Scores of visitors have been drawn to the field on Thomas Road to gape at a strange design cut into the rows of dry, rustling corn. Seen from the air, the design is roughly an L-shape, with the longer, upper rectangle rounded at each end.
The mystery deepens once inside the rectangle: At each end, there's a "fort" that has been constructed by folding in three or four rows of corn stalks at about the three foot level, forming a rough canopy that a person could crawl beneath.
The forts are ringed by hundreds of stalks of corn that have been sheared off at levels varying from a few inches to about two feet off the ground, and the direction of the cuts vary from row to row. The upper stalks are missing, and the remaining sheared stalks are blackened on the end, as if they've been subjected to intense heat.
Nearby, piles of shucked corn litter the ground, their husks black and sooty compared to the light brown husks on nearby stalks. About 20 rows to the north, there's a second area roughly 15 by 40 feet, where the corn has been smashed as if crushed by a heavy weight.
There are no signs of machinery tracks entering the field at either area.
"It's the talk of the town," said Everett Koth, who works at Conner's Hardware, in Filion.
"It just doesn't make sense. Some people thought kids might have done it, but it would have taken hours and kids just don't have that kind of patience. Others thought it might have been hunters who wanted corn to bait deer. If that's the case, why the design? Why take the stalks too?"
And, as Koth noted, deer bait is available at $3 for a 50-pound bag.
"That's a lot of work for something you can buy on almost any corner around here," Koth said.
The field is owned by longtime residents John and Kathy Holz. "I found out about it about two weeks ago when John came in from harvesting beans and he had this strange look on his face," Kathy Holz said. "I asked him what was up, and he said he couldn't explain it. He said I had to see it, so we went out there. It is strange, and it doesn't make any sense. Kids don't have the imagination to do something like this.
"There was a man out there last week who said he was an expert on UFOs. He said the corn was cut by lasers. That's why it's blackened on the ends....
"I'm not saying it can't be a UFO. We've explored the moon, maybe someone is exploring us."
Why would a UFO visit a remote cornfield in Michigan?
"Why not?" said Rita Parsch, as she sniffed a blackened stalk of corn.
"A few years ago, my husband started acting quiet and withdrawn. After a few weeks, I finally got him to tell me what the the problem was. He said he saw something 'funny' flying through the skies one night. He turned white as could be when he was telling me about it.
"There's a chance it could be a UFO. I can't believe we're the only intelligent life form in the universe. I'm more humble than that."
After seeing the field, Parsch's friend Rita Jeffers said: "I don't think I'll ride my bike alone after dark anymore."
Her husband, Dannie, who'd like to go for a ride in a UFO, is a believer.
Why? "Because I've seen UFOs before," he said.
Original file name: .CNI - Michigan crp circle
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