Updated Monday 21st December 1998
Cache Valley, nr Salt Lake City, Utah. USA. Reported July 24
Baffling crop formations appear in Cache for 3rd year in a row Pattern found near area's first crop circle.
By Zack Van Eyck, Staff Writer
Unusual crop formations have appeared in the
Cache Valley for the third consecutive summer. A pattern of flattened plants, stretching
316 feet from end to end, was discovered Tuesday in a field in College Ward, a few
miles from Providence where the area's first so-called crop circle was found in August
1996.
A second design was observed from the air Wednesday near Cove, close to the Idaho border,
by Davis County researcher Ryan Layton. Layton had rented a small plane, along with Cache
County residents Con Olsen and Tres Nixon, to get a better look at the College Ward
formation.
Layton, who has taken samples from previous Utah crop circles for study by former
University of Michigan professor W.C. Levengood, said the Cove formation is particularly
intriguing because there were no visible tracks leading into it. He said Thursday he hopes
to gain permission from the landowner to enter that field and study the Cove design.
"There is no appearance of human intervention on location there," said Layton,
who believes most crop circles likely are the work of "advanced beings of some type
of intelligence not known to our realm or dimension."
The College Ward design features a flattened ring 102 feet in diameter and a second ring
measuring 46 feet that is encompassed by two half circles, Layton said. The Cove formation
has a large central ring surrounded by two more flattened rings and two circles, he said.
Similar formations have been observed in fields of wheat, barley and other crops
world-wide, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. Two prominent formations were discovered
in the Cache Valley during the second week of July last year, one in Smithfield and one
four miles to the north near Crow Hill.
Layton informed a national radio audience about the new Cache formations Wednesday night
on "Coast to Coast with Art Bell," aired locally on KNRS, 570-AM. He was joined
on the broadcast by Boise native Linda Moulton Howe, who has investigated crop circles,
UFOs and other unexplained phenomena for two decades.
Layton is convinced the formations are some kind of encoded message intended for humans.
The hope of discovering just what that message might be is what drives him, and others, to
investigate the mystery firsthand.
The Cache County Sheriff's Department took a look at the crop circle formed two years ago
in Providence, suspecting pranksters were to blame, but made no arrests. It also
speculated the design could be the work of hungry gophers.
Deseret News Archives,
Sunday, August 2, 1998
Origin of crop circles still under question
Prankster says they're hoaxes; others say nope
By Zack Van Eyck, Staff Writer
A Nibley man says he and a buddy created
seven crop formations in the Cache Valley in 1996 and 1997, then earlier this
year taught a class of Utah State University students how to use boards and string to make
them. Mike Norton, 30, says he and Joe Parker had nothing to do with two new formations
that appeared in College Ward and Cove two weeks ago. But some of those students, Norton
suggests, could have become restless on summer vacation. He believes mischievous Aggies
could be responsible for so-called crop circles found in Utah, Idaho, Oregon and
Washington this summer.
"When you teach 150 physics students how
to make a crop circle, at least one is going to be curious" and give it a try, said
Norton, a United Parcel Service employee and a bail bondsman. "It doesn't take too
long with two people doing one."
The theory sounds logical. Case closed, right? Not so fast, say other Utahns and crop
circle researchers. The large and sometimes complex field designs have appeared stealthily
in fields of wheat, barley and other crops across the world for years now. To some people,
the confessions of British hoaxers "Doug and Dave," Norton and others are proof
that crop circles are a product only of creative humans with a lot of time on their hands.
But to the intrigued individuals who track them - and farmers whose fields have been
violated - the mystery remains just that.
"I don't believe for a minute that he
did that," Sandra Alder said of Norton's claim that he and Parker, his former LDS
Church mission companion, made a 270-foot design in her family's Providence barley field
two years ago. "Where that crop circle was, the next year (husband) Gerry planted and
nothing grew there. . . . I do know this, there was no tracks in and no tracks out and how
could they do that? If he did do that, why don't he prove it?" Dixie and Glen Hansen
also doubt pranksters are to blame for a crop formation discovered in their barley field
last Tuesday, although they don't have any other explanation. The Hansens looked for, but
couldn't find, tracks leading to the formation from a nearby irrigation ditch or U.S. 89.
"I can't understand how someone could go
in there and make that perfect of a circle, no prints, in the dark and not
stumble and fall," Dixie Hansen said. "If they were college-age, they usually
have a pretty good time before they attempt something like that. It's just very
interesting." If Norton made the Providence circle, the Alders want payment for
damages. And while Gary Hansen won't press the issue, he did lose $500 in wheat from the
formation Norton says he and Parker created on his Smithfield land last July.
The Cache County Sheriff's Department did suspect pranksters were to blame for the Providence formation, but prosecutors have not brought charges against Norton or Parker for trespassing or causing damage in any of the fields. "Quite frankly, anything I say, even if in the newspaper, it's still hearsay," Norton said. "They would have such a hard time proving we did it in a court." Alder said Norton denied creating the Providence design when she confronted him last week. And Gary Hansen said his son, Dustin, also was told by Norton he did not make the Smithfield circle but knew who was responsible. Norton, however, said the farmers he's talked to don't care that someone may have entered their fields and made curious patterns by flattening plants.
"Wheat and barley and hay, frankly, is
not a real profitable crop," Norton said. "Even a large crop circle in the
middle of a field financially does very little damage." Nancy Talbott, part of an
international crop-circle research team led by former University of Michigan professor
W.C. Levengood, said the '96 Providence formation was "authentic." Laboratory
work revealed internal, physical changes to the plants inside and immediately outside the
formation, she said. According to Talbott, Levengood has discovered that "part of
what was involved was electromagnetic radiation" in the Providence pattern and most
others he has tested. Levengood believes there may be a natural explanation for most crop
circles - perhaps a spontaneous energy vortex of some kind. Jill Marshall, the Utah State
professor who invited Norton into her class, doesn't buy that theory. She believes all
crop circles are the work of humans. "It's embarrassing that a number of scientists,
some of whom are not what I would really call scientists, were fooled," she said.
About 10 percent of the 300 crop formations Levengood has analysed since '89 have been classified as non-authentic, probably made by humans, Talbott said. Richard and Anne Nielsen of Spanish Fork took samples from the College Ward formation last Sunday and will send them to Levengood. Anne is convinced the circle is authentic, partly because she became ill while inside it. "There were absolutely no tracks" leading to the formation, Richard said. Levengood's team has yet to process samples taken from last year's Smithfield and Richmond crop formations. Norton says those designs clearly spell out the names "Mike" and "Joe."
Meanwhile, two crop formations also have
turned up near Boise, in Star and Nampa. They were first seen July 21 - the same
day the new Utah formations are believed to have been created. An elaborate crop circle
was found the following day in Hubbard, Ore., and two others have been reported near
Pasco, Wash. A Boise TV station reported the Star formation was
probably a hoax. But Ike Bishop, the Mutual UFO Network investigator who took samples from
the field, said MUFON
researchers always tell that to the media to protect property owners from further damage
curious spectators might cause.
If incorrigible Aggies are responsible, perhaps some have travelled overseas. Several crop
circles were discovered in Belgium
on July 21.
Talbott and Boise native Linda Moulton Howe,
a journalist who has investigated the unexplained for two decades, say the
phenomenon is world-wide and should not be dismissed even though some formations clearly
have been faked.
1997 Deseret News Publishing Co.
Special thanks to Richard Nielsen for submitting the photograph, diagram and newspaper article.
