Original headline:
Crop circles appear in a Wilkie field
WILKIE - Harvest is getting underway across the province and that means more time and attention is being paid to what's in the fields. What people find in their fields can come under a lot of scrutiny, and not by food inspection officials.
"There was no way someone could have gone in there and done that...without leaving some kind of a trail."
Five years ago Lyle Amy discovered crop circles in his wheat field near Conquest. He says the only reason he knew to report his sighting was because his neighbour had similar formations the year before.
Amy still says he didn't think there was anyone to contact about his discovery in the province.
Beata Van Berkom is trying to change that. She is a Saskatoon researcher for the Canadian Crop Circle Research Network (CCRN). Van Berkom says one of the biggest obstacles in her research is getting people to come forward with their sightings.
"Punnichy is a small town to the east of Saskatoon," she says. "I heard last year that they had phenomena the last five seasons and didn't know who to call and I'm really hoping for everybody in that area to keep a look out."
Van Berkom says farmers know their field's best. She says that if they see anything unusual, they should contact the network.
I think people still think they are going to be judged somehow, that people are going to think they are crazy or maybe that they made themselves for attention or something," she says. "So there might be a stigma of that, but I do think and I really believe in my heart that people are getting more open to new forms of information and finding out more about our own science and maybe expanding our own concept of science."
Van Berkom says Saskatchewan has the most crop circles per capita in Canada and the province has a reputation for being one of the least likely areas in the world to report a hoax.
