August and September make up the circle season – the months when crop
circles are most likely to appear in Canada. There have been at least
seven crop circles reported here this year, and they’ve appeared in
seven other countries in 2002.
The Canadian Crop Circle Research Network keeps track of such things
and will be doing field research this year as circles are discovered.
Of course, August and September are typically prime time because of
crop maturity, which makes the designs show up beautifully from the air
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and from the ground. That means circles might be scarce in parts of
Alberta and Saskatchewan, where drought, gophers and grasshoppers have
kept the crop so short that you won’t be able to tell whether it has
also been mashed.
The crop circle research network says scientific evidence “continues to
indicate that there is a real phenomenon occurring; apart from known
hoaxes of man-made ‘land art’.” In a July News release
news the network says
there’s still no satisfactory explanation for physical plant
deformities, soil composition changes and complex layering and weaving
of plant stalks at crop circle sites.
An explanation of the Hollywood kind was put forward this month with
the release of the movie Signs. It stars Mel Gibson as an American
farmer who finds crop circles in his corn field.
Well, if one absolutely must watch Mel Gibson for two hours while in
the throes of agricultural research, so be it. Sometimes you just have
to bite the bullet in this columnist gig.
So there I sat, expecting a suspenseful movie about alien visitation,
sinister motives and crop circle shenanigans.
Instead I saw a movie about faith.
I won’t give away the plot, except to note that in this movie, as in
prairie life right now, there’s a preoccupation with water – its
quality and its amount.
But the movie’s examination of faith struck the most resounding chord,
particularly as I thought about news pouring into the Western Producer
about drought relief concerts, adopt-a-cow programs, donated hay and a
unified purpose among Canadians to help prairie farmers cope with
drought.
Just when faith might understandably have been in short supply, surely
it has been partially regenerated in many hearts by the generosity and
goodwill of so many across the country.
I am no closer this week to having an explanation for crop circles, but
I’m holding much closer to my faith in mankind.
