Reported Crop Circles for the State of South Dakota -

Veblen Township, Marshall County, South Dakota (August 11, 1965)

50 years ago this week is the anniversary of one of the earliest and most-clearly documented crop circles here in the USA, in the small, rural community of Veblen Township, South Dakota. On Thursday, August 19, 1965, The Journal (of Britton, Marshall County, South Dakota) on their front page ran an article accompanied by a photo of farmer Willard Hill and Marshall County Extension Agent Richard Durland crouching behind a swirled circle of wheat. The article detailed that this was just one of twenty-seven circles that had mysteriously appeared on Willard Hill’s farm. This early crop circle report might have been lost to time, had the County Extension Agent Richard Durland not taken the time to follow-up on the mystery by contacting the local Air Force base as a way of examining all possible avenues for an explanation. Fortunately, the base commander forwarded The Journal article and Durland’s letter on to officers assigned to Project Blue Book. Although Project Blue Book declined to assign a case number and investigate this incident officially, they nevertheless created a valuable record of this early USA crop circle.
Read the full pdf report here.

Crop type: wheat

Source: Tremendous thanks to Rob Mercer at Miami Valley UFO Society for providing access to the recovered Project Blue Book files, and to Aaron Clark at the Cleveland Ufology Project for the Project Blue Book tip.

Project Blue Book Archives, Fold3.com
Rob Mercer, Miami Valley UFO Society
The Journal, Marshall County, South Dakota
Open Minds
Aaron Clark, Cleveland UFOlogy Project

Photos: The Journal, Marshall County, South Dakota/Project Blue Book Archives

City / County / Date:

• Veblen Township, Marshall County, South Dakota
  (August 11, 1965)
• Eagle Butte, Dewey County
  (July 1990)
• Leola, McPherson County
  (early August 1990)
• Clark, Clark County
  (September 8, 1992)
• Fort Randall, Gregory County (June 30, 1996)
• Watertown, Codington County (August 8, 1996)
• Menno, Hutchinson County (September 9, 1999)