That does sound really scary, especially in the dark you don't know what could be out there. Sorry I can't help but may I suggest, just to be on the safe side. Carry some kind of protection.

Sure sounds like an owl of some sort. Seems like it had to be a night bird of some sort. Owls don't make any sound with their body in flight. Maybe another owl was chasing it??
Maybe some of the sound you heard was whatever it was chasing?
Very strange. Its pretty scary when those things happen!

Good thing it wasn't me or those horses would never again be fed until the sun was well up!

I have to say, while reading your post I jumped when a piece of paper fluttered across my desk.

I am not in the least knowledgable about owls, but an owl seems like the most likely candidate. My husband (who has a lot more experience than I) says that owls can seem to arrive out of nowhere and then make these loud calls. If an owl were chasing prey that was making noise, as an earlier followup suggested, that might explain part of what you heard. Especially if the prey were close to the ground and not large enough to cause the corn to move.

I listened to some Great Horned Owl calls to see if any sounded like what you heard; there were so many different sounds - clucking, hissing, hooting - if combined, they might be similar to what you heard. I heard them at www.owlpages.com/sounds.php.

In the meantime...can you possibly drive to the barn?

Thank you all for the suggestions. I am thinking an owl now too. I can't listen to that site of owl sounds as my speakers aren't hooked up to this computer I am just borrowing, but I will later.
I do carry a can of Grizzly Bear pepper spray because there is a Black bear that hangs around at times.
The next morning our motion lights were on both buildings so I made my husband come out to feed the horses with me before he left for work!!

"....rapping at my chamber door...only this and nothing more..." whooahahahahahah

(ok, that was how I presume you might spell the way an evil movie laugh sounds)
yes, getting the chill there reading this, but I also wonder...do you have turkeys in your woods?? THe cluck cluck thing has me thinking it might be possible something jumped a turkey off the roost before it was ready to start its day. They can be really noisy coming off the roost anyway, yelping and fluttering the wings and generally chatting it up with the rest of the group at first light. But I have seen them jumped off their limb before it's really good and light out and if they can get clear of the brush and trees and say, hit the edge of a corn or bean field, they will sometimes flatten out their wings like a big owl and sail out across this space, sometimes just as quietly but sometimes clucking and "popping" nervously.
But even then, unless they really covered some ground and landed quite some distance away, you would have eventually heard a noisy landing when they finally got to the ground or the nearest woods. Was there any light at all?

I don't care HOW long someone has lived in the woods or the country or any place, really....eventually you will hear something you can't put a name to and the hair on your neck will go *boing* whether you like it ot not.

Thanks for that idea, dirtgirl. I have heard turkeys come down from their roost here in the woods and it could have been one. It had to be something flying.

It seems the strangest sounds are in the very early morning.

actually sounds more like a wood cock mating call - but they should not be doing that in the dark.

Could it have been a Barred Owl? They have a sudden, loud, monkeyish call, that will scare the bejeesuss out of you, and their huge with silent flight.

Good luck finding out what it was.