©The Flint Journal / Ryan Garza
Jerry Buginsky of New Haven Township, outside Owosso, stands in a mysterious, 15-foot, crop circle that appeared in his soybean field.

In 45 years of farming, Jerry Buginsky had never seen anything like it.

While cutting a field planted in clover, he noticed an odd-looking circle of dead vegetation about two feet wide.

"I paced it off in different directions," Buginsky said. "It was 10 feet in diameter on the inside, 12 feet on the outside. Everything in that (band) was dead -- the weeds, the clover, everything."



Buginsky discovered another, slightly larger circle about 80 to 100 feet away.

"The growth was completely dead, like you threw a Frisbee out there," he said.

That incident in August wasn't the end of it for Buginsky, who later noticed a third circle in his clover, plus two more crop circles in his soybeans a few weeks ago.

The soybean circles were about 15 feet in diameter, he said.

"It was evident that the crop had grown up to 15 to 20 inches tall and then completely died out," he said. "They weren't crushed, but they were dead."

Buginsky, 62, works three farms, including 300 acres of soybeans, wheat and clover near his home on N. State Road.

He said he has no explanation for the strange circles that showed up in his fields this year. Neither do any of his cohorts, he said.

Crop circles became a phenomenon during the 1970s and 1980s after a rash of them began showing up in Great Britain.


Comment: And they continue to appear in large numbers and with increasingly complex designs, though they are now normally subject to a media blackout.


Staffers at the Michigan State University Extension and the Shiawassee County Soil Conservation District said they have heard no other reports of crop circles being discovered in the area.

Examples are rare in Michigan.

But hundreds of people flocked to a farm in Livingston County's Howell Township in 2003 after three circles up to 51 feet in diameter were found in a wheat field.

A crop circle expert who spent three days studying those circles concluded they were caused by some unexplained natural phenomenon.

Buginsky said he has no reason to believe UFOs are visiting his farm or paranormal activity caused the circles in his field.

His wife, Mary, was incredulous when he told her about the discovery.

"I was more concerned that something made them - and I'm talking about a manmade something," said Mary Buginsky, a retired teacher and former county commissioner.

"I'm a skeptic. I'd be looking for a human being cause."

Her theory: Passing aircraft are discharging chemicals over the farm.

"We're under heavy airplane traffic," she said. "I think it came from the air."