The worldwide phenomenon known as crop circles rarely crossed Deldean Burton’s mind until her husband Francis found one while harvesting his barley field three kilometres northwest of Humboldt, Sask.
“You hear about it but don’t think a whole lot about it. It crosses your mind but it goes away. This one’s not going away,” said Deldean.
The Burtons’ Sept. 22 find is the second formation in the province this year and one of 15 across Canada. While Saskatchewan has historically been a hotspot for circles, they seem to be cropping up in other parts of the country as well.
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“This year has been different in that the most interesting ones turned out to be in places where they usually aren’t. B.C., Quebec, Ontario and places like that, and of course the ones in Northwest Territories in trees,” said Paul Anderson, director of the Canadian Crop Circle Research Network in Vancouver.
Anderson said crop circles have occurred for centuries in cereal crops, and in recent years become more common in feed corn and on occasion, in trees. Poplar trees in Nahanni Butte, N.W.T., were reportedly radially flattened in “perfectly circular” shapes from the edges inward in May.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much variance before among different reports within one year,” said Anderson.
The formation at the Burton farm was 38 metres in diameter, unusually large given most single circles that are found tend to be half that size. With no path leading up to it, the Burtons are at a loss to explain where it came from.
“There was literally not a stem of broken plant around it. No path leading in, nothing. It’s very strange, kind of creepy. I would sure like to know what made it, how it was made and why,” said Deldean.
Neither Anderson nor anyone else seems to have the answer.
“I don’t subscribe to any particular theory right now because I’m looking at it simply as a physical phenomenon that hasn’t been explained yet, that’s it,” he said.
Wildly debated, theories regarding the origin of crop circles range from the paranormal, aliens or other life form, to environmental, atmospheric changes, to manmade, military laser technology testing or pranksters.
Many formations in the United Kingdom, where designs are increasingly complex, are now known to be the work of established teams commissioned to make them for advertising purposes. The crop circle network has volunteer researchers across the country.
“If you find what looks like a hole in the ground in the centre where someone has stuck a stake, if you find footprints all over, if you find the plants are snapped and damaged and bruised and scraped and all that, it’s usually a pretty good sign that it is done by people. And in practically all cases where you find that, you don’t find these other kinds of anomalies.”
Anderson is referring to how the plants inside crop circles are affected. He said while complexity of design is a factor, his emphasis is on the physical evidence in plants, which varies.
“It’s almost like snowflakes because no two formations are ever exactly the same.”
He has seen layering of plants and woven stocks that he deems too complex to be manmade.
“I mean if people made any of those I would take my hat off to them for what they have achieved.”
He said plants inside a crop circle seem to undergo other physical changes as well. It has been discovered that the apical node beneath the seed head is consistently elongated and the nodes lower down a plant stem have holes or expulsion cavities blown out.
“These particular changes are thought to be related to the exposure of the plants to microwave radiation, which heats up the moisture inside the plant stem causing it to turn to steam.
“Higher up on the plant a more elastic, less fibrous tissue stretches easily and that’s why we get the elongation at the tops. Farther down on the stem the fibres have toughened, they don’t stretch at all. So as steam builds up it eventually blows a hole. That’s what we believe is going on,” said Nancy Talbott, president of BLT Research Team Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Talbott has a team of several hundred trained people in North America and the European Union who collect plant and soil samples at crop circle sites for analysis by scientists. After documenting and evaluating the physical changes induced at the sites, BLT tries to determine the specific nature of the changes and sources of energy by which they are created. Results are published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and spread to the public through lectures, articles and the internet.
Anywhere from 20 to several hundred samples are taken from inside and outside each formation. Seeds are also taken for comparison in growth studies. Talbott said generally when crop circles occur in an immature crop, early in the season or before the seed is formed, the seed either does not form at all or is stunted and malformed and will not produce viable seedlings when planted.
She also observed that non-hybrid seed from crop circles does not exhibit normal variation in plant growth rate and all plants grow in a synchronized manner.
When formations occurred later in the season when seed was fully formed, the seeds were generally dehydrated, weighed less and appeared stunted. However, in many of these cases the seeds were somehow energized and grew at up to five times the normal rate, Talbott said.
“They produce greater yields and they will do this with a great deal less water and sunlight than normal. They are much hardier,” she said.
This discovery attracted interest from bio-physicists who sought to replicate the findings for commercial seed treatment.
Back in Humboldt, Francis Burton plans to conduct his own research. He has taken heads from inside the circle, which are smaller and skinnier, and plans to germinate them.
“And I’m sure he’ll be watching next summer to see if the crop grows in that circle area or not,” said Deldean.
For more information about crop circles, visit the website www.producer.com and type “circles” in the go box.
