Magical Realist:
Here is a link to the soil analysis report carried out in 1999 on the soil samples from the Delphos, Kansas ring of 1971:
http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/Budinger/UT001.pdf
The soil analysis didn't turn up anything that couldn't have got there by terrestrial means. There's no need to invoke strange energies or alien activity.
Strange that doing a google search comes up with only one site where that chicken feeder theory and the National Enquirer UFO story prize is mentioned.
I found at least 3 sites that mention a chicken feeder or sheep trough within the first few pages of google search results. Perhaps you're not searching for actual information, but only credulous repeats of UFO belief.
I don't buy the chicken feeder story at all.
Of course you don't. You only ever buy the most credulous alien spaceship hypothesis on these things. And you buy it without ever investigating the case in any depth.
Reknowed skeptic Philip Klass speculates it was a water tank that left the ring, so not even he knew about this explanation.
He hypothesised a sheep feeder at the location. Whether it was sheep of chicken, either way you have animals excreting at the site, along with whatever the feeder itself was made of, along with whatever foodstuffs were spilled from it, along with any plant or fungus growth that resulted from all the fertilisation that was happening there.
I still take the case as pretty convincing given the 4 witnesses and the strange nature of the residue, which glowed and left the woman's skin numb for years.
Even that "numb for years" fact is not confirmed. Some accounts say "a few days", while others say she is still numb years later. So, who knows? Also, the numbness has been explained in terms of the acids in the soil.
"The ring itself remained visible for some time after the incident, and numerous soil samples of it were taken for initial analysis, as well as to store as evidence of the presumed visitation. A strange white substance was found within the soil – a substance that appeared to be the result of an intense and unnatural reaction.
Who said it was "intense and unnatural"? An expert, or just a UFO pusher like yourself?
This white substance was later analysed by respected UFO researcher Jacques Vallee, who, in his book “
Dimensions: A Casebook Of Alien Contact” offered his theory on what it might be. He stated that biological tests he had had done on it, showed that the white substance contained Actinomycetales – an organic organism similar to bacteria or a fungus.
Sound like that fits the sheep or chicken theory.
It was suggested that intense heat or some other form of energy had greatly accelerated these Actinomycetales to grow. The fact that they were in a ring suggested that the heat or energy source came from the underside of the strange craft that Ronnie had witnessed. Remember he particularly stated that the underside was by far the brightest emission of light.
Only in the report I've linked above there is a finding that the soil samples had not been subjected to any heat. As an unidentified "energy source", that's just vague UFO-pusher speculation.
For their part, the Johnsons were regarded as very credible witnesses, who were not prone to giving false information.
Maybe it's what they left out that is important, rather than what they said.