Maccabee: I was aware of Poher's analysis. I agree that in those days there was not the same use of plastic as we have now. That is why I based my analysis on a paper model.

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3- Me: Oddly, I haven't found anywhere the mention of a possible underneath hollow model. Did you ever thought of this hypothesis?

Maccabee: I don't recall thinking specifically of a model with no bottom. But the same requirement would exist: the brightness across the bottom must be uniform.

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4- Me: I recently saw on an Internet UFO blog the mention of a 30s separation time between the two shoots, this blog quoting as the source of this affirmation a magazine: "Official UFO" from 1977. I have found the magazine and bought it and did find that this data was given by "David A. Kennedy" in an letter to the editor-in-chief of this magazine. Do you have any input about this data?

Maccabee: I don't recall this in Official UFO. However, for the first time in years I opened my copy of the infamous Condon Report (Colorado University ) and therein I find, in Hartmann's report, "within 30 seconds". This is probably where Kennedy got his time. My guess is that the time between pix could have been as short as 10-15 seconds.

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Now, I guess that what's comes up from this exchange is that, in the hoax hypothesis, the small model with no bottom is the more likely.

Next step would be to trying to reproduce the shoots, with the more possible similar data than those at the McMinnville farm back in 1950.

reply to post by Druscilla


First of all if you read anything about this case then you will be aware theirs no evidence of dangling object from the lines across (read Macabees report) in fact whatever that object its appears at a distance and is real and quite large.

Secondly you dismiss all and every eye witness accounts and reports citing they can be mistaken and downright liars in other words suggesting it should not considered or taken it account.

So yes im calling you out as pseudo skeptic who has nothing to add to the subject but here to stroke your own ego showing no objectivity and complete bias.

And to answer your question (or your mates) no i'm not UFO researcher/Ufologist i will leave that real UFO skeptics and researchers on this forum and other sites.

reply to post by anomalie

First of all if you read anything about this case then you will be aware theirs no evidence of dangling object from the lines across (read Macabees report) in fact whatever that object its appears at a distance and is real and quite large.

I am actually quite confused by your post. Wasn't evidence of this being a dangling object presented by the op? Have you read the thread or are you just out to get your digs in on another poster?

Our conclusion
At the end of this simple geometric and radiometric analysis, we finally conclude that the hypothesis of a small object hanging below a power wire is the most convincing.