Ngatea, New Zealand: Farmer finds circle of dead manuka with three ground indentations

On September 4, 1969, farmer Bert O'Neil discovered a circular patch of dead, silvery-white manuka (Leptospermum scoparium, tea tree) amid otherwise green and lush growth on a remote section of his farm near Ngatea, New Zealand. Near the center of the circle were three ground indentations positioned like the inside points of a triangle, and off to one side a taller stand of tea tree was also bleached and dead. He had noticed the patch from afar three weeks earlier. The dead scrub within the circle was still standing and undisturbed, as if a large object had come down from the sky and landed on three long stilts. O'Neil at first discussed the find only within his family, but the news quickly leaked to local radio and press. The account follows the entry in George M. Eberhart's chronology UFOs and Intelligence (CUFOS) and the sources cited there; it is not an independent determination by From Beyond Space.