People who want to believe something other than a human prank created a circular pattern in a barley field near Logan last year now have scientific evidence as support.
A team of research scientists, including a Salt Lake geologist, has released a report concluding the crop circle was not made by humans using boards, ropes or other techniques.According to tests performed by former University of Michigan biophysicist W.C. Levengood and his associates, creation of the crop design involved the use of high heat, perhaps similar to microwave energy.
In recent years, Levengood has advanced the theory that most crop circles are natural phenomena created by swirling waves of heat energy thrust to the Earth's surface from the upper atmosphere.
The Logan design, like the majority of grain formations Levengood has analyzed, had all the characteristics of an "authentic" crop circle that could have been formed by what Levengood calls a "plasma vortex."
Levengood's BLT Research Team found changes in the internal structure of plants from the Logan formation that are consistent with exposure to high heat and commonly found in crop circles. Tests on clay from the soil inside the design, conducted in Salt Lake City by Diane Conrad of Meridian Environmental Co., show the ground also was exposed to a heat source.
The crop circle, found Aug. 23 by farmer Gerald Alder, was actually two circles of flattened barley - one 58 feet across and a smaller one measuring 30 feet. The circles were connected by a 258-foot-long row of flattened plants that pointed almost directly at the Logan LDS Temple. Two wing- or handle-like designs were attached to the larger circle.
The field is located in the Providence area south of Logan on the southeast corner of 1200 South and U-165, easily accessed from either road.
Alder, who leases the field from cousin Seth Alder, recently planted the field and is anticipating a "normal" harvest this year - one that won't prompt hundreds of curious onlookers, sheriff's deputies, elementary school classes, UFO researchers and TV camera crews to trample his crop.
Some folks drove from out of state last year to see the mysterious configuration of twisted and flattened plants before Alder plowed it under.
Alder and his wife, Sandra, still don't know what caused the formation to appear. The Cache County Sheriff's Department is equally puzzled. At one point, the sheriff's department thought hungry gophers might have been responsible.
The Alders have yet to receive a copy of the research team's report but are aware of Levengood's hypothesis.
"Everybody has his theories. That's just theirs, I guess," Sandra Alder said. "It was other worlds is what we heard, just to let us know they're out there. Some thought it was cult members doing it. I mean, everybody has his own little theory.
"It was very interesting. I made an album on it, and I took pictures so I'd be able to show my great-grandkids because you don't see that very often."
Alder said while she and her husband make no claims about the crop circle, they wouldn't be surprised if the design had something to do with UFOs. That's because the Alder family had a UFO sighting of their own in the 1970s while driving through Emigration Canyon late one night.
"It was so huge and so bright. It came down and just hovered over us. It really scared my husband," she said. "It stopped in the middle of the road and, as soon as we stopped, it shot out into the middle of the air."
Nancy Talbott, a Massachusetts-based field research coordinator and the "T" in the BLT Research Team, found that revelation consistent with other crop circle cases.
"It's amazing how many people, farmers who have had these things on their land, eventually come forward with stories like that. Quite a number of them have over the years," Talbott said. "I don't know what to do with (that information). I just make notes of it. Whether it means anything I don't know, but it's very curious."
Ryan Layton, the Davis County man who collected the samples for Levengood, doesn't have the answers, either. But he suspects crop circles are the product of "a creative, intelligent life with some type of agenda."
Talbott said the occurrence of crop circles "may signal significant alterations in Earth's environment, changes which all of us would be better off understanding than denying.
"There is no question that something highly unusual is taking place and we think it is worthy of scrutiny."
The Logan design was one of more than 40 such formations reported in the United States last year. Dozens more were recorded in other parts of the world.
Talbott said Levengood, who runs Pinelandia Biophysical Laboratory in Grass Lakes, Mich., has worked through the winter to examine a backlog of plant samples sent to him from crop circles around the country - including fields in Ohio, Indiana, South Dakota and Washington state - and from Canada and Europe.
Until recently, the phenomenon was relegated primarily to southern England, where it reached its zenith in the early 1990s. Crop circles continue to show up there and around the world, despite the well-publicized admissions of two British hoaxers several years ago.
According to Levengood, the idea that a natural phenomenon could create intricate designs like those found in crop circles is not unprecedented. Snowflakes are another example.
According to the research report, the stem nodes of plants taken from inside the Logan formation were literally blown open to form what the researchers call "expulsion cavities," an effect they say is unique to crop formations. Expulsion cavities can be reproduced in a lab setting through "a very rapid rate of heating," according to the report.