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FAKE: TREVOR, WISCONSIN CROP CIRCLE

  Posted June 26.05

Report #1

(Original headline: It's a fake )

TREVOR - The rest of the field remains undisturbed, but at the top of a rise about halfway into the field the wheat stalks have been bent horizontal in an elaborate and delicate counterclockwise, swirled pattern.

There are no signs that the grain has been stripped, there's no damage to the stalks and there are no tracks leading to the pattern.

So what could have used such force to push the stalks over in such a delicate and elaborate manner? Was this a man-made design? Or is this crop circle part of some extraterrestrial activity here in Wisconsin? These are the questions Jeff Wilson and his four-man team of investigators drove from Ohio to answer, and which he's spent the last 10 years researching.

One in five crop circles are hoaxes, said Wilson, director of the Independent Crop Circle Researcher's Association.

Unfortunately, he and the other ICCRA researchers just spent the last nine hours on a hoax.

They began the day taking aerial photos and making visual observations of the crop formation from 2,000 feet up in a small plane.

"From the air it looks pretty bad; it looked pretty rough," Wilson said. "It showed indications of crop circles we've seen in the past which were man-made." While the aerial observation was doubtful, the team remained optimistic.

"But that's just an observation from 2,000 feet up. I've been in some that looked bad, but turned out to be genuine," said Roger Sugden, ICCRA investigator and professional aerial photographer from Fort Wayne, Ind.

There were, however, clear indications that the circle was man-made.

Instead of falling or flowing around standing objects, such as rocks, all the stocks pointed to or lay over the objects.

"You got a serrated edge here, Roger," Wilson yelled to Sugden as he moved on to the outside of the circle.

"As you push stuff down with a board, the wheat goes flat in one direction, so when you try to make a turn, you end up with an edge that's saw-toothed or serrated," Wilson said as he and Sugden continued to walk around the circle. "But, this is all preliminary, we really can't make a determination until we take some measurements."

The team used a gamma scout Geiger counter to measure background radiation levels around the field and in the crop circle, as well as electromagnetic and broadband field detectors to monitor the levels of electromagnetic, microwave and radio emissions.

"You need to measure the energy around the field. There's energy that takes it down. There are readings that these crop circles produce and you need to measure that," said Dr. Chuck Leitzau, ICCRA investigator and a teacher in the Detroit public school system.

It wouldn't take a lot of measurements, though, to tip the team off that the crop circle was a not left by extraterrestrials.

"I found a pole hole," ICCRA investigator Delsey Knoechelman yelled from the middle of the circle.

"They used string," she said pointing out to Wilson the measurements and patterns used to make the formation from the pole.

Other pole holes were found and the team noticed foot-size paths of bent wheat where they determined some persons had repositioned themselves in order to create the almost 113-foot circle, and its 58- and 52-foot inner circles.

While the finding was disappointing, Wilson said the investigation was worth it.

"That's part of the chances we have to go through, We do this all of our pockets. But if we didn't come out here and make an evaluation, how would we know?" he said.

For Mary Sutherland, an investigator with Burlington UFO and Paranormal, who learned of the circle earlier this week in an e-mail and called Wilson and his team to investigate, the victory is in having busted the hoaxsters.

"We are professionals. Our purpose is to provide the truth to the people," she said. "I'd love to see it as a real one, but a hoax is a hoax. We do this because there are ones out there that aren't a hoax. This is why you have professionals come in and do this, so they don't pull a fast one on us."

Wilson said today's investigation, and other like it will hopefully deter future hoaxsters.

"It's a learning experience for us. This allows us to compare against ones that aren't a hoax. It helps us educate people on what a hoax looks like," he said. "Once we have a pattern we are able to see and measure, perhaps the amount of hoaxing will decrease. What's the point when you know people can tell the difference?" Skepticism aside, Wilson and Sutherland said they believe crop circles are marks left by extraterrestrials.

"Everyone has an opinion, but we have hard evidence to back up our opinion," Wilson said. "Everyone else just has an opinion and there's a difference."

Report #2

There have been 19 crop circle sighting in Wisconsin since 1984, according to reports by the Independent Crop Circle Researchers' Association.

The ICCRA is a small group of crop circle investigators and UFO enthusiasts in the Midwest who conduct research into the crop circle phenomenon, with teams of members who have been investigating crop formations for the past ten years.

In the last 20 years, ICCRA and crop circle investigators in Wisconsin found: 1984 * A circular area of bent pine trees in the middle of a forest at Foster's Tree Farm.

1985 * A circle discovered in march grass in Dundee.

1987 * A 60-foot diameter circle in marsh grass in Mukwonago.

1993 * A of a 35-foot diameter circle of colored grass in field in Kenosha.

1994 * A single ring was discovered in Milwaukee. 1995 * A triple "dumbbell-like" formation in a reed bed in Long Lake that was flanked by two smaller circles connected by straight paths. Witnesses said they heard a sound like a slow-moving train.

1997 * A large triple "dumbbell-like" formation with a center circle and ring in wheat field and a second dumbbell formation was discovered three days later a few fields away in Wausau.

1998 * A 230-foot by 210-foot of circles swirled counterclockwise were found in a wheat field in Port Washington. Electromagnetic effects were reported.

1999 * A 61-foot diameter circle with a 101-foot diameter ring was found swirled counterclockwise in a grass field in Verona.

2003 * The fist documented eyewitness case in the United States of a crop circle formation was made in Mayville. A farmer said he saw no unusual lights or sounds, but that there was a weather front passing and saw the circles form in front of him. He said each circle was formed in succession. The ICCRA determined it was not mechanically-made, having found blown nodes and magnetic particles.

* A "randomly-downed" design was also found in a wheat field in Mayville, as well as two "randomly-downed" areas in high grass on a peninsula of a lake and a hoaxed "dumbbell-like" formation in a corn field.

* A hoaxed "copycat" Mayville formation was made in a wheat field in Theresa.

* Seven circles and associated pathways extending almost 300 feet over a hill was found in a wheat field in Clyman.

2004 * Three large circles in a oat field were found in Tilden.

* Six circles were found in a barley field in Wausau.

2005 * A hoaxed formation roughly 112 feet in diameter with an outer ring and inner circle and flattened circle was found in Trevor.

For more information on ICCRA, go to their Web site at http://www.cropcirclenews.com

  WISCONSIN CROP CIRCLE APPEARS

  Posted June 25.05

Report #3

(Original headline: Experts to check out Trevor crop circle )

TREVOR - From the road it doesn't look like much. Just a field of ripening wheat stalks, rippling in the breeze.

At the top of a rise partway into the field the even pattern of golden wheat breaks up a little bit, like there was a patch of seed that didn't take. The stalks aren't as crowded there, and when the wind moves past it's not the same even, water-like ripples that move across the rest of the field.

In that spot, circles of wheat have been bent over, the once upright stalks now running horizontal in a counterclockwise circle.

Trevor has a crop circle.

Mary Sutherland, a investigator with Burlington UFO and Paranormal, learned of the circle earlier this week, when a man who lives near the field sent her an e-mail.

In the e-mail he told Sutherland about the circle, noting that it could just be that someone drove around in the field, but there are no tracks leading up to the disturbed area.

Instead, it's like a giant wheel lay flat in the field and spun, pushing the wheat over gently but firmly, so that it stayed bent but did not strip the grains from the stalks. Sutherland went out to investigate after she learned of the circle. She took photos and soil samples, and she called in the experts. One was coming in Friday to take aerial photographs, she said. Another group was due to stop by the field today. They'll likely bring Geiger counters and audio equipment, and they will compare wheat from within the circle and without, to try and figure out if the circle is real or if it is a hoax.

Sutherland believes it is real.

"If it was a hoax, they would have made it more visible from the road," she said.

This is the second crop circle in Wisconsin she and her husband, Brad, have investigated. The last one was in Mayville in 2003. The Independent Crop Circle Researchers Association came out to help with that one, too.

Jeffrey Wilson is the director of the ICCRA. He drove from Ohio to Wisconsin Friday night so he could be around to take a look today. Much of the research he wants to do will try and prove whether someone mechanically created the circle.

Hoaxes have what he calls "tell-tale signs of damage" to the plants themselves. They look for that damage, but also compare plants' growth nodes to see if there are differences between the upright and flattened stalks.

"If the ones that are flattened have enlarged or elongated (growth nodes), that is an unhoaxable effect," Wilson said.

He investigated his first crop circle about 10 years ago, after he went to a site in northern Ohio where he detected radioactivity inside the crop circle.

"I knew there was something more than people flattening it down with wood or a rope," he said. "There are some (circles) people are making that way, but they're not all making them that way."

Wilson and Sutherland believe in sharing the information they gather on crop circles with the public, which is why Sutherland agreed to show the Trevor circle off Friday morning.

Sutherland believes the crop circles are some sort of landmark, left by beings in UFOs. They may be signs that spacecraft landed, flattening the crops with some kind of electromagnetic energy. She also believes that the crop circles are a sign that a race of beings that spent time on Earth thousands of years ago are returning. She connects the crop circles to Stonehenge, the pyramids and burial mounds.

"Whoever was working with us at that time, they left," Sutherland said. "People carried on with these symbols. Š I think these are the same people responsible for the crop circles. They're coming back."