Circles on the cereal crops in Wylatowo

-Corn crop circlesA crop circle is a sizable

pattern created by the flattening of a crop such as wheat, barley, rye, maize, or rapeseed. Crop circles are also referred to as crop formations, because they are not always circular in shape. The documented cases have substantially increased from the 1970s to current times. In 1991, two hoaxers claimed authorship of many circles throughout England.

Twenty-six countries reported approximately 10,000 crop circles in the last third of the 20th century; 90% of those were located in southern England. Many of the formations appearing in that area are positioned near ancient monuments, such as Stonehenge. According to one study, nearly half of all circles found in the UK in 2003 were located within a 15 km (9.3 miles) radius of Avebury. Archeological remains can cause cropmarks in the fields, in the shapes of circles and squares, but they do not appear overnight and they are always in the same places every year.

History

The concept of crop circles began with the original 1970s hoaxes by Bower and Chorley.  They were inspired by the Tully "saucer nest" case in Australia, where a farmer found a flattened circle of swamp reeds after observing an UFO.  There are other pre-1970s reports of crop circles, specially in Australia and Canada, but they were always simple circles, which could have been caused by whirlwinds.

Wylatowo is a place which from 2000 became a centre of meetings of people interested in paranormal phenomena. Everything started with occuring the signs in cereal, so-called international symbols. There, a dozen or so of them came into existence, and everything happened between 2000 and 2005. May it be possible that these signs appeared there only between these years? Some residents claim that they have already appeared earlier, but there is no evidence to it.

Conspiracy theories

Deliberate acting of people is the simplest explanation of the existence of the circles, and the possibility of creating such patterns with simple sets of tools in the short time was proven to be possible. However, alternative hypotheses exist, like for example the fact that circles are arising as a result of the landing or influences of the Unidentified Flying Object (UFO)

Even though a completely convincing theory doesn't exist of how these circles are created, the researchers of the circles have certain ways to check which circles are authentic, and which are created by jokers. In Wylatowo Bartosz Szewczyk explained it to tourists from the Centre of the Research on Paranormal Phenomena in Cracow – when the authentic cirlces are being created the problems with the current appear. And there was a broken high-voltage line at that time…

The first strange sign appeared at night between 30 and 31 of May. Wylatowo, where the international symbol was found, is famous for secret circles which appear on nearby fields.

Changes to crops

Scientists have found differences between the crops inside the circles and outside of them, and they are still studying these differences. It has been reported that the pulvini of wheat in 95% of the crop circles investigated were elongated in a pattern falling off with distance from the centre, and that seeds from the bent-over plants grew much more slowly under controlled conditions. Furthermore, traces of crop circles patterns are sometimes found in the crop the following year, "suggesting long-term damage to the crop field consistent with Levengood’s observations of stunted seed growth." These current investigations seem to imply that at least in some crop circles, there is more at work than the effects of mechanical crushing of plants by human activity such as the use of microwaves by crop circle artists.

Crop circles