Circles on the field and other formations. United States

The following incident was investigated by Field Investigator Glenn Mc- Wane and member LeRoy Latham. The aerial photograph accompanying this report was furnished by Mr. Mcwane. The initial interview was obtained by Mr. Latham, and later Mr. Warren Barr, who owns the property involved, declined to allow his daughter Kathy to be interviewed further. On the night of the 13th of July pat Barr and her 17-year-old cousin Kathy Mahr were preparing for bed in the upstairs bedroom at the Barr farm home, 7.2 miles south of Garrison, Iowa.

Pat’s attention was caught by the sound of what seemed to be a low-flying jet and she went to the north window and looked out in the direction of a neighboring farm. She called to her cousin and both girls watched a strange object which appeared to be hovering over a large bean field on the Barr farm, Kathy’s description is as follows:

The object had a dull metallic finish which was easily discerned because of the two rows of lights that were arranged across the face of it at the midline. It appeared like two coffee saucers” placed rim to rim and rotated as it hovered. The sighting lasted for only a few seconds, after which the object left at such high speed that the girls did not know precisely which direction it went, except that it went past their window. The area where it had hovered was glowing red after the object disappeared from sight. Neither of the girls was frightened but were curious about the strange-appearing craft.

At breakfast the next day the girls told the Barrs about what they had seen and Mr. Barr tended to be skeptical and attributed the whole thing to “a figment of their imagination.” However, Later that morning he discovered, at the spot indicated by the girls, a nearly circular patch of ground in his bean field which was almost bare. The bean vines appeared to have been burned although there was no evidence of flame.

The area in the field which was “burned’ ‘is approximately 40 feet in diameter and was easily seen from the air. The local news media showed interest in the incident and a taped interview with the Barr girl’s which was played on a local radio station. Most of the residents seemed inclined to attribute the spot to a “fireball” or lightning. Mr. Barr does not rule out lightning entirety, and when interviewed said that he hadn’t informed authorities at first because he was skeptical.  pat Barr stated that she was convinced that the object she had seen had caused the damage to the bean crop and that it was an “air-flying object from outer space.”

It “wasn’t anything earthly,’, she said Mr. Barr told interviewers that he “would hesitate to guess,, at the object’s identity and the cause of the scar on the field, but did say that he felt it was “something unusual – I’ll put it that way.” Samples of the bean vines from inside the circle, near the outside, and from elsewhere in the field were gathered by Mcwane and are now being examined by an APRO consultant.

As in the past, there is a likelihood that the bean vines will furnish a clue to what happened, but the tests must be made anyway,  Tests for radiation at the site revealed nothing abnormal, and similar tests of the vine samples were also negative.

A high school student invited her cousin [a cosmetologist] to spend the night with her. The two young women were still awake when they heard a sound outside. Looking out the window, they saw an object above the field across the road. It was less than a mile away. 

The object looked like a gray metal disk, not glowing, but with an orange-red band of light around its circumference. This light allowed the girls to see the shape clearly: "a shallow inverted bowl with a curved bottom." 

The object was "clean" [without protrusions and individual lights]. The object flew directly over the farmhouse, its vibrations shaking the bedroom Windows. [Parents were already asleep and didn't Wake up]. 

The girls felt that the disk was "the size of a car" and rotated counterclockwise, rising and floating away.

The next morning, they told one girl's parents what had happened, but they didn't believe them. 

That morning, however, my father was walking in a field and came across a circle of dried soy crops forty feet in diameter (12.1 m), which had not been there before. This place was not only a "perfect" circle, but also a suitable place for UFO sightings. 

The affected crop looked like this: "all the leaves of each plant were hanging from the stems withered", as if, as the UFO field researcher suggested, "they had been subjected to extreme heat". 

Apparently, the spot was the result of a "near-landing" rather than an actual landing, as the plants were not broken and crushed. 

An excellent aerial view of this circle was taken, which is attached to this report (not published). 

An APRO investigator took photos and soil samples, and Walt Andrus of MUFON/APRO interviewed the daughter [the only early interview of the cousin was conducted by journalists]. As was almost always the case, APRO "missed the ball" when analyzing the samples and reported only that the plants were dry, shriveled and not radioactive. 

Dr. J. Allen Hynek even visited the place, and was later quoted:

"I still don't know what this thing is… It looks like the big heater was kept six feet above the ground."

Neighbors of the family said that their dogs were making noise that night. 

Van horn is considered one of the best "touchdown" cases in history. This is because he has several witnesses, immediate confirmation of the trail by someone who knew exactly the state of his farm's fields, a lack of desire for publicity [in fact, the parent who blocked almost all of this], a lack of motivation [in fact, the loss of a valuable crop], numerous first-time investigators with a good reputation, and a rather large and mysterious effect. According to some case assessment scales, this may be #1.