CROP CIRCLES

What is a crop circle? The answer to this question may seem obvious, but there is far more to the phenomenon than might be assumed. The manifestations are neither to be found purely in cereal crops nor are purely circular. Indeed in recent years, the formatat is a crop circle? The answer to this question may seem obvious, but there is far more to the phenomenon than might be assumed. The manifestations are neither to be found purely in cereal crops nor are purely circular. Indeed in recent years, the formations - agriglyphs or pictograms as the more complex are often called - have targeted snow, pack ice, dust, pine needles, grass and sand as well as the more conventional fields of wheat, barley, corn, rye and oilseed rape. They have appeared on private farmland, heritage land, wasteland and public areas of moorland and heath. They have appeared all over the world in varying degrees of complexity and size, though it is still the south west of England, especially in Wiltshire and Hampshire, that the majority are to be found. fig.1

Statistics quoted on the subject state that in 1990 a staggering 600 formations appeared in Wiltshire alone, 32 of those in one single night! 80% of the world's total of agriglyphs occur in the U.K., 75% of those in the geographic triangle created beside the towns of Wantage, Warminster and Winchester. Key sites such as Avebury and Stonehenge lie either within or just on the border of this area (*Fig 1). Circles are known however in Russia, Afghanistan, Turkey, India, Japan, the U.S.A., Australia and most of Europe. This is a global phenomenon that shows no sign of dying down; in fact the designs become more spectacular every year.

The first recorded circle in the U.K. was in 1678, in a story concerning the "mowing Devil" of Hertfordshire - the accompanying woodcut depicts a devil scything a roughly elliptical shape out of a field of cereal crop. Some have speculated that the circles are even older - that Neolithic man was witness to them and, believing them to be the work of the Earth Goddess he worshipped, was inspired to build the great temples of Stonehenge, Avebury, Stanton Drew, Woodhenge and Silbury Hill. There is no proof of such ideas, though suggestively perhaps a high proportion of circles do appear close to such ancient monuments and recent circles near Stonehenge have been proven to be a similar size to the outer ring of standing stones. Just coincidence?

More prosaically the circlemakers (whoever or whatever they are) may just be drawn to the chalk bedrock or underground watertables of the South Downs area, rather than the ancient sites that litter the countryside.

It is significant however that the circles and patterns are clearly designed to be viewed primarily from the air. Many are all but invisible from ground level until you are standing inside them, and the sheer scale of some recent designs makes it impossible from ground level to appreciate the shape or pattern. This is a marvel only seen from the air. Perhaps this helps to explain why there were so few sightings recorded between the episode of the mowing devil and the start of the modern "boom" in 1978.

The vast majority of agriglyphs appear in cereal crops, hence their profusion in the south and south-west of England where so much of Britain's farmland still remains. They are mainly formed between late May and mid August when the crop is in bloom, though examples have been found outside these times in immature crop and other media such as grass and snow.

Since they proliferate in the summer months one might assume that they are daylight occurrences, but generally speaking this does not appear to be the case. There are few examples which appear outside the very short hours of darkness, thereby making the figures quoted above a great test to the belief in a human agency for these pictograms. Are we really expected to believe that gangs of vandals have been rampaging through the crop fields of England and elsewhere every night for four months of every year for the past twenty years, creating thousands of perfect circles and intricate patterns without ever being seen or caught?! It seems unlikely to say the least.

In 1996 a daylight appearance was recorded which added fuel to the mystery surrounding how these images are created. On July 7th a 900 x 500ft pictogram consisting of 151 circles materialised in a fieled close to Stonehenge. A pilot flying over the monument confirmed that on his first flight everything was normal, but by his return a mere 35 minutes later the design was complete. What makes this even more remarkable is that no-one --not the dozens of visitors to Stonehenge, nor the probable hundreds of motorists passing within feet of the field on the busy A303 - saw anything. How was it possible that a design of this size, in a location this densely populated at the time, could have been formed in broad daylight with no witnesses at all? Even more amazing was the design itself - a perfect Julia fractal, a complex mathematical symbol familiar to chaos theorists. Architects and landscape artists have suggested that it would take several days for a team of qualified people just to plot the designs on the ground, let alone construct it. Is this undeniable evidence? (*fig 2)

Although there are a number of man-made hoaxes in any season, there are several features which tend to indicate a genuine circle. The most visually obvious of these is that the stalks of the crop are bent not broken. They are folded over and packed close to the ground, but not crushed, as they would be if someone had trodden them with planks of wood or their feet. The resulting carpet of stalks is flat yet springy, and is only broken by the arrival of human visitors.

In addition to this the crop is sometimes seen to swirl in more than one direction in any given design, sometimes causing alternate layers of crop to plait together creating an even tighter floor.

The precision of the genuine circles should also be noted, as man-made efforts tend to be scruffy at the edges and less than perfectly shaped. Other stylistic features such as clumps of crop or single stems standing upright in the midst of a circle are common, and the floor patterns and structure make each design totally unique. These minutiae are very difficult to hoax. The crop, for all that it is flattened and distorted, continues to grow, sometimes even returning to a semi-vertical state if it is young enough. When humans crush crop circles this rarely happens.

There is also a phenomenon called blown nodes. This is where the nodes or joints of a stem are exploded out, leaving a hole. It is not known what creates this - speculations have focussed mainly on microwave energy - but it is not something which can be created by man. The best laboratories in the world have not been able to replicate this effect, despite their advanced technology and specialised equipment. It is important to stress that blown nodes are not exclusive to pictograms, but are sometimes found in unaffected crop too on occasion.

The links between crop circles and UFOs has often been used on both sides of the argument - by believers and sceptics alike - but no one denies that there is a link of some kind. Strange lights - frequently silver or amber balls - have often been reported in or near crop circles, and many photographs exist which purport to show such phenomena. There is also an excellent piece of video footage shot in 1990 by Steve Alexander - one of the most prolific circle photographers - which clearly shows two silver balls of light passing through a crop circle then up over a tractor in the next field; the farmer later confirmed the sighting. Another piece of video footage, greeted with excitement at first as it seemed to show silver balls of light actually creating a recent design in a matter of seconds, has since been universally denounced as a forgery, possibly as part of the continuing conspiracy to discredit crop circle researchers. It is even said that it is not the original footage (which is genuine) but a deliberate hoaxed copy put out to the media to deflect interest in the subject. Other high strangeness has been attached to the crop circle phenomenon for years, but the most striking argument in favour of a non-human origin for these designs is the ways that people and animals react to them. Sensations like awe, respect, fascination, amazement and excitement are easy to understand - the great beauty and mystery that is inherent in crop circles reaches out to a surprising diversity of people - but many also experience physical and emotional reactions to pictograms, ranging from euphoria to terror. Cases have been reported of visitors to circles developing flu symptoms for several days after their visit; others are so overcome by nausea or dizziness they have had to leave the circle. Equally, some old or sick people have apparently been cured by the circles, casting away their sticks to run about like children. Crop circles are a miracle or a curse depending on your view of them.

Is there some correlation between what you want of the circle and what you get? A sceptic feels nothing, a depressive becomes uplifted and a sick person is healed. Much research into the psychic nature of the circles is ongoing regarding positive and negative power emissions that may affect visitors.

We have had personal experience of their power - a strong sense of electromagnetic pull surging from the ground and making our fingers tingle. Whatever awesome power is required to create the patterns often seems to be powerfully psychic, or sensitive to air pressure, to be aware of it. This energy also often affects electrical equipment, causing cameras, mobile phones and the like to malfunction in the circle formations.

Animals, being natural psychics, often exhibit fear or conversely hyperactivity when confronted with a circle, and no satisfactory explanation has been found for their ability to sense genuine circle from hoaxes. But they evidently do, as birds fly out of their direct route to bypass them and dogs sometimes refuse to enter them.
Many psychics claim to have channelled information from the circlemakers or the Earth, and one fascinating book puts forward a full theory, backed up by science, of how and why they occur. We have personally dowsed several designs and the results suggest that ancient sites do have a profound significance, and that the patterns are an attempt at subconscious communication from the circlemakers to us.

Since the crop circle phenomenon has been with us unsolved for so long, several theories have been put forward to explain what they are and why and how they occur. Popular theories include the previously mentioned UFO connection. Although we have come a long way since claiming that crop circles were marks left by landed spacecraft - the complexity of the newer agriglyphs gives the lie to this somewhat!- We are still left with the problem that we don't know who or what the UFO's represent either.

Another theory commonly put forward by sceptics is that they are formed by crows, deer, foxes, badgers and even hedgehogs mating in the fields!

Again the complex agriglyphs and other media such as the snow stand outside this possibility, and we feel that farmers would recognise animal damage and not confuse it with something more esoteric. Indeed from our own sightings and experience the damage done by birds and mammals to crops bears no resemblance to the precision and beauty of the pictograms.

So is it another natural force that creates them? The most popular culprit for many years was vortex winds (tiny, loose, spiralling whirlwinds) which are often seen throwing out crop into the air at harvest time. However, once again, wind-damaged crop is very untidy and it takes a vivid imagination to accept that whirlwinds created the magnificent triple Julia (*Fig 3) 194 circles across 1000ft or the Mandelbrot (*Fig 4) 230ft long including its satellites.

Lightning, the Earth's magnetic field and volcanic or seismic disturbance have all been put forward, but we feel they can at best be contributory factors and not the creative force itself.

Could it be the Earth Herself, guided by intelligence inherent in Her, sending us messages or distress signals? Some researchers, the well respected Colin Andrews and Peter Sorenson among them, believe that the end of the 20th century is our "wake up call", our last chance to make amends for all the ecological damage we have done since becoming industrialised. Crop circles therefore can be said to act as an agent of intelligent origin, sent to raise our consciousness to the level required of us to get us off our indolent backsides and start making a difference. This is the message many people have received from these circles, with their sometimes frightening and prophetic nature, for example the solar system glyph of 1995 that showed the orbit of our planet, but no planet! (*Fig 5)

The term crop circle was coined to describe the phenomenon which began to boom in 1978, when single circles, many of great size, started to be reported in the fields. By the late 1980s and early 1990s however, more intricate patterns had developed alongside the simple circles - ringed circles, Celtic crosses and dumb-bells. By 1992, the phenomenon was being studied by several serious investigators, and groups of "croppies" had sprung up who were found to be photographing, dowsing and otherwise studying and discussing the latest designs and publishing magazines with their findings.

Each year harvests a variety of designs, seemingly appearing at random, but often a pattern of sorts can be discerned. A main design feature for each season has become a part of the mystery. Insectograms, dolphinoids, scorpions, random strings and ratchets were all seen during the early 1980's. By 1996, when we visited our first batch of pictograms, the geometric age had started. The earliest geometric patterns were 1991's fabulous Barbury Castle glyph (*Fig 6) and the Mandelbrot figures which defy logic with their significance to the human race and our scientific consciousness.

Three formations stand out from the 1996 crop - the Stonehenge Julia fractal, the Windmill Hill Triple Julia set and the East Field Double Helix or DNA strand (650ft long and 89 circles). These patterns, having direct scientific relevance to the human race, were works of landscape art unrivalled in their beauty or majesty. The Triple Julia was our first ever design and, as it proved to be, the largest and most intricate of that year, an amazing 1000ft across and 194 circles. The awesome power of a design of this magnitude left all who visited it speechless with admiration and wonder. No words can ever do justice to this agriglyph and the photos that exist (marvellous though they are) do little to capture the energy and sheer size of this cerealogical event. We were captivated, falling to our knees in reverence inside the endless swirling stream of flattened crop that flowed across the ancient hillside. We little imagined that in just over a year we'd be writing our own article on these marvels, but our newfound passion was sparked the day we found the Triple Julia.

1997 has proven to be the year of the starburst, with no fewer than 9 formations from the main season fitting this bill. We were lucky enough to stand in the most complex - the Milk Hill formation of 197 circles, 234ft from point to point. (*Fig 7) The growing complexity of the agriglyphs is still a puzzle, though it rules out one of the more natural solutions, for example whirlwinds. Whoever or whatever is creating these patterns for us to marvel at, there is definitely an intelligence and purpose behind it all.

We feel that the photos of these stunning pictograms speak volumes more than we can in this short article, so look once more at those illustrated. Do you still believe men made them with planks of wood? Do you still think there's no mystery? What will next year bring? Only time will tell, but we will be there to see what we can and to bring you an update. Or will we see some of you there in the crop fields of Wiltshire next summer?

Videos
- Undeniable evidence.
- What on Earth is going on?
Mags
- The Cerealogist.
- The Circular Review