Crop circles discovered on southern Russian wheat field

Crop circles appeared mysteriously in a wheat field in the republic of Adygea over the weekend, to the puzzlement of residents in the southern Russian republic, the Interfax news agency reported Monday.

Local farmer Sergei Anisimov found six circles of wheat pressed perfectly in a clockwise pattern, ranging from 7 to 13 meters in diameter, Interfax reported.

Photos of the mysterious markings on the local news site 8772.ru show two big circles of completely flat wheat and smaller ones with untouched wheat standing in the center.

"I drove by the field at 9 p.m. and didn't find anything like that. At 5 a.m. on Sunday I came back and the circles were already there," Anisimov told Interfax, adding that the field's security guards hadn't noticed any suspicious activity overnight.

This is not the first time crop circles have appeared in southern Russia. The unusual markings appeared in a sunflower field on a farm in the neighboring Krasnodar region last year, causing local residents to conclude that aliens must have paid them a visit, local news site Svet Mayakov reported.

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The Krasnodar region accounts for 40 percent of all crop circles recorded in Russia, but they are a well-known phenomenon in Adygea as well. Over the last 10 years, crop circles have been registered in the Shovgenovsky, Giaginsky and Maykop regions of the republic, Interfax reported.