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GENESEO, IL - A mystery has planted itself firmly in the middle of a 90 acre field of soybeans in Henry County.
The question now is, are the five crop circles a natural phenomenon or the work of pranksters?
Phenomena experts say the strange circles have killed farmers' crops for centuries and they still have no answers as to how they form, but other folks say they believe it's the work of higher powers.
Henry County Sheriff Gib Cady had no real explanation for the phone call Saturday morning to report mysterious damage to a soybean crop west of Geneseo. His department had a bit of fun with the situation, asking people to call CrimeStoppers if they saw any UFO's with soybeans trailing behind.
But all kidding aside, the bizarre scene near Jim Stahl's soybean field has a lot of people scratching their heads. And phenomena experts are taking samples of the flattened crop to see what could have caused the crop circles.
"No one has been able to determine really how they're made or who makes genuine ones," said JoAnne Scarpellini, an investigator. "Many, many total fakes...total frauds."
Scarpellini says crop circles are certainly no urban legend. In fact, they've been killing farmers' crops since the first ones appeared in the late 1700's in England. She says every so often crop circles are spotted in fields throughout the Midwest, but to this day researchers have not been able to find out how they're made.
And she says there's no basis to the UFO stories.
"No one has seen a UFO making a crop circle," she said. "Until that happens, I can't say who does it or how they do it."
The circles have attracted people from Geneseo and other parts of the area. Some think it's just teenagers playing a joke but others say it could be from extraterrestrial beings.
"I watch it all the time on the Discovery Channel," said Luke Rawlings of Galva, Illinois. "You see all kinds of stuff like this. I just couldn't believe it. I had to see it with my own eyes."
"It's nothing serious," said Dave Paxton of Geneseo. "I think it's pranksters who got in there, because you can get in and out of a cornfield and a bean field without leaving any type of tracks."
The three biggest crop circles are 50 feet in diameter.
The dead soybeans will be tested and then compared to the healthy ones to see if they can determine what caused them all to fall flat and die. Because of the large circles, the entire crop will have to be destroyed.
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