Southern Ohio residents have had reason to speak of extraterrestrial visitors to their area during the last few weeks. The mysterious Adams County crop circles caused quite a stir for the town of Peebles last month, and now Ross County gets a crop circle design of its own for October.

A peculiar geometric shape appeared in a soybean field this week, this time in Bainbridge, a farming community with slightly more than a thousand residents. At least one self-proclaimed expert has concluded that these mysterious crop circles are not a hoax.

Katherine Ullmer of Dayton Daily News reports that Jeffrey Wilson, 34, an independent crop circle researcher from Dexter, Michigan recently visited the site with a group of friends from Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Wilson states, "Over the years, of 250 reports of crop circles, only about 20 percent of them turn out to be human made." He holds the opinion that crop circle hoaxes show mechanical damage to the crops, and that the Bainbridge crop circles do not. Wilson suspects a sort of energy "beyond the visible part of the spectrum."

Pro shop manager Ralph Heffner of nearby Valley Vista Golf Course, which overlooks the soybean field, reports that about 150 news reporters and scientists have visited the Southern Ohio crop circles and that they, "have come out to see if it was real. If it was done, it was done late at night," he said. He works late (8:30 PM) most nights and "I heard nothing," he said.

It seems that Bainbridge residents are having quite a time joking about the crop circles. Mark Anderson, owner of the barber shop on Main Street cracks, "It was aliens, man." Like most residents, he had only seen photographs of the designs. "I think it's a cult, devil worship," he continued with a hearty laugh. When asked if he believes in aliens he replied, "I better not say. You should have seen some of my customers."

Diners at nearby Paxton's Restaurant also made jokes. One man had come home from vacation to find his water pump had problems. "Aliens blew my water pump up," he quipped.

Waitress/Cook Trena Richardson says, "I think its a hoax. A Columbus TV station said it was man-made and that you could see the tracks going through the bean field." Trena continued, "It gives them something to talk about in here. They compare notes."

Meanwhile, farmer Dale Mark, 61, is not convinced that the circles are the work of aliens and believes that pranksters are responsible for the damage to his soybeans, which is estimated at $1,200.00. "I don't care who it is - they should pay," he said as he walked along a muddy trail. He does not plan to file a report with the sheriff "until I find out what's going on."

Dale learned about the circles when neighbor Keith Johnson, whose family owns the farm, told him three college students from the University of Michigan and an attorney from West Union stopped by to see the crop circles. Apparently passengers in a private plane flew over the farm about a week earlier and had discovered the designs.

iwasabducted.com notes that trails leading to the Ross County crop circles do not appear in the first photograph, and were probably made after the field was visited by numerous spectators and researchers, some of whom may have created their own paths to the design.