Aliens land on Manitoulin Island
September 9, 1993

Man, 36 years old, father of two disappears, compounded by the tendency to over dramatize, vanishes without a trace. Now, if you just spent three days on a fishing vacation, unbeknownst to your wife, what would you tell her? "Honey, you'll never believe this, but I was abducted by aliens and Elvis was at the helm of the space ship."

UFO's and their believers have been relegated in today's society as impressionable dreamers with a penchant for an overly descriptive imagination. I too, shared this view. Yet, to date I will still reaffirm my belief that aliens have not landed on the planet Earth (except the Orson Wells variety.)

Recently, as a result of genuine curiosity, I met with UFOlogist Michel Deschamps. Mr. Deschamps immediately impressed me with not only the knowledge and proof he possessed, but also the conviction with which he spoke. Deschamps is titled as the Provincial Section Director for the Sudbury District. His duties entail the compilation of all UFO incidents into report form. These reports are then transferred to the Mutual UFO Network Inc. (MUFON) located in Texas. This network establishes a framework through its database which permits the accessibility of UFO information retrieval.

Now, you, the readers, are probably wondering "Are peanut butter cups really that big? If so, how do the farmers keep the chocolate from settling all over the crops?" To lay your curiosity to rest, yes, peanut butter cups can be up to nine feet in diameter, and to keep the chocolate off the crops, a wax paper diaper covers the lower portions of the flying goodies. To those of you "Homers" still thinking about the chocolate, I am referring to the mysterious crop circles that suddenly began appearing on a systematic basis in England. (Suddenly became newsworthy, that is!)

Mr. Deschamps will be the first to admit that there is truth to these circles, but a great number of hoaxes have been perpetuated by phony circle rakers (stupid phony circle rakers, at that!) Deschamps has in fact witnessed these mysterious circle formations first hand. Sometime around mid-September 1990, on a Spring Bay, Manitoulin Island road, two unidentifiable (as pertaining to origin) circles appeared. It was not until one year later, however, that Mr. Deschamps was informed and proceeded to investigate the site. As time and the elements would dictate, the assumed landing site was covered by the surrounding sand and gravel which make up the entire farm road. With the meticulous use of a brush, Deschamps managed to uncover the partial remains of the circle depressions. He observed that the circles appeared to have been sandblasted with such an intense pressure that the sand and gravel had turned into a cement-like surface. Truth of fiction? Deschamps believes something alive had to have caused these mysterious formations, and they were not a deliberate attempt to deceive.

The impetus for Michel Deschamps' plunge into the UFO Phenomena was not the consequence of a personal sighting. As a child of 14, with an abundance of natural curiosity, published articles and first hand accounts by others seemed to perpetuate his need to find some answers. In future edition of South Side Story, Mr. Deschamps will reveal his personal accounts and explore strange and eerie events by which science is baffled, and but one truth remains. More or less, the Demystification of UFO's.

If aliens are visiting this planet, maybe they too have a "Prime Directive" of non-interference. My God! Could that mean Gene Roddenberry was the grand Pubba of the Martian Civilization? Just remember when gazing aimlessly into the heavens in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the unknown, pull off the side of the road first!

R.B.

Crop circles and physical traces
October 8, 1993

Crop circle! What are they? The question should really be "What aren't they?" For one thing, they are not actual physical traces left behind by flying saucers. And most important, they occur only at night and only in crop fields and such, never on hard surfaces like rock, sand, gravel, etc. I think there should be a distinction made between crop circles and flying saucer landing sites. A physical landing trace case usually includes the sighting of an object (flying saucer) on or near the ground. After it leaves, there is visible evidence of interaction with the environment, such as burnt patches of grass, scorching of the soil, sand that's been blown away, pod marks, etc.

Three years ago, in mid-September 1990, a physical landing trace was discovered on Manitoulin Island. It is located ¼ mile from the main road, in an area consisting of gravel and limestone, that is surrounded by trees. There were two donut-shaped indentations, each measuring 9 feet in diameter and both were 16 feet apart. from center to center. The people who took the first photographs described them as having a sand-blasted effect on the spot where the gravel was blown away, revealing the limestone underneath. Although they were reported to a radio station as being crop circles, they were not part of the same phenomena. One of the four photos appeared in last month's issue.

Crop circles are a different matter. British researchers are baffled at the fact that bent-over crops keep growing and show no signs of any physical contact. They say their evidence does indicate the circles are formed in about 5 to 10 seconds and are caused by some tugging force, though the roots are not pulled from the soil. If the crop circle makers are really hoaxers, then they would have to be faster than a speeding bullet to accomplish their task! Personally, I feel that there is an extraterrestrial intelligence at work here. There is sufficient evidence to indicate that this is so: complex patterns, enormous size and striking biological and radiological anomalies in the plants and soil. There are videotapes showing unidentified lights descending into the crops! And eyewitness reports of strange objects shining beams of light into the fields!

Still...no one was willing to look at the facts. People jumped on the bandwagon, spreading rumors and "far out" explanations: hoaxers, electro-magnetic forces from within the earth, atmospheric conditions, and so on. Soon after, a couple of self-proclaimed hoaxers came forward and "admitted" to the world that they were the ones creating "wheat patterns." As soon as the word HOAX was put forth, the media dropped the story and left researchers holding the bag! But why the emphasis on British crop circles when this is a worldwide occurrence? Countries such as Germany, Spain, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, the United States and Canada are also hosts to the crop circle phenomena. And last year, a new twist to the phenomenon was revealed. Dead, crushed and strangely desiccated porcupines have been found in two crop formations on the Canadian prairies. If hoaxers were involved in creating these formations, hod did they convince the poor animals to simply stay there and take the abuse while they walked over them with their ropes and boards? Maybe they had help from Dr. Doolittle, the only man I know that can talk to the animals! Or perhaps, they are frequent flyers who have collected enough free air miles to fly to these countries in order to create their masterpieces! Some of the crop formations are so enormous that it would take hundreds of hoaxers to create them. For instance, in the last five months, two crop formations appeared in Northern Spain, one of which measured 1 mile in length! Quite an undertaking, wouldn't you say?

Just one more thing. During my research at the local Reference Library, I came across a newspaper article dated July 24th/63. The headline reads as follow: Says Crater Shows Landing Craft From Another Planet? It mentions the discovery of a 10-foot crater in a farmer's potato field (possibly made by a flying saucer) and a 50-foot circle of flattened barley in another field, in Wiltshire, England. This indicates to me that the crop circle phenomena began long before 1978, the year that the hoaxers claimed as the starting point for their crop circle-making careers. (Maybe we should give the hoaxers some of those giant peanut butter cups. They could use the help.)

Michel M. Deschamps
Provincial Section Director for Sudbury, Ontario
MUFON (Mutual UFO Network, Inc.)