Farmers have been asked to watch for and report any crop circles which they may find in their fields this harvest.
The appeal has come from a new group, UFO Ireland, which was formed to collate information from Ireland and to analyse whether there is any extra-terrestrial activity here.
The central co-ordinator of the group, Mr Lorcan McGrane, said yesterday he and his colleagues would adopt a sceptical approach to all reports in the hope of discovering a genuine site.
"We would ask farmers not to report unusual patterns in their crops which may have been the work of drunken or other hoaxers. We are looking for the real thing," he said. Mr McGrane, a Dublin-based media studies student, said crop circles have been a growing phenomenon in the UK and had received a lot of media attention.
"The whole idea is to try and find out how many crop circles appear in Ireland and how they relate to those abroad. The creation of a central database is important," he said.
He did not think the group's work was in any way weakened by an appeal to the public to report UFO sightings as well.
"We have noted a number of UFO sightings from Ireland on websites in the USA and some of them were really over the top," he said. Mr McGrane said that reports of crop circles and other sightings of UFOs would be published in Six Mag magazine, which hosts the UFO website. He said sightings could be reported to him at 087-6556245 or on e-mail: ufo@ireland.com