STRANGE DOIN'S DOWN AT THE OLD JOHNSON PLACE.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

THERE MAY WELL be something other-worldly and mystical about the phenomenon known as crop circles. If so, documentarian William Gazecki hasn't found it.

Oh, Gazecki has found the circles themselves, hundreds of them, plastered throughout the loftily titled film ``Crop Circles: Quest for Truth'' like a majestic array of aerial post cards. Ooh! Aah! Whooooaaa!

Unlike in the just-released M. Night Shyamalan film ``Signs,'' this time the crop circles are the star attractions, not the tease. Except they don't exhibit much star quality; ditto the scientists and other crop circle researchers Gazecki lines up to wax eloquent about them for nearly two hours. To the filmmaker's credit, none of his on-camera experts come across as star-gazing nutballs. They happen to study a peculiar phenomenon - enormous unexplained geometrical formations in corn and wheat fields - and, big surprise, they don't have answers.

Which must have miffed Gazecki to no end, since the director - whose last outing was the Oscar-nominated ``Waco: The Rules of Engagement'' - seems to blossom when he smells a conspiracy. No such luck in the world of crop circles. The best he can manage this time is a rather limp, ``They're not hoaxes.''

OK. And ...?

And nothing. We get interview after interview on topics like plasma, sacred art, bent wheat stalks and any number of theories about what might have caused the formation of these circles. We get a helicopter pilot swearing that an impressive group of circles near Stonehenge - which a local farmer capitalized on by charging admission - came into existence in less than 45 minutes.

Not surprisingly, Gazecki avoids pointing his camera at crop circle ``hoaxers'' like Matt Ridley and Doug Bower, who in 1991 admitted to creating more than 250 circles since the late 1970s with his partner, the late David Chorley. In his press notes, Gazecki asserts there are ``hundreds if not thousands of authentic crop circles.''

The footage, like the circles themselves, is wicked cool. Pattern after pattern, view after view is left up there on screen, underscored by David Hamilton's reverential music. Sacrilegious though it may sound, I kept hoping one of the crop circle makers - prankster or E.T. - would drop the filmmakers a wheat field message. How about ``Eat at Joe's''

CROP CIRCLES: QUEST FOR TRUTH - Two stars

(Not rated: complex subject matter)

Director: William Gazecki.

Running time:1 hr. 54 min.

Playing: One-week engagement at the Landmark Nuart.

In a nutshell: The circles themselves are more interesting than this overlong documentary.

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Filmmaker William Gazecki documents mysterious patterns such as this one in ``Crop Circles: Quest for Truth.''