Saturday Scenes

On the 26th of June 1950 a photograph was published in LIFE magazine depicting a UFO. Evelyn Trent saw the unidentified flying object hovering in the sky over her farmhouse in McMinnville, Oregon. She told her husband, Paul Trent, to come outside and take a look at the slow-moving, metallic disk-shaped object. Paul Trent thought it was some type of secret military plane and took two photographs.

McMinnville UFO Photos 50 Years Later – Still A Mystery

Paul Trent may have had photos of the biggest news story ever to hit McMinnville, but all he did was put the camera away. Later, after finishing off the roll of film on Mother’s Day, he took it to a drug store on McMinnville’s Third Street to be developed.

“The reason I thought they were authentic was that the negatives were in the middle of the roll,” said Powell from his retirement home in Idaho Falls, Idaho. “He’d taken some more pictures so that he’d make sure he got his money’s worth when he developed the things.”

He hung one of the photograph where it was spotted by a local reporter who publicised the event and the images. This was the beginning of a 60 year debate regarding the legitimacy of the UFO sighting.

After LIFE published the photograph, someone misplaced the negatives, giving rise to conspiracy theories and more. 17 years later, the negatives were found and analysed. To date, no one has managed to prove the authenticity beyond a doubt nor show convincing evidence that it is a hoax.

The photographs are still regularly cited as the best evidence of the existence of UFOs and intelligent life in space. McMinnville now host an annual UFO Festival to commemorate the event.

…and on the 26th of June 2010, these intriguing and thought-provoking photographs prove that, despite the doubters, there is intelligent life on Twitter. Take a look at these Saturday scenes from talented photographers all over the world:

If you are looking for interesting people to follow, start here:

• apgphoto
• brooks_beauty
• capo42
• DorindaDorinda
• JanetIsserlis
• Mutley627441
• jmorby
• dlewis1701
• domr
• raumsinn
• sahfenn
• fluttabyz
• RAFairman
• rOcKeTmAn_76
• UKMelia
• cornellfinch
• FunkJem
• Korwhai
• carocat
• drewbenn
• akaSylvia
• twasntme
• timewind
• pendrift

Why don’t you join us?

Simply take a photograph on Saturday and tweet it as a mention to @SatScenes with your location. It’s easy and fun.

On a quiet Saturday in the middle of June in 2009, 22 people submitted Saturday Scenes with a number of people responding to my question: Who Are You?

Those photographs made up one of my favourite SatScene collections ever and they can be found here: Saturday Scenes » Who Are You

When I realised it had been a year since this collection, I thought it was time to get another look at the people behind the camera. I wasn’t able to give much notice but I twittered a few days before that it’d be fun if we had a theme of Self-Portrait Saturday for Saturday Scenes. I’m glad I did – it was a lot of fun!

On the 24th of June 2010 these interesting and fun photographs appeared during the course of the day:

Isn’t this a glorious set? And don’t forget, the thumbnails crop the photographs so it is well worth clicking through on the originals to make sure you see the full portrait!

I am putting a link to the sidebar for posterity. Someone remind me to do this again next June, OK?

Here are our stars of the moment:

• pendrift
• JustGabbie
• andrew_lillie
• JanetIsserlis
• UKMelia
• sahfenn
• raumsinn
• robdavies
• twasntme
• RAFairman
• cornellfinch
• Sithefire
• ingridf
• akrabat
• 9to5poet
• pewari
• dlewis1701
• DorindaDorinda
• DaughterofLir
• timewind
• CliffStanford
• drewbenn
• carocat
• Pixelfreund
• starcade
• elibrody
• pixelesh
• akaSylvia

You can send a self-portrait on any Saturday or any sort of scene you like. It’s the different views from all over the world that makes each set such a fun combination. So join in, take a photograph on a Saturday and send it to @SatScenes! The more the merrier.

On the 12th of June 1929, a young girl named Anne Frank was born in Frankfurt am Main in Germany. On the 12th of June 1942, she was given a diary as a thirteenth birthday present. She wrote that she hoped that the diary would be a support and comfort to her. Less than a month later, she and her family went into hiding.

A diary as a best friend

Anne doesn’t just keep a diary during her time in the Secret Annex. She also writes short stories and collects her favourite sentences by other writers in a notebook. Anne hopes for her diary to be published as a novel after the war. That’s why she starts rewriting it. But Anne never manages to finish it. She’s discovered and arrested before she completes her work.

She wrote even though she did not know that her words were special nor did she initially suspect that her documentation of her life in the secret annex would become important. The Diary of Anne Frank is now world-famous and offers us a view into a life that could otherwise have been forgotten.

On the 12th of June 2010 these photographs were taken: simple images of every-day events from all over. These moments may never be important in a global sense and yet I believe this collaboration has an effect, if only to make the world feel a little smaller.

This week’s collection was taken by the following people:

• RAFairman
• DaughterofLir
• Jamawayphoto
• ingridf
• twasntme
• Sithefire
• sahfenn
• robdavies
• gwilkinson1989
• michrueg
• JanetIsserlis
• pendrift
• raumsinn
• akaSylvia
• Elshahawk
• brooks_beauty
• pewari
• carocat

If you’d like to see all of the people who took part in Saturday Scenes this year, take a look at the Saturday Scenes list on Twitter.

Would you like to add your photo? It’s simple to join in:

1. Take a photograph on a Saturday
2. Upload the photograph
3. Send a tweet to @SatScenes with the location

I’m looking forward to seeing your photograph in the next edition!

PS: Next Saturday I thought it’d be fun to do another a self-portrait Saturday so it’d be great if you all sent in photographs of yourselves. We had great fun doing it last year: Saturday Scenes » Who Are You

On the 5th of June 1982, the first Rubik’s Cube World Championship was held in Budapest. The Rubik’s Cube, a 3x3x3 mechanical puzzle, was invented in 1974 by a Hungarian professor and it soon became a global craze. In 1981, a 12-year-old schoolboy from England wrote “You Can Do the Cube” with instructions for solving the puzzle. The book sold 1.5 million copies.

The World Championship, Budapest 1982

The cubes were randomly shuffled by a computer, and were brought on stage in a sealed suitcase. The cube was placed on a small pad with with a photo sensitive diode at the bottom. The time started counting when the cube was picked up, and stopped after the cube has been placed back on the table. Before the timer started counting the time, each contestant was allowed to lift the cube and look at it for 15 seconds. Then the cube was returned to the pad. If the cube broke into pieces during twisting the competitor was given another chance. However, two break ups resulted in disqualification in that particular round (which happened to the champion of Finland). The best time out of three attempts determined the winners.

Minh Thai from the USA won first place with a time of 22.95 seconds. The current record is 9.21 seconds, held by Australian Feliks Zemdegs.

And on the 5th of June 2010, lightning-fast Twitter users brought us these amazing images and every single one was taken in under a second. (I don’t know what I would have done if one of you had submitted a time-lapse photograph this week. Thank you for not making my life difficult.)

Take a look:

Take a moment out of your day and visit the Twitterstreams of our submitters. They are all great people and fun to follow!

• carocat
• embee
• raumsinn
• Sithefire
• Pcurd
• akrabat
• rOcKeTmAn_76
• RAFairman
• Vinjii
• thermalhound
• sahfenn
• JanetIsserlis
• dlewis1701
• Jamawayphoto
• fluttabyz
• DaughterofLir
• icklemouse
• robdavies
• mousewords
• NevilleFenn
• Twasntme
• azmichelle
• Neal55
• domr
• tashenubaste
• drewbenn
• akaSylvia

It’s easy to take part in our collaboration.

1. Take a photograph on Saturday
2. Twitter it as an @reply to SatScenes with the location
3. Bask in the glory

Follow SatScenes to see all the photographs over the weekend or simply watch this space for the next edition.

On the 29th of May 1942 Bing Crosby recorded the Irving Berlin song “White Christmas” which was to become the best-selling Christmas single in history.

White Christmas

What’s so strange in all of this, as Rosen rightly points out, is that the now-deleted first stanza of the song endows the tune with the stuff of satire, not longing:

The sun is shining.
The grass is green.
The orange and palm trees sway.
There’s never been such a day
In Beverly Hills, L.A.
But it’s December the twenty-fourth,
And I’m longing to be up north.

Rather than the lungful paean we’ve come to love (or hate), the verse satirizes Hollywood. It was planned as a first-act show-stopper for Holiday Inn, and, “was, in its inventor’s initial conception, something else entirely: wry, parodic, lighthearted – a novelty tune.”

It was Berlin himself who ordered the stanza cut from all future sheet music in 1942 after hearing the power of the song in Crosby’s unmistakable croon and watching “White Christmas” rocket up the charts a full four months before Christmas.

On the 29th of May 2010, it was equally not white and not Christmas and in many places the sun was not even shining. Even so, these photographs are sure to bring a smile to your face.

If you are thinking about who to follow on Twitter, I can highly recommend each and every one of these wonderful SatSceners:

• Dramagirl
• RAFairman
• DaughterofLir
• sparc
• fluttabyz
• sahfenn
• tradingnothing
• robdavies
• capo42
• akrabat
• raumsinn
• mousewords
• JanetIsserlis
• drewbenn
• pixelfreund
• CliffStanford
• twasntme
• timewind
• APGPhoto
• ElshaHawk
• akaSylvia
• pendrift
• rOcKeTmAn_76

Would you like to show your corner of the world? It’s easy to take part!

1. Take a photo on a Saturday and upload it to the photo site of your choice.
2. Twitter the url for your photograph to @SatScenes.
3. Watch for the next post on Saturday Scenes to see your photo here!

The photo must be taken on a Saturday but you don’t need to let me know until Tuesday (although as soon as possible is always nice) when I collate them all. Join in!