"Amish Barn Star" Cult Taking Over Ohio

Image of (yes) a star-spangled "barn star" from bljselfdefenseproducts.com

I moved away from central Ohio to Las Vegas close to fifteen years ago. Since then, every time I go back, Ohio feels slightly more foreign to me, and less like "home." But on the last couple of visits, I started to notice something that really puzzled me.

When driving down virtually any street in any smallish-sized town (Sunbury, Galena, Washington Court House, Greenfield, Delaware, pick one) you will see countless houses with large prismatic stars on them. They look to be made of rusted metal in many cases, but others look like they might be wood or even plastic. The majority of them are red, but I've seen subtle variations, and of course red white and blue stars.

The weird thing is, they're all stars. No moons. No suns. No other celestial bodies or shapes like hearts or jewels. Just stars. And if you ask around, people seem to have no knowledge of what they're supposed to signify, why they're so prevalent, or what they're even called.

I did a little research, and it turns out that they're called barn stars, or sometimes Amish barn stars. The Amish apparently use them as good luck charms. And they're also described from other sources as "Lone Stars" signifying ex-pat Texans. Other people say they signify overseas military family members. None of these answers satiate my curiosity over this peculiar fad.

I may be way late to the party on this. It may have moved on to a waning fad, with modern adopters being merely wannabes who are just slow to follow the trends. I saw something similar happen with concrete porch geese, an even more confusing fad. At least people aren't putting costumes on their stars.

There is sometimes no explaining a fad. And I can understand a person seeing one of these stars, thinking it looks kind of neat, and putting one up on their house. But not on this level. They're just simply everywhere. In some neighborhoods, it is the odd house that doesn't have one. At least out here in the southwest, there is a wide variety of symbols and designs for the various wall hangings. Not everyone probably knows what the southwestern ornaments really signify, but at least they're aware that they are southwestern decorations.

So what are the stars? Folk art? If so, why just stars? I really wanna know!