Beyond the Veil Magazine

The Delphos Ring

Issue #40: April 1982

On November 2, 1971, sixteen-year-old Ronnie Johnson was tending sheep on his family’s farm near Delphos, Kansas. At approximately 7:00 PM, he observed a mushroom-shaped object hovering near the ground about seventy-five feet away.

The object was approximately nine feet in diameter and glowed so brightly that Ronnie could not look at it directly. It hovered for several minutes, making a sound like “an old washing machine which vibrates.”

Then it rose into the sky and departed.

Where it had hovered, a glowing ring remained on the ground.

The Evidence

Ronnie ran to get his parents, Durel and Erma Johnson. They arrived to find a luminous ring, approximately eight feet in diameter, marking the spot where the object had hovered.

The ring glowed in the darkness. When Erma Johnson touched the soil, her fingers went numb, a sensation that persisted for weeks. The ring itself felt strangely dry and crusty compared to the surrounding earth.

The Johnsons photographed the ring the following day. They reported it to the local newspaper and to UFO investigators. The case quickly attracted national attention.

Scientific Analysis

Soil samples from the Delphos ring were analysed by multiple laboratories. The results were remarkable.

The soil within the ring was hydrophobic: it repelled water. When samples were placed in water, they floated. When water was poured on the ring itself, it beaded and ran off rather than soaking in.

Chemical analysis revealed unusual concentrations of organic compounds in the affected soil. Some researchers identified the substance as a type of fungal growth; others disagreed.

Dr. Erol Faruk, a chemist at Nottingham University in England, examined samples in 1975. He found that the ring soil contained a white crystalline substance that ordinary soil lacked. The substance appeared organic but did not match any known compound.

Perhaps most remarkably, the ring remained visible for years after the incident. The affected soil retained its unusual properties. Grass grew differently within the ring. The ground still would not absorb water normally.

The Investigation

The Delphos case was investigated by multiple UFO researchers, including representatives of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP) and the Aerial Phenomena Research Organisation (APRO).

Investigators found the Johnson family credible. They were a respectable farming family with no history of making unusual claims. Ronnie Johnson was described as a quiet, serious young man not given to fantasy.

The physical evidence was compelling. Unlike most UFO cases, which rely solely on eyewitness testimony, the Delphos encounter left behind a permanent trace that could be examined, photographed, and analysed.

Alternative Explanations

Sceptics have proposed several explanations for the Delphos ring:

Fairy Ring Fungus: Circular growths of fungus, known as fairy rings, occur naturally in grassland. The hydrophobic soil might result from fungal activity that predated the sighting.

Livestock Urine: Animals urinating in a circular pattern might create a chemically distinct ring of soil. But this fails to explain the glowing observed by multiple witnesses.

Hoax: The Johnsons might have created the ring deliberately. However, they had no apparent motive, and the chemical composition of the ring has not been replicated.

None of these explanations accounts for all the evidence. The glow witnessed by the family, the numbness experienced by Mrs Johnson, and the unusual chemistry of the soil remain unexplained.

Eleven Years On

The Delphos ring persists. Researchers who have visited the site in recent years report that the soil remains visibly different from its surroundings. The hydrophobic property continues. The mystery endures.

The case represents some of the best physical evidence ever recovered from a UFO encounter. Whatever landed near Delphos in November 1971 left behind a permanent mark on the Kansas soil.

Was it an extraterrestrial craft? An unknown natural phenomenon? A manifestation of something we do not yet understand?

The ring offers no answers. It simply remains, a circle of altered earth in a farmer’s field, waiting for someone to explain it.

Readers with expertise in soil chemistry or knowledge of similar phenomena are invited to contact our research department.