The site is near the small village of Dinskaya in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, right next to a busy highway. Nonetheless the circles usually appear at night and nobody saw the culprits.

Local reporters have already turned it into a landmark and families go to take photos.

According to enthusiasts from Kosmopoisk (Space Search group), it’s not the first time such a phenomenon has been discovered. Group members have visited the spot to carry out research and film the area from an unmanned helicopter.

“The figure consists of eight circles and rings around them that are interconnected,” the group coordinator, Vadim Chernobrov, told Interfax news agency. “Their sizes vary from 5 to 25 meters.”

He said they had known in advance of an approximate date when signs would appear.

How do they appear?

Most people are certain that the circles were made by aliens, although some give the credit to local farmers, saying the figures are not that hard to make. All you need to do is stretch a rope across and walk along it, and the wheat will be pressed down.

The Kosmopoisk website reports that according to area residents, the night the circles appeared shining balls were seen in the sky. The experts now seek to determine whether the marks in the fields are man-made or whether their origin can be explained by someone’s joke.

The activist from the group set up special “watching points” to spot the appearance of the pictograms in the areas where they might appear, judging by past experience. They choose the highest places in the area.

According to Chernobrov, each time it happens the same way. At about 1.15 AM some animals start to show anxiety, especially cows and dogs. But in exactly five minutes they all calm down and complete silence falls within a radius of 20-30 kilometers from the place where the circle will later appear, and no sounds of frogs or insects can be heard.

Then the observers notice a shining light in the field, it can last from a few minutes to several hours. Sometimes people begin to panic by this time and feel a desire to leave the zone. Also, from time to time cars won’t start and mobile phones and cameras may be down.

Farmers fear

The mysterious phenomenon hit several areas in the region. Pictograms appeared not only in Dinsky district, but also on one of the fields near the town of Armavir. But the Ufologists had no opportunity to study them: the farmer who spotted the circles was scared that the mysterious things will make superstitious customers refuse to buy his wheat, so he leveled the pictograms with a tractor.

The activists of Kosmopoisk often complain about locals. When similar things happen in the West, many farmers use it as an opportunity to earn money from the sensation. But in Russia many people fear radiation (while its level doesn’t rise in the “enigmatic zones”) and, as they call it, “dangerous” wheat in the area. So they do everything to trample the pictograms down.

While skeptics are trying to prove that the circles are a hoax, Ufologists from groups like “CosmoResearch” are expecting another visit from outer space.

Their tools are simple, but their intentions are serious. To catch little green men, or whoever may come out at night, the Ufologists have night vision goggles and magnetic field analyzers that beep whenever the magnetic field changes.

Many “CosmoResearch” members have degrees in engineering and physics, but they say the circles are too complex to be forged by humans.

World enigma

Just like in the movies, most Ufologists would love to get in touch with the extraterrestrials. Chernobrov, who has spent more than a decade exploring the unknown, says this may happen someday, but for now even observing the crop circles could lead to a breakthrough if we break their secret code.

“You cannot forge these figures easily, like in Photoshop. It’s a complex matter of non-human origin. According to many we are already being contacted, and crop circles are like text messages that we have to decode,” Chernobrov says.

Groups of enthusiasts investigate the pictograms in the fields and work in 35 countries throughout the world. Similar phenomena have been reported in the UK, the US, Canada, Denmark, Spain, and Germany.

Some researchers say that the geography of the circles is not chaotic, claiming that if one draws the lines on the map, connecting the places in Europe where they appear, he will draw several parallel arcs.

Read also Poisonous jellyfish found in Moscow ponds