Updated Monday 2nd February 1998
WAVERLY Where are the Men in Black when you need them?
UPDATED Monday 2nd February 1998
I am B. J. Kruse, the one mentioned in this article. The article has a few misunderstandings. It reported that, Brenda Kruse, was Nick Bartlett's mother, but he is in fact, not related to either my step-mom or myself, (my step-mom being Brenda Kruse).
Another thing is that the article failed to go into depth on the description of the formation itself.
There were two separate circles, one with diameter of 40', this one had the key/F figure protruding from it. The smaller circle, (I'm not sure on the precise dimensions), was approximately 10' in diameter. The path connecting the two circles was created by news crews and people who were curious. Nick and I are standing, facing South, in the larger circle.
The outer rims/edges of the circles, had the wheat laying in the opposite direction of the inner swirl. I'm not sure how to make these descriptions easy to follow. The swirl in the larger circle, is not centred, and the key isn't sprouting from the centre of the circle either. The centre of the smaller circle lines up with the centre of the larger circle (which lay off to the southern side of the circle), and the key, this is partially visible in the picture. The dark patch in front of Nick and I, is the centre of the circle.
The larger circle's edge went in a clock-wise direction, and the inner swirl in a counter clock-wise. The smaller circle's were just the opposite.
The following weekend, another crop circle was found about twenty feet beyond the original formation. This one however, has been decided a hoax. Several beer bottles, littered the area the morning they were discovered. Cars were also seen parked at the dead end, the night before.
--B. J. Kruse
Nick Bartlett and B.J. Kruse could have used the help of Hollywood actors Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith when they went out Friday to investigate some suspicious depressions in a wheat field south of Waverly. What they found amazed them.
"I couldn't believe how perfect the circles were," said Bartlett in describing the small and large circles that make up what some people would describe as a crop circle.
"Men in Black" is the name of a just-released movie about a super-secret agency that investigates unscheduled alien visits to the planet Earth. No one, including Bartlett and Kruse, is suggesting that the weird formation was caused by a UFO, but it certainly raises some puzzling questions. Bartlett and Kruse, both 15, say they didn't do it.
Furthermore, they say there were no tracks leading to the crop circle when they went out Friday morning to investigate. Bartlett first noticed a depression in the wheat field on July 6 and told Kruse about it. But both were out of town for a few days so they didn't look into it immediately.
The teen-agers describe the configuration as a big "F," or a big key. The largest circle is about 40 feet in diameter and the smaller one about half that size. The crop circle is just off a dead end street near 140th Street and Amberly Road.
Crop circles are unexplained patterns in crop fields. They first began appearing regularly in southern England around 1978 and more recently in the United States. A year ago, a large crop circle was discovered in a barley field in Boyd County near the South Dakota/Nebraska border.
Although some people speculate the circles are the imprints left by alien landing craft, more plausible explanations include human pranksters and a natural phenomena called ion plasma vortices brief, intense flashes of microwave energy that are drawn toward the Earth by magnetic fields.
Bartlett and Kruse say they don't believe the crop circle was caused by pranksters. "I wouldn't say people did it because when we were out there, there were no tracks at all," said Bartlett.
Brenda Kruse, the mother of Nick and stepmother of B.J., is also mystified. After they saw the crop circle, the two boys came back to get Brenda. They had a hard time convincing her to go along.
"I thought they were crazy..¤.¤. I went there to please them actually. I was totally amazed," she said.
What puzzles her, she said, is if the crop circle was manmade, what could have been used that was heavy enough to cause the wheat to lay down for four or five days?
All of the golden wheat in both circles and the long stem with two small parallel lines at the end was flattened in either a clockwise or counter-clockwise direction.
"I'm such a logical person. This is something out of my realm," said Brenda Kruse.
It may also be out of the realm of Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner. Crop circles are a rarity and this may be the first one in Lancaster County. It certainly is the first one that Wagner has heard of locally.
"I don't think it's criminal, is it?" said the sheriff when told of the existence of the crop circle.
Asked if there could be some connection between the crop circle and a recent UFO sighting at Pawnee Lake, Wagner replied in tongue-in-cheek fashion: "I'm sure that there probably is."
Tom Zuercher, who farms the wheat field for his aunt, also doesn't know what to make of the crop circle. "It sure is an unexplainable thing anyway. It's one of those unexplained things you seen on TV," he said.
Zuercher, who heard about the crop circle Friday and took his family to see it, said he is puzzled how anyone could have gotten into the middle of the field without leaving a trace.
By Friday afternoon, a small herd of media and curiosity seekers had trampled a well- worn path to the crop circle and disturbed most of the flattened wheat stalks.
Zuercher believes there will be more visitors.
Maybe the Men in Black?
Dear Mark Fussell & Stuart Dike
Teens Find Crop Circle Near Waverly or "Mystery in the Field" was reported by the Lincoln Journal Star on 7/12/1997.I hope to obtain picture and let you know.The crop circle was found on the south edge of Waverly,Nebraska,near Lincoln,the state Capitol.There are small and large depressions in a perfect circle form in a wheat field.There were no tracks leading to the crop circle.The configuration is described as a big "F" or a big key.The largest circle is 40 feet in diameter,and a smaller circle is half the size.
Reported by Paulo Bahr.
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 Mark Fussell & Stuart Dike
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