I can't help but to LOL.
Lets see, You would have me believe that a race of beings from another star system are living peacefully on a farm in Iowa and the government is not interested at all.
There are so many things wrong with this scenario I can't list them all.
First I must acknowledge that your friend/neighbor may actually believe her tale. Her terror may be true in her mind and thus her believability is strengthened by her resolve. But...
The nearest Star is a mere 93 million miles from us. At our present level of technology it is attainable but not without massive resources and a very long journey. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. Thats per second mind you. The nearest star system that is not sol is 4.3 light YEARS away. We can see that star system pretty good with our equipment and we know that there is not life there. At least not a Type 1 civilization. (type 1 is harnessing the resources of an entire planet).
1 year = 365 days, right?
In hours, that's 24hrs X 365 = 8760 hrs
In minutes, that's 60 minutes X 8760 hrs = 525,600 minutes
In seconds, that's 60 seconds X 525,600 = 31,536,000 seconds
Light travels 186,000 miles every second, Thats 5,865,696,000,000 miles per year. The nearest star system not Sol is 25,222,492,800,000 miles away at the speed of light.
Now, Lets say that your Iowa aliens can match or exceed the speed of light. Lets say they come from a system that is relatively close in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. They have the technology and the lifespan to cross those great distances in a group. Lets say they studied our planet with some uber-technology and found our little insignificant planet interesting. Lets say they have an insatiable curiosity and they are here to study the life on our planet. So, they set up base camp in Iowa and do whatever these aliens do. Why?
Why don't they mingle with the lifeforms they are studying? They felt the need to land on the surface yet the technology they would need to bring them here and the technology that caused them to notice us would suggest that they could do everything from the orbit of Jupiter or beyond.
Why are they on the planet at all?
You say that the government is not interested in them yet with such technology and basic human curiosity it would be more likely that they would be overwhelmed with contacts both governmental and civilian. The entire area surrounding their camp would have research and military structures built. It would be fenced to keep stragglers out (I doubt we would have anything that could constrain them).
Lets explore the Why a bit deeper, shall we?
Why Earth?
As humans, We do not know of any other place in the Universe that sports life. Given the vastness of space and the chaos of particles in that vastness there could be life just about everywhere. Given that distance is also restricted to time, proof of our civilization is not going to be evident in many places in our own spiral arm. They couldn't be interested in our resources because there are entire planets and nebulae that consist of everything that is present on our itty-bitty planet. Even water is abundant. There are entire planets and stars made of diamonds and other gemstones. Gold is abundant with any structure of the result of a second generation super-nova. So Why Earth?
Okay, They stumbled upon us by accident. They were on their way to someplace they decided was worth the expenditure of energy to reach and Earth was found during a routine scan. They changed their plans to come explore our planet and decided to give up on their planned trip, for what? To live on a farm in Iowa? Sorry, I don't think so.
Well, they must have crashed or ran out of fuel. Really?
Mankind, in our current technological infancy, have realized how to make travel safe and reliable. Don't you think that aliens that can travel such distances might have even more reliable methods of travel? A technology that allows them to come here would make mining any needed resource easy. Do they mine that resource on a planet or would they gather any needed resources from asteroids. Its already well-known that most asteroids are made of the same materials as found on Earth. Chaos being chaos you might argue that their crash was beyond their control and they got stuck here. 20 years is not a very long time given the human lifespan. An alien craft crashing into even a remote place such as Iowa would certainly get everyone's attention. Yet there is no history of such an occurrence.
Google has this nifty thing called Google Earth that allows you to look at the planet surface in fairly good detail. There are freaks that scour Google Earth looking for such things. I am certain that if there was a camp or colony in Iowa the whole world would know it by now. There are also things like airplanes that have a pretty good view of things.
Like every tale of aliens, There is a thing called 'Sense' that renders those tales as fantasy. In 53 years I have seen things in the sky, on the water and an land that I couldn't identify. Not once did I believe that they were aliens. Even if you took me to Iowa and brought me face to face with those so-called aliens I would not believe they came here from elsewhere. My first though would be that they are mutants or hybrids or some as yet unknown species.
The fact that most alien stories depict them as being human-like is also a big red flag as to the story's validity. Have you seen the diversity of life that inhabits this planet naturally? Its all life that has been made under our Star, our gravity, our pressures, our chemicals and our cycles. We know that the moon is unique to our planet. Its size, makeup and distance constrains all life on this planet to specific parameters unique only to us. Chances that a civilization will have any thing in common with our planet are extraordinarily slim. The Universe is big, really big. Its not that it can't happen, its just that it is unlikely as hell.
Just the other night I was trying to fall asleep and played a little mind game in my head. Given that the Solar System and Earth are always depicted in the same view I decided to look at it as an alien race might encounter it. The Earth looks mighty weird when viewed upside-down.
See theres several logical flaws in this post.
Many many scientists has stated with absolutel confidence in the past that various things were going to be impossible. For example, it was stated with absolutel confidence that you could never travel any faster than 60 mph on a train, because you wouldnt be able to breathe, as the air would be going past too fast.
The problem is, ofc, is you dont know what new technology may be invented in the future. In 1890, you could not have possibly predicted almost any of the technology surrounding us today. You could not have forseen Cars, airplanes, spacecraft, cruise missile, telephones, radio, the internet, laser, satellite, television, most of modern medicine, and m,any many others. Theres entire branches of science with thousands of scientists working in them, such as Genetic Engineering, that didnt exist in 1890.
Thus the first problem of declaring something 'impossible; is that it mat be impossible today, but
you have absolutely no idea what new science may change that position, because you have no idea what it is we havent discovered yet!
Science fiction, on the other hand, has an extremely irritating habit of coming true. This is because science fiction writers are usually connected to the sharp end of science, and many (such as Arthur C Clarke) are genuine blue sky thinkers.
Look at Start Trek, amongthe thinsg they dreamed up in 1965 are
PHASARS - we have laser weapons. Just not hand held, yet
PHOTON TORPEDO - pulsed energy weapons now exist. They just use higher wavelengths than visible light.
WARP DRIVE - the fundamental principles of faster than light drive have been laid down, the two potential methods are the Alcubierre Drive or the wormhole.
SUB LIGHT DRIVE - NASA just tested a new concept engine the EM Engine. It works, its basically the sub light drive. Its going to get us to Mars.
MATTER TRANSPORTER - has been done in the lab, with molecular sized objects.
COMMUNICATORS - mobile phones
TRICORDERS - there is currently a DARPA Challenge with a $3m Prize to develop a basic tricorder, at least ten companies working on it. SOme of the recent developments look good.
So we can say with fair certainty that a) pretty much any declaration that something is impossible will be proved wrong, because b) we dont know what we dont know that might be a game changer, scientifically.