Commemorative coin rekindles talk of 50-year-old alleged UFO sighting in rural Sask. | CBC News (2025)

Shlok Talati · CBC News

· Posted: Sep 18, 2024 2:36 PM EDT | Last Updated: 33 minutes ago

A 50-year-old story of UFOsat a farm nearLangenberg, Sask.— a town 220 kilometres west of Regina — is being celebrated by Canada Post and the Canadian Royal Mint with a new coin.

Leo Fuhr saidhis brother Edwin reported seeingthe UFOs while swathing his canolafarm on the morning of September 1, 1974.

Leosaid he then reached the farm and found what he describes as doughnut-shaped imprints in the grass, eight feet in diameter.

"I was surprised," Leo said in an interview this week."I thoughtwell, what the heck, maybe my brother was seeing things and that, until I saw the rings. Seeing is believing."

According to the RCMP incident report from 1974, there were"five different distinct circles, caused by something exerting what had to be heavy air or exhaust pressure over the highgrass."

Leo, now 85-years-old, said his memories are still clear as a day. He pointed out the precise spot he found thecircles.

The story of the UFOs and the five crop circles from 1974 have prompted Canada Post and the Royal Canadian Mint to issue a coin that commemorates the event."The Langenburg Event" coin is the seventh in the Canada's Unexplained Phenomena series.

The coin is one ounce of pure silver and can be purchased online for $140.

The coin shows Edwin Fuhrsitting on a swathergazing at five saucers hoveringover a slough. Leo has ordered the coin, but chuckles atthe ideathat "somebody is making a lot of money" off of his fascinating family history.

"It's remembrance for me, because the thing is I witnessed it, because I worked with my brother on this farm," Leo said.

The Canada Post website says shortlisted designs are evaluated through a research study conducted online with a nationally representative sample of adults.

"Designs that are most appealing, and thus most likely to be collected, are then recommended by the Mint for approval by the Government of Canada," it said.

WATCH |'Seeing is believing': Brother of Sask. farmer who reported UFOs and crop circles goes back to the scene:

Ron Morier was the RCMP constable on duty at the Langenburg detachment when the UFO sighting was reported. It was his first year in Langenburg. He saidthat call is still one of the most unusual he's taken.

"It was a bit baffling. I'd never in my career up to that point had to investigate anything like this, so it was not your everyday investigation," he said.

Morier said "whether it was real or not" hasremained unclear since.

Morier saidofficers from other detachments later in his career nicknamed him Mulder, areference tothe science fiction series TheX-Files, because of his experience.

"It kind of put the community on the map for a while."

Jonathan Fuhr, Edwin's nephew and Leo's son, has been farming that land for the last 27 years. He said he hasn't seen anything of the sort in his time there, but that Edwin's stories still resonate.

"It's always in the back of your head. Sometimes the hair will stand up on the back of your neck thinking about it," he said."It'd be interesting to see them if they ever come back."

The incident from 1974 isn't the only time UFOs have been reported inLangenburg.

Jonathan said theconversation was rekindled seven years later when some children reportedseeingobjects that looked like flying saucers.

Bill Johnstoncameon as publisher of the Four Town Journal, a newspaper servingLangenburg and the area, in 1980 — six years after the sightings. He said it was less than a week before he was told about the flying saucers.

"[Everybody] has different opinions on it, but everybody knows the story."

The Four Town Journal reported on two other UFO sightings in Langenburg from 1989.

"Fifty years in the newspapers, I've developed a 'you have to see it to believeit' attitude," Johnston said.

"But at the same time, there's that wow."

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