A sighting in Delphos, Kansas, in 1971, is one of the great cases that combines credible multiple witnesses with physical trace evidence, goverment involvement, and residual physical biological effects that something anomalous took place. In fact, the case won an award in 1972 from the National Enquirer for being the best UFO case of the year backed up by scientific evidence.

On November 2nd, 1971, at about 6.30pm, sixteen year old Ron Johnson along with his dog, was out tending the family`s sheep when he saw a mushroom-domed, disk shaped object descending through the trees on the family`s land. The object hovered only a few feet off the ground and so amazed the boy that he tried to get a better look. But the brightness of the object forced him to squint, so he could see no specific details on the surface except for the shape. He remembered that he did hear a machine like sound as the object descended towards the ground. Momentarily blinded by the object, which had now begun to rise, Johnson quickly regained his sight and ran inside the house to get his parents. His parents alerted, came outside where they saw the object as it ascended still bright and about the size of the distant moon in the sky.

Their shock turned to utter amazement, however, when they saw that on the ground just below where the object was hovering there was a glowing ring that looked crystalline. The same type of glow was on the leaves of the trees where the object had descended. Johnson`s mother touched the substance and remarked that it felt slick, but her fingers suddenly became numb.

The next morning, the family returned to the sight where they had seen the ring and discovered that the glowing ring was still there. It had rained the night before and the ground was wet everywhere except for the surface of the ring. It looked like the soil where the ring was simply shed the water or was impervious to it. The ring remained through the winter snow, but again, unlike the surrounding soil, the soil where the ring was would not admit any water. Snow sat on the ring as if it were the surface of a car. The soil remained impervious to water.

THE STORY CIRCULATES

Within days, a local newspaper picked up the story, this time calling it a UFO incident, and the news about the ring on the soil also attracted the interest of both the county sheriff and undersheriff, as well as the highway patrol. They, too, filed a report, remarking that the doughnut-shaped ring was completely dry despite the rain the night before and that the discolouration of the soil matched the `slight` discolouration of the limbs of the trees above the area where the witness had said the object had descended. Photographs of the ring even after almost four years still showed that the soil had a whitish colour.

The entire incident was investigated by Ted Phillips, who photographed the area and turned soil samples over to chemist Phyllis Buddinger. When UFO Hunters investigated this case, they evaluated the soil sample and were able to report that, forty years after the incident, the soil was still impervious to water. They also uncovered two facts of interest. First, the witness Ron Johnson, although he did not report it at the time, revealed that he could not account for a period of time between his trying to get a better glimpse of the object and his realization that the object was ascending through the trees. He does not know what happened during that missing time and has been reluctant to recover those memories. Two, he later discovered that his dog was in discomfort around his snout. He took the dog to the vet, who was able to retrieve a long, metalic, insect-like object that looked like it had been implanted into the dog. Whatever it was, Johnson has kept the object to this very day, still reluctant to explore what that object might be!

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CASE!

This was a case that combined a family of witnesses, a police report verifying the existance of physical trace evidence on the ground, independant corroboration that the imperviousness of the soil continued for over forty years, a case of missing time, and the physical trace evidence of the implant of a metalic object inside the witness`s dog`s snout. Certainly these facts make the Delphos case one of the better cases in American UFO history.

Watch the skies closely folks, you never know!!

G xx