The Langenburg Event: A Close Encounter of the Second Kind

This is the seventh coin in a popular series featuring some of Canada’s most fascinating tales of unexplained phenomena, from strange sightings to close encounters.

The Royal Canadian Mint has unveiled the seventh coin in a captivating series that explores some of Canada’s most intriguing tales of unexplained phenomena, ranging from strange sightings to close encounters. For 2024, the coin commemorates the 50th anniversary of the enigmatic Langenburg event, which occurred on the morning of September 1st, 1974.

The ‘Langenburg event' arrived towards the end of a golden age for UFO sightings, when reports of seeing physical craft had tapered off. What was especially intriguing about the Langenburg UFO sightings, as many believe they were, is that this encounter left behind physical evidence of large circles in a wheat field. This classifies the sighting as a close encounter of the second kind, which captured the imaginations of countless UFO enthusiasts.

Edwin Fuhr, a 36-year-old farmer, was swathing his fields near the town of Langenburg, Saskatchewan, when he noticed five highly polished, steel-like objects at the edge of a slough. Upon closer examination, he observed that these unusual saucer-shaped objects were rotating rapidly and hovering just above the ground. He continued to observe them until they suddenly rose up, emitting a strange vapour as they silently disappeared into the sky.

Seeing a UFO up close is an incredibly rare experience, as most people just see lights in the sky, but Fuhr got closer. He got off of his tractor for a closer look, but still kept at least 15 feet back. Fuhr backed up and got on his tractor, sitting there for the next 15 minutes watching them hover, too scared to move as if in a trance. All of a sudden, the objects then took off and made no sound as they flew away so fast that they were gone in an instant.

Fuhr waited a few more minutes to make sure they were gone and then walked to the edge of the reservoir where he saw five ring patterns in the field. The grass in the centre of each circle was standing, while the grass surrounding it was flattened in a clockwise circle. With no idea what he had just seen, Fuhr headed home for lunch, but his wife Karen and his parents could tell something was wrong. He explained to his family all he had just seen, the sightings, the objects and how swiftly they disappeared.

However, the objects hadn’t just vanished without a trace and later that night, it was Fuhr’s brother in law who asked if the local police had fielded any UFO reports.

Ron Morier, then a 27-year-old RCMP constable, received a telephone call at the Langenburg precinct. Being an RCMP officer in small-town in Saskatchewan during the 1970’s he certainly had time to check the incident out. The next day, Morier checked out the markings in Fuhr’s field and saw five circles fit the description of the same five objects Fuhr saw. Morier’s report says the flattened centre portion of the circles was approximately 18 inches. The total diameter of two of the circles was 12 feet, while the other three were 10.5 feet. According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police incident report, they left behind “five different distinct circles, caused by something exerting what had to be heavy air or exhaust pressure over the high grass” which was curious enough to warrant serious attention both locally and worldwide.

Ultimately, Fuhr was the only person at the farm who saw the UFOs and despite how fantastic the story was, Morier could not come up with a reason why this quiet farmer would make it up.

The extraordinary story was eventually picked up by the media and thousands of people flocked to Fuhr’s farm, but unfortunately the notoriety couldn’t have come at a worse time. It was the harvest season and people were literally getting in the way of the family’s work. Curious tourists, UFO enthusiasts and onlookers from all over were trying to get to the site and take their own photographs. Eventually, Fuhr’s father finally set fire to the grass surrounding the reservoir where the circles were in the hopes of permanently deterring onlookers. Much to the disappointment of the family, this didn’t help because markings were still visible on the ground which Fuhr explained they might have been made by legs stretching out from the UFO’s.

Edwin Fuhr and his wife retired from farming in 1989 and lived a quiet life in a bungalow while still residing in Langenburg.

One particularly fond memory during the hectic days of international attention he received was taking a telephone call from the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong. During the two-hour conversation, Armstrong told Fuhr that astronauts saw UFOs when travelling through space, but were told not to divulge that to the public, but according to the conversation, Fuhr was convinced that UFO’s were indeed real.

The reverse side of these rectangular-shaped coins are designed by Steve Hepburn who presents an artist’s rendition of the well-documented Langenburg Event, which occurred in September 1