Original headline:
More than 5,000 people visit crop circles
“Due to 5,000 people walking in the crop circles, they are looking well tramped. Sorry,” reads a sign erected by Erv Willert, owner of the Hensall area farm where crop circles were discovered on July 30.
According to his wife, Ansberth, Willert’s estimation of 5,000 visitors is conservative, considering on Aug. 4 more than 1,000 people signed a guest book the family has left out for visitors to sign.
She added last Monday was the day the fewest people came to the formations and not all of them signed the book.
Where wheat once lay in a spiral pattern, a trodden dirt path has formed where visitors’ feet have walked.
“The signature book is cool to read,” Ansberth said, adding one person wrote Elvis was responsible for the crop circles and another said he knew what causes the circles but couldn’t say because he works for the CIA.
Ansberth said some researchers from London, Ont., took a sample of wheat from both outside and in the circles. She said they told her the wheat seeds from inside the circle may yield as much as 300 times more than normal wheat.
So far, Ansberth said, “It’s been a positive experience. We’ve meet people from all walks of life.” She added she never would have met these people if the crop circles did not draw them to the field.
Some of the people who visited the farm suggested that the crop formations are the work of hoaxers with boards tied to their feet.
Experts disagree
Matt Rock, of the Canadian Crop Circle Research Network (CCCRN), said he’s been to five real crop circle formations and added the Hensall formation is genuine. “It’s real. I don’t think it’s a hoax.”
Rock said the circles have been positioned almost exactly on an east/west axis and the accuracy is “pretty damned good.”
The crop circle researcher said a crop circle formation found in Stewarttown, the first sighting this year, may be pointing directly to the Hensall formation.
The Hensall formation looks like two cupped hands coming together and Rock suggested it represents two countries coming together. If the formation was split in two, he added the direction of the wheat falling are flowing in opposite directions.
WHITE ORB
Using a film camera, Roger Sugden, assistant state director of Mutual UFO Network for Northern Indiana, captured a white orb floating over the Hensall formation.
Eliminating all possibilities for an explanation, Sugden, of Fort Wayne, Ind., said that the orb cannot be dust in the air because the ground and wheat was wet, there were no insects in the air, he didn’t use a flash, he made sure the camera had a clean lens and the photo was taken during the day.
Sugden, an aerial photographer, said only one photo showed the white orb. He added that he prefers film to digital because film can be better analyzed.
Because the ground was soggy when he studied the formations, he said he wasn’t able to do many tests. He added he couldn’t take soil or plant samples back to the US and he couldn’t bring his radiation testing equipment to Canada.
A global positioning system (GPS) was used to find out the longitude, latitude and elevation of the crop formation, said Sugden, adding inside the formation, elevation varied from 411 to 1,300 above sea-level, which isn’t normal. Outside the crop circles all readings were at 852 feet above sea-level.
One of the signs that the formation is genuine is the expulsion cavities on the wheat. He explained steam builds up in the crop when the circles are formed and it blows little holes in the swollen node, which are the weakest part of the stalk.
While investigating the circles, Sugden said he and another researcher stayed with the Willert family. “They’re very nice people.” He added it was nice to be able to walk across the road to get to the circles.
While he doesn’t know if UFOs cause the circles, Sugden said they are associated in some way.
JULY 13
On July 15, an unnamed man reported to the National UFO Reporting Centre that he saw a cigar-shaped UFO flying over Highway 4, north of Hensall on July 13.
The man wrote, “The object was white. It travelled from right to left across the highway approximately at the horizon, just above the tree-line.”
The object was about 10 km down the road from the car, he wrote, adding, “It did not look like a plane, balloon or anything else I have ever seen in the sky. It had to be quite large.”
“Someone else must have seen it,” he said.
The date that the UFO was sighted intrigued Sugden. He explained that July 13, 1993 was the day that Northern Indiana had its largest UFO sighting, including reports of cigar-shaped objects. He added that there were too many witnesses to interview.
Exactly three years later, on July 13, 1996, Sugden said crop formations were found in the same field over which the UFOs were sighted.
See also: Ontario Crop Circles Have 'Earmarks Of A Natural Design'
