On 11 May 1950 Evelyn Trent went out to feed the rabbits on a farm outside this Oregon town and saw a metallic disc drifting slowly over the field. She called her husband, who managed two photographs before the object went off to the west. The Trents did not try to profit: they finished the roll, left it at the local chemist, and the pictures reached a newspaper through a banker they knew. The frames have been argued over for decades — a 1969 analysis for the Condon Committee found no sign of a suspension or a montage, while later work points to a possible model hung on a wire under the power lines. They remain the two most famous photographs in the subject, and the argument has not closed.

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Baikonur and a Sky Full of Explanations

The Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kyzylorda Region of Kazakhstan is the world's first and largest operational spaceport, long surrounded by reports and rumors of unidentified flying objects. Particular intrigue surrounds accounts by Soviet military personnel and rocket engineers describing glowing spheres, discs, and light beams observed over launch pads and ballistic missile silos.