CLAIM: 1950 McMinnville (OR) photo by the Trents is a 25' flying saucer

[Todd Feinman]

I'd go with a US Army metal plate. I'm sure there were plenty of these around in 1950, used for collecting oil or holding small screws

It does look very similar!

 

[JMartJr]

The plate is certainly a possibility, the advantage of the truck mirror is that it comes with the post jutting out at an angle pre-existing, no drilling or gluing required.. The lazyology principle, or some corollary thereof, would suggest that for a given hoax picture, where two or more explanations for how the hoax was done cover the existing facts equally well, the option that requires the least effort from a hoaxer is at least somewhat more likely to be correct.

Note that the slanted "antenna" sticking out the top is not a feature common to a lot of other UFO pics -- this is another example of how (as far as I have seen) no two UFO pics that are clear enough to see something of the structure of the object seem to show the same "make and model" of ship -- they're all slightly different. It seems unlikely that fleets of ships flown by visiting aliens would be nothing but custom one-offs (though not impossible, who knows what aliens might do!) but seems very likely for a series of hoaxers taking advantage of whatever came to hand that looked a it like a flying saucer and tossing it in the air or hanging it from a string.

 

[Andreas]

The plate is certainly a possibility, the advantage of the truck mirror is that it comes with the post jutting out at an angle pre-existing, no drilling or gluing required.. The lazyology principle

I agree. It's just that I haven't found a single mirror with the right silhouette. The flat top of the "ufo" is quite apparent in Trent's photo, but it's not typical of this kind of mirror.