Aviation buffs testing a drone in the Volga region city of Tolyatti have spotted elaborate crop circles on nearby fields, according to aerial video footage posted online.
Similar circles appeared in Tolyatti 10 years ago nearly to the day, on July 22, 2005, and their origin remains unknown, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported Wednesday.
Local activists from Kosmopoisk, or Cosmic Search, group that looks for signs of possible alien activity, said they dispatched a team to study the latest circles, the report said.
"We made photographs, inspected everything," the group's regional leader Nikita Romanov was quoted as saying. "Now we will analyze [the circles] and compare with similar phenomena and the circles that were registered in Tolyatti 10 years ago."
But Alexei Zagorodnikov, the man whose video camera-carrying quadcopter made the footage, said he had doubts about both the extra-terrestrial nature of the circles — and the chances of ascertaining their origin, the ProGorodSamara news portal based in the nearby city of Samara reported.
"I think the authors of this creation will keep silent," Zagorodnikov was quoted as saying. "I don't believe in alien origins, this is clearly the work of human hands and legs."
The circles seemed to have appeared some time after the weekend. Zagorodnikov said that when he and a friend previously tested the quadcopter on Sunday, aerial video footage it captured showed no signs of any circles, ProGorodSamara reported.
The next video, which captured the crop circles, was recorded on July 21, he said.
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