Crop circles are a mysterious phenomenon that has been heavily debated for many years. The intricate patterns and untimely appearances are enough to fascinate one to read more about their history. Crop circles are typically geometric in shape and display unknown symbols by flattening the crops in random fields. Though they are seen all over the world, they are most common in England. It began in Southern England in the latter half of the 1970s when they started to randomly show up in different cities. It seemed that these were done overnight and only got more intricate and complex over time (Gregersen, 2016). These were found to begin in April and tended to be amidst fields of canola or corn. Following that, they appeared in Barley, oats and wheat in the years after. They range in sizes from six inches at the smallest end of the scale and 787 feet on the larger side containing around 409 circles (Downey, 2020). There have been similar occurrences from the past that date all the way back to 1880 when Patrick Moore wrote in New Scientist magazine that he thought he had discovered a suspicious crop design. As well, in Australia within the late ’60s, people described seeing crop circles and theorized that it was a mark leftover from a UFO landing (Irving & Brookesmith, 2009).
If we take into consideration the geographical surroundings of where these crop circles were found, we might find some more clues. Less than 20 km away from where many of the crop circles were found is the Avebury site of stone circles in Wiltshire, England. Avebury is a 5,000-year-old prehistoric site that includes massive henge and stone circles. Stone henge and Avebury are phenomenons similar to the crop circles in that they are mysteriously organized and people have pseudoarchaeological theories for them. However, an imperative difference is that the stone circles are archaeological sites whereas the crop circles are recent and can show up, and soon be gone. Despite the differences, some people hypothesize that because of the extensive number of archaeological and cryptic findings there are within Southern England, that perhaps they are all connected. Some presume that there may be an interconnected link between the placement of these sites and the meaning behind them (Irving & Brookesmith, 2009).
A suspicion some have is how it is possible that these designs were made without any trace of forced entry into the farms or any mistakes and leftover machinery. A typical method is to have complicated geometric patterns be mathematically computer generated and then projected onto the fields. People believe that this is plausible because it could explain how the design was quickly completed (in a matter of one night) and how there were zero clues remaining.
Once this enigmatic and seemingly magical occurrence came to popular news articles, the public and many self-proclaimed “professionals” had already come up with their theories. The sheer complexity of the circles, and even the way that the crops were only flattened and not completely broken or mowed, has made some professionals conclude that they must have been produced by extraterrestrials (Gregerson, 2016). The debate about whether the crop circles were made by humans or “aliens” is at the centre of any discussion. A popular phenomenon that only feeds into these theories is that several people have reported having physical symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and headaches after and during their visit to the circles. Visitors are often advised to leave the region right away if they become ill. Miraculous healing is something a few individuals have claimed to occur during their times at the circles too. As well, there have been pilots that exclaim they saw the circles only to hear that others that flew above days after said that they weren’t there (Downey, 2020). All of these occuraces contribute to an extraterrestrial sort of magic to have been lingering within the crop circle regions.
There are quite a few crop circles that have been formed for tv shows or advertisements to draw in an audience in a creative way. Typically though, researchers know the details enough that they figure out whether they are ‘real’ or ‘fake’. The ones that are ‘real’are knownn to have incredible mathematical precision and are thought to not be man-made (Downey, 2020). However, in 1991 two men, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley stepped up to the plate and let the public know that they were in fact responsible for making more than 200 of the crop circles ever since the 70s. The news of people claiming the extraterrestrial source of the circles led them to want to take credit. They were inspired by the case of UFO sitings in Australia and the imprint that the aircrafts may have left on the fields. Over time, their work was featured more and more in the news which inspired them to complete even more complicated patterns. They also revelled in the confusion of those that claim they professionally study the circles (Gregerson, 2016).
As a result of these theories, ‘croppies’- the name given to those who reach for pseudoscientific answers- interpret the annual emergence of increasingly more intricate symbols in the crop fields as a mysterious signal. The ambiguity of ways of rendering the messages behind these works seems to be completely intentional as well as being miraculous and enticingly confusing. The more complex designs bring even more otherwordly reasonings which remains as inspiration for circle-makers. The circle-makers and the ‘croppies’ are similar in that they both appreciate and warrant the observed magicalness (Irving & Brookesmith, 2009). It is evident from Bower and Chorley that these are able to be made by humans especially when you factor in the range of technology that we have to date. Crop circles seem so magical that the notion of them not being made by humans could perhaps be taken as a compliment.
