Crop Circles - no little green men please

Can someone please tell me why there are still people out there who are convinced that crop circles are the work of little green men or some other paranormal influence. Only today, a friend of mine working at a college near Devizes, a college currently running a “crop circle” course, whatever that entails, telephoned to tell me she had overheard one of the tutors discussing the most recent of Wiltshire‘s crop circles with one of the attendees. He was referring to the figure-of-eight circle, which appeared on 16th June between the villages of Chirton Bottom and Urchfont. The tutor was heard to say, “they are just too perfect to be man made - there's no doubt about it“.

I’m at a loss to understand why these individuals, who I’m sure are making a fast buck from lectures, the odd book (the very odd book) videos and suchlike off the backs of the gullible, can’t, or wont accept what is screamingly obvious to most of us. Is it really so difficult to accept that we mere mortals have the ability to produce a pattern in a cornfield? Consider some of mankind's achievements, in what is a relatively short period of time. Against all the odds we have managed to put men on the moon (no conspiracy theories please) and bring them safely back home, no small feat when you consider NASA was utilizing less technology in the Luna Lander than you would find inside a Playstation 3. We developed technology which allows us to communicate from the four corners of the globe in the blink of an eye. We have the microchip, which can perform millions of calculations per second. We have learnt to fly and are now capable of travelling several times faster than the speed of sound. We have harnessed the power of the elements to enable us to produce power. These are just a few examples - not bad huh! But still, after all our achievements, these deluded fools are not prepared to accept we are capable of producing a pattern in a cornfield. If these people would just stop and look at what Neolithic man has achieved at Avebury and Stonehenge with the crudest of tools, then surely creating a pattern in a cornfield must be considered childsplay.

Is it by sheer coincidence that many of the circles appear in Wiltshire around the time of the summer solstice, when Avebury and Stonehenge are besieged by pagans and witches and druids and folk dressed up like wizards merrily waving staffs and wands about. I suggest such a gathering would be a golden opportunity for the circle makers to delight the gullible with their latest artistic creation. For it is certain that amidst the strange and the weird who make the pilgrimage year after year and patiently wait in anticipation of something profoundly mystical to occur from just another sunrise on just another day, there will be teams of artistic techno types who have meticulously planned their assault on Wiltshire's cornfields.

“Crop Art” as I prefer to call it, would seem to be on the decline, there are fewer designs appearing today than there were in the 70's, 80's and 90‘s. This is due in part to local farmers fighting back, especially in the coming season of 2012 when any circles found will be immediately removed. It is also due to the ‘novelty factor’ wearing off. It’s like any mystery, when it’s been exposed it looses its appeal. Today crop circles are seen as an art form, often stunning, often beautiful, too often awful, but to local farmers who’s livelihoods they directly effect, their creators are regarded as nothing more than trespassing vandals, they have a point me thinks.

Crop Circles

There have been many beautiful circles over the years, but this one near Silbury hill in 2004, rates as one of my favourites. It is said to resemble an Aztec Sun Stone.


409 circles go to make up this stunning design at Milk Hill on 17th August 2001. Image credit Frank Luamen

Crop circles; just what is going on in England's cornfields, or more specifically, Wiltshire’s cornfields and what‘s more who is responsible for them?

Let’s pass on the lunatic fringe (sorry guys) for a moment who still firmly believe corn circles are constructed by little green men, or helicopters from the military hovering over cornfields and wasting tax payers money, or vortices, or little flying orbs, or ley lines (hypothetical veins of invisible energy beneath the earth) or even one theory put forward about randy hedgehogs making whoopee, in fact let's pass on any explanation that doesn’t involve the possibility that they could have been made by…well - us

Wiltshire has been a magnet for ‘circles makers’ for three decades or more. Not entirely surprising when you bear in mind the counties history, its ancient landscape, its mysterious megaliths, its Neolithic long barrows, and its plethora of legends, folklore and ghosts. It must surely be a golden opportunity for the circle makers to display latest creation, adding, hopefully, to the counties enigmas, especially when part of their audience is likely to comprises of a few who think that what they are seeing in the corn is a ’sign’ from some greater intelligence.

Back in the early 90s, two characters from Southampton, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley (sounds like a double act, as it turned out it was) stepped forward and claimed that they were responsible for all the crop circles throughout the late seventies, eighties and early nineties. They gave a demonstration on the BBC regional news (see link below) at the height of ‘crop circle mania‘. Gripping two ropes attached to planks of wood, they proceeded to walk around in circles trampling the crop as they went. Now I could see how they managed the smaller more basic designs but if Doug and Dave later confessed to producing one of the more elaborate pictograms, like the one that appeared at Alton Barnes in 1990, and later adorned the cover of Led Zepplin’s Best of album, then I would have to say that even they would had problems with just planks of wood, sorry chaps.

Of all the theories put forward for how the circle makers construct the more elaborate designs, and I’ve heard a few believe me, especially in my local pub set in deepest rural Wiltshire. I tend to favour the robot-roller theory, programmable robot rollers to be more precise, similar to the tasks performed by robots used in manufacturing (albeit considerably smaller) to accurately and precisely carry out functions to exacting specifications and designs. Robotic rollers, programmed to execute an exact design in a cornfield is not science fiction me thinks. Many people have asked how can it be possible to create such elaborate designs in the dead of night without lights, as there are never any reports of seeing anything unusual. Would you need lights when a pre-programmed machine is doing all the work for you?

Finally, please allow Doug and Dave to explain all, bless 'em.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzvuqs9Bf7Q

What, they didn't convince you! okay, try this site, it's one of the better ones. http://www.circlemakers.org/