The crop circle found in a barley field south of here last month was not faked by human beings, a team of research scientists has concluded.
Nancy Talbot, a member of former University of Michigan professor W.C. Levengood's team of biophysicists, said the formation appears to be an "authentic" crop circle created by high-heat energy. Levengood believes crop circles may be a natural phenomenon created by unusual energy vortexes.Talbot said preliminary studies on plant samples taken from inside the Logan circle show changes in the molecular structure that can only be made by extremely high heat. The same evidence is found in dozens of other "authentic" formations found in the United States, Canada and elsewhere and studied by Levengood.
"We know of no technology that exists that would make it possible for people to create the same effect," Talbot said.
Talbot said initial examinations revealed "expulsion cavities" present in the barley. She said an expulsion cavity is "a hole at the (plant's) node which is blown out when the internal structure is heated to the point where the liquid exudate (cellular material) inside the plant expands during the heating process."
"We are pretty convinced it's (a form of) microwave energy that's doing this and this is one of the energy signatures that we look for in these crop formations," she said.
Final results should be available within a week, she said.
The crop circle was actually two circles of flattened barely, one 58 feet across and a smaller one measuring 30 feet, connected by a 258-foot long line of flattened barely that pointed almost directly at the Logan LDS Temple.
A spokeswoman with the Cache County Sheriff's Department said Tuesday its investigation is still open. Sheriff Sid Groll has said he believes the crop circle was created by pranksters but was also checking into the possibility that hungry gophers might have created the field design.