A potted history of crop circles

The centre in Honeystreet is the place to go if you want to learn why fields get flattened. The first recorded mention of a phenomenon similar to a crop circle was at a witch trial in 1590. A pamphlet was published in 1678, again describing what we’d all recognize, and in 1880 a scientific report was written, presumably taking the whole thing seriously. In 1960s Australia, a circular shape in crops was classed as a ‘flying saucer nest’. Through the 70s and 80s, crop circles appeared in Britain with increasing frequency: books were published, and the making of a crop circle was recorded for the first time. The Alton Barnes pictogram of 1990 led to a wave of complex shapes. In 1991 two men, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, claimed they’d been hoaxing the world with their crop circles for years. 1996 saw one appear in 45 minutes, in broad daylight, without any witnesses. In 2000 the first person was fined for making circles: he claimed he did it to prove they were man made. There is a crop circle alphabet, which presumably helps to understand the more complex ones. And on the 12th August 2001, a formation of 409 circles covering an area of four football pitches appeared on Milk Hill. Search it up: it’ll blow your mind. > See cropcircle access.com, which in summer includes details of the latest circles (and access).