FOSSTON, Minn. — The wheat is beginning
to turn a lovely golden brown alongside
a country road a few miles east of this
north-western Minnesota town, and the
signs left by recent visitors have faded
some into the waving grain.
But the speculative talk continues, the
curious still drive by to look for
themselves, and locals still wonder, if
only playfully: Just how far did those
visitors travel before leaving their
marks in Dean Sorgaard's field?
The large, precise "crop circles"
appeared in late July on three separate
farmsteads within 10 miles of Fosston,
including a series of connecting circles
on Sorgaard's field. There, they ascend
a gentle slope and offer passersby a
startling image of — what? Messages from
outer space? Ball lightning? Wheat
graffiti?
"There's not even any gossip
going around about who did it, and that
tells me it probably wasn't local kids,"
Fosston Mayor Jim Offerdahl said. "You'd
think they'd be bragging about it, but
there hasn't been one whisper along that
line" in the nearly three weeks since
the images appeared.
"My own personal thought is it was
somebody from out of the area."
The mayor paused for a moment then
added: "But not from out of the planet."
Offerdahl, a radio engineer in Fosston,
was one of the first to inspect the
mysterious designs, and he has since
fielded calls from all over the country,
including eager inquiries from "some of
those so-called crop circle
investigators" who wanted to know such
things as whether the flattened wheat
lay clockwise or counter-clockwise.
Nancy Talbott of the
BLT Research Team in Cambridge,
Mass., said that she was dispatching a
researcher to Fosston for a first-hand
look. And she noted "that there have
been several scientific papers published
in peer-reviewed scientific journals
that suggest other possible explanations
[for] the crop circle phenomenon than
'aliens' or pranksters."
Her team has examined crop circle plants
and soils since the early 1990s from
about 15 countries, and "certain plant
and soil abnormalities have been found
consistently," she said, "most of which
indicate exposure of the plants and
soils to microwave radiation, unusual
electrical pulses and strong magnetic
fields."
'The Fosston Files'
Other theories offered since the Fosston
area discoveries: The Air Force testing
new weapons. Farmers with playful (and
really smart) cows. Heat or wind
vortexes.
Images of what some are calling "the
Fosston Files" have been posted on the
Internet, including
this YouTube entry.
According to the debunking website
Skepdic.com, most crop circles "are
probably due to hoaxes," and the site
refers to two men who it says have
admitted to staging about 250 circles
over several years.
Still, "Some believe that the crop
designs are messages from alien
spacecraft," Skepdic notes.
"Some maintain that the aliens are
trying to communicate with us using
ancient Sumerian symbols or symbolic
representations of alien DNA."
People who get really serious about crop
circles are known as "cerealogists,"
according to Skepdic.com, "after Ceres,
the Roman goddess of agriculture and
fertility."
Or you can call them croppies.
Origins aside, the Fosston Dairy Queen
and other businesses have enjoyed a
summer taste of Roswell-like tourism.
"The restaurants did a good business,"
Offerdahl said, "and the guy at the gas
station on the corner says he's had a
lot of people stop for gas and
directions."
Nobody's taking credit yet
Though nobody has stepped forward to
claim credit for the designs (or
responsibility: think $9-a-bushel
wheat), and nothing was found that
definitively points to agricultural
vandalism, any references here to alien
visitors are accompanied by winks or
grins.
"The landowners told us that the dogs
were barking and the cows were going
crazy, braying in the middle of the
night," Offerdahl said, "but nothing was
left behind, no beer bottles or
anything."
All the crop circles were left by roads,
allowing easy access or departure,
whether by pickup or spaceship, but the
early crush of the curious made it
impossible to divine any clues from the
scene. Landowner Sorgaard said he had no
reason to embrace or dismiss any theory.
All he knows for sure is that something
got his dogs and cattle riled about 2
a.m. on a Sunday in late July and his
wheat yield will be a few bushels
shorter than he planned.
One thing just about everyone agrees on:
If this was the work of pranksters,
they're good.
"They should go into design, or art,"
said Mary Jo Rud, who climbed a nearby
hill covered in flowering alfalfa and
thistle to see the circles shortly after
they were first reported.
"They're really good," she said.
"Everything is absolutely symmetrical,
and so well laid out. You walk up there
into the circles and the land tilts, but
the impression that's there is still
right on."
Josh Curfman brought his children along
when he drove out for a second look.
"When I first saw it, I was ready to get
out my tinfoil hat," he said. "Today,
I'm thinking hoax."
You can read the
full story at
Minnpost.com:
By Chuck Haga | Monday, Aug. 18,
2008
