On the morning of June 3rd, 1920 — his birthday — Clark Linch took the forenoon off from working his father’s farm six miles northeast of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, and went fishing. At ten o’clock in the morning a blue translucent egg-shaped object the size of a cream can landed silently in the grass about fifteen feet from where he sat. It stayed for fifteen minutes. He thought about walking over to it. He decided not to. Just as he made up his mind to get a closer look it left — no sound, no turn, straight up and gone — pressing the grass flat where it had rested. He didn’t tell a soul for 35 years. Not because he was frightened. Because in 1920 you didn’t talk about flying saucers. When he finally told someone in 1955 and the story reached the paper in 1973, he was 75 years old and he still didn’t know what it was. He only knew one thing for certain: it wasn’t from Earth.

Sighting Time: 10:00 AM

Day/Night: Day

Location: Riverbank, 6 miles northeast of Mount Pleasant, Henry County, Iowa, USA — farm property of the Linch family

Urban or Rural: Rural — farmland riverbank

No. of Entity(‘s): None observed

Entity Type: None

Entity Description: None

Hynek Classification: CE-II (Close Encounter II) — close observation of an object at approximately 15 feet with physical trace evidence left at the landing site; grass pressed flat at the landing point; witness in close proximity for 15 minutes

Duration: Approximately 15 minutes — from silent landing to silent departure

No. of Object(s): 1

Description of the Object(s): Egg-shaped object approximately the size of a cream can — a standard Iowa farm cream shipping can of the 1920s, approximately 12 to 16 inches in height. Blue and translucent in appearance — the witness described it as colored and see-through, and noted it would have been naturally camouflaged against the sky. Sat stationary on the grass for approximately 15 minutes without any movement, sound, or emission. Departed without sound, without rotation, and without turning — moved directly away from its resting position. Described by the witness as apparently lightweight given its small size.

Shape of Object(s): Egg-shaped

Size of Object(s): Cream can — approximately 12 to 16 inches in height

Color of Object(s): Blue and translucent

Distance to Object(s): Approximately 15 feet — the witness remained at his fishing position throughout; considered approaching but did not

Height & Speed: Ground level — landed and rested on the grass; departed at approximately 4 to 5 miles per hour initially; exact final altitude not recorded

Number of Witnesses: 1 — Clark Linch, farmer, Mount Pleasant, Henry County, Iowa; account first shared in 1955, reported in The Hawk Eye newspaper October 28, 1973, when Linch was 75 years old

Special Features/Characteristics: Silent landing — no sound on approach or touchdown; silent departure — no engine sound, no propulsion noise; no burn marks or damage to the grass at the landing site — only a pressed-down impression where the object had rested; the translucent blue coloration would have provided natural sky camouflage during flight; the object’s small size led the witness to conclude it could not have contained intelligent life as humans understand it; 35-year silence — Linch did not report the encounter until 1955 because in 1920 there was no cultural framework for reporting such things; the witness remembered the exact date because it was both his birthday and the year of his January 1920 marriage; Linch’s own conclusion after 53 years of consideration: it wasn’t anything from Earth

Case Status: Unexplained

Source: The Hawk Eye — Mount Pleasant, Iowa, October 28, 1973; Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 7, 1920

Summary/Description: On June 3rd, 1920 at 10:00 AM, farmer Clark Linch was fishing on a riverbank six miles northeast of Mount Pleasant, Iowa when an egg-shaped blue translucent object approximately the size of a cream can landed silently in the grass fifteen feet from him. The object remained stationary for approximately fifteen minutes before departing silently without turning, leaving a pressed-down impression in the grass but no burn marks. Linch did not report the encounter for 35 years, first telling the story in 1955. The account was published in The Hawk Eye in October 1973 when Linch was 75 years old. His considered conclusion after more than five decades: the object was not from Earth. Case status: Unexplained.

Related Cases: 1897: Josserand, Texas — Airship Crew Contact | 1920s–1940s Iowa Sightings Archive | Midwest UAP Landing Cases Archive

Detailed Report

The Cream Can That Landed — Riverbank Near Mount Pleasant, Iowa, June 3, 1920 The Hawk Eye — Mount Pleasant, Iowa, October 28, 1973 Iowa City Press-Citizen — July 7, 1920

On October 28th, 1973, The Hawk Eye of Mount Pleasant, Iowa published an account from Clark Linch, then 75 years old, describing an event that had occurred fifty-three years earlier.

Linch remembered the year with certainty — he had married in January 1920. He remembered the exact date because it was his birthday. On the morning of June 3rd, 1920, at approximately ten o’clock, he took the forenoon off from working his father’s farm six miles northeast of town and went fishing at a riverbank on the property.

While fishing, he saw an egg-shaped object the size of a cream can land silently in the grass about fifteen feet from where he sat. The object was blue and translucent. It touched down without a sound and simply sat there.

It stayed for approximately fifteen minutes, not bothering him — nor he bothering it.

He thought about going over to get a closer look. He decided against it: I wasn’t in any hurry to jump up and run over to it, and I’m glad I didn’t. It might have killed me. Just when I thought about going over to take a closer look at it, it took off without any sound and without turning around.

When he walked to the spot where the object had rested he found the grass pressed flat in the landing area. There were no burn marks. No damage. Only the impression of something that had been there and was now gone.

Linch noted that the object’s blue and translucent coloring meant it would have been effectively camouflaged against the sky. He observed that it differed from other UFO reports he later encountered because of its slow speed — approximately four or five miles per hour — and its small size, which led him to conclude it couldn’t have been occupied by intelligent life as we know it.

He did not tell anyone until 1955. You didn’t talk about flying saucers in 1920, he said.

After more than five decades of consideration, his conclusion was straightforward: I’ve concluded that it wasn’t anything from Earth.

RESEARCHER’S NOTES

The Cream Can at the Riverbank — Mount Pleasant Iowa 1920 and the Small Object CE-II as Archive Evidence

• The 35-Year Silence as Credibility Indicator: Clark Linch told no one about what he saw for thirty-five years — not because he was traumatized or confused, but because in 1920 there was no cultural framework for the report and no social mechanism that would have received it without ridicule. The modern UFO era did not begin until 1947. In 1920 rural Iowa the vocabulary did not exist and neither did the audience. The 35-year gap between the event and the first telling is not a credibility weakness — it is a credibility indicator. Linch had nothing to gain from fabricating a story he kept to himself for thirty-five years and shared only after the cultural moment had arrived that made it possible to share it at all. The story did not grow in the telling — his description is spare, specific, and consistent with the physical details that make the case analytically interesting.

• Physical Trace Without Burn — A Specific Subtype: The grass impression at the landing site with no burn marks is a physically specific detail that the archive notes as significant. The majority of CE-II landing trace cases in the record involve burn marks, scorched earth, dehydrated soil, or radiation effects — the physical consequences of propulsion or power systems operating at ground level. The Mount Pleasant object left only a grass impression — the mechanical consequence of a physical weight resting on a surface. This is consistent with a very small, apparently lightweight object that landed by means that produced no thermal, chemical, or radiation byproduct at ground level. The absence of burn marks is not an absence of evidence — it is specific evidence about the nature of the object’s interaction with the ground.

• The Translucent Blue Camouflage Detail — Functional Design Implication: Linch specifically observed that the object’s blue and translucent coloring would have made it effectively invisible against the sky during flight. This observation — made by a 1920 Iowa farmer with no exposure to UAP literature and no cultural framework for advanced aerospace concepts — describes a functional design characteristic. An object engineered to be camouflaged against the sky during flight, in a color and transparency profile that matches the visible sky, is not a natural phenomenon and is not accidental. Linch noticed it and named it for what it was: camouflage. The archive holds that observation as one of the most analytically precise details in the case.

• Small Object, No Occupant — The Probe Hypothesis: Linch’s own conclusion — that the object was too small to contain intelligent life as we know it — points the archive toward the probe classification. A cream-can sized object with apparent flight capability, sky camouflage, silent operation, and a fifteen-minute ground dwell time behaves consistently with an autonomous reconnaissance or survey device rather than a crewed vehicle. The archive does not assert this classification but notes that the behavioral profile — slow flight, quiet landing, stationary dwell, silent departure, no interaction — is consistent with a monitoring or survey function rather than crew transport. The 1920 encounter near Mount Pleasant may be one of the earliest documented small probe cases in the American record.

Clark Linch sat on a riverbank on his birthday in 1920 and watched something from somewhere else rest in the grass fifteen feet from him for a quarter of an hour and then leave without a word or a sound or a mark beyond a flat circle in the grass. He sat still and let it go. He kept it to himself for thirty-five years. When he finally said it out loud he was an old man and he still didn’t know what it was, and he said so plainly, and the archive holds his plainness here as the most honest position anyone in this record has ever taken: I’ve concluded that it wasn’t anything from Earth.