The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Extraterrestrial Encounters

by Story, Ronald

  A detailed photogrammetric analysis has failed to prove that the object was suspended beneath the overhead wires. However, the photogrammetric analysis has turned up an interesting coincidence between the amount of angular motion of the UFO between photos as claimed by Mrs. Trent in 1950, and the amount actually recorded by the photos. The Portland Oregonian of June 10, 1950, states: “During this time the object moved across the horizon through an arc of about 15 degrees, according to her description.” The actual angle between the sighting lines to the UFO in photos #1 and #2 is about 17 degrees.

  Although Klass has argued that the discrepancies between the original accounts of the sighting as expressed in the original newspaper stories are evidence of a hoax, because they didn’t get their stories straight, these discrepancies could also have resulted from attempts by the witnesses to reconstruct what would have taken place several weeks before they were interviewed by the newspaper reporters. Thus, these discrepancies are relatively unimportant.

  However, one major discrepancy does exist. One would expect that the Trents could remember whether the photos were taken in the morning or in the evening just before sunset, as stated in the original reports and as repeated many times by Mrs. Trent. The shadows of the east wall of the garage are sharp and suggestive of a small bright source in the sky east of the garage. According to Sheaffer, the shadow positions suggest that, if they were made by the sun, the sun was approximately due east of the garage wall. This would place the time at about 7:30 A.M. on the eleventh of May, 1950. Sheaffer has argued that no source but the sun could have made such shadows. On the other hand, Mrs. Trent has repeatedly claimed that Mr. Trent went on a milk run every day early in the morning after they took care of the farm animals. This milk run would have lasted from 6:30 or 7 A.M. to later than 9 A.M. under normal circumstances. Thus, he would not have been available to take the photos in the morning.

  Furthermore, a detailed photometric study of the shadows under the garage eave provides evidence which appears to contradict the sun-shadow hypothesis. The shadow image that provides the most data for evaluation is that of the edge of the roof. Densitometric scans of this shadow show that it is sufficiently smeared in a vertical direction to have been made by a source which has an angular vertical extension of between 5 and 10 degrees, whereas the angular size of the sun is only about one half a degree. A study of the effects of haze and clouds on the “effective angular size of the sun” showed that, when nearly obscured by clouds, the sun has an effective angular size of no more than about 1.5 degrees. On the other hand, the rather sharp width of the shadows of the eave rafters suggest that the source must have had a relatively small horizontal extension, probably not exceeding about 2 degrees.

  Both Sheaffer and Hartmann have argued that it would be impossible for a bright cloud to cause shadows similar to those on the east wall of the Trent garage. A detailed theoretical analysis showed that it might be possible under certain conditions. However, the main argument for the possibility that a bright cloud at sunset could have caused such shadows comes from photographic evidence taken by the writer in July 1977. Although the average brightness of the cloud was only about four times that of the sky, the shadows were very noticeable, with a contrast comparable to the 20 percent or so contrast between the illuminated areas and the areas shaded by the eave rafters on the Trent garage. The weather report for McMinnville on May 11, 1950, indicates that cumulous clouds were present during the afternoon. Whether or not a single cumulous cloud would have been east of the Trent farm at sunset is, however, impossible to determine from evidence independent of the Trent photos.

  Over the years since the photos were published, numerous investigators have talked with the Trents about their sightings. The first interviewer was William Powell. He was convinced the Trents were telling the truth, as was the newspaper editor, P. Bladine. The banker, F. Wortmann (now deceased), wrote in 1969 to the late Dr. James McDonald that Mr. Trent “is an individual who can be relied on without any question.” In response to letters from P. Klass in 1969 and 1972, Wortmann restated his firm belief “as to the truth of the whole thing.” In a “spot intelligence report” to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Sergeant L. J. Hyder referred to the Trents as “substantial, solid, honest citizens of the community.” The late Frank Halstead, an astronomer, interviewed the Trents in 1958 and stated in a letter to Major Donald Keyhoe that “they seemed to be very sincere people.” Halstead’s letter contains the first reference to an “FBI” investigation of the Trents. In 1967, Hartmann interviewed the Trents during his photo analysis for the Condon Committee. He was impressed by their lack of interest in the sighting, as evidenced by the fact that Mr. Trent did not even bother to get down from his tractor while Hartmann was interviewing him. In 1969, Dr. McDonald had several phone conversations with the Trents and concluded: “I find them to be the kind of people who could scarcely carry off an imaginative hoax or fabrication” Mr. Trent told McDonald that Trent’s father had also seen the object, but only after it receded into the distance. Also in 1969, Veikko Itkonen, a film producer and director, who was working on a UFO documentary that was shown in Europe, interviewed the Trents at the scene of the original photos. He stated that “the conclusions of Dr. Hartmann are very close to the impressions we got” A. Fryer, a former high-school science teacher at McMinnville, interviewed the Trents in 1976 and subsequently stated: “No question in my mind that they weren’t trying to hoax—she never called it a Flying saucer or UFO.”

  I had twenty-six phone conversations with Mrs. Trent during the period 1974-77. During this time, she maintained the expected consistency in retelling the account of the sighting. She has also provided new information in response to certain questions which she probably had never been asked before, such as questions about their typical daily activities and the involvement of any relatives and friends in the aftermath of the sightings. Mrs. Trent has stated that, some time after the photos were published, a lady who lived within several miles of the Trent farm in 1950 told Mrs. Trent that she, too, had seen the strange “parachute-like” object. Mrs. Trent also thinks that Mr. Trent’s mother might have seen it. Although Mr. Trent’s father was dead by the time of Hartmann’s interview, the lady who was her neighbor, according to Mrs. Trent, was still alive (now deceased). It is unfortunate that Hartmann did not ask Mrs. Trent whether or not she knew of other witnesses. Mrs. Trent has passed two PSE (psychological stress evaluator) tests of statements she has made concerning the original sighting and the new information. In the opinion of the PSE analysts, she shows no noticeable stress when answering any of the questions regarding the sighting and associated events (e.g., other witnesses, daily activities, et cetera). Thus, it appears that Hartmann’s official conclusion is still valid.

  —BRUCE MACCABEE

  References

  Gillmor, Daniel S., ed. Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. (Bantam Books, 1969). “Final Report of the Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects” Conducted by the University of Colorado under contract to the United States Air Force, Dr. Edward U. Condon, Scientific Director.

  Klass, Philip J. UFOs Explained (Random House, 1974).

  Maccabee, Bruce. “McMinnville (Oregon) photos” in Story, Ronald D., ed. The Encyclopedia of UFOs (Doubleday/New English Library, 1980).

  Sheaffer, Robert. The UFO Verdict (Prometheus Books, 1981).

  Meier contacts (b. 1937) Eduard Meier, popularly known as “Billy,” claims to have had his first telepathic contacts at the age of five with an elderly extraterrestrial man who called himself Sfath. Shortly thereafter he physically met with Sfath on several occasions in the extraterrestrial’s pear-shaped metallic vehicle, in an area near Meier’s home in northern Switzerland. The purpose of these contacts was, through the application of advanced technologies, to accelerate the development of young Meier’s mind to that of an adult, and prepare him for the mission that would become synonymous with his life’s purpose.

  As a resu
lt of this educational process, and ensuing developmental dissonance with his peers and neighbors, as well as hospitalization for several years due to tuberculosis, Meier would withdraw from his regular schooling after nine years.

  One of the Pleiadian (or Plejaran) “beamships” with Mount Auruti in the background. Photo by Eduard “Billy” Meier

  Meier’s telepathic contacts with Sfath continued until 1953 and, after their cessation, were replaced by contacts with an extraterrestrial woman named Asket who claimed to come from a different adjoining universe, the Dal universe. Meier emphasizes that these contacts, and all subsequent ones with various extraterrestrials, were voluntary and not what are commonly called abductions.

  Meier received additional education from Asket, which he claims included travel back in time to different periods to allow him to see important events as they actually happened. These experiences, as well as Meier’s own studies of Earth’s various religions during his extensive travels throughout India and the Mid-East during the 1960s, further prepared him for his mission.

  This photo by Meier shows a beamship with an accompanying remote-controlled craft.

  In 1965 Meier lost his left arm in a bus accident in Turkey—an event foretold by Asket as having to occur. In 1966 he married a Greek woman and returned to Switzerland with her in 1970, where they began raising their family of three children.

  Five years later, on January 28, 1975, Meier’s contacts began with Semjase, a female who said that she was from the Pleiades. It was Semjase who would subsequently provide Meier with the opportunities for the now world famous photographs and films of UFOs that have been at the center of the controversy swirling around him.

  The remarkable clarity of the hundreds of daytime 35 mm photos, and the half-dozen pre-video 8mm film segments are unique in all of UFOlogy. Meier also made cassette tape sound recordings of the UFO’s which could not be duplicated in sound studios using the best synthesizers available at the time. Semjase also provided him with metal samples that, upon analysis by Marcel Vogel, a research chemist with IBM who was a key researcher in the development of liquid crystal technology and the floppy disk, were determined to be of such quality and composition as to be unknown and not duplicable by current scientific methods.

  Additionally, the counterclockwise circular landing patterns made in the grass by the Pleiadian spacecraft, or “beamships” as they are called, remained in a horizontal position throughout several months with the grass remaining unbroken, green and healthy. The shear volume and unmatched quality of these items has, paradoxically, caused some in the UFO field to call the Meier case too good to be true.

  Even more controversial, however, has been the content of the Contact Notes: the transcripts of the conversations that Meier claims to have had with Semjase, her father Ptaah and other extraterrestrials, and the Talmud Jmmanuel (about which more shall be said later.) The Contact Notes cover a very wide range of topics and are telepathically transmitted to Meier, through an advanced Pleiadian technology, and then typed by him with his one remaining hand at very high speed on a typewriter specially modified by the Pleiadians for this purpose. Unlike a lot of so-called channeled information, the Contact Notes are unique in that the majority of the material transcribed by Meier is from his face-to-face encounters with the Pleiadians, which usually occurred on their beamships. They are not only quite specific but have already been proven to contain extremely accurate, and previously unpublished, scientific information. Time will tell how much of the information Meier published on a wide range of topics is accurate. It has long been accepted by people researching the case that deliberate disinformation may have been injected by the Pleiadians as a “safety valve” type of mechanism for skeptics. This viewpoint has in itself generated some skepticism from critics of the case. Additional areas of information include:

  ENVIRONMENTAL DAMAGE

  During Meier’s 7th recorded contact with Semjase on February 25, 1975, his 34th recorded contact on Septemeber 14, 1975, and 35th contact on September 16, 1975, he was informed of the dangers facing humankind from the consequences of the human-caused damage to the ozone layer. Semjase emphasized that the greatest, and at that time unknown to us, damage was caused by the atmospheric atomic testing of the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s (which released certain “elementary radiations” that our scientists didn’t even have a means of detecting) as well as from bromine and CFC gases.

  Semjase told Meier that the explosions of the atomic devices tore holes in the ozone allowing deadly UV rays to pass through, killing off microorganisms in the upper atmosphere as well as microorganisms in the seas, with which they were in symbiotic relationship. Ultimately this would lead to problems with the food chain as well as genetic mutations.

  An article from the November 29, 1988 Santa Monica, California Evening Outlook newspaper, titled “Atom Bomb Testing Tied to Nuclear Depletion,” confirmed Semjase’s conversation with Meier thirteen years earlier. An article from the February 24, 1992, Los Angeles Times, titled “Ozone Hole Damages Food Chain,” further confirmed Semjase’s warnings.

  During Meier’s 45th contact with Semjase, on February 25, 1976, she also told him that our extraction of petroleum and natural gas from the Earth, and damming of waters, was a major contributing factor to the increase of earthquakes and volcanic activity. A professor at Stanford published a corroborating article in the June 21 through June 27, 1990, issue of The Good Life-Independent Journal, a southern California newspaper. A scientific report aired on National Public Radio in 1991 during which the discovery of the connection between bromine gases and the ozone damage was “first” revealed. The report made mention that bromine gases were used extensively in wood treatment, especially woods prepared for export to Japan, and also for agricultural applications. Now, decades after Semjase’s warning, bromine gases are well recognized as damaging to the ozone layer.

  Meier published information that he received from the Pleiadians on a wide range of topics. Time will tell how much of the information is accurate and it has long been accepted by people researching the case that deliberate disinformation may have been injected by the Pleiadians as a “safety valve” type of mechanism for skeptics. This viewpoint has in itself generated some skepticism from critics of the case. Additional areas of information include the following:

  THE TALMUD JMMANUEL

  Central to understanding Meier and his mission is the Talmud Jmmanuel, or “TJ,” as it is referred to. The TJ was alleged to be an ancient Aramaic document which was discovered in a long-abandoned half-buried tomb in Jerusalem, which was initially located by Isa Rashid, a former Greek-Orthodox priest, in 1963 while under the subconscious prompting of the Pleiadians. The document itself, sealed in a resin box, was retrieved by Meier, who located the small obscured opening to the tomb, during a subsequent visit with Rashid. The surviving translated segment of the TJ is considered by some to be a segment of the original testament of Jmmanuel (who was later called Jesus), which gave rise to the New Testament gospels, in particular the Gospel of Matthew. The TJ is unique in that it answers and resolves more than 300 problems and inconsistencies that have troubled New Testament scholars for decades according to James Deardorff, an independent TJ researcher. (For a detailed exploration of the TJ see Deardorff’s research at http://www.proaxis.com/~deardorj.)

  GENETIC MANIPULATION OF THE SPECIES

  The Pleiadians told Meier that many Earth humans are related to them through common ancient ancestors or to other extraterrestrial visitors from the far distant past. The case contains quite a bit of specific information about the extraterrestrial connection as well as why genetic manipulations were deliberately done, by some ETs, to limit the Earth human’s life span to about 100 years. The Pleiadians claim that the original lengthy life spans of several hundred years, as referred to in the Bible and other sources, will one day be reclaimed when scientists discover and rectify the particular genes that were tampered with. Meier’s writings on this predated the fairly recent publi
shed discoveries in this area. According to Meier, the “original sin” as it is referred to in the Bible is erroneous, as it really refers to this genetic tampering of the human DNA that limited the human lifespan.

  GENETICALLY ENGINEERED CROPS AND PEOPLE

  Meier states that the well-meaning attempts to categorically block the genetic experimentation and modification of foods and crops are misguided. He says that it is part of the process of evolution that mankind moves in this direction, but he also states that vigilance is necessary as there are inevitable positive and negative results in this area as in all others in life. Perhaps even more controversial is his prophetic information on the types of genetic modifications that await the human species. He foresees a time when humans will also incorporate technological devices into their bodies for a wide range of functions—a futuristic vision that also portends great difficulties as well as achievements.

  ORGAN TRANSPLANT DANGERS

  Years ago, the Pleiadians advised Meier that organ transplantation was a dangerous practice that would ultimately have to be relinquished in favor of re-growing and replacing worn or damaged organs. Consideration of this approach is gaining ground in our scientific circles with rumors that some scientists are close to perfecting this technology.

  FLIGHT TWA 800

  In response to Meier’s question as to the cause of the crash of TWA flight 800, Ptaah, Semjase’s father and one of the leaders of the Pleiadians, unequivocally told Meier that it was an errant U.S. Navy missile.

  THE BEAST

  Meier has written that the “New World Order” is an inevitable development in human evolution. Though sure to be initially fraught with very negative conditions, it is seen as the precursor step to a truly unified, cooperative world. Regarding the Beast of the Bible, Meier says this actually refers to the supercomputer in Brussels that will ultimately be used to track and control humanity (that computer reportedly already bears the acronym B.E.A.S.T.)