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Crop Circle near Clinton, Ontario Canada
– Report (Joanna Emery, 2008)
On July
11, 2008 I received an email from a landowner near Goderich in
Southwestern Ontario, Canada who said she had a crop circle in her wheat
field. I asked for photographs since there has been a great deal of
lodging and randomly downed areas of late and the drive to the area was
rather long (approx. 150 miles each way). The photos she subsequently
sent were impressive and I decided to check them out the next day,
which, fortunately, was a Saturday.
I was
accompanied by another Canadian Crop Circle Research Volunteer, Rachel
Hull. We easily found the circles; Holmesville is the nearest village
but the closest town is Clinton (approx. 3 miles east), which,
incidentally had the first radar training station in North America,
during WWII. There is a large radar dish commemorating this in the town
square of Clinton. The crop circle is also only a few miles from one of
the Great Lakes, Lake Huron, and the lakeside town of Goderich. It is
also less than half an hour from Hensall, Ontario where another
spectacular pictogram occurred a few years back; that crop circle
received thousands of visitors.
The crop
circle is a type of ‘thought bubble’ style but with pathways. When
discovered, there were no entry (or walked in paths) from the road (and
the formation is quite close to the road) but it would have been
possible to enter the formation from the seeding (tractor) line. There
were 5 circles, each with a clockwise swirl and joined to the next by a
pathway. The smallest circle, and one closest to the road, was about 16
or 17 ft, the next one was 25 ft, the middle one was 34 ft, the next 47
ft and the largest about 56 or 57 ft. The path between the largest and
2nd largest circle was 14.5 ft long, the next ones were 14
ft, 10 ft and 4.5 ft. Their widths were about 8’6”, 7’10”, 9’2” and
8’2” respectively. Each path flows in the same direction to the next
circle, from largest to smallest. I did see some ‘swishes’ or jutting
out of flowed crop for a few feet, from one of the circles, that just
ended suddenly. And although it wasn’t seen at the time, some CCCRN
volunteers noticed the next day some ‘grapeshot’ outside the largest
circle; perhaps they occurred later?
No
swollen, stretched or ruptured plant stalks were found. The lay was
good, in my opinion, with some overlapping. There were some single
standing stalks in the last 3 larger circles. Some of these were broken
and bent over. The crop was mature and there was a bit of weed in the
circles. Some of these weeds seemed unaffected, i.e. not bent over, but
not all. I did find, however, when in the largest circle, some greener
wheat stalks that were bent in a ‘square-ish’ top shape (close to 90
degree angles on two nodes). I’m not sure if this occurred before or
after the formation but it was interesting enough for me to take a
photo. Unfortunately, my camera didn’t record the photo (yikes), as
well as some other photos I took that day (I put this down to just
having a rather older-model digital camera!). Unfortunately, I was
unable to do a magnet drag on the circle. Rachel, however, took samples
of the seed heads to the university where she works and is hoping to do
some tests with them. A local crop advisor also checked out the crop
circle early and was very curious about the 8” sheared corn stalks
(stubble left from last season) that were part of the formation, with
the downed wheat going, as he put it ‘bent up over and down those
standing corn stalks’ as well as some wheat stalks being ‘caught in the
crevices of the old corn stalks’.
To me,
the crop circle did have a nice flow, although not as spectacular as I
have seen in some other Ontario crop circles. Other Ontario wheat
circles I’ve seen tend to have a ‘puffy’ quality in that the crop is not
close to the ground. This crop wasn’t pressed down a lot, but it wasn’t
as ‘puffy’ as I had seen before. I asked one of the landowners
relatives, who had been in the crop circle the day before and she said
that yes, it had been much ‘puffier’ and had been flattened more by the
visitors over the past day and a half.
The
centres of the circles were ‘off centre’, looked impressive, and,
interestingly, the crop circles are only about 100 feet from large hydro
towers. Does this have something to do with the crop circle’s
formation? When were the circles made? The area is quite visible, and
the owners live right beside the field (and notice even cars that are
parked alongside the field), say 2-300 hundred metres. If someone were
creating the formation I have to think that he/she would have very
likely been seen if there was some daylight. One woman we met in the
circle said that her friend saw people looking at the formation late
Thursday night (around 10pm) including someone standing on his truck
(but no one actually in the circles). This hasn’t been confirmed but
there definitely was a heavy thunderstorm that started before midnight
and included lightning and thunder in the morning hours (6am-ishA). The
circles were positively seen early Friday morning after the severe
weather that also caused a power out in the area overnight. The farmer
and neighbours noted that this was the only unusual event of the time
(the storms) although the farmer later did report in the local newspaper
article that his cows were “spooked during their morning milking and
perhaps it was more than a storm that gave them the jitters”. Other
than that, there were no unusual animal reactions noted, sounds or
sights etc. It was curious, however, that while in the circle, we met
several people who had had UFO sightings in the area and over Lake Huron
ranging from a couple of weeks ago to over 40 years ago.
I wish I
could have spent more time in the circles but family and time-related
responsibilities prevented me from doing so. As Rachel and I headed
home, we encountered some more severe weather including extremely dark
skies in early afternoon (so dark we had to have the car lights on),
heavy rain and lightning strikes. Rachel even kept her eye open for
possible ‘funnel cloud’ sightings as this area is well known as a part
of ‘tornado alley’ in Southern Ontario. Luckily there were no tornadoes
or funnel clouds but, even though the genuineness of this formation is
very much still debatable, I can’t help but wonder that someone in that
field on an evening or night of severe weather might have worried about
being struck by lightning (and not unheard of this summer in Ontario).
Since
the formation occurred, two local papers have reported on the circle and
indicated that they have already received about 500 visitors in the
first few days. No doubt, many more visitors will come and see the
circle as it probably won’t be harvested for a few weeks. The owners
were even kind enough to put a guest book in the crop circle for
visitors to sign. I haven’t come across this before and think it is a
welcoming touch and one that I believe reflects the openness of many
Canadian farmers and their crop circles.
The crop
circle is still under investigation, more details pending including
possible aerial video/stills. |
