It smelled shorn, like a freshly cut lawn.

Then Corrigan saw the wide paths of broken plants circling out across the field in an unrecognizable, but precise pattern.

Corrigan quickly called farmer Steve Berning to describe the damage. Now, nearly a week later, neither man is any closer to finding out who, or what, created the crop circle.

"Have you ever heard of anything so crazy?" Berning asked Thursday. "Unbelievable."

From the air, you can see a series of broken, concentric rings cut into the field off Diehl Road in north Naperville. It loosely resembles other crop circles found in England, where complex designs are found cut into farm fields, often by people who claim the work as artistic achievement.

But some crop circle investigators have postulated other causes, including magnetic fields, wind storms and Unidentified Flying Object landings, or UFOs.

The Naperville crop circle appeared only two weeks before the release of a big budget feature film on the phenomenon - a fact that has not gone unnoticed. In the thriller "Signs," Mel Gibson plays a farmer who discovers strange circles on his land.

In Wiltshire, England, a crop circle that mimics the design in the movie's trailer already has appeared in a field, with the addition of Mickey Mouse ears - a nod to Disney, which is distributing the film.

Whether the Naperville crop circle is a similar prank is anyone's guess. William Leone, an investigator with the Mutual UFO Network, said only soil analysis can determine whether the circle was created by humans or some other phenomenon.

When he investigated a series of 11 circles in a field of cattails near Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont in 1994, Leone said he found genetic differences in the plants inside and outside the circles, which all measured 84 feet in diameter.

"We can't say for certain these circles were laid out by UFOs," Leone said. "Some people link it to UFOs, some don't. I don't know what the explanation for them are. There are so many different theories."

Naperville police can't recall any other crop circles, although the city has very little farmland left. Illinois Farm Bureau spokesman Dennis Vercler said he hasn't heard any reports from farmers elsewhere in the state.

"This is the first I've heard of it in Illinois," Vercler said. "I hope it's not a trend. Farming is tough enough these days."

Berning's field stands in the shadow of an apartment complex and in the midst of corporate office buildings in the city's high-tech corridor.

The juxtaposition of urban areas and farmland sometimes creates conflicts, Vercler said, with some people incorrectly viewing farmland as public space rather than private property.

"Since I don't believe in UFOs - at least not soybean-destroying UFOs - I have to assume whoever did this did it intentionally as a malicious prank," he said.

Based on the fresh pieces of shorn plants, Corrigan, a crop consultant, believes the damage occurred within a day of when he inspected Berning's field Saturday. It appeared mown, but Corrigan found no tracks.

More than 10 percent of the 8-acre field is damaged and will not recover before harvest in September, Corrigan said.

"It's probably mischievous people in the area, but beyond that I don't know," Corrigan said. "We scout 50,000 acres every year and we've never run into anything like this before."

Berning, who lives in Warrenville, recognizes the possibility of a hoax. He hasn't reported the crop circle to police because he figures there's nothing to be done.

"There's some damage, which upsets me," Berning said. "But I'm more curious than anything. I'll always be asking questions."

Circles: Farmer says 10% of field damaged.

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