The Sunset Highway crop formation appeared in metropolitan Portland adjacent to a very busy highway — U.S. 26 (Sunset Highway) — which connects downtown Portland with Seaside on the Oregon Coast.

The formation was very close to the Sunset Highway and could in fact be seen from the highway as you went east into Portland approaching the 185th exit. I guessed the position was about 1500 feet east of 185th and 500 feet south of Sunset. It was in a wheat field. The area was adjacent to the Tanasborne Cinema. The access streets were built up as if for a development which was planned but hadn’t happened yet. The lot that the formation appeared in was probably next in line for development.

Inside the Center Circle at Sundown

The formation looked somewhat like a "celtic cross" in design with an inner circle surrounded by an outer ring outside of which were four smaller circles spaced at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock. The formation was placed in still green wheat.

My friend Larry called me on the morning of June 21, 1994, to report the formation. A friend at work had alerted him. I called some of my UFO investigator friends and a local crop circle investigator. I also called the Hillsboro Oregonian newspaper desk to make sure that there would be an article about the formation.

Inside the Outer Ring

I arrived in the formation about 7:45 and left around 9 PM. I took video, 35 mm, polaroid, and audio tape equipment. We observed broken stems at ground level, which we have come to believe is a sign of a hoaxed formation.

One possible point in favor of a genuine circle is the fact that the count of 45 degree angle nodes inside the circle is about 25:1 or more compared to immediately outside the circle and beyond. Jim brought his geiger counter along but got nothing more that background radiation readings. Jim and I played with my tape recorder by putting it in the exact middle of the circle to see if anomalous sounds would emerge on the tape. Nothing distinctly audible was found.

Broken Stalks Usually Mean a Hoax

The formation spot was the closest to Portland along the Sunset that a suitable, visible wheat field existed, thus ensuring maximum exposure supposing it was a hoax. (A debunker's convention was in fact scheduled that weekend in Seattle.)

From The Oregonian newspaper:

CROP CIRCLES LEAVE MINDS SPINNING

Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)

June 27, 1994

Author: JERRY F. BOONE - of the Oregonian Staff

Summary: Impressions in a field along U.S. 26 draw scores of observers, each one with a theory of how the figures got there and what they mean.

The circles appeared about 10 days ago in the field along U.S. 26.

At first, not too many people noticed.

Then a few stopped to look, and told their friends. And they told their friends. By Sunday afternoon dozens of cars lined up along the eastbound lane of the highway, just west of the 185th Avenue exit.

Motorists scrambled through the barrow pit and over the earth berm for a closer look. Scythed into the waist high wheat is a circle about 35 feet across. It is ringed by a second circle of untouched wheat, surrounded by another cut path about three feet wide.

Four arms radiate from the huge center circle, each one ending in a smaller oval of trampled wheat. It looks like the opening scene for a cheap science fiction film.

"I've been here two days," says Chris Ullman, a part-time actor and owner of a small movie production company.

"Everyone's got an idea what it means. And no one knows what it means."

Behind him a bearded man in coveralls jokes about having Star Trek's "Scotty" beam him aboard.

A woman who won't give her name says she heard someone say that someone else knew someone who saw lights in the area a number of nights ago.

It could have been a UFO. Or it could have been teens celebrating their high school graduation. Washington County Sheriff's deputies have been called to the scene a couple of times, mostly to control traffic and ask gawkers not to park along the Sunset Highway.

It didn't do much good. Hundreds of people armed with camcorders and 35mm cameras flocked to the "crop circle" over the weekend, and those who didn't stop at least slowed down for a look as they drove home from the coast.

The circles are on the north side of the hill, just high enough to be seen from the highway. They are about halfway between the exit for Southwest 185th Avenue and the Rock Creek sewage treatment plant.

Each one has a divot in the center, like a stake was driven in to act as a pivot point for whatever was used to crush the wheat.

"There's a lot of evidence to support the teens and beer theory," agrees Ullman "But you'd think whoever did it would be having a hard time not telling someone by now. And how did they get the circles so precise? In the dark? Seems like you'd need a light source for that."

Unfortunately, the woman who knew someone who knew someone else had already left.

Edition: FOURTH

Section: LOCAL STORIES

Page: B01

Copyright (c) 1994 Oregonian Publishing Co.

Record Number: 9406270229