A BOARDGAME FROM AN ALIEN?
In the summer of 1990, a board game would find itself at the centre (quite literally) of the crop circle phenomenon. Operation Blackbird was already into its second night. This high profile, three-week investigation into crop circles was partly funded by the BBC programme Pebble Mill, but mostly by Nippon TV from Japan, and was led by researchers Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado. The aim was to record evidence of crop circle activity with an array of equipment including cameras, plus heat, light, and sound detectors. On the second night, Wednesday 25 July, the team recorded flashing orange lights in the next field, which belonged to a farmer called Jonathan King. By the next morning, two large crop circles, along with four smaller circles and lines, had appeared.
Hopes of a breakthrough in cerealogical research were dashed when mysterious items were found in the centre of every circle, each weighted down with two rough wooden sticks in the shape of a cross. The nation got to see what was under those sticks in a BBC news report, led by a smirking Nicholas Witchell in the studio. On-site reporter Clarence Mitchell crouched among the flattened crops and held the proof of the hoax up for the camera. “A paper board game,” he said, “similar to a Ouija board.” An ITN report on the same incident didn’t just say they were “similar” to a Ouija board, but that they were Ouija boards.
They weren’t. The objects were disc-shaped paper boards from the self-published game Crop Circle: Mystery Adventure Board game. In the game, players become Druids or aliens who must place an altar in the centre of a miniature Stonehenge made of blocks. Once the Sun and Healing Circles are brought into the Eastern Ley Line, Summer Solstice is declared, and the game is won. The creator was Magic Merlin, aka George Vernon, an author and artist from Bristol who claimed an alien had chosen him as a vessel to produce the game. We’ll hear more from George later, but first back to Operation Blackbird.
Naturally, Andrews and Delgado were disappointed and embarrassed at what seemed like a prank-cum-publicity-stunt. The team decided that the equipment readings from the night before were probably just heat signatures from the hoaxers who were flattening the corn with wire (and presumable placing the boards, too). Closer inspection showed that the formation lacked the precision of previous circles. The ITN report joked that the wonky lines were “a disgrace to anyone from outer space”. The Blackbird team saw little to laugh about. “It’s funny for about 60 seconds,” a frustrated Andrews told reporters. “Then, I find it very sad.”
The plot thickened the next day, when Andrews received a handwritten letter dated 25 July 1990. It claimed to be from the dance music group KLF, who wrote: “Colin, the circles on Wednesday were just a hoax, but we can’t help to play jokes! Inconvenience caused? We’re sorry… To catch us you’ll have to hurry! Yours, in total control, the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu aka The Jamms.” The note featured certain characters that were written backwards: N, R, S, E, K, D and ?.
Was the letter really sent by the KLF? For a band who loved to work with cryptic enigmas, the letter reads as a little bit obvious and ‘on-brand’. Plus, they refer to themselves as “The Jamms”, a name they had largely ceased to use in the 1990s in favour of “The KLF”. Still, I compared the handwriting in the letter with that of Bill Drummond, the band’s co-founder. The capital-letter style certainly looks similar. It’s also worth bearing in mind that the KLF did indeed create a crop circle around the same time – a version of their pyramid-ghetto blaster logo. It featured in the video for “What Time Is Love?”, a single that was released just five days after this incident on 30 July. Was the letter a promo for the new single? Did the KLF create the Blackbird circles? If not, how did they know to send the letter on the precise day the hoax happened? And why did they place the board games? Did they even send a letter at all?
Thirty years have passed since the incident, so I asked Colin Andrews what his thoughts about it are today.
“George Vernon (Merlin) and the KLF separately claimed involvement, but the fact that it was an obvious hoax once we entered the field meant we didn’t investigate those claims further,” Colin told me. “There was also some suspicion that the British Army might have had a hand in it. We had several soldiers there assisting and it was on MOD land. My own opinion is that it was Merlin, as a plug for his board game.”
Eager to hear from Merlin himself, I dug through various Internet tunnels to track him down. He shared the source of the game’s concept and design and what he believes happened on that mysterious night.
PETER LAWS: Did you fake the crop circles on the second night of Operation Blackbird?
MAGIC MERLIN: No. I did not create the circles!
PL: But you were there?
MM: Yes. I was in farmer Jonathan King’s field that night. That’s where I met an alien called Merlin. He came out of a
UFO. Colin Andrews’s equipment picked it up. A figure with me with lights above, moving round.
PL: Why were you even in the field?
MM: Years before, around 1985/6, I went to Stonehenge. I used the stones to ask Merlin for help with marketing and producing my board game idea. He told me I’d be the chosen channel to produce the game. I then had 5,000 disc-boards printed. Merlin told me to be patient. He would choose a time for me to place the discs by ESP. He guided me to the field that night during Operation Blackbird.
PL: So how were the circles formed?
MM: I saw them appear in the field. I was then guided by Merlin to place six discs with six stones on each of the six circles.
PL: And were the KLF involved in any way?
MM: No. That was a complete lie by the group to seek publicity. Or they may have been part of the military cover-up. But nobody had the printed discs besides myself, at that point. They were stored in Bristol under lock and key. That’s how I know they lied, because I was in the field with Merlin.
PL: How do you explain the uneven lines in the formation?
MM: Pat Delgado, the media or the MOD trashed them to look dishevelled.
PL: Copies of your board game also came with instructions for a “Treasure Hunt”. Players were encouraged to find hidden clues in the gamecards, crack the Merlin Riddle and discover a treasure in a particular part of England. Did anybody find the treasure?
MM: No, because I lost everything when I went to prison for something I never said.
PL: How was the game development financed?
MM: With £10,000. It appeared in my bank account overnight, by Merlin’s mysticism. £10k to develop and market the game. The police arrested me for money laundering, but that was not so. They let me go after going to the bank to check it out. They couldn’t find anything.
PL: Board games are usually designed for fun, but considering its origin, would you say yours had a different purpose?
MM: My board game isn’t a game. It’s a higher level of communication that we need to learn. When someone plays the game, they slowly develop ESP.
PL: So, did the game achieve what you hoped for?
MM: The game will achieve its objective when Merlin returns.
PL: Do you still have any of the games today?
MM: All but one of the boxes, and the £10,000, were destroyed by the bastard council who emptied my flat after my arrest.
So, there are various theories about who created the circles that night. Was it the army diffusing the growing public interest in crop circles? The military were certainly involved in Operation Blackbird. Perhaps they had the skill to make the circles in total darkness, right under Colin Andrews’s nose, and then placed the board games there to ensure it was seen as an obvious hoax. Or did the KLF create the formation to show their “total control” and promote their new single? Were the circles simply the work of George Vernon to promote his board game, or did an alien called Merlin really appear to George with gaming ideas and money for investment?
There’s one more theory to add to the mix. It came from
Pebble Mill reporter Debi Jones the following year. She was copresenting a special crop circle edition of her BBC daytime show
People Today, which featured Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado answering viewers’ calls about Operation Blackbird. In a link to camera, Debi suggested the circles might have been simply caused by “hedgehogs on the march.”
NOTE
Just as I was finishing this article, I received the following message from George Vernon: “Which came first? The chicken or the egg?... Which came first, the Crop Circle Game or the crop-circles? Answer: THE CROP CIRCLE GAME.”