Strange Ice Rings Baffle Researchers 
March 14, 2001 08:15 CDT 

The National Post recently reported that investigators in Ontario and Quebec are baffled by strange "ice rings" found in ponds and fields across Canada. Though they seem to be similar to crop circles, nobody knows if the rings are actually related to their better-known cousins.

So far, there have been 11 sightings of these rings described in the Canadian Crop Circle Research Network's annual summary report for 2000. The network, collects information about circles from farmers and other contributors. 

In Canada, the U.S., Germany and Russia the circular ice formations are rarely documented, said Paul Anderson, the network's Vancouver-based director. "We're lucky if we hear of one." 

In December 2000, a woman in the eastern Ontario town of Delta discovered an ice ring nearly five meters in diameter on the pond behind the family barn. "She just swore up and down that it wasn't there the night before," said Mr. Anderson. "When they went out at six in the morning there it was, a perfect ring." 

According to Mr. Anderson, the ice was far too thin to walk on; therefore, it was most likely not a hoax. "How someone would do that from the shore, I don't know." 

Another event was reported in November on Lac Pelletier, in Quebec's Laurentian Mountains, by a visiting British researcher. According to the report, a series of circles and rings was discovered on the same lake in 1999. 

Some believe that a current flowing into a pond forms an ice ring. When flowing in a circle, it affects the freezing pattern, said Mr. Anderson. "That's the only explanation that makes any sense." 

Circular patterns have been found in ice, grass, dirt, clay banks and sand. However crop circles remain to be the most common rings. Last year, seven formations of the various types were found in Saskatchewan, two in Ontario, one in Manitoba and one in Quebec. 

Several of those formations entailed "significant physical anomalies" such as deformed, twisted seed heads on many of the stalks in a dumbbell-shaped pattern discovered last August at Moosomin, Sask. 

At a sighting in Orillia, Ont., dogs refused to go near a set of circles, the report says. A man who investigated a circle near Saskatoon found that his camera failed to work properly inside the circle, while images taken from the outside were completely normal. 

These strange happenings suggest that who or whatever might have caused the circles, leave behind a form of electrostatic energy, said Mr. Anderson. 

In some cases, like the July 2000, report of 20 to 25 circles that appeared in the fields of an Alameda, Sask., farmer in 1999, simply come too late for researchers to study first-hand. 

"Cases like this reaffirm our opinion that a significant number of formations, mainly single circles or small groups of circles, never get reported at all. Therefore, they remain uninvestigated, and may be more common than we think." 

Original Source: National Post

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Mysterious Circles Crop Up Again in B.C. Field

Sunday, September 09, 2001
 

VANDERHOOF, B.C. -- Crop circles, a worldwide phenomena variously said to be the work of tricksters, magnetic

waves or aliens, have been discovered again in a northern B.C. field, almost three years to the day they were first spotted in the area.

This time the circles were seen in a field about five kilometers from the Vanderhoof airport, about 720 kilometers north of Vancouver.

Brent Miskuski, an owner and pilot of Central Air, spotted the six latest circles Thursday evening on a flight from Prince George to Vanderhoof.

Mr. Miskuski was one of those who discovered the first crop-circle formation three years ago.

No paths or tracks were visible to the circles, said Mr. Miskuski, who made several low passes and took pictures from the air on Friday.

"It just appeared," he said. "It's like they were stamped out just like last time. It's pretty bizarre."

Source: The Ottawa Citizen

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ODD FIELD PATTERN - PIKE LAKE, SASKATCHEWAN


CCCRN NEWS - April 29, 2002

The E-News Service of the
Canadian Crop Circle Research Network
http://www.geocities.com/cropcirclecanada


An odd field pattern 'formation' was reported yesterday afternoon, a few miles north of Pike Lake, Saskatchewan (about 15 miles south of Saskatoon), discovered by pilot Niels Koehncke and Monique Mayer while flying in their Cessna the previous evening, April 27.

The pattern is an unusual long series of odd pointed / angular shapes, some of which appear roughly symmetrical. The field is apparently still just stubble at most as per this time of year, so just what these shapes may be is unclear. Monique told CCCRN that they had not seen anything like it before so she took digital photos.

Thanks also again to pilot and CCCRN assistant John Erickson in Estevan for forwarding this report.

Copies of photos have been posted on the web site:

http://www.geocities.com/cropcirclecanada/
pikelake02photos.html

The 2001 report archive has also been updated again, with some additional photos added for Surrey, Midale #4 and Midale # 1.

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Crop Circles Puzzle Quebec Farmer


 August 6, 2002


A Canadian dairy farmer has discovered large geometric crop circles in his barley fields.

There are 12 large, medium and smaller circles arranged beside each other in the form of a cross.

One circle at the farm near Howick in Quebec measures more than 20 metres in diameter. The total area covered is about 70 square metres.

There have been several crop circle reports in Canada in recent years, mainly in the Prairie provinces.

Neither farmer Jack Peddie or his worker who found the circles, Marty Cullen, have an explanation for the circles, reports Canada.com.

Bobby Martin, boyfriend of Mr. Peddie's daughter, said no one had heard noises during the night.
 

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 Crop Circles a Mystery

Howick farmer finds bizarre markings in barley field

A dairy farmer outside Howick, about 40 kilometres south of Montreal, has discovered crop circles on his land.

On Saturday night, Marty Cullen, a farmhand employed by Jack Peddie, told Peddie he had seen large sections of a barley field crushed down in a circular pattern.

When Peddie went to work in the field yesterday afternoon, he discovered at least 12 large circular areas where the knee-high barley had been pushed to the ground.

One circle measured more than 20 metres in diameter. The total area covered by the circles was about 70 square metres.

Crop circles - large patterns mysteriously imprinted into hay or corn fields - are usually associated with English farms, but there have been several sightings in Canada in recent years, mainly in the Prairie provinces.

Bobby Martin, the boyfriend of Peddie's daughter, said the smaller circles were arranged next to larger circles in a regular pattern. Martin said no one had heard noises during the night.

Neither Peddie nor Cullen could explain how the circles got there.


Montreal Gazette

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Crop Formations Circle Planet

By Rosanne Lin, Shanghai Star. August 1, 2002

One of the first documented reports of a crop circle formation - the unexplained geometric designs that occur in fields of wheat and corn - appeared in 1678 Stirlingshire, Scotland. But this phenomenon was largely ignored until the 1970s and 80s when formations began to appear with increasing frequency around the globe. Today most countries - with the exception of China - are said to have experienced crop circle phenomena.

Yet is China really devoid of these unusual creations? Certainly, if someone or something is trying to communicate with mankind through patterns carved into crops, China's sizable population could not be ignored.

Western experts have obviously failed to carefully consider the data from this country. One only has to refer to the work of Zhang Hui, a research fellow at the Xinjiang Museum in Urumqi, to find evidence that suggests China - with its long history - experienced crop circle phenomena long before any other civilization on the planet.

Zhang claims to have harvested more than 20 stone patterns appearing to match crop circle formations from other countries, but pre-dating them by up to 3,000 years.

After discovering several of these stone circle patterns, which range from simple circles to more elaborate shapes, in the grasslands of Qinghe County beside the Sino-Mongolian border, Zhang was intrigued. He quickly headed to Beijing to consult Chinese translations of reference works by British crop circle experts.

He was amazed by the similarities.

Zhang believes the primitive people of the region, after witnessing the formation of actual crop circles, concluded that the designs were a form of communication from the gods and responded in kind to the divine messages by placing rocks in the shape of the circles.

For Zhang, these stone arrangements prove China has experienced crop circle phenomena - possibly more recently than imagined.

According to Zhang, one rare eyewitness described seeing a crop circle appear in a Northeast China field in only a short time while he was in the company of Red Guards. However, as the event occurred during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), when such superstition was illegal, the account went undocumented.

If crop circles are an attempt at communication from an unknown source, then what is this source and who is supposed to receive the message?

Humans, being ego-centric creatures, naturally assume the messages hidden in the crop circles are meant for mankind. But what about the other species inhabiting our planet. As in Douglas Adam's novel, "So long and thanks for all the fish" - where dolphins were actually alien observers studying the human race as a psychologist studies rats in a maze - humans may not be the most advanced species on the earth.

Possibly, the messages are meant for the legions of cockroach species which inhabit the darker corners of our daily life. After all, following mankind's inevitable self-destruction in a nuclear holocaust, cockroaches will be the only creatures left alive.

linmeigui@yahoo.com.hk

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Crop Circles Found in Idaho Field
August 12, 2002
crop circle
 

Teton - ALIENS OR A PRANK. UNUSUAL CROPS CIRCLES ARE IN A FIELD IN TETON. AND THE OWNERS SAY THEY HAVE NO IDEA HOW THEY GOT THERE.
MANY PEOPLE HAVE THEIR OWN IDEAS OF HOW SOME CROP CIRCLES APPEARED IN A FIELD OVER THE WEEKEND. ALIENS? OR A COLLEGE PRANK?
WE TALKED TO THE TETON FARMER WHO SAYS HE IS NOT AFRAID AND EVEN THINKS HE MIGHT BE ABLE TO CAPITALIZE ON IT.
THE QUESTION RUNNING THROUGH EVERYONE'S MIND, HOW DID THESE CROP CIRCLES END UP IN THIS FIELD.
BARYON PARKER\FIELD OWNER:
"We first through somebody was playing a prank, but two perfect of circle and too perfect of patterns."
THIS WEEKEND THE PARKER FAMILY NOTICED UNUSUAL PATTERNS ON THEIR LAND.
BRENNA PARKER\FARMERS DAUGHTER:
"My Uncle Lewis was irrigating Saturday morning and came up over the hill and seen the crop circles."
THE FAMILY SAYS THEY'VE HAD THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DRIVE BY TO LOOK AT THE CROP CIRCLE. ONE SPECIFIC PERSON SAID SHE'S A SCIENTIST.
"There was a lady who just happened to be by, she heard about the studied, she studied three years in England."
THE SCIENTIST TOLD THE FAMILY THE CROP CIRCLES ARE REAL BECAUSE THEY ARE 'PERFECT' PATTERNS.
"The way they were pushed, no damage to the crop, just laying down, it's not trashed out no kinks just some things she pointed out that say it was not man made."
THE SCIENTIST ALSO TOLD THE FAMILY.
"She said it would probably be back, she didn't say when but probably back in the same place.
BRYON DOESN'T BELIEVE THESE CIRCLES WERE NECESSARILY MAN-MADE, BUT HE SAYS IF THE ALLEGED ALIENS THAT MADE THE CIRCLE DO COME BACK.
"Maybe we'd be looking forward to it, even charge admission.
HE MIGHT CHARGE ADMISSION IF THE CIRCLES RETURN, BUT NOW HIS DAUGHTERS ARE SELLING PICTURES.
MANY PEOPLE SAY THEY SAW LIGHTS IN THE SKY THIS WEEKEND. JUST SO YOU KNOW. TONIGHT WE'RE EXPECTING A METEOR SHOWER, SO IF YOU SEE SOMETHING IN THE SKY, THAT'S PROBABLY WHAT IT IS.
 

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Life Imitating Art in Rural Cornfields

8/29/02
By Kara L. Richardson
Lansing State Journal
EATON RAPIDS - A crop circle suspiciously similar to the ones flashing across movie screens around the country appeared this week in a local farmer's field.
 "Signs," the nation's top-grossing movie last-weekend, is about the mysterious phenomenon of crop circles, those geometric markings in wheat and corn fields some say are created by aliens.
But Eaton County Sheriff Rick Jones said the likely culprits of the markings in rural Eaton Rapids are copycat pranksters.
And their antics won't be tolerated, he said.
"Farmers can lose large amounts of a crop due to such nonsense," Jones said. A similar but less sophisticated crop marking was found earlier this month in the county's northwest corner, he said.
No arrests have been made.
"I realize it's been a No. 1 movie for three weeks, but destruction of property is a crime."
Someone caught damaging a field could face up to 90 days in jail and heavy fines, Jones said, and would have to pay for the damage.
Authorities have no suspects yet.
The two parts of the circle, one almost 100 feet wide, are joined by a 6-foot-wide path.
And although there are no traceable tire tracks and the corn is bent in a complete circle, the farmer's sister thinks kids are the cause.
"I don't really believe in aliens," Anne Cantine said.
Of course, Jones couldn't rule them out for certain.
"I guess we'll never know," Jones said, "but last we checked, we weren't 'The X-Files.' "
Whoever did the damage may have had fun, but the damage was a serious loss of property, Cantine said.
It can cost farmers as much as $500 an acre, said Kurt Thelen, a professor at Michigan State University's Department of Crop and Soil Science.
"It's not funny to the farmer," he said.
Corn this time of year is mature and brittle.
"If a stalk is broken, it won't stand erect again," Thelen said. "Once it's down, it's down."
Farmers' fields often have been a target for tampering.
"Ever since we've had cars and cornfields, there have been teens taking joy rides through them," Thelen said.
Contact Kara Richardson at 267-1301 or krichard@lsj.com.
 

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Crop circles in Saginaw County?

Curious onlookers gather Friday

By Linsey Davis

Saginaw County — (10/11/02)--Mid-Michigan, in large part, is farmland -- sprawling acres of undisturbed landscape, with the exception of the occasional tractor in the fields.

The tractors are now a common sighting, largely due to farmers getting into the heavy harvest season. This time of year doesn't typically draw more than farmers to their crops. But curiously, people of all ages are now flocking to the fields.

"One of our buddies said, crop circles," said one curious onlooker, "and he told us where, and we got in the car as soon as we could. This isn't an everyday occurrence."

The next best thing to an actual sighting of a spaceship is perhaps a crop circle, potentially evidence that "little green men" really do exist. "I don't have an explanation," said the farmer whose field has been "invaded." "The logical thing is that someone came in and did this, but there were no tracks, no wheels, no footprints, no nothing."

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UFO: MYSTERY IN SABAUDIA, "SIGNS" FOUND IN WHEAT FIELD - Italy - Crop Circles

June 16, 2003


(AGI) - Latina, Italy - They are called crop circles and they have become famous because Ufologists interpret them as signs sent to earth by other life forms present in the universe. A few days ago they appeared in the farmlands between the lake and the sea in Sabaudia; a huge design in nature formed from concentric circles and lines created from wheat flattened to the ground. The wheat fields are all around them.

The owner of the property, Giovanni Cenci, noticed the strange phenomenon a few days ago. "I thought it was a joke," he said, "but then I saw the perfection of the lines and I was amazed. no-one could have reached the centre of the wheat field without leaving footprints. But there were none in my field. Now the news has got around and many people have come to see it".

The farmer's son has also taken pictures of the marks with the help of a friend. The had to climb up on a light pole. "I don't what to think of it," said Cenci, "but it won't last very long. I a few days it will go back to normal".

In Sabaudia many have started believing in UFO theories and imaginations are going wild. Phenomena of this sort have been discovered in the past in England, the US, India and no-one has ever managed to explain their origin. (AGI)

Agenzia Giornalistica

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People descend on farm with crop circles; investigator says they aren't a hoax

The Associated Press
8/5/03 6:28 AM

HOWELL TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- Hundreds of people are flocking to a farm to see three crop circles. It may sound like a script from Hollywood, but it's happening in Livingston County.

Mike Esper discovered the crop circles -- 51 feet, 10 feet and 8 feet in diameter -- as he drove a combine around his farm's wheat field three weeks ago.

"It gets weirder by the minute," Mike Esper told the Detroit Free Press.

Esper, 55, first thought the circles were the work of pranksters, but called a crop circle researcher to examine them. The expert, Jeffrey Wilson, studied the circles for three days. He determined they weren't an act of man, were not a hoax, that they were the result of some unexplainable natural phenomenon.

"I'm amazed by the whole thing," Esper said. "I wanted to leave it so people could see it."

People continue to descend on the farm about 50 miles northwest of Detroit every day, with Esper often giving tours to curious visitors. But for some, the circles a few miles from downtown Howell are treated like shrines.

"It's an array of humanity out here," Wilson said. "You get everything from scientific interest to those who meditate with crystals."

During his investigation, Wilson found dozens of wheat stems with holes in the middle. He said the electricity associated with crop circles generates heat and that heat turns the moisture in the stems to steam. It expands and it blows out the holes.

Stems that are still in the ground with holes in them aren't the result of a hoax, he said.

Wilson said he has seen at least 130 crop circles since 1996. He first took them seriously while a graduate student of physics and chemistry at Eastern Michigan University.

"Throughout my career, I've always been interested in things people didn't have explanations for," he said.

Wilson, 33, investigated his first circle in Ohio. He borrowed a device from EMU that detects radiation and, along with a friend, found a sheriff had roped the circle off as though it were a crime scene. He talked his way past the yellow tape.

As he moved closer to the center, he noticed a pattern that he would find at every other circle: Radiation levels were higher in the middle.

He didn't know why, but Wilson began measuring the electric field and the electromagnetic field within the circles. He noticed the circles often appeared near transformers attached to power lines.

He also discovered a pattern among eyewitnesses of the crop circles who never report seeing any light or anything else unusual.

Wilson said science needs more approaches to study crop circles, which he describes as part science, part mystery.

As for the visitors to Esper's farm, many took pictures and pondered the origin of the circles.

"I think it's cool," said Susan Davis, 47, a high school teacher in Hartland who didn't seem to mind the possibility humans had done it. "Even if it's just art, it's beautiful. If it isn't -- wow!"

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 It's fake, 'no doubt' - others aren't so sure

Experts converge on Howell crop circles

Wednesday, July 30, 2003

BY TOM TOLEN
News Staff Reporter
 

Jeopardy answer: "Visible phenomena - some by admitted pranksters, and others, unexplainable - in which geometric designs appear suddenly in farmers' fields, the most recent cases being in Howell Township, Mich."

Correct question: "What are crop circles?"

Farmer Mike Esper, who discovered the mysterious circles when he was combining wheat on a Mason Road field west of Burkhart Road last week, suspects pranksters, rather than visitors from outer space, are responsible for his crop circles.

Two circles were found in a field of wheat. One is about 55 feet in diameter, the other about four feet.

"I got my suspicions (that) maybe kids did it, but they did a real good job," he said, adding "Nobody's owned up to it yet." It was the first time Esper has seen a crop circle on his land in 40 years of farming.

Crop circle enthusiast Drew Sulkowski of Howell agrees that pranksters probably are responsible for these circles. "It was fake, no doubt about it; it did not have any of the hallmarks of real crop circles," he said after visiting the field.

Crop circle investigators Jeffrey Wilson and Todd Lemire, who visited the site Tuesday evening, are not so sure. They believe the complexity of the circles make them appear authentic.

"I can say now that nobody's pushed (the wheat) down with a board," said Wilson, who has visited more than 100 crop circles around the world. "There is some complexity out there."

He visited the site with Lemire of the Michigan Mutual UFO Network. After spending a couple of hours at the site, they were intrigued.

"We found some concentrated plant anomalies that are unhoaxable. One of the tests is that in genuine circles, there is a blown node collar on the growth node of the stem," Wilson said.

Whatever energy hits the field causes the water in the grain to heat up very rapidly and explode out the side of the plant.

"In a short time out there, we found at least 20 stems. Hoaxers cannot duplicate the effect," Wilson said.

Wilson also was impressed with the complex weaving inside the crop circle. "You can get hoaxers to do limited weaving, but it would be nearly impossible to get the kind of weaving we saw," he said.

Wilson said it appears the U.S. Air Force is now interested in crop circles. When he went to a site in Wisconsin last week he was questioned by investigators from Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, who arrived in a helicopter. Wilson says he also observed a military helicopter fly over the Howell Township site Tuesday, but it did not land.

While Wilson has no personal theories on the source of crop circles, he says they could be natural electromagnetic occurrences.

Other hypotheses that have been proposed include extraterrestrials from other planets, beings from another dimension or other earthly entities of which humans are not yet aware.

Esper still thinks it was a prank. If the prankster steps forward, he said he won't press any charges. "It's not that big a deal, it only knocked down five bushels of wheat worth $3 a bushel."

Joanne Esper said she has been teasing her husband about his possible brush with the paranormal. "I told him they're coming to get you," she joked.

While crop circles have been reported around the world, few have appeared in Michigan.

When two crop circles were spotted in October in a Saginaw County corn field, international experts believed it to be the first report of the circles in Michigan.

Tom Tolen can be reached at (810) 844-2009.

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Experts: Crop circles not a hoax
By Kristin Lukowski 
DAILY PRESS & ARGUS


For several days, researchers took measurements, photographed and otherwise examined the two crop circles recently discovered in a Howell Township wheat field.

Their conclusion? The circles are definitely not a hoax.

But as far as the cause of the 4-foot and 58-foot circles in Mike Esper's field, the researchers haven't yet solved the mystery. They say several factors suggest that the circles could be a result of nature neutralizing an electrical imbalance.

Crop circle researcher Jeffrey Wilson, Mutual UFO Network of Indiana Assistant State Director Roger Sugden and other investigators spent hours gathering data about the circles and the site last week. Looking at some of the wheat stalks from inside the larger circle, they were able to determine that it was not a hoax.

The growth node on several plants' stalks, kind of like a knuckle, have blown out, Wilson contended. This happens when moisture inside heats up rapidly, he said.

"You cannot hoax an expulsion cavity," Wilson said. "Nobody's ever been able to stomp down a circle with a board in the wheat and cause that to occur. That is the one simple test that we can do to determine the authenticity."

No stalks from the wheat surrounding the circle were found with the blown cavities.

A number of other tests were also performed on the wheat. Although most of the formation is swirled down counter-clockwise, underlayers swirl in different directions.

This trait is very difficult to fake, Wilson said.

There are also hourglass shapes in various colors in the wheat. "That is a hallmark of an authentic formation, that hoaxed formations don't have," Wilson said.

If Wilson and Sugden had reached the circle earlier, they might have been able to test the circle for electromagnetic energy. Usually, authentic crop circles have elevated readings, Wilson said.

Wilson, who said he has a master's degree in general science, has looked at 130-140 circles since 1996, he estimated. He's found that 90 percent of cases have been near a power line with a transformer box - just like Esper's crop circles.

Also, he's found that most are within 300 yards of a body of water. Esper's field is near a swamp and a river.

"Those kinds of things seem to indicate that there may be this electromagnetic component that's going on here," Wilson said.

"The water (to irrigate the fields) will strip ions away from the soil that it's running through," Wilson explained. "That creates a negative electrical charge. You've got electricity going through that (power line); that generates a positive electrical charge.

"You have a charge imbalance, and nature doesn't like that," he said.

The condition may be enhanced by the wheat retaining a static electrical charge from rubbing together.

"All it takes is some sort of trigger mechanism, and we don't know what that trigger mechanism is, but that will start a cascade of electromagnetic energy that puts it down," he said of the wheat.

As far as the rectangular protrusions from either side of the larger crop circle, Wilson said that could be an effect of electromagnetic waves. Beyond that, however, the duo has no conclusions as to how they were formed.

"If anybody tells you that they do (know), they're just lying," Wilson said. "There are not hypotheses that can be proven. There are just these scientific criteria that can tell you the difference between what is hoaxed mechanically and authentic ones - but there is not a hypothesis that can fit what we see on the ground."

Although Sugden is associated with the Mutual UFO Network, he did not have an opinion on how crop circles are made.

"It's the big unknown," he said. "I don't have any theory on what makes them."

Wilson works with Sugden because he finds academics are quick to call a crop circle a hoax.

"It's very difficult to get academics to stake their reputation by coming out and looking at something like this," Wilson said. "It's too 'fringe' for them. But the Mutual UFO Network people go through rigorous testing to do their investigations. They're not all just about trying to prove something was made by UFOs."

"It's easier to say 'hoax,'" said Sugden, who has examined 50 or so crop circles.

Although he won't draw a theory, Sugden still says UFOs may or may not be involved.

"It's well-known there's an association there world-wide," he said. "People see UFOs around them, that doesn't mean they make them. They might be looking at them like we are. No one's ever seen a UFO make one."

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Crop Circles Called Out of Teens' League
Paranormal SWAT team won't rule out alien authorship

December 4, 2003


First came the dozen crop circles mysteriously cut into a Solano County farmer's wheat field in June. Then came the paranormal pilgrims, grabbing souvenir shafts of wheat as mementos of a possible visit from their friends in other galaxies.

Two weeks -- and hundreds of souvenir T-shirts -- later, four unnamed teenage boys 'fessed up, saying they cut the circles as a hoax because, well, it's boring in Fairfield and "there's nothing else to do around here," as one put it. Even though the Solano County district attorney didn't buy their confession, the story disappeared with the harvest.

On Wednesday the crop circle mystery reignited, as a team of paranormal investigators concluded after conducting a five-month investigation that the "hoax is a hoax."

Though none of the investigators would attribute the wheat craftwork to aliens, they didn't rule them out as suspects.

"Crop circles are a genuine mystery that cannot be explained by hoaxers," said Michael Miley, a contributing editor with UFO Magazine (and several high- tech publications), who was part of the investigation team.

Led and funded by Fairfield resident Steve Moreno, a kitchen contractor who became devoted to exploring the paranormal after a near-death car wreck 20 years ago, Psi Applications investigators concentrated Wednesday on trying to debunk the hoax rather than explain who or what shaved the circles.

But according to an actual rocket scientist on the team, one thing's for sure: The pattern was too geometrically sophisticated to be done by four teenagers who reportedly had never cut crop circles before. No matter how bored they were.

"The level of sophistication was quite high and I don't think high school students could have done it -- especially considering the state of education these days," said Jean-Noel Aubrun, a former NASA engineer who has a doctorate in physics.

Not only that, but investigators say there wasn't enough moonlight that night to cut such an intricate design. For months, Moreno's crew has invited the boys to recreate the pattern on a similarly moonlit night. They've balked.

After analyzing the different-sized circles in the pattern, Aubrun found that the ratio in the size between each was the same as the difference in frequency between each note on a musical scale.

"I played it out on the keyboard," Aubrun said.

Did it translate to the theme from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind?"

Aubrun didn't smile.

"No, it was like the scale of F," he said.

Investigators pointed to other hoax-debunking evidence. Like how the nodes of wheat samples taken from inside the crop circles were larger than those collected from outside the circles. The investigators say, based on past crop circle experiments, it's possible that a blast of microwave energy could have caused such malformation.

Miley said that no matter where such a microwave blast came from -- the atmosphere, UFOs, military weapons testers -- the possibility should inspire more investigation.

However, the team analyzed only a couple dozen wheat samples, a number small enough that even Aubrun called the finding "preliminary."

Miley thought it was enough, though.

"Hey, how many crows do you need to see to say that all crows are not black?" he said, then answered rhetorically: "One."

Investigators also showed video testimony from a neighbor who described seeing a "ball of light" a few inches above the wheat field the night before they appeared. Crop circlists often spot a so-called BOL (ball of light) hovering over crop circles.

The team hopes to have its studies peer-reviewed, as a skeptical public scratches its collective head.

"I'm a Fairfield native, and if it was a bunch of high school kids, I'm ticked," said Freddy Engell, a 44-year-old roofer. "Because I wish we would have thought of it when we were in high school. It's hilarious.

"But even though I believe in UFOs," he said, "with all the traffic that's around here now, I think we would have heard a spaceship if it landed here."

E-mail Joe Garofoli at jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com.

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Circles

WEIRD: Kate Dash checks the circles

 

In a Whirl Over Crop Circle
 LOU ROBSON
April 4, 2004

LARGE crop circles with unbroken stems have mysteriously appeared in the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Residents of the small town of Conondale, west of Maleny, say they are baffled by the large areas of flattened grass.

Crop circle enthusiast Chris White gave the complex designs an eight out of 10.

"You can't imagine anyone faking these because the seed heads would be broken and it doesn't look like it's been trampled or crushed.

"There were people in England who set out to do a hoax . . . but even they couldn't fake it.

"This definitely looks like the real thing."

Retired teacher Kate Dash visited the circles on Ahern Rd and said she doesn't believe the patterns are man-made.

"I've been to England to study crop circles for the last five years.

"This looks authentic to me," Ms Dash said.

"The way the grass has been flattened is amazing and would be almost impossible to do as the circles are beautifully symmetrical."

Both crop circle enthusiasts said they had nothing to do with making the circles, which are generally associated with UFOs.

But the property's owner, who does not want to be named, said there was a much simpler explanation for the crop circles.

"It's the wind creating a whirly-whirly. It spins around in the long grass and that creates the circle," he said.

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Crop Circles Perk Interest of UFO Enthusiasts


July 02, 2004
DAILY HERALD


Todd Hollingshead

A mysterious design that appeared Sunday in a wheat field off south Main Street in Spanish Fork is being deemed as possibly nonhuman by supposed extraterrestrial experts.

Nancy Talbott, who heads a science team called BLT (Burke, Levengood and Talbott) Research out of Cambridge, Mass. , sent local volunteers to the area Tuesday to do field work on the four-circle design.

The two volunteers, identified only as Melissa C. and her daughter Hannah, were searching for microfungal anomalies in the barley; the presence of which, Talbott says, suggests some type of nonhuman interaction.

"There's a lot of sacred geometric patterns in these circles," Melissa said, noting that one of the smaller circles was nonsymmetrical, a possible indication of extraterrestrial involvement.

The two Springville residents have since completed their field work, but the results are not yet available.

Lucius Farish, an Arkansas man who has studied crop circles and other unexplainable anomalies for years, said there are many things researchers look for in newly formed crop circles.

"They look for footprints and they take samples for various phenomenon," Farish said. "Sometimes the nodes at the joints of the plants are exploded
because of microwave energy."

Farish learned about the Spanish Fork crop circle earlier this week and was immediately interested in documenting as much information as possible.

"I've been interested in UFOs for years," he said. "But I can't tell you who made crop circles, why they were made or where they'll pop up next."

Reports by locals are increasingly curious.

Gustavo Lopez, an employee of the nearby Spanish Fork Motors, said he heard a dog whining and yelping when he arrived to work at 5 a.m. Sunday.

"Other residents in the area said they heard the dog too," Talbott said. "It's common for animals to exhibit uncommon behavior in situations like these."

Deputy Staci Petro of the Utah County Sheriff's Office investigated the scene and determined $300 worth of damage was caused to landowner Paul A. Prior's crops. Prior said damages have jumped to more than $1,000 because of downtime and loss of work.

Police said they believe the suspects entered the field during the night and created the crop circles only to attract attention.

Prior suspects it wouldn't be too hard for a couple of young people to make the circle by dragging wood posts in circular patterns. "I can't say I'm 100 percent sure, but I just think it was vandals that worked it," Prior said. "If we're going to be translated, that will be fine, too."

Utah County Sheriff's Office have since decided the unusual creation is within Spanish Fork city limits and have turned it over to Spanish Fork Police.

The Spanish Fork police station said they have had numerous calls from people inquiring about the latest possible extra terrestrial phenomenon.

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Solano California Crop Circle

300-foot-long formation in wheat with additional 185-foot "tail" of small circles reported on June 17, 2004,
in a wheat field southeast of Fairfield in Solano County, California, only four miles northwest of 2003 pattern.
Aerial photograph and all photographs in this report © 2004 by Tharee Davis.

Visit Earthfiles.com for full report

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 Crop circles appear in Tilden Wisconsin

July 20, 2004


TILDEN -- There's been many things in Francis Swoboda's field in the town of Tilden -- barns, animals, and, of course crops. But on Monday, paranormal investigators Chad Lewis and Terry Fisk of Eau Claire asked if he knew there were crop circles in his field not more than a mile from his home.

Crop circles are a modern mystery and a source of controversy. They consist of flattened crops in simple circles like the ones in Tilden or in extremely elaborate patterns. They appear suddenly and to some, mysteriously.
Some people have speculated that they are made by alien spacecraft. Others have called them a hoax made by pranksters. Swoboda just calls them a little bit annoying.

It all started when May Chi-Hi graduate Adam Prince was driving by Swoboda's field and happened to see what looked like a crop circle.

"I just looked at it I could see something up in the field," he said. "I wasn't really looking for anything. I wasn't even sure what it was, but when you go by you can kind of see something out there."

Prince decided not to investigate on his own. He searched the Internet and discovered that Lewis and Fisk were both from Eau Claire and investigated such phenomena. He e-mailed them to let them know the location.

Lewis and Fisk have investigated dozens of paranormal occurrences and are known both nationally and locally. They spent Monday afternoon investigating, measuring and pondering in Swoboda's field.

They found there was already a footpath between the oat and a nearby clover field that led to the circles. It's unknown whether the creators of the circles or someone else made the path.

The formation consists of three circles linked together by an approximately 5-foot wide path. The middle circle is 65 feet in diameter, while the two smaller ones are each roughly 54 feet in diameter.

Lewis said the circles appear to have been formed a couple days ago because plants are already starting to spring back up. No footprints were visible in the dirt surrounding the area, though he acknowledges that Monday's rain could have erased any tracks.

Various existing crop circle theories include government airplanes, extra-terrestrials, electrical or magnetic phenomena, and humans.

To Lewis, who has seen several reputed crop circles in the Midwest, the Tilden circles seem a bit "rough around the edges" compared even to some he's seen.

They also discovered that before the circles were made, a straight, eight-inch wide path was made through the center of the area intended to be circles. This might be a possible way for circle makers to maneuver without having yet made the circles.

Lewis said there have been six reported crop circles in the past few years in Wisconsin, but none in the Chippewa County area.

The pair took samples of oat plants from inside and outside the circles. They will be tested for various properties that could provide more insight.

"If there are any strange results, we'll take soil samples," Lewis said.

They also measured the area for radiation and for magnetic activity, which are sometimes found near unexplained phenomena.

It's believed that "hoax" crop circles are created by at least two people working like a compass. One person stands in desired center of a circle holding a rope to which is attached a person walking. The walker has a board on the ground to which is attached ropes. As the walker proceeds forward, pivoting around the center person, he or she steps down on the board, lifting it by the ropes and stepping as plants are pushed down and a circle is created. As the circle is formed, the pivoting rope is shortened and the circle works inward.

The circles in Tilden could be made with a large board and 30 feet of rope, Lewis said.

"It would be difficult to get in and out of here without being seen, but not impossible," Lewis said. "We're here with more questions than answers."

Swoboda believes that it's only kids who were trying to stage a hoax.

"I had hay to unload if they wanted work -- they could have done that instead," he said with a chuckle.

"You could see where they looked like they were trying to be sneaky but they weren't," Swoboda said. "Morons -- at least if they were going to do it -- do it right."

Swoboda will lose as much as four acres of the oats he uses to feed his dairy herd because of the damage.

"That's what makes you so mad -- usually the fields don't get this good," he said.

This year's oat crop was particularly good, because the growing season was long and the oat plants hadn't yet been knocked down by a storm. Now, Swoboda might have to redo the fields because the weeds are already starting to grow up where the oat plants were flattened in the crop circle formation.

But, Swoboda looks at the crop circles like any of life's little mishaps.

"There's a lot worse things that could happen," Swoboda said.


The Chippewa Herald

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CROP CIRCLES SPOTTED ON MINNESOTA FARM

August 18, 2004

COTTAGE GROVE - A Minnesota farmer can't explain a strange phenomenon in one of this fields.

Gene Smallidge found five crop circles that were made sometime July 24 on his Cottage Grove farm. He said he made the discovery the following day, and did not find any evidence that this was a man-made prank.

"There's still grain in the heads," Smallidge said, referring to his flattened crop. "If that had been done by people using a board to drag across they would have pulled a lot of the grain out of the heads and off the stems and it's still there today."

As soon as word spread about Smallidge's discovery, a research company in Massachusetts came calling. Volunteers with BLT Research took samples and offered a scientific explanation for what happened.

"The main one they're looking at is possible plasma vortices that would be formed high in the atmosphere and create and have a different charge than the lower atmosphere," said volunteer Dean Deharpporte. "Somehow this plasma would be transported to the ground like lightning is."

Scientists say hot gasses could form a swirling pattern to create the circles without breaking the stems.

KSTP

Minnesota

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UFO Expert Bob Trotta Excited by Recent Crop Circle Activity in North Devon

All Press Releases for April 6, 2005


Bob Trotta and his team of experts have been called to investigate the recent spate of crop circles that have been manifesting themselves all over the North Devon countryside.

(PRWEB) April 6, 2005 -- Once thought the preserve of cranks and eccentrics this burgeoning phenomenon has caught the attention of mainstream academia over the last few years including organisations such as Bob Trotta’s Institute of Crop Circle Investigation (ICCI). The recent activity in Devon saw local authorities reaching for the phone to request the advice of this leading research establishment.

The latest circles have appeared over the last week or so in at least fourteen different locations in North Devon, mainly in the large number of “super fields” that grow the cereal crops popular in this region. Speaking from his Woolacombe homestead local farmer David Wilkins had this to say: “I’ve always thought this sort of thing was a hoax but the ones that have appeared on my land have been so complicated that I can’t see how they could have been done overnight. I’m glad that Bob Trotta and his team are here to try and get to the bottom of things”.

Mr Trotta himself was not quite as optimistic about his team’s ability to solve the mystery: “crop circles have been around for ever. We have reports of them in academic texts from the 1700’s and they have appeared in at least twenty nine countries around the world. We are not sure what makes them although many of us believe it to be a form of light energy. However, one thing is for sure, since the 1990’s the circles have developed in complexity to the point that where once we were seeing simple circles, we are now seeing crop glyphs mimicking computer fractals and elements expressing fourth dimensional processes in quantum physics. In layman terms that means we are seeing some really complicated patterns that are almost certainly beyond the capabilities of even the most accomplished hoaxer”.

Whatever the outcome of Bob Trotta’s investigation one thing is for sure – local farmers are going to be having some very late nights as they lie in wait to catch the culprits of this decorative yet ultimately destructive occurrence.

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