The whole town's still atwitter over yesterday's discovery of yet another case of mysterious crop symbols; these ones in my down-the-road neighbor's hay field.

Two young fellas from the local community college and some guy from the agriculture department spent the day poking around and taking a gazillion measurements, photos and enough videotape to put a sizeable dent in the budget of CNN, and damn near bankrupt poor old CBC.

Those two community college boys call themselves UPIs - Unexplained Phenomena Investigators - even though most folks around here who've known them since they were just pups remember them more as RPAs - Real Pains in the Arse. Couple of young hellions those boys were before reform school kicked their asses straight.

Anyway, a bunch of us spent most of the day watching them work while doing a little quiet investigating of our own. Not that we're real experts, mind you, but we're no dummies. We've all seen those Discovery Channel documentaries on crop circles, UFOs, alien abductions...so we felt pretty confident in our collective ability to eyeball the evidence, formulate a theory, and maybe crack the mystery right on the spot.

Fact is, I'm damn sure that if those old Nazca Lines had been discovered around here instead of way down there in Peru, we'd have figured them out long ago. Hell, if we could ever get a first-hand look at it, probably Stonehenge, too.

Yeppers. We've all seen plenty of those documentaries as well. After all, there's sweet bugger all else to do when you live in a place that's froze solid nine months a year. Even old Ma Nature can't put a damper on Man's Quest for Knowledge, eh?

Anyway, the strange symbols in my down-the-road neighbor's hay field sure drew a crowd. Hundreds came out to gawk, take pictures, socialize and philosophize just as ordinary folks around here are ordinarily apt to do when something out of the ordinary happens.

In fact, the last time I saw so many townies out this way was back when old Minchy Morgenstern fell asleep at the wheel of his big, brand-spanking-new John Deere combine that he spent a couple days painstakingly sexing all up with snazzy, tape-on, red racing stripes.

Drove the sucker smack into the middle of his big dugout pond. Water was lapping half way up the driver door, but old Minchy refused to budge. Never did learn to swim, so he just figured he'd stay put, wait her out, and maybe somebody with a boat would drive by and spot him.

Pretty gutsy of him. Damn optimistic, too, considering nobody around here even knows anybody with a boat.

Even the local volunteer firefighters showed up. Their new truck's a real beaut. Got just about everything there is for fighting fires. Sweet tweet, though, when it comes to water rescue.

So an enterprising neighbor of old Minchy's got the fire boys to help unhinge one of his barn doors and they tied four empty oil drums to it which were donated for the big emergency by the local United Farmers fuel agent.

Bloody thing made a perfect raft, so the firemen called into town to the local RCMP constable who coaches kids' hockey during the nine froze-up months, and he brought out a half dozen hockey sticks from the shed down at the outdoor rink.

Then they all paddled out and after about an hour, managed to coax old Minchy out of the John Deere and onto the raft.

By the time they made it back to shore I figure the crowd had swelled to about three hundred people, just sitting around watching the drama unfold, chatting, smoking, drinking a few beer.

Kind of like what happened when word got around town about those mysterious crop circles in my neighbor's hay field. Except nobody called out the fire department.

After the bunch of us finished our slow, methodical inspection tour, we sent one of the gang into town to bring us back a few cold beer. Believe me, tramping around that field was damn hot, dusty work.

Once the beer arrived we all hunkered down, put our heads together, and went straight to work trying to solve the mystery.

We all agreed the strange crop patterns resembled words that must form a message of some sort; a message definitely not of this earth, maybe not even of this part of the cosmos!

The guy from the ag department was long gone by then. But we did offer a couple cold ones to the two young UPIs/RPAs, but they said they had to hurry back to their lab to process their evidence, whatever the hell that meant.

Hell, the community college here doesn't even have a computer let alone a bloody lab! Unless, of course, those two have a microscope or something stashed in their parents' basement.

Anyway, after polishing off the beer, we all agreed we needed more beer and a little outside help. So...we sent old Willie Diggins back to town for fresh supplies, and one of the gang who carries a cell phone called up the local crop duster.

We figured that to crack the case, we needed an expert eye-in-the-sky perspective, just like with the Nazca Lines.

Fortunately, he was just sitting on his duff with nothing to do. It's the slow season right now. And as a special favor, he said he'd make an aerial reconnaissance run over the field, just as long as we paid for his gas. So, beaver-eager to crack the Great Crop Circle Mystery, we all gladly chipped in.

His timing was perfect. No sooner had Willie arrived back with a fresh supply of cold beer than we heard the echo of the coughing crop duster as it came in low over the trees and passed overhead. He waved and we raised our beer cans heavenward. Then he banked, gained altitude, and circled high over the field.

Minutes later he made a perfect three-bounce landing in the cow pasture next to the field and we all rushed over to find out just what he'd seen from way up there.

The first words out of his mouth after he'd climbed out of the crop duster stopped us dead in our tracks.

"Anybody speak Ukrainian?"

Ukrainian? Fat bloody chance! Christ! Most of our gang don't even speak English properly!

"Unless space aliens have a weird sense of humor, that's sure as hell what the crop symbols look like to me. Pure Ukrainian. I wrote them down in my notebook. See for yourselves."

Like a dozen wide-eyed Inspector Frosts we stared incredulously at the mysterious words on the page: Mnohiya lita Yako!

"Whatever the hell it is, it's Greek to me," says Willie Diggins.

Suddenly, the guy with the cell phone starts furiously punching little buttons. Then he stops.

Seconds pass. We wait breathlessly. For what seems an eternity.

Finally, his cell rings, beeps, cheeps, tweets, whatever the hell they call it...and he answers.

"No shit!" he exclaims. "Yeppers," he says wide-eyed. "I copied the text message I sent you straight from a notebook...well I'll be damned!"

Signing off, he turns to us and starts laughing.

"That was my cousin Myrt's husband. Looks like those two young college kids put one over us, boys. Did you know old Bill who owns this field is their great-uncle...except Bill's old country name is actually Yako. And today's his birthday!

"Mnohiya lita Yako! is Ukrainian for Happy Birthday Yako!