With the horrors going on in my own country and worldwide, I need the light relief of this years “crop" of Crop Circles.
Are they part of “the Phenomena”, or simply a lovely form of transient Landscape Art?
If they are “just” an art movement (spanning 50 years and counting), it’s odd that the artists never add their signatures to the sometimes elaborate designs - you will immediately say, and you're right, “because it's criminal damage".
Crop Circle makers are more secretive than Banksy - but with little similar potential to cash in on their creations. You can't cut one out of a field, lock it up in a museum, and auction it for $Millions.
Which is, of course, part of their very eccentric English charm.
Here's the Country Land and Business Association's (CLA) recent advice to farmers who find one of these strange invaders in their fields:
https://www.cla.org.uk/south-east-news/crop-circles-what-why-and-tips-for-farmers/
Back in 1991, two pranksters in their 60s called Doug and Dave “revealed” to the world that they had been creating crop circles for the previous twenty years, using a piece of rope and a wooden board, to fool the investigators.
They even produced one for the newspapers using their method, which was crude and nothing like the “real” ones which still occur, year after year. And Doug and Dave are presumably not still scrambling through Wiltshire’s hedges at night in their 90s, if they're still alive!
Many poured scorn on their claims, asking how these two old pub buddies had managed to evade being spotted and prosecuted for trespass and damage for 20 years.
The occasional teams of people, attempting to make them for the media or advertising purposes, have had to make sure they obtain the necessary permissions and insurance.
In what are called “real” crop circles, the crop is only gently bent, not trampled down.
After a week or so, the actions of weather, animals, sightseers and the crop springing back up, makes a circle unrecognisable - if the farmer doesn't harvest the field first.
From the 1970s to now, these beautiful, fragile creations (and whatever you think, they are certainly created by someone) have appeared in many parts of Britain, but predominantly in the counties of Hampshire, Dorset, and their hub of activity, Wiltshire.
Here's a guy who did a study of their distribution: https://mobidrive.com/sharelink/p/4DnEofrTDozAgSoD4UcMMC7kvhyu9TMZt8WNpGjl7Mny
If you can't open the pdf from that link, he is Jeremy Northcote from Edith Cowan University, Australia. This is the first page.
His presumptive bias was certainly leaning towards hoaxers - instead of their proximity to motorways and major roads, for example, he could have studied them from the opposite criteria - circles which are the most inaccessible to people by vehicle.
Here's one of this year's, filmed by Stonehenge Dronescapes. Youtubers trying to earn money through their channels are the latest additions to the industry which has grown up around the circles.
I particularly like this footage because of the long approach to the (very simple but elegant) design. You can see several other circles in the fields. They could be the marks of old settlements, barrows long ago ploughed under but still showing up, or even where previous year’s crop circles appeared.
Nowadays, with the internet and cheap drones available to anyone, it's much easier and quicker to get news of a circle out. In the 1970s-80s, researchers had to hire light aircraft. Filming them back then was a costly and time consuming business.
This is my favourite website on the subject, “Temporary Temples”. They have photos going back to 1994. https://temporarytemples.co.uk/crop-circles/2021-crop-circles
Most farmers allow the public to view a circle, but sometimes only dog walkers or a tractor driver will spot them. As the farmers gain very little (maybe an honesty box for visitors, or charging for drone flights/filming) it's unknown how many are ignored because they dont want the disruption and extra damage.
One farmer this year has asked for donations to a charity, and another said the youtubers had found his circle before he knew about it! Examples from this year, from the site cropcircleaccess.com
So in the UK, collusion by the farmers would not seem to be very lucrative.
It's a different story in America, where their giant prairie-like fields have no vehicle access other than by tractor or Quad bikes. America also has much stricter rules around walking in the countryside. There's no network of footpaths like in the UK, and farmers are likely to be armed to protect their property.
There, creating emblems in the crop is commercialized. Companies presumably reward the farmers well, and take their VIPs on champagne balloon flights to see their short-lived company logo. And continue to make use of it afterwards, on their websites and branding:
https://www.massivemediainc.com/crop-circle-advertising-green-marketing-massivemedia
The Crop Circle industry includes: the makers of the annual Calendar; the websites and YouTube channels; books and films; the Visitors Centre at Honeystreet Mill, Pewsey; clothing and souvenirs; tours of ancient sites; and all the local Tourist Boards, camp sites and Hotels, who advise interested visitors.
There was even a Hollywood movie in 2002 based on them, “Signs", starring Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix!
Any industry needs an ongoing product, which is probably the strongest argument for hoaxes, (because no one is directly getting rich from the creation of a circle). But keeping it going for 50 years certainly needs a large number of (very diverse) people colluding in an organized way.
It's hard to see how there can be much competition between them, when the circles appear at random times and places (or do they?) and have such a short life.
The argument for “part of the Phenomena” - and back in the 1970s and 80s the circles were very closely identified in the media and the public mind with the UFO mystery - is the odd discoveries researchers have made in the circles.
Plus the speed with which they appear (apparently always overnight) and with nobody ever spotting any lights or noise, or unknown cars being driving down country lanes past farms in the middle of the night. The farming community is always on high alert for strangers.
https://www.farmwatcher.co.uk/
This is one of Lucy Pringle’s books. She's one of the earliest, and very prolific, proponent of the mysterious properties of the circles.
Researchers have looked into ultrasound inside circles. They have closely examined the way the crops are carefully bent over, their proximity to ancient sites, any connection to recent paranormal events.
Historians of folklore have linked them to the hundreds of years of reports of “Fairy Circles" in fields. This links in to the whole ufo/aliens scene. Sights (and sounds) of Fairies, or little people in fields, and their circles, could equate to spaceships landing.
And the actions of so-called “aliens” are EXTREMELY fairy-like, as many authors from Jacques Vallee (Passport to Magonia 1979) to Diana Pasulka (American Cosmic 2019) have pointed out.
This is a useful documentary, made in 2021:
It's impossible to prove a negative. Nobody knows if the designs appear on moorland grass, or in upland heather in Scotland, or fields of cabbages in Lincolnshire, because no one is looking for such things.
They are known to predominantly appear between May and August in growing crops in the Summer, in South West England. Because it’s peak tourist season, on the tourist trail of country houses and stone circles, with stopovers at the money-magnets of Bath, Longleat, Cheddar, Westonbirt, Glastonbury?
After 50 years of hearing about, and being charmed by, the crop circles in my native West of England, I can say I'm comfortably on the fence. I really don't care if they are made by Artists, commercial interests, aliens, or natural/supernatural phenomena.
Thank you - I really enjoyed this. I like that you keep an open mind about them.
Great topic! Fascinating read! Thank you.