Within Rhode Island UFOs
Were the Woonsocket UFO Photographs Staged?
Rhode Island's most famous UFO photographs remain historically important, but later film analysis strongly supports a model-on-a-wire explanation.
On this page
- What Trudel reported in 1967
- Why the photographs first seemed persuasive
- How the later film changed the case
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Introduction
Harold Trudel’s 1967 photographs near Woonsocket became Rhode Island’s defining UFO images because they seemed to offer what most sightings lacked: several clear daylight frames showing a structured, domed object beside familiar power lines. Yet the pictures never established the object’s distance or size, and no independent witness, radar record or physical trace fixed it in three-dimensional space. A related film made by Trudel in Cumberland the following year later proved still more damaging. Frame-by-frame examination found rhythmic bobbing, abrupt stops and movement relative to a nearby tree that strongly fitted a small object suspended on a wire.[centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comOpen source on amazonaws.com.
The film does not provide mathematical proof that every 1967 photograph was faked. It does, however, make a model-on-a-wire explanation substantially more persuasive than the claim that Trudel repeatedly photographed large unknown aircraft. The case remains historically important, but its evidential value is weak.
What Trudel reported in 1967
According to an account preserved in the archive of UFO researcher Wendelle Stevens, Trudel was driving on West Wrentham Road near East Woonsocket at about noon on 10 June 1967. He stopped close to high-voltage lines with a loaded camera and waited, having claimed three previous sightings in the area. He then reported that a metallic, highly domed disc approached from the west, moved around the lines and remained visible for about five minutes while he changed position and took seven photographs.[Openminds.tv]openminds.tvufo rhode island 1967UFO pictures from Rhode Island in 1967 - Openminds.tv…
That description is important because it was not a chance snapshot taken during a fleeting surprise. Trudel had deliberately brought a camera to a location where he expected another sighting. Preparation is not evidence of fraud, but it raises the need for especially strong corroboration. The story depended almost entirely on Trudel’s testimony: there was no second camera position, confirmed independent observer or measured range to show whether the photographed object was metres across and distant, or small and close to the lens.
The photographs show a dark, disc-like form with a dome and, in some frames, a short projection underneath. Power lines, trees and foliage give the scenes an appearance of scale, but appearances can be misleading. Unless the object’s distance is independently known, ordinary perspective allows a nearby model to mimic a much larger object farther away. Trudel reportedly said that he did not actually see the lower projection touch the wires, so the lines cannot safely be treated as proof that the object occupied the same plane or hovered directly above them.[Openminds.tv]openminds.tvufo rhode island 1967UFO pictures from Rhode Island in 1967 - Openminds.tv…
Trudel subsequently claimed further photographic encounters during the same summer. The archived account describes another sighting on 16 June and a further episode on 11 July near the power lines. It also links the July event to a power failure affecting about 19,000 customers roughly twenty minutes later. That blackout connection is often repeated as though it strengthens the case, but the readily available account does not supply an electricity-company report demonstrating that an unusual aerial object caused, or was even technically associated with, the outage. It is therefore a reported coincidence rather than corroborating physical evidence.[Openminds.tv]openminds.tvufo rhode island 1967UFO pictures from Rhode Island in 1967 - Openminds.tv…
Why the photographs first seemed persuasive
The strongest feature of the Woonsocket case was the sequence. Seven related photographs appear more informative than one isolated image because they suggest continuity and allow the viewer to compare the object’s apparent position from frame to frame. The pictures were also taken in daylight, when stars, planets and many common night-time misidentifications can be ruled out immediately. Their sharp, unmistakably “saucer-like” subject made them highly reproducible in newspapers, picture libraries and later histories of New England sightings.[Topfoto]topfoto.co.ukTopfoto UFO photographed by contactee Harold Trudel, in EastUFO photographed by contactee Harold Trudel, in East…December 14, 2018 — 14 Dec 2018 — UFO photographed by contactee Harold Tru…
Their visual neatness was also their weakness. In 1983, Providence science writer C. Eugene Emery reported that UFO author James W. Moseley had questioned the images shortly after their original publicity, calling them “almost too good” and noting that even impressive still photographs could be fabricated. Trudel continued to insist that the pictures were genuine. The exchange shows that the hoax question was not invented decades later: doubts accompanied the photographs from near the beginning.[centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comOpen source on amazonaws.com.
The wider pattern of Trudel’s claims made independent checking more important. Emery reported that Trudel and his associate Joseph Ferriere claimed to have photographed two objects in 1966, and that Trudel described four daylight photographic encounters during a 38-day period in 1967. One story involved an unidentified man leading him into woods and announcing that the object he sought was about to appear. A witness who repeatedly obtains unusually clear evidence is not necessarily dishonest, but repeated, highly favourable opportunities increase rather than reduce the need for preserved originals, site measurements and outside witnesses.[centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comOpen source on amazonaws.com.
What is missing matters as much as what appears in the frames. There is no secure chain of custody for the original photographic material in the public accounts, no documented stereoscopic view, and no second observer photographing the object from another location. Without triangulation, investigators cannot reliably derive distance, altitude, size or speed. Modern research proposals for studying unidentified aerial phenomena emphasise several synchronised sensors precisely because a single camera can record shape and angular movement without revealing an object’s true range or physical scale.[arXiv]arxiv.orgThe Scientific Investigation of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Using Multimodal Ground-Based ObservatoriesMay 29, 2023…
How the later film changed the case
The decisive shift came from a motion picture that Trudel said he had made in Cumberland in September 1968. He described a cylindrical object about 90 feet long, wider than a car and travelling at roughly 40 to 50 miles an hour. The 105-second black-and-white film showed the object moving near and apparently behind a tree. Despite its potential significance, Trudel and Ferriere did not release it publicly until 1982, when it was shown during a UFO presentation in Woonsocket.[centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comOpen source on amazonaws.com.
That delay created serious evidential problems. Emery obtained only a copy because the original was said to be missing. He also reported that the reel contained only about half the film expected from the cartridge, with neither Trudel nor Ferriere able to explain what had happened to the remainder. When Emery asked Trudel to revisit the location so that measurements could be taken, Trudel declined and said he preferred the matter to be dropped. None of these facts alone proves a hoax, but together they prevented the kind of reconstruction that might have supported Trudel’s size and distance estimates.[centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comOpen source on amazonaws.com.
The movement visible in the surviving film was more damaging than the missing material. Emery thought the object resembled a cardboard tube with a wire through it. William H. Spaulding of Ground Saucer Watch reportedly concluded from computer examination that it was very small and close, contradicting Trudel’s description. Walter Webb of Boston’s Charles Hayden Planetarium judged its movements consistent with a small tube hanging from a thin horizontal wire and pulled by a thread.[centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comOpen source on amazonaws.com.
The nearby tree offered a fixed reference point that the 1967 still photographs largely lacked. Examining individual frames, Emery reported that the object’s bobbing was rhythmic, peaking about once a second. It could appear stationary, jump abruptly and stop without the momentum expected of a 90-foot body travelling through the air. If Trudel’s scale estimate were accepted, one movement would amount to about 57 feet in four-tenths of a second followed by an immediate halt. A much simpler interpretation is that a lightweight nearby prop was being pulled or disturbed while suspended.[centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comOpen source on amazonaws.com.
The criticism did not come only from committed debunkers. Donald Todd, a Rhode Island UFO enthusiast presented by the television programme as an expert, reportedly regarded the film as an apparent hoax. He noted that the camera operator moved around but did not attempt to approach the object, while its displacement against the tree and background indicated that it was close to the tree. Michael Francis, then chief photographer at Boston’s Museum of Science, was similarly dismissive.[centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comOpen source on amazonaws.com.
Did television reporting overstate the evidence?
The film reached a national audience through a February 1983 edition of PM Magazine, whose promotion reportedly assured viewers that it was “no hoax”. Emery argued that the broadcast omitted his model-and-wire assessment and failed to present important doubts about Trudel’s earlier claims, the missing original and the incomplete reel. The local producer later said that repeated viewing had not convinced him that the film showed a UFO and stated that the national programme’s categorical promotional wording had not been authorised by the Providence affiliate.[centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comOpen source on amazonaws.com.
This episode helps explain why the Trudel case endured. The striking imagery was easy to circulate, while the technical objections required slower explanation. Reproductions of the still photographs often appeared without the history of repeated encounters, the lost original film, the refusal of a site survey or the frame-based movement analysis. As a result, later readers could encounter the Woonsocket photographs as a self-contained mystery, detached from the evidence that had most weakened them.
It is also important not to reverse the same mistake by overstating the sceptical conclusion. Emery’s article was a critical investigation, not a controlled laboratory demonstration of precisely how each still photograph was made. No publicly documented confession, recovered model or complete reconstruction conclusively ties a particular prop to the June 1967 negatives. The defensible finding is therefore narrower: the film displays behaviour strongly compatible with a suspended lightweight model, and the similarity of witness, setting and claimed object type damages confidence in the earlier series.
What the hoax debate now supports
Three interpretations remain logically possible. Trudel could have photographed genuine unknown objects in 1967 and later made or misrepresented an unrelated film; the film and stills could all show ordinary nearby objects whose nature was misunderstood; or the sequence could have been deliberately staged. The available evidence cannot distinguish the final two possibilities with absolute certainty, but it gives little positive support to the first.
The model-on-a-wire explanation fits several otherwise awkward features: the absence of a reliable scale, the repeated use of locations containing lines or trees, the object’s rhythmic bobbing, its abrupt changes of motion and the frame evidence placing the filmed body near a tree. By contrast, interpreting it as a large airborne craft requires accepting Trudel’s unverified range and size estimates while overlooking movement that becomes physically implausible at that scale.[centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com]centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.comOpen source on amazonaws.com.
The case is therefore best classified as probably staged, though not proved frame by frame beyond all doubt. That wording preserves the distinction between a persuasive explanation and a demonstrated reconstruction. The 1967 photographs remain culturally important because they shaped Rhode Island’s public image as a place with a landmark daylight UFO case. As evidence of an extraordinary aircraft, however, they are undermined by missing measurements, absent independent corroboration and a later film whose motion strongly suggests a small suspended prop.
Their lasting value is cautionary. Clear photographs are not automatically strong evidence. A convincing image must also have trustworthy provenance, preserved originals, known camera geometry, reliable scale and independent data capable of excluding nearby models. The Woonsocket pictures supplied memorable shapes; the later investigation showed how little those shapes could establish on their own.
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Endnotes
1.
Source: centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com
Link:https://centerforinquiry.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/1983/07/22165401/p56.pdf
2.
Source: openminds.tv
Title: ufo rhode island 1967
Link:https://openminds.tv/ufo-rhode-island-1967/
Source snippet
UFO pictures from Rhode Island in 1967 - Openminds.tv...
3.
Source: arxiv.org
Link:https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.18566
Source snippet
The Scientific Investigation of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Using Multimodal Ground-Based ObservatoriesMay 29, 2023...
Published: May 29, 2023
4.
Source: archive.org
Link:https://archive.org/stream/412589424-ufos-and-the-extraterrestrial-contact-movement-v-1/412589424-Ufos-and-the-Extraterrestrial-Contact-Movement-v1_djvu.txt
5.
Source: topfoto.co.uk
Title: Topfoto UFO photographed by contactee Harold Trudel, in East
Link:https://www.topfoto.co.uk/asset/345296/
Source snippet
UFO photographed by contactee Harold Trudel, in East...December 14, 2018 — 14 Dec 2018 — UFO photographed by contactee Harold Tru...
Published: December 14, 2018
Additional References
6.
Source: facebook.com
Link:https://www.facebook.com/groups/1395438638073618/posts/2031961357754673/
Source snippet
967 photos of a dome- shaped craft over East Woonsocket.Read more...
7.
Source: newengland.com
Title: Aliens in New England?
Link:https://newengland.com/yankee/history/ufo-sightings-alien-sightings/
Source snippet
A Timeline of UFO Sightings and...Details from two of the seven “flying saucer” photos snapped by Harold Trudell near his home in Rhode...
8.
Source: youtube.com
Title: UFO Hoaxes These Will Leave You Speechless | The Proof Is Out There
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CONTfbyUtSo
Source snippet
The Shag Harbour UFO Incident - Full Documentary...
9.
Source: youtube.com
Title: Most CHILLING UFO Sightings You Haven’t Heard About!
Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUf77z92dq0
Source snippet
4 INFAMOUS UFO HOAXES REVEALED | The Proof is Out There...
10.
Source: academia.edu
Link:https://www.academia.edu/71337593/UFOs_and_the_extraterrestrial_contact_movement_a_bibliography
11.
Source: facebook.com
Link:https://www.facebook.com/ProvidenceJournal/posts/a-ufo-was-recently-reported-near-warren-rhode-island-how-many-other-sightings-ha/1407735110930066/
12.
Source: reddit.com
Link:https://www.reddit.com/r/aliens/comments/13p820r/cigarshaped_ufo_photographed_by_joe_ferriere_and/
13.
Source: linkedin.com
Link:https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ctp-space-systems_ctptech-ctptechnologies-ufo-activity-7402939432057856001-AQyx
14.
Source: instagram.com
Link:https://www.instagram.com/reel/DavwgIbCUAG/
15.
Source: facebook.com
Link:https://www.facebook.com/groups/1653910321314304/posts/8044470255591580/