...has spooked a Sunshine Coast hinterland farmer and his workers.

The phenomenon, which was accompanied by loud "zapping noises", a flash of green light, lost power and barking dogs has the Gowen family of Glass House Mountains flumoxed.

Fifth generation land owner Kel Gowen said he was woken about midnight on Wednesday by two loud "zaps".

His farm hand, Noel Brady, whose cottage overlooks the 4ha of sorghum, said he was also woken by the first zapping sound, which was followed by the loss of power and bright green flashes.

Mr Gowen said it was only during a routine check of his property early yesterday morning that he noticed the 30 flattened circles in the sorghum.

Mr Gowen said his family had never taken notice of stories of crop circles or UFOs.

ROCKVILLE -- The farmer stood alone at the edge of his 80-acre wheat field on Saturday, and in the early morning quiet, he stared across a sea of stalks and saw something strange.

Larry Balestra walked into the field and waded through the waist-high grass, and with every step, it slowly came into view.
After about 100 feet he stopped inside a massive circle stamped into his field, the stalks pushed down, flat. It measured about 140 feet in diameter.[...]

Thanks to the eyes of a local pilot, Vacaville can now claim its own crop circle phenomenon.

Unlike the smoother finish of two wheat field circle designs discovered last week in Fairfield, the circles discovered in a Vacaville corn field on Sunday look more like bald patches on a mangy dog. [...]

But police think Fairfield teenagers' story is full of holes

Saying they were inspired by a late-night TV documentary, four teenage boys from Fairfield claim they created the crop circles that have been drawing the curious and the kooky to a wheat field in Solano County.

But the claim of responsibility, first published in the Vacaville Reporter on Friday, was scoffed at by some who say that the boys must have made it up.

"I think their story is as big a hoax as the crop circles," said Solano County District Attorney David Paulson, who, like hundreds of other people, has been to the Balestra farm to check out the wheat field designs. "The law enforcement community has been waiting for somebody to take responsibility."

Like palm reading, three-card monte and Brooklyn Bridge salesmen, crop circles never die out, thanks partly to the news media's willingness to continue fanning the flames of excitement over a goofy claim that was disproved many years ago.

That's the view of some organized skeptics who, in recent days, rolled their eyes in weary disbelief at the latest revival of crop circle mania, smack in the middle of a Solano County wheat field.

To say Knobel, AR is a quiet town is an understatement so when crop circles showed up, word spread fast.
The circles appeared June 7th near a small cemetery and got big attention. [...]

Whatever it is, people around the world are talking about Knobel, AR and Tammy Wilson says that's not all bad. "It's better attention than we normally get. It's usually drug busts around here. This is better than that."

Next time something goes bump in the night, be warned extra terrestrials have been making their presence felt on the outskirts of Luton.

That is the belief of a mysterious customer who arrived in Sharpenhoe pub The Lynmore searching for a crop circle she believed was created by aliens.

The giant five-pointed star shaped design has appeared overnight in a wheat field, and is visible from the top of the Sharpenhoe Clappers. [...]

MAYVILLE, Wis. -- In the rolling hills of rural Dodge County, people might expect to see farm fields filled with corn and other crops, but if they look a little closer, there is something very different in one barley field.

"The holes appeared and there it was but you couldn't see what made it, but I seen it right when it happened," farm owner Arthur Rantala said. [...]

From the safety of his work shed during a violent morning storm on the Fourth of July, he saw crop circles form

"It looked like a lake. The waves, the wind blowing, and then all of the sudden this dark hole appears, like a black hole. And then immediately, one to the right then another to the center of it," Rantala said. [...]

Is it aliens? Or just a farmer's prank? -- It's anybody's guess

[E]ven the father of modern astronomy, who first shocked contemporaries with the notion that Earth was not really the center of the universe, would himself likely be baffled by the bizarre goings-on in one of those villages, Wylatowo, population 581.

Ever since the crop circles and, as local legend has it, the aliens, cropped up three years ago, the beautiful but sleepy backwater has drawn throngs of visitors ranging from the harmlessly curious to the distinctly peculiar.

The investor plans to build what is likely to be the first UFO hotel, bar, grill and restaurant in the known universe. But cashing-in isn't simple for farmers who might be considering resorting to fakery, according to farmer Tadeusz Filipczak, 55, on whose fields the first crop circles appeared three years ago.

"It's impossible [to make them]," he says. "Last year, we even gave it a go with ropes and boards like they do in the West, but it turned out hopeless."

Fancying himself something of a "pictogram" expert, he notes that since 2000, all 16 circles have appeared in prime grain-growing season between June 25 and July 26. [...]

Pat Esper didn't give a second thought to the 4-foot crop circle he combined over while harvesting wheat from one of his family farm's fields.

It was just some teens causing trouble, he thought.

But getting wind of another circle about 100 feet from the small circle, this one measuring about 50 feet across, quickly brought the other formation to mind. Both were discovered in the Howell Township field, nearly perfectly circular, with the wheat compacted to the ground in a counter-clockwise spiral.

"It's just like you see on TV," Esper said.

The larger circle also has two mysterious protrusions from the circle, sticking out east and west. The western protrusion, a small rectangle hanging off of the circle, is larger than its opposite. [...]

[A] private scientific research team documented physical evidence that confirmed Art Rantala's eyewitness observation that the Mayville/Kekoskee, Wisconsin crop circle formation was not made by hoaxers. [...]

Comment: Good photos, with some showing the U.S. Air Force taking a very active interest.

[...]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. [...]

GIANT crop circles and mysterious symbols have appeared in a Howden farmer's wheat field. The intricately patterned phenomenon was spotted last Thursday by a local long-distance truck-driver, although a tour bus driver from Lincolnshire said he saw the crop circles a day earlier as he drove along the Ouse Bridge.

"The field was normal one day, the next day the crop circles had appeared," revealed the truck-driver who wished to remain anonymous.

The crop circles have puzzled Howden farmer Mr Robert Huddlestone, of Grove Farm, owner of the 50-acre field.
"They cover about 80 square yards and are very intricate and precise," he said. [...]

Reports in German and English. Some have been identified as hoaxes. And here is the site for the German Association for Crop Circle Research

HENSALL, Ont. (CP) -- Hundreds of people are flocking to a southern Ontario farm to inspect something they've only seen in the movies -- crop circles.

Erv Willert says the elaborate geometric signs appeared in his 16-hectare wheat field on Wednesday evening, and he doesn't think anybody in the area is responsible.

"There's nobody with enough energy to do this," he said. "They'd get one circle done and lay down and have a beer." [...]

Crop circles may be Hollywood now, but out here, at the edge of Detroit's suburbia, they represent something more ethereal, and, said Mike Esper, who discovered three crop circles on his Livingston County farm two weeks ago, something more strange.

"It gets weirder by the minute," Esper said.

He discovered the three circles -- 51 feet, 10 feet and 8 feet in diameter -- as he drove his combine around the wheat field. Not wanting to destroy the evidence, he left a 3- to 4-foot perimeter of wheat intact around the largest circle.

He called in a crop circle researcher to take a look at them. The expert, Jeffrey Wilson, who travels the country from Dexter, took measurements and studied the circles for three days last week. Wilson determined they weren't the act of man, that they were not a hoax, that they were the result of some unexplainable natural phenomenon.

Esper promptly e-mailed the local news media.

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

HOWELL TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- A radio station on Wednesday retracted its earlier claim of responsibility for three crop circles that appeared in a farmer's wheat field.

The circles appeared last month on the farm of Michael Esper in Livingston County's Howell Township, near Howell and about 50 miles northwest of Detroit. [...]

SASKATOON -- A Saskatoon research assistant with the Canadian Crop Circle Research Network says it's highly unlikely a recent crop formation near Wilkie was a hoax.

"I don't know how somebody would have made this," said Beata Van Berkom shortly after returning from the site to collect soil and plant samples and take measurements.

"If a person did this, they've got too much time on their hands, 'cause it would take forever, even if you decided to do it with a board and rope," she said. "It's not going to happen."

But Const. Dean Flaman of Wilkie RCMP said someone has admitted to making the crop circles as a prank between neighbours. [...]

Adams County [Ohio] Soy Bean Field Drawing Visitors

It's been the talk of the town this week, and although recent incidents have been disproven, there are still plenty of believers of unusual activity as crop circles have shown up in Adams County. [...]

AVEBURY, ENGLAND-There is some evidence to suggest that crop circles have been appearing in England for centuries, while simple circles have been documented in modern times since the 1970s. In those days, theories put forward to explain them included freak whirlwinds, plasma vortexes and UFO landing sites.

Since the early 1990s, however, the phenomenon has grabbed world attention, as the formations evolved into enormous, increasingly mathematically complex and perfectly executed shapes appearing in fields, often near the sacred sites of Wiltshire in southern England.

About 10,000 crop circles have been documented worldwide since records began to be kept in the '70s. [...]

A MYSTERIOUS crop circle has appeared in a South Lakeland wheat field reports Andy Bloxham.

The strange mark, a series of four concentric circles, has appeared in a 65-acre field at Old Hutton, near Kendal, leaving passers-by to wonder whether it is the work of pranksters or something more sinister. [...]

Crop circles have long captured public attention of both skeptics and believers alike. A new documentary, Star Dreams, coming to MY Place, sheds perspective on the two conflicting sides through an exploration of crop circles from all over the world - including sightings in B.C.

“The focus of Star Dreams is to lift these circles off the field and into the public consciousness,” said Robert Nichol, documentary producer and director.

The film will provide 77 minutes of disarming information about crop circles, including eyewitness accounts and interviews with scientists along with footage of breathtaking, awe-inspiring landscapes from all over the world. [...]

Another mysterious crop circle has appeared in an Adams County soybean field. The formation was found on St. Rt. 41, south of West Union, across from the entrance to Roy Pence Road. The crop circle, found on the farm of Jack and Sherry Ellis, is believed to have been in the field for three to four weeks, according to Jeff Wilson, an independent crop circle investigator from Dexter, Mich.

The circle is believed to be in the formation of a dream catcher, according to Doug McIlwain, president of the Great Serpent Mound Chapter of the American Society of Dowsers. [...]

FAIRFIELD, CA - A five-month study has concluded that the mysterious crop circles that appeared in a Solano County wheat field in June were not the work of four teenage boys who claimed they made them as a hoax. [...]

The investigation concludes the 'hoax was a hoax.' [...]

The investigation found statistically significant differences in the elongation of growth nodes of wheat samples taken within and without the crop circle formations.

'Only microwave energies have duplicated the effects shown in the growth nodes of formation samples,' Moreno said.

A ball of light also was reported above the main formation on June 27. Balls of light have previously been reported, photographed and videotaped hovering over crop circles elsewhere, investigators say

[...] According to Blake, crop circles have been noticed and documented in the US, Canada, Germany and other parts of the world.
 
Although mystery continues to surround the circles, researchers like Blake are certain they are not manmade. According to her, the circles appear overnight and sometimes within seconds.
 
"Sometimes, we keep vigil over a misty farm. There is poor visibility. Suddenly the mist clears and a crop circle appears over the farm from absolutely nowhere. We are convinced that these have been created by a force and energy that that we do not understand."
 
What makes the circles even more intriguing, is the fact that it has been scientifically proved that the circles have affected the cellular structure of plants and the chemical composition of the soil, in a positive manner.
 
"We have made several laboratory tests and have arrived at the conclusion that the productivity of the plants where a crop circle has been sighted, has improved significantly," says Blake.
 
According to her, the circles emit a powerful,mysterious energy,which is known to damage electronic equipment like cameras.

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. [...]

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.

On August 9, 2003, a crop circle was discovered by Avebury Stone Avenue near West Kennett, Wiltshire. It seems that new plant growth has now been observed in the exact shape of the original formation.

The original crop circle discovered in 2003.

New growth observed recently.

Crop circles have been puzzling observers for decades. Not Robert Nichol. The director of Star Dreams, a documentary film about the UFO-related phenomenon, is quite sure what these precise patterns mysteriously carved into farmers' fields are all about.

Along with other forms of activity attributed to extra-terrestrials, Nichol believes that "the whole thing is preparing us for contact. It's almost imminent, only a matter of a few years."

The B.C. filmmaker, a former employee of the National Film Board with more than 25 film credits to his name, has turned himself into a travelling road show of the paranormal. He has organized a series of 20 screenings of Star Dreams from Victoria to Newfoundland. The Toronto engagement is tonight at 8 p.m. in the Town Hall at Innis College on the University of Toronto campus. Nichol is accompanied by Neil Olsen, author of Crop Circles Deciphered.

Every year there are more sightings of more complex crop circles  and now, ice circles and sand circles  and Nichol is convinced a higher consciousness is trying to make contact with people on earth. He estimates 15,000 crop circles have been found since 1980.

"There were two in Ontario last year," Nichol claims, "both in wheat fields. The one in Hensall (in Huron County) drew 5,000 people."

Star Dreams shows us crop circles, most of them from 70 to 100 metres at their widest point, as photographed from helicopters. Their increasingly complex patterns, say Nichol's interviewees, is an indication of a greater need to communicate. Others form symbols that go back to ancient times and have led researchers to examine Mayan and Hopi prophecies. It is no coincidence, Nichol contends in his film, that so many crop circles have cropped up, as it were, in the south of England near sacred sites such as Stonehenge.

Nichol, a resident of Gibson's Landing, B.C., decided to bring his film directly to his audiences to spread the word. He is certain the crop circles could not have been man-made, and cites witnesses who say the circles get created in four to seven seconds. Star Dreams documents sightings of "balls of light" in the vicinity of the circles. Some witnesses have described UFOs that appeared at the time of the formations.

The intent of the symbols is clear to Nichol. They are "a wake-up call, asking us to come up to a higher level of consciousness. They reach beyond the rational mind and touch us at a very deep psychic level."

On his Web site devoted to crop circle research, Paul Anderson, an artist and graphic designer, says crop circles have been recorded in Canada as far back as 1925. While he is skeptical about aliens transmitting messages, he believes "that somehow human consciousness is involved or interconnected with the phenomenon ... Whether this is an interaction with some other intelligence(s) other than `alien' in the traditional sense, or with natural energy systems, or both perhaps, is a matter of opinion."

What is undeniable is the beauty and precision of the formations seen in the film. Close up, they appear to be created in a uniform fashion, with bent-over stalks swirled into patterns that can include dozens of elements. "They're increasing exponentially," says Nichol. Sightings have now been reported in 50 countries. In his film, people tell how they've felt energized after walking through a crop circle. The same thing happens, Nichol says, to audiences of his film.

When camper Wayne Parry was disturbed in the middle of the night, the last thing he expected to find was a crop circle.

As he peered out of his tent he was amazed to see a huge five-circle design just a few feet away.

Some might say the pattern was created by hoaxers but Wayne, 27, is convinced it is the work of aliens.

The facilities cleaner, who was taking advantage of the warm summer nights and camping in barley crops near Coldean Lane, Brighton, claimed there was no way hoaxers could have got into the field without waking him.

Wayne, of Shanklin Road, Brighton, said: "I was very shocked indeed when I woke up - I've never seen a crop circle before.

"They were not there at 10pm when I went to sleep. Where I was camping there is a metal gate and I would have heard them climb over it. There is no way they could have got past."

The circle is hidden from the A27 by trees and consists of two concentric circles with three smaller filled circles apparently orbiting the outside.

Wayne, who works at Asda in Hollingbury, Brighton, said extra-terrestrials could have had a hand in making them because there were no trails leading to the creation.

He said: "The circles are too perfectly formed for someone to have done this.

"They only had a space of a couple of hours to do it. There's no explanation I can give except the usual explanation that this is UFOs.

"It's a nice design, quite psychedelic, and it is a great view from my tent."

An investigation is to be launched by experts from Southern Circular Research, based in Sussex, to find out if the latest design is a hoax.

Andy Thomas, 39, author of the crop circle book Vital Signs and editor of Swirled News, said the field had become a hot spot for suspected UFO visits.

He said: "This is a very interesting case because the guy was there but didn't hear anything.

"When we have conducted hand-made demonstrations it does make a lot of noise with people crunching in the field.

"We've had surveillance experiments before where a crop circle has appeared near equipment caravans without us hearing a thing.

"This field has seen formations for the past 15 years. Nobody knows where these have come from.

"It's a mystery and I could not possibly say what is going on here."

David Taylor, 52, the tenant farmer who owns the crop, said he had lost hundreds of pounds because of the damage but he thought it was more likely to be the work of hoaxers than aliens.

He said: "I've no idea where this circle has come from but to blame it on aliens may be a little far-fetched."

The first crop circle to appear in Sussex this year was created in the centre of a field of oilseed rape.

The 260ft wide shape with spiral arms sprang up at Tegdown Hill, near Patcham, Brighton.

There was a spate of sightings last year, including a strange pattern found in an oilseed rape field on Newmarket Hill, near Woodingdean, in May.

NEW MILFORD - Martha Bailey got up Tuesday morning, just like she always does, to have her cigarette and coffee out on the porch of her Sunny Valley Road home.

What she saw was reminiscent of the movies. Think Mel Gibson in "Signs."

"Maybe aliens touched down," her 7-year-old granddaughter, Shannon, said.

"They're heeeeere," her son, Eric, joked to his wife, Pat.

Bailey's small garden, marked with the homey sign "Grandma's Garden," is fenced off with 7-foot-tall chicken wire and wood. She has planted yellow and white corn among the squash and tomato plants.

In the middle of the corn patch, a perfect square of corn stalks lay perfectly flat, uniformly bent in one direction. The healthy, green corn stalks were otherwise undamaged and the corn surrounding the approximately 20-foot by-40-foot square was standing perfectly. Not one tomato or squash was harmed.

Whatever, or whoever, flattened the crop is a mystery.

"It's weird," Bailey said, looking out at the garden.

Bailey is convinced that something must have touched down in the garden. She doesn't think it was vandalism; she explained few children live on the quiet street and she has nice neighbors. Even though rain soaked the area Monday evening into Tuesday, no footprints were found in the garden.

"Everything was secure, the gates were locked, it had to be something that touched down and flattened it," Bailey said. "It made me sick this morning."

Some of the cornstalks that had remained standing were beginning to droop Tuesday, but they weren't falling at all the way the others had.

In addition to the 7-foot fence, firewood is stacked against the back and left sides of the fence.

Bailey, 69, said she has been gardening since she was 9 and has never seen anything like it. Her daughter-in-law contacted Dr. Mel Goldstein, a meteorologist with WTNH Channel 8, who told her there was no wind Monday night.

Even if there had been wind, Bailey pointed out that her 3.4-acre property is surrounded by trees, which she believes would have taken the brunt of any wind gusts.

Eric Bailey said that he had seen the 2002 Mel Gibson movie "Signs," by M. Night Shyamalan. The movie focuses on a man who lives on a Pennsylvania farm with his brother and two children. One day the children discover a crop circle in the middle of their corn field, which the family soon learns is a sign that aliens are coming to take over the earth.

"That was the first movie that ever gave me goosebumps," Eric Bailey said. When he first saw the square design in his mother's garden, he said his mind immediately went to otherworldly beings. The square defies other logical explanation, he said.

He knows a little of the history of crop circles, which gained notoriety when stories began popping up in the 1980s in British media. It was revealed that a group of people using wooden boards and wire were creating intricate circles during the night in some instances.

"Who in their right mind would do that and not take credit for it?" Eric Bailey said. [...]

Some strange events have residents in the Midwest scratching their heads. Last Thursday and Friday UFO sightings were reported from Minneapolis to Antigo.

Several people also reported some unexpected power outages. Scott Worden has been in the farming business for years, but never in all his time has he witnessed something like this.

"Never seen nothing like this in the field."

Six crop circles were discovered in one of his farm fields early Monday morning.

A worker noticed them while working in a barley field.

Two of the circles are about 20 feet in diameter. The other four are smaller sizes.

Scott says he's not sure how the circles got there. But what he does know, is they're mysterious.

"You can see they're all in a counter-clockwise motion the way the grain is wrapped. Something came down on the field, ya know, and it was turning in a counter-clockwise motion."

Scott says neighbors and friends have come by to see the circles. And take pictures of what some call a phenomenon.