This is impossible to solve. I've considered temporal lobe epilepsy, but there's no real evidence of that. And complex partial seizures don't leave physical traces.
Certainly not a dust devil. I've seen too many of those to believe that. They don't leave marks like that on the ground. If anything, they leave a wandering trail.
My best guess is that this is a flat out premeditated hoax.
https://leaderpost.com/news/saskatchewan/the-farmer-who-saw-and-the-mountie-who-believed
Later that night, Ron Morier, then a 27-year-old RCMP constable, got a phone call at the Langenburg detachment.
Fuhr’s brother-in-law Carl Zorn asked if the police had fielded any UFO reports. Zorn had heard of Fuhr’s experience in a phone call. Although the cop and the in-law were skeptical, both men thought there was little reason to think Fuhr would make up such a tale.
“He’s the last guy in the world that would. I mean he was a teetotaller. He’s a churchgoer, a very quiet, shy man,” says Morier.
A classic "solid citizen" fallacy. A very unimpressive opinion. But the article emphasizes repeatedly that Fuhr has always talked about his sighting over the decades with anyone who asks. (Lonnie Zamora, on the other hand, refused to talk after some years.)
What makes the solid citizen theory less credible is that Morier has himself become a buff about the case
A province away, at his Winnipeg home, retired Mountie Ron Morier also has a keepsake from the time when he and Fuhr and a small Saskatchewan town became an international sensation. “UFO Incident: Langenburg, Sask. Sept 1, 1974,” reads the cover of Morier’s black binder.
Lifting that cover feels like opening a secret document that should be stamped “classified” in bold, red letters. It contains a police report, newspaper clippings, faded photographs and letters from scientists with the Canadian government.
Morier jokingly calls it his X-File, a fitting nod to the sci-fi TV show that often focused on aliens, UFOs and the paranormal. It’s a treasure trove any UFO aficionado would covet.
Five circles fit with the same five objects Fuhr saw. Morier’s report says the flattened 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.
There was no physical evidence in the area that would indicate someone had driven in and made the circles.
“Whatever made those impressions in his slough there came from the sky and left the same way,” says Morier.
More unimpressive logic. Why would anything have to have been "driven in"? Why couldn't these simple marks have been made by Fuhr in a very simple way? Fuhr had hours to himself out there alone.
These physical traces - crop circles if we're being honest - aren't very impressive. It looks as if they could have been made by someone walking in a circle.
Crop circles were already a thing in 1974... among people who were into that sort of thing.
Fuhr is convinced what he saw that day was extraterrestrial.
Over the years, he has taken an interest in the subject of UFOs, and is well read on the subject. He refers to government cover-ups, Roswell and popular theories that aliens may be concerned about global conflicts on Earth.
Did he start this interest in UFOlogy before or after his sighting? Don't know.
He says he didn't know anything about UFOlogy at the time, but I have my doubts.
In support of the premeditated hoax theory, Fuhr's sighting shares some similarities to previous UFO cases:
Adamski: General shape, "pipes" or landing gear on bottom, portholes or
rivets on the sides.
Socorro, NM/Zamora - UFO leaves traces, alleged radioactivity at landing site. Metallic. Zamora described it as like an old, weathered aluminum canoe (whitish). Fuhr describes it as "brushed aluminum" ... or "chrome" or "brushed stainless steel."
Falcon Lake/Michalak - General shape, metallic, emits a gas or vapor, huge acceleration upward, alleged radioactivity at landing site.
Fuhr's sketch:
Michalak's sketch:
BTW - Fuhr's farm is just down the highway from Michalak's town; River Heights.
Following are excerpts from this YT video:
I thought to myself well I better get on the swather, (mumble) backed up all the way to the swather...
I got on on the wheel side of the swather and you'd think the swather would move. The engine was dead. Because when I got off, the engine was was running (Edit) It wouldn't start. The ignition was dead. It was completely dead. And the engine was running when I got off.
The bottom (of the) machine had four pipes; and they were huge. They weren't small. They're all in around the outside, and that's what I think made that impression in the ground.
Fuhr later says there were more than four.
When it got the higher up; it was like a vapor. But(?) you see behind a jet plane. Uh vapor. But you couldn't see it that clear. It was more like a fog. You know, it was thinner. Well, it come out of the ports. It (the vapor) was actually going down. As the thing rose, up it was pushing this vapor down.
They started off slowly. They just took off as(?) a flash. They were gone; And they went to the northeast end of the sky.
Fuhr's sighting began at about 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 1, 1974.
The most notably similar case is the1966 Tully Saucer Nest.
https://project1947.com/forum/bctully.htm
At about 9 am, on January 19th, 1966, George Pedley was driving a tractor heading south along a narrow track on Albert Pennisi's sugar cane farm. The weather that morning was calm, with the sun shining at approximately 30 to 40 degrees east. When he was approximately 25 yards from Horseshoe Lagoon, Pedley heard above the noise of the tractor, a loud hissing sound, "like air escaping from a tyre."
"The tractor tyres seemed O.K. to me, so I drove on," Pedley said. "Suddenly, an object rose out of the swamp. When I glanced at it, it was already 30 feet above the ground, and at about tree-top level. It was a large, grey, saucer-shaped object, convex on the top and bottom and measured some 25 feet across and 9 feet high. While I watched, it rose another 30 feet, spinning very fast, then it made a shallow dive and took off with tremendous speed. Climbing at an angle of 45 degrees it disappeared within seconds in a south-westerly direction ...". He added, "I saw no portholes or antennas, and there was no sign of life either in or about the ship."
When Pedley drove around the bend of the track to the lagoon,there, at the spot beneath where the object had risen, was a huge,round cleared area in the swamp grass. The water in this circular area was slowly rotating and appeared to be completely cleared of reeds. With this evidence of what he had observed, Pedley concluded, "I have really seen something!" He had passed the same spot some three hours earlier, as close as 12 feet, and had not seen anything unusual.
Within a few minutes he returned to his tractor which he found he had to restart. He had noted just immediately prior to hearing the hissing sound a sound like a misfire in the tractor motor. He was sure it had not stopped. As with most farmers it was not his habit to switch off the tractor motor until finished with it.
Later in the day, apparently about noon, George returned along the track and stopped for another inspection. The cleared area of the lagoon surface was no longer visible. What was clearly evident was a floating mass of reeds, approximately 30 feet in diameter, that had apparently come to the surface of the lagoon during the time Pedley was absent. The floating mass of reeds and grass was noticeably distributed in a radial pattern, in a clear clockwise manner. Pedley was certain the reeds were quite green in this mass, as they were in all the surrounding reeds in the lagoon.
Fuhr's saucers were next to a slough:
The Tully Saucer came out of a lagoon. There were multiple traces:
..
