The sheriff wasn't sure at first, but after talking to the agronomist he decided the strange, 93-foot diameter circle in a Paulding County field was made by people, not paranormal powers.
An elaborate hoax, Sheriff David Harrow said on Wednesday, July 10.
"It was a prank," he added. "There was no extraterrestrial landing."
A local pilot spotted the circle the previous week in a field farmed by Dan Arend and his two brothers.
Hundreds of people have been flocking to Arend's farm every day to gaze at the circle, which measures 93 feet in diameter. They have been debating about whether the circle was caused by a UFO or a hoax.
Sheriff Harrow said an Ohio State University agronomist examined the circle on July 10 and said he could tell the circle was man-made.
"Someone went through an extreme amount of effort to do this. I really don't have an answer as to why anybody would do this," he said.
Crop circles have been found around the world. Some people claim they are formed by supernatural forces, but doubters think they are likely the work of pranksters.
Without doubt, some quite elaborate and impressive formations are made by human "crop artists," especially in southern England where the majority of the world's crop formations have appeared over the last decade or more. How they perform their noctural artistic feats seems a mystery to those outside the tight fraternity of the circle makers. Even the hoaxers, though, say SOME of the formations might be made by another force. Who or what that may be has not been determined to anyone's satisfaction.
Sheriff Harrow had his own concerns in the matter. The person responsible for the Paulding circle could be charged with criminal trespassing, he said.
Meanwhile, the July 14 edition of UFO Roundup reported that members of the Tri-state Advocates for Scientific Knowledge (T.A.S.K.) had declared a red glowing UFO sighted over Middletown and Carlisle in southwestern Ohio on the night of July 5 to be a hoax. As many as 23 local residents had reported the UFO to police, and police officers were among those initially mystified by the glowing object.
It was not until July 11, when a second red glowing UFO appeared over Middleton, that a private pilot was able to get a close look at the object and identifiy it as "four or five mylar balloons, presumably filled with helium, towing a red flare."
Strangely, however, UFOs sighted in the vicinity of the Paulding crop circle on July 3 and July 8 have not been identified. Cone-shaped UFOs were seen on those dates over the Ohio-Indiana state line, south of Paulding; and another UFO was sighted over Urbana, Illinois.
The Paulding crop circle was found on July 3. Pilot Mike Dobbelacre, his wife Sandy and two relatives spotted the circle during a plane ride. They told Arend, who contacted John Timmerman, a Lakeview resident who studies UFOs. Timmerman examined the circle and then called in the agronomist.
At first, Harrow said he didn't think the circle was the work of vandals. Neither did Timmerman.
"When I was out there Saturday, I didn't see any tracks leading in or leading out of the circle," Harrow said.
Apparently the Sheriff was relieved when the agronomist pronounced it a fake.
Original file name: .CNI - Ohio Crop Circle.Hoax?
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