Ryan Layton has investigated earth mysteries across the Mountain West for 16 years, but the crop circle discovered in a barley field here last week is the first he's seen.
True to his passion for the unexplained, Layton took it upon himself to spend the weekend in Seth Alder's field, collecting crop samples for the sake of science. Somebody had to do it.And somebody had to answer all those questions from the dozens of curious visitors who came from miles around to see the strange design. They flattened as many barley stalks with their footsteps as the unknown perpetrators did in creating northern Utah's first publicized crop circle.
"I'm exhausted," Layton, 42, said Monday as he hurried to record more data before the surrounding barley was harvested. "I had to work the whole day (Sunday) in the hot sun, but that has to be one of the most exciting investigations I've ever done. I believe this is real and authentic."
Others, including Cache County Sheriff's Department investigators, aren't so sure. They figure the crop circle is a prank.
"I think the general feeling is it's kind of hoaxish," said Don Searles, who owns a restaurant on the north side of 1200 South, a few hundred yards from the 270-foot-long imprint. "It seems like the kind of thing guys from a frat house would do."
Whether aliens, fraternity brothers - or alienated fraternity brothers - were responsible for the field design did not seem important to those who took a look Monday.
"We just had to see it for ourselves," said Linda Hancey. "It's strange. It kind of gives you a weird feeling."
Jason and Julie Rabb drove all the way from Provo to see it.
"I've never seen anything like it in the Cache Valley and I've been here all my life," said Farrell Garr, who lives nearby. "I've seen what I would consider a UFO when I was a kid . . . I'm a believer."
Searles, aware of how two men faked numerous crop circles in England earlier this decade, said anyone with a board and string could have ventured into the field at night and created the design. The field is just west of Providence on the southeast corner of 1200 South and U-165. It is easily accessed from either road.
But Gerald Alder, the man who discovered the crop circle Friday, and his wife, Sandra, said there were no pathways or trails leading into the field until after news of the crop circle got out.
"I don't think anybody got in and done this," Sandra said.
Gerald, who leases the field from his cousin, Seth, agreed not to run his combine over the two main circles in the design, allowing more time for study and speculation.
Layton took samples from both inside and outside the design and shipped them off to W.C. Levengood, a retired University of Michigan professor, who has become a leading American authority on the crop-circle phenomenon.
Levengood, who has studied crop-circle evidence for seven years, has published his theory that the circles are a naturally occurring event - the result of ionized gases, or plasma, that form in an organized manner, fall toward Earth and are compressed by the Earth's magnetic field.
Levengood, in a telephone interview from his home in Grass Lake, Mich., said Tuesday the idea that a natural phenomenon could create intricate designs like those found in crop circles is not unprecedented. Just look at snowflakes, he said.
He said laboratory analysis of the barley will tell whether the stalks have undergone molecular changes similar to those found in many of the nearly 200 crop circles he has studied. Beyond that, he said, he will not try to guess what formed the crop circle.
Layton, clad in fatigues and an Army T-shirt, heard all kinds of stories as he worked the field - reports of UFOs seen early Friday morning and helicopter fly-bys the week before. Layton and Gerald Alder said they believe the design was created three or four weeks ago, based on the growth of the barley outside the circle as compared to the flattened plants inside.
Trace Nixon, who owns and lives above the Buggy Bath car wash across the street, said he saw four military helicopters fly over the field, then fly back across it a few minutes later, about two weeks ago.
"They obviously knew about it before anybody else knew about it by about a week-and-a-half," Nixon said.