CONQUEST, Sask. – On a prairie plateau, with only the red gables of a few barns to bear witness, nine crop circles were formed in fields near here about three weeks ago.
Who or what made them, and why, are the subjects of speculation similar to that surrounding most crop circle discoveries. Natural causes, pranksters or UFOs?
“If they landed here, they must have been moving in a counter-clockwise rotation. That’s the way the crop is flattened. If that is what happened,” said Emmy Amy of Conquest, as she walked around a crop circle.
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She was touring the circles with her husband Lyle. The pair farm nearby and said they have never seen anything like this.
Crop circle discussions are rife with “ifs” and “supposes” floating around the central Saskatchewan communities of Conquest and Dinsmore.
Linda Mann and husband Ken were swathing a spring wheat crop on a rolling field near their farm when they found the circles. Linda had just brought supper to Ken and they were riding in the swather cab when they found the flattened crop.
The Manns reported their find and soon heard that members of the Dinsmore, Sask., Hutterite colony had also found circles in a durum field four kilometres west.
“The Manns have three circles and we have six here,” said John Hofer, a colony poultry producer, as he toed the largest of the circles with the edge of his black boot.
“They are the same style, so I expect they’re from the same source, whatever that is. We don’t really understand how they got here but there is lots of speculation around the colony.”
Hofer wouldn’t normally be found wandering through a freshly harvested field when there is farm work to be done. But the phenomena have drawn not only the 100 members of the colony to see for themselves, but hundreds of other onlookers from surrounding communities and further afield.
“We had a guy from Alberta drive in. He took some pictures, took some samples of the grain and such and left again,” said Linda. “We’ve had calls from Vancouver (and) talked to a lady from the States. They get more of them down there, I guess.”
The crop is mashed in a circular pattern, bent over at the ground. The circles range in size, some just over a metre and a half and others up to 14.5 metres in diameter.
Many show a tail resembling the international women’s symbol, with a cross extending from the circle. The crosses, in both the colony’s field and Mann’s crop, point in a south-southwest direction and are of even size, independent of the circle’s diameter.
The crops have been harvested but the circles remain, below the level of the stubble. The grain remains in the flattened stalks, unharmed.
“There is a doughnut over there, a ring within a ring, both mashed down in the same direction,” said Paul Waldner, who was visiting the site from the Kyle, Sask., Hutterite colony. “If there wasn’t so much detail and those tails, I just say it was a whirlwind or a small tornado touching down. Something must have made this intentionally.”
Added Ken Mann: “There was a big meteor shower the night we figure they were made. Maybe it has something to do with that.”
Neighbors speculate the circles could be the result of “magnetism.”
“There are power lines just over the hill and microwave and cell phone towers not too far away. It could be energy from the earth, like they say is at Stonehenge,” said Ken.
Bill Hurd was the local provincial agricultural representative until his recent retirement and said the circles are new to the area.
“I was the ag rep out here for 21 years and if anybody would have had them before this, I’m sure I would have heard about it,” he said.
Linda has her post-harvest work cut out for her because she has volunteered to take soil samples in the circles for the Vancouver-based Circles Phenomenon Research of Canada.
A representative of that group says circles are found every August as farmers begin harvest.
A long line of parked vehicles stretched down a field road even two weeks after the circles were found.
“I think this is great. People are having a lot of fun with this,” said Ken. “I wish some of the guys wouldn’t drive their trucks on the circles though. They’ll end up messing them up. Otherwise people could enjoy them all fall and what would be wrong with that?”
John Hofer said the colony member who swathed their field didn’t think the circles were unusual at first and it wasn’t until he heard about the Manns’ circles that the colony decided to report the findings.
“In the end I guess it is just pretty entertaining and it gets people thinking and talking, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” said Hofer.
