photos of the circles here:
http://www.lazygranch.com/cropcircle.htm

News article follows:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/12/04/BAGAJ3FJ931.DTL

First came the dozen crop circles mysteriously cut into a Solano
County farmer's wheat field in June. Then came the paranormal
pilgrims, grabbing souvenir shafts of wheat as mementos of a possible
visit from their friends in other galaxies.

Two weeks -- and hundreds of souvenir T-shirts -- later, four unnamed
teenage boys 'fessed up, saying they cut the circles as a hoax
because, well, it's boring in Fairfield and "there's nothing else to
do around here," as one put it. Even though the Solano County district
attorney didn't buy their confession, the story disappeared with the
harvest.

On Wednesday the crop circle mystery reignited, as a team of
paranormal investigators concluded after conducting a five-month
investigation that the "hoax is a hoax."

Though none of the investigators would attribute the wheat craftwork
to aliens, they didn't rule them out as suspects.

"Crop circles are a genuine mystery that cannot be explained by
hoaxers," said Michael Miley, a contributing editor with UFO Magazine
(and several high- tech publications), who was part of the
investigation team.

Led and funded by Fairfield resident Steve Moreno, a kitchen
contractor who became devoted to exploring the paranormal after a
near-death car wreck 20 years ago, Psi Applications investigators
concentrated Wednesday on trying to debunk the hoax rather than
explain who or what shaved the circles.

But according to an actual rocket scientist on the team, one thing's
for sure: The pattern was too geometrically sophisticated to be done
by four teenagers who reportedly had never cut crop circles before. No
matter how bored they were.

"The level of sophistication was quite high and I don't think high
school students could have done it -- especially considering the state
of education these days," said Jean-Noel Aubrun, a former NASA
engineer who has a doctorate in physics.

Not only that, but investigators say there wasn't enough moonlight
that night to cut such an intricate design. For months, Moreno's crew
has invited the boys to recreate the pattern on a similarly moonlit
night. They've balked.

After analyzing the different-sized circles in the pattern, Aubrun
found that the ratio in the size between each was the same as the
difference in frequency between each note on a musical scale.

"I played it out on the keyboard," Aubrun said. 

Did it translate to the theme from "Close Encounters of the Third
Kind?"

Aubrun didn't smile. 

"No, it was like the scale of F," he said. 

Investigators pointed to other hoax-debunking evidence. Like how the
nodes of wheat samples taken from inside the crop circles were larger
than those collected from outside the circles. The investigators say,
based on past crop circle experiments, it's possible that a blast of
microwave energy could have caused such malformation.

Miley said that no matter where such a microwave blast came from --
the atmosphere, UFOs, military weapons testers -- the possibility
should inspire more investigation.

However, the team analyzed only a couple dozen wheat samples, a number
small enough that even Aubrun called the finding "preliminary."

Miley thought it was enough, though. 

"Hey, how many crows do you need to see to say that all crows are not
black?" he said, then answered rhetorically: "One."

Investigators also showed video testimony from a neighbor who
described seeing a "ball of light" a few inches above the wheat field
the night before they appeared. Crop circlists often spot a so-called
BOL (ball of light) hovering over crop circles.

The team hopes to have its studies peer-reviewed, as a skeptical
public scratches its collective head.

"I'm a Fairfield native, and if it was a bunch of high school kids,
I'm ticked," said Freddy Engell, a 44-year-old roofer. "Because I wish
we would have thought of it when we were in high school. It's
hilarious.

"But even though I believe in UFOs," he said, "with all the traffic
that's around here now, I think we would have heard a spaceship if it
landed here."

E-mail Joe Garofoli at jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com.