A group of researchers in Russia claim they have solved the mystery of crop circles, the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reports. According to them, plants bend as a result of microwave emissions caused by lightning strikes. The newspaper described an experiment conducted by researcher Stanislav Smirnov who placed several stalks of cereals in a microwave oven with a glass of water. He said the stalks bent in exactly the same way as those usually found at crop circles. Smirnov said he now has to find out how microwave emissions appear on fields. He has a theory that they come from underground, but cannot prove it. Another Russian researcher, Anatoly Arzyayev of the All-Russian Electrical Hardware Institute, said that the emissions are most likely a result of lightning strikes. He said that they got crop circles at a lawn in their institute 50 years ago when such research was unheard of. “Two young workers and I were testing high-voltage hardware. The cable that we used to supply the current was hanging 10 meters above the ground when suddenly it discharged an artificial lightning strike on to the lawn below. And the grass bent in even clockwise circles,� the researcher said. He added that they conducted several experiments and got crop circles of about 5 meters in diameter.

Another argument backing up this theory is the fact that real crop circles are often accompanied by so called lichtenberg figures — narrow strips of bent grass, usually left by a lightning strike.



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