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"I really don't know what to think about it," said Holmesville-area farmer Bert Van Maar. "I guess I'm kind of surprised."

Ontario, Canada -- On the morning of Friday, July 11, Van Maar made an interesting discovery in his Cut Line wheat field - five crop circles, between 14 and 30 feet, just... appeared.

He estimates it happened sometime during the night, after a lightning storm swept through the area.

"The field's right beside our house so we see it all the time," he said. "I drove by yesterday and hadn't seen it."

The smallest of the circles begins at the north side of the road, with a short path about four feet wide connecting to the next circle, about five feet away. The circles get progressively bigger down the line.

Rather than conjure up images of other-world visitors, Van Maar had a much more pragmatic first impression.

"How many acres are flat?" he said. "Wheat's a pretty good price right now."

All told, he estimates that less than one acre of field was flattened, and none of the plants appears to be broken.

Of course, the discovery was too odd to be seen by just Van Maar.

"I had to back the truck up and take a second look," said Don Wise, who stopped by the Van Maar farm Friday morning. "Then I realized they were crop circles."

He said while the discovery was surprising for this area, it isn't completely unheard of - comparing it to crop circles found in Hensall in 2003.

The conditions the night before, he said, were similar to those in Hensall five years back.

"There was a storm last night. A real close storm" Wise recalled. "That's what I read a few years ago, too, when I was investigating the one in Hensall.

"The next morning was when he realized there was crop circles in his field as well."

Van Maar was of a similar opinion.

"The one in Hensall happened right after a lightning storm too," he said.

While neither man wished to hazard a guess as to how the crop-circles were created, the similarity between the conditions before their discovery and the one in Hensall were duly noted.

"I wouldn't want to speculate one way or another," said Wise.

Van Maar said it's possible some people just decided that his field was a good location to create a little local bafflement, noting it's been done before.

"There's ways of doing it I think," he said.

However, he added the cows were spooked during their morning milking and perhaps it was more than a storm that gave them the jitters.

"We had a big crack of lightning about 6:30 or so," he said. "We were milking and the cows were jumpy in the barn."

Regardless of how they were made, the phenomena has already drawn some local visitors to the site to check out what could be the work of human hands, a strange natural occurrence or something from a galaxy far, far away.