Gail Michel is feeling a bit like she's come full circle after the province's first reported crop formation of 2007 was spotted in the same field on her family's St. Gregor area farm where there was a similar discovery two years ago.
Her son Evan, 14, and husband Calvin were swathing when Michel got a cellphone call from her excited son.
"'Mom,' he said, 'the aliens are back. Bring the camera out,'" she recalled in an interview Friday.
Michel isn't so sure about aliens, but clearly the crop circles are back. The latest one, discovered Sunday, cropped up in a field that sported a circle, then planted with barley, in September 2005 on the farm about 200 kilometres north of Regina.
"You just can't believe it," said Michel. While the family never imagined the circles might strike twice, apparently, according to those who study the subject, formations will often show up in the same area.
The Michels don't dwell on the cause, but her husband has joked that if it is aliens checking out land, "maybe they'll pay better than the Albertans," Michel laughed.
Some in the area have speculated about pranksters, but Michel isn't as convinced. She said the crop surrounding the 15-metre-diameter circle appeared "totally undisturbed" until her family walked in to get a closer look.
Within the circle, the wheat stalks aren't broken, but lie counter-clockwise. There's also cross-layering -- with the wheat flattened in alternating layers. If it is a hoax, "they would have gone to a lot of trouble to accomplish that," said Michel.
Saskatoon resident Beata Van Berkom, a volunteer field researcher with the Canadian Crop Circle Research Network (CCCRN), examined the site and noted that nodes on the circle's wheat stems are enlarged compared to those on other wheat stalks in the field. It's a phenomenon that hasn't been duplicated in man-made crop circles.
"They (CCCRN) believe it to be an authentic crop circle, for whatever reason causes it," said Michel. Van Berkom couldn't be reached for comment Friday
Bert Roach, the Estevan Chamber of Commerce's community development manager, sparked the creation of the Canadian Crop Circle Research Museum in that city this spring and has been eagerly anticipating the province's first sighting of 2007. Credit for the first reported in Canada this year goes to British Columbia.
"It's very exciting to have a formation in Saskatchewan," Roach said. Up until the recent find, it had been a pretty frustrating crop circle year. "(Open) a new crop circle museum -- and then you get shut out," he said.
The museum itself was a display within the tourism booth this summer, but plans are underway for a more permanent home.
The Michels' most recent circle is located about 200 metres from the one found in 2005 and slightly larger. Curiously, when the family planted peas last year in the former circle, they didn't grow.
This year's field of wheat seemed unaffected -- except for the pesky wheat midge which damaged crops on many farms this year.
Some crop formation research has focused on energy or magnetic fields within the circle
Global News reporter Jennifer Cartwright doesn't know what to make of her experience in the St. Gregor circle while preparing a report for Global National.
She sat in the centre and took photos with her cell phone. Later, she discovered her log of recent calls had been erased.
In its place, the phone shows calls with such dates as 05/08/17 and 04/08/70 -- pre-dating any cell phone if that's 1917 or 1970 -- and unrecognizable or "withheld" phone numbers.
"It's really scrambled," she said. "It might just be a strange coincidence, but it's fun to think that it isn't."
Michel has experienced nothing similar, but admitted the circles in grain fields are food for thought. "It's a great trigger for the imagination," she said.
There's plans next year to plant canola in the field -- and see what happens.
(Original headline: Crop circles have returned )
