File / mcminnville-1950
The McMinnville Photographs
The two most famous UFO photographs ever taken, and the limits of photographic analysis
A farming couple took two photographs of a metallic disc-shaped object. The images passed through several independent analyses, including within the Condon Committee, and to this day have no resolution that all researchers accept.
Official position
The Condon Committee judged the photometric analysis consistent with a large distant object, but did not rule out a hoax.
Alternative hypotheses
- A model suspended on a line beneath the power cable visible in frame — the hypothesis repeatedly advanced in sceptical analyses.
- A genuine large object at roughly a kilometre — consistent with part of the photometric work.
Why a photograph alone is not enough
McMinnville is the strongest argument for the proposition that a photograph without a known range is not a measurement. The same frame is consistent with a 30-centimetre model at five metres and with a twenty-metre object at a kilometre. Photometry narrows the interval; it does not close it.
The case sits in the database as a reference point: this is probably the best UFO photograph that exists, and even it settles nothing after seven decades of analysis. That says more about the evidential value of photography than any commentary could.
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