Circles crop up in California wheat field
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An aerial image of Balestra's wheat field shows crop circles.
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 I guess some people have too much time on their hands. 
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-- Larry Balestra, wheat farmer
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ROCKVILLE, California (AP) -- Wheat farmer Larry Balestra might have trouble getting a great yield, with the crop circles all over his field.
Balestra, of Suisun City, says he found more than a dozen large flattened circles and shapes in his wheat field Saturday -- one measuring more than 140 feet in diameter.
"What the heck?" Balestra muttered to himself upon walking into the field and making the discovery. He pulled out his cell phone and told his wife, "You won't believe what I'm looking at."
Balestra says the stalks were curiously bent flat to the ground and the crop circles stretched out longer than a football field, forming various shapes and symmetrical designs.
"The harvester can't pick this up," he told The Fairfield Daily Republic as he held up a broken stalk. "This is weird."
Crop circles first drew widespread attention in the 1980s, when they appeared in fields around the world. Their allegedly supernatural origins were quickly thrown into doubt, however, when people began admitting to creating them.
Balestra dismissed the notion that UFOs might be involved.
"I guess some people have too much time on their hands," he said.
Farm workers that live in a house near the field told Balestra they neither saw nor heard anything out of the ordinary on the night in question.
Copyright 2003 The
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