Most of the time, the dock workers got the worst of it. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1890-1919) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1303e-union-squabbles-on-portland-waterfront.html)

On the night of Nov. 17, 1896, hundreds of Sacramento residents reported seeing an oblong airship-thing making its way across the sky in the middle of the night, propelled by four guys pedaling bicycles that were hooked to large fans. Some of the residents claimed they heard voices and music coming from the thing.

Although this certainly qualified as an unidentified flying object, it wasn’t exactly a ringer for a flying saucer of the type famously seen by McMinnville residents 50 years later. It sounded a lot more along the lines of something Edgar Rice Burroughs would put in one of his “John Carter of Mars” books — or maybe something Victor Appleton would dream up for a Tom Swift title.... (STATE LINE, 1896) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1807a.oregon-called-bs-on-california-ufo-stories-502.html)

...leaving behind a hefty load that, today, is the oldest evidence of human habitation on the West Coast. (Fort Rock, Lake County; 13th Century B.C.) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1610a.prehistoric-oregon-sandals-coprolites-411.html)

“Evelyn, you have to get your real-estate license,” Pittman told her excitedly. “I just sold a whole damn desert!”

It was a moment that would change the town of Christmas Valley forever — change it even more than Pittman had when he’d joined forces with legendary Fort Rock resident Reub Long to successfully lobby for the area to get electric service back in 1955. Because Pittman had sold that “whole damn desert” — 72,000 acres of sand dunes, sagebrush and jackrabbits, a giant slice of the old ZX and Century ranches, at a price of $10 an acre — to a real-estate developer, a big, bluff Daddy Warbucks type named M. Penn Phillips.

And Phillips had some very big plans for Christmas Valley. (Christmas Valley, Lake County; 1961) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1808a.developer-penn-phillips-christmas-valley-dream-507.html)

... good neighbors, solid citizens — not at all the sort of people one would suspect of making up a UFO story.

That’s one of the factors that lend an unusual amount of credibility to their account of having seen — and photographed — a UFO outside their home.... (McMinnville-Sheridan, Yamhill County; 1950) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1807c.mcminnville-ufo-sighting-504.html)

There’s Roswell, New Mexico, of course. And Area 51 in Nevada. And while in Nevada, a trip to the town of Pahrump — from which, since 1984, the great Art Bell and later George Noory have filled the small hours after every midnight with the four-hour Coast to Coast AM paranormal talk show.

Most casual UFO aficionados wouldn’t put any Oregon destinations on that list unless they happened to be taking their tour in the third weekend of May, in which case a visit to the McMinnville UFO Festival might be on the itinerary. (But, they might not actually know why McMinnville has a UFO festival. Plenty of people don’t.)

But, although Oregon is neither the Mecca nor the Medina of UFOlogy, the state’s role in the history of UFO sightings is more significant than most people think. For one thing, the term “flying saucer” probably originated in Pendleton. (Pendleton, Umatilla County; 1947) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1807b.flying-saucer-UFO-stories-started-in-pendleton-503.html)

... then a telegram from old friend Frank Sinatra took him away to the big time. (Portland, Multnomah County; 1947) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1111d-sammy-davis-jr-big-break-came-in-portland.html)

What happened? Nobody knows. (Offshore, Oregon Coast; 1875) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/o1112a-missing-gold-makes-mystery-shipwreck-sinister.html)

... and there was no sign of the man he’d gone on the run with the previous night. (Gladstone, Clackamas County; 1922) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1610d.murder-of-bootlegger-frank-bowker-414.html)

... and spread throughout the ship. (Coos Bay, Coos County; 1916) (For text and pictures, see http://offbeatoregon.com/1303c-steamer-congress-won-race-against-fiery-death.html)