Crop Circles in a Washington Wheat Field

In Wilbur, Washington, crop circles have been appearing in the fields once every couple of years.This year, the circles are in the field farmed by Greg and Cindy Geib.
There are no suspects, either extraterrestrial or human, in this case.

Despite conspiracies about intergalactic grain vandals, the circles are more likely public art than alien calling cards. The BBC broke the story when an elaborate series of crop circles in southern England were revealed to be hoaxes by their makers, the very much human team of Doug Bower and Dave Chorley. The team had been making the designs since 1978. There was no Area-51 technology involved; a rope and plank contraption was all they needed to create their agricultural art.
The Wheat field is not far from the nation’s largest hydropower producer — but area farmers preparing for the summer’s harvest find the distraction more amusing than alarming.

“You can’t do anything other than laugh about it,” said Cindy Geib, who owns the field along with her husband, Greg. “You just kind of roll with the theory it’s aliens and you’re special because aliens chose your spot.”

Friends called the Geibs on July 24 when the pattern of flattened wheat was spotted off Highway 174, about five miles north of the town of Wilbur. The field is about 10 miles south of the Grand Coulee dam, which the Bureau of Reclamation says is the largest hydropower producer in the United States.

The circles resemble a four-leaf clover and remind Cindy Geib of Mickey Mouse ears. The design knocked down about an acre of their wheat. Some of it could be salvaged by combines when the harvest starts in a week or two, she said, but some will be lost.

“Of course, we don’t have alien insurance,” she said.

Crop circles have been a worldwide phenomenon for decades, and this is not the first one in Lincoln County. Similar circular patterns were left in crops in the Wilbur area in 2010 and in 2008 or 2009, Geib said.

Lynne Brougher, public affairs officer for the Grand Coulee dam, hadn’t heard about the latest crop circles but said the previous one was no cause for alarm.

“It seemed to be highly unusual,” Brougher said. “As I recall from a couple of years ago, there was no good explanation of how they got there.”

Still, she added, “it wasn’t a concern.”

The latest crop circle was first reported Tuesday by Spokane station KHQ-TV. There were no signs that anyone walked into the field.

“We’re trying to figure out how they got out there without breaking any of the wheat. It’s hard to walk through the crunchy wheat and not knock it down,” Geib said. “At the same time, it’s hard to think it’s aliens. It’s a bizarre thing to wrap your brain around.”

Geib’s daughter-in-law, Kelly Geib of Wilbur, says the crop circle has given the family something to ponder and chuckle about.

“The kids all like to say the aliens have come, and we’re happy to indulge them,” she said

These crop circle examples are from southern England...mostly around Wiltshire

 Richard Taylor, director of the Materials Science Institute at the University of Oregon, takes on a topic that his critics might claim is beyond scientific understanding – crop circles. Taylor suggests that crop-circle artists might be using GPS, lasers and microwaves to create elaborate crop-circle art.

No one can pinpoint the exact date that crop circles began to appear, but the documented cases of these huge patterns on Earth’s surface – created by flattening a crop such as wheat, barley or rye – have substantially increased from the 1970s to current times. According to Wikipedia, 26 countries reported some 10,000 crop circles in the last third of the 20th century. About 90% of those were located in southern England.

As the 21st century began, crop-circle designs have become more complex than ever. Some feature up to 2,000 different shapes. Mathematical analysis has revealed the use of construction lines, invisible to the eye, that govern pattern design, although exactly how crop circles are created remains mysterious.
Richard Taylor believes that physics could hold the answer. He suggests that crop-circle artists might be using a Global Positioning System (GPS), as well as lasers and microwaves, to create their patterns, dispensing with the rope, planks of wood and bar stools some used in the past.

Taylor suggests that artists could be using microwaves to make crop stalks fall over and cool in a horizontal position – a technique that might explain the speed and efficiency of the artists and the incredible detail of some patterns.  One research team claims to have reproduced the intricate damage inflicted on crops using a hand-held magnetron, readily available from microwave ovens, and a 12 Volt battery.

Taylor wrote: "Crop-circle artists are not going to give up their secrets easily. This summer, unknown artists will venture into the countryside close to your homes and carry out their craft, safe in the knowledge that they are continuing the legacy of the most science-oriented art movement in history."

That's his theory anyway. I think I am going to  hold  out for the aliens...a much more adventurous theory.