By David Jenkins 3:07PM BST 25 Aug 2010 Article Source: LINK

Wiltshire’s a beautiful county and it’s an idyllic Friday evening at the Barge Inn, Honeystreet. Boats are moored on the canal that runs past the pub, there’s a White Horse etched into the chalk just down the road and in the pub’s back room the ceiling is painted with images of Stonehenge, errant cherubim and crop circles. ‘It is,’ one local tells me, ‘the Sistine Chapel of Wiltshire.’
A crop circle said to be based on Euler's Identity, the 'most beautiful formula in mathematics', appeared at Wilton Windmill, Wiltshire, in May 2010 Photo: Mike Walker/Rex Features

The Barge indeed is Crop Circle Central – there’s even Croppie ale for sale – and circle aficionados arrive to camp here from all over the world: in the visitors’ book Kerry from Australia has written: ‘Great crop circles! Great people!’, while Miranda and Trond from Norway say: ‘Great to be back at Croppie HQ!’ No wonder an official at the Wiltshire Tourist Board tells me that they love crop circles; together with the numinous delights of Stonehenge and Avebury Rings they’re the county's biggest draws.

                                                                                                                                      
Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, the notorious crop circle hoaxers, pictured with some of the tools of their trade

Last year was a bumper year for fantastically elaborate, large crop formations – 70 or so, many within spitting distance of the Barge and one taking three nights to fully emerge – and in early August this year, more than 45 had been reported. And, remarkably, in June the scientific journal, Nature, ran a piece on them.

They’ve certainly lured a shaven-headed David Cheeseman down from Lewisham and he’s sitting in the pub’s back room, looking at photos of recent formations.

He has, he tells me, in the past done ‘night watches’ on nearby Milk Hill, hoping to see circles emerge, and he’s even photographed much-revered-in-Croppie-circles balls of light flying around. ‘What do I think make crop circles?’ he says. ‘Well, some are man-made and some aren’t. And the ones that aren’t man-made, it’s something energetic. I can’t say it’s extraterrestrials but…’
Andreas, Doreen, Pauline and Philip – four jolly Belgians camping in the Barge’s grounds – have no such caveats. ‘We come every year for the circles,’ says Doreen, a headmistress, unzipping her hoodie to reveal a sky-blue crop circle T-shirt. ‘And we’re normal! We’re just like you!’ Up to a point; they believe the ‘Space Brothers’ make some of the circles. ‘The man-made ones have no energy. We were in one today – so vulgar. But if you go into one made by the Space Brothers, you can’t stay too long – it’s so powerful it makes you feel ill.’

Mike and Sue are camping, too, and Sue is adamant. ‘They’re all man-made. And,’ she says with a grin, ‘there’s fewer this year because of the recession; cutbacks have to be made everywhere.’ That seems a bit unfair: 45 is a decent number, but it's true to say they’re wider spread this year – possibly, one all-too-human circle-maker tells me, because the farmers near Honeystreet were miffed by last year’s abundance.

For, yes, humans have laid claim to making almost every circle known about. But their beauty, complexity and mysteriousness are such that not everyone is persuaded that a group of soi-disant artists, moving through the fields at night with planks, tape measures and garden rollers, could create such glorious formations. Particularly when the first circle-makers to tell their tale to the media were two pint-loving sixtysomething watercolourists from Hampshire called Dave Chorley and Doug Bower.

More spiritually, they’re documented by the Wiltshire Crop Circle Study Group, whose coordinator is a charming, softly spoken French-Canadian called Francine Blake. Their office, in Devizes, is stuffy and full of papers, so we speak in the car park; Francine – wavy, white hair, dark pink top, linen trousers – is excited because a new circle has been reported near Warminster: ‘The first since 1998!’ She has been studying the circles since 1989 and moved to Wiltshire in 1991, after a particularly beautiful, highly symbolic formation appeared at Barbury Castle.

In those pre-internet days, Francine only learnt of Barbury after it had been harvested – not for nothing are circles known as ‘temporary temples’ – and that prompted her move to Wiltshire. Now she and her ‘six or so’ staff send planes up to photograph the circles, publish a magazine called The Spiral and produce ravishing calendars of the best formations. She and her colleagues have also sent off soil samples from fields where formations have appeared to Defra’s predecessor and to laboratories abroad.


She spoke, she tells me, to ‘the head scientist’ at Defra’s predecessor and ‘he explained that the composition of the soil was completely changed – completely different to the rest of the field. That it had an input of energy so powerful it can create silica out of the soil. There are only two things that can do that: one is the passage of a glacier, which is obviously not happening. And the other one is the input of heat with the magnitude of a direct bolt of lightning. And that’s several thousand degrees of heat.’

There’s more: US labs have, she says, also found that the plants ‘have been subjected to very short, very intense bursts of energy. That burst of energy – before it disperses – affects our cameras, affects our compasses, makes people dizzy, makes dogs sick – a lot of people have had that.’

Ask Francine what she gets from the circles and she replies: ‘A sense of wonder. Which is something not many people feel these days. We’re so dull, so suspicious, so limited in our way of thinking.’ She speaks, tenderly, about the beauty of the circles, of how the lain corn seems to ‘flow like water’, of how each formation teaches each person something more about the field they’re expert in: the American Indian finds a message from Gaia, the Tai Chi guru a new form of Tai Chi, the physicist – well, one physicist said to her: ‘Quantum physics? Forget quantum physics. This is far beyond.’

As for mathematics, earlier this year a formation appeared at Wilton Windmill, which seemed like Euler’s Identity, one of the most beautiful equations known to man. Alas, one mathematician pointed out that the formulation was so executed that its translation from binary code was altered from an ‘i’ to a ‘hi’, which could, the mathematician said, ‘be somebody’s idea of a joke’. Worse, the ‘h’ could be a nod to Planck’s Constant – and planks are used by human circle-makers to create their formation.

No wonder Francine is suspicious of the media, and certainly of me. ‘My hopes,’ she says, sweetly, ‘are not very high for this interview. We tend to have very inaccurate, depressingly trivial articles on crop circles.’


But at least she’ll be interviewed, unlike Michael Glickman, a long-term luminary of the circle scene, whose mathematical interpretations of the phenomena are far too abstruse for me. Instead, he lets rip with a majestic telephonic tirade. ‘The media are stupid, narrow-minded, bigoted and boringly predictable. I want nothing more than sensible treatment of the most important event on planet Earth.

'The hoaxers are the most constant con tricksters and liars in the world,’ Glickman says. ‘They are out fundamentally to deceive; we are out fundamentally to tell the truth. Hoaxers have never made a circle of quality. We’ve seen what they can do and it’s crummy. It’s the difference between a five-star meal in Lyons and a Big Mac.’

That’s Francine’s position, too, and the Earl of Haddington’s. ‘There are greater artists at work [than the hoaxers],’ he says. ‘Indeed there are. But so many are man-made. You have to wait.’

Lord Haddington, who’s taken a keen and sympathetic interest in circles since the late Eighties, tells me he thinks all this year's are made by man; Francine disagrees and is certain that it’s physically impossible for such work to be done in a short summer’s night. So off she directs me to a recent circle near a Saxon flint church at Chisbury.

It’s a five-pointed star, surrounded by five chevrons, 10 diamond shapes and 41 mini-circles – I’ll later read, on Crop Circle Connector, that ‘it seems to call our attention to a close conjunction between Planet Venus and the bright star Regulus in Leo’. It’s gorgeous, though better in the photo, but I don’t feel anything. And my tape recorder works.

Which doesn’t surprise Rob Irving, the main author of The Field Guide: The Art, History and Philosophy of Crop Circle Making. It was to Irving that a Wiltshire policeman uttered the immortal line: ‘I don’t want to get involved in a philosophical discussion with you, sir, but they can’t all be hoaxes.’ Irving would take issue with the word ‘hoax’ because it presupposes that there are ‘genuine’ circles, though he does think it possible that weird winds may have brought about some circles.



Irving’s a big fellow, with a bit of beard below his lip, greying hair and a black T-shirt. He’s 53 and first got involved in the Croppie scene in ‘1990, 1991’. He started to make circles, he says, ‘because people said it couldn’t be done’. He’d gone to a talk about circles and the speaker, a ‘field officer’ for the Centre for Crop Circle Studies, had said: ‘While we don’t know what's creating circles, we know what isn’t – and it’s not humans.’ He laughs.

Soon Irving was out in the fields, with planks, tape measures, ropes, gardening poles and a diagram: ‘You make your first circle and it’s visited and probably ridiculed as being man-made. And in the space of two or three outings, you learn quickly. You go from stumbling, blind human to God-like extraterrestrial within weeks. Within weeks, you’re producing “the real thing”.’

Now he’s a poacher turned gamekeeper, occasionally doing commercial circles for the likes of Mitsubishi, but essentially an artist and doctoral researcher into art and the landscape, which is, partly, what he sees crop circles as being about. As to their originators, Irving says, tongue only half in cheek, Doug Bower is ‘the greatest artist of the 20th century – or the most provocative’.

Doug Bower? Well, it was he and Dave Chorley who swirled the first crop circle, back in 1976, after a few drinks at the Percy Hobbs, at Cheesefoot Head, near Winchester. They’d been talking about UFOs and the books by Arthur Shuttlewood, a journalist on the Warminster Times, about UFOs over Warminster and what his paper called the ‘Warminster Thing’. Might it not be fun, they thought, to swirl some UFO landing pads of their own?

So, first with iron rods and then with plank stompers, a loping stride and a circular wire sight dangling from Doug’s cap, they started off. They kept it up for four years, barely creating a ripple of interest. Then the Wiltshire Times ran the headline: ‘Mystery circles – the return of “The Thing”?’


Cerelogogy, as crop circle study became known, was born. One researcher attributed the phenomenon to ‘plasma vortices’ – essentially wind effects that produced the swirling; and as Doug and Dave expanded their repertoire to incorporate straight lines and pictograms, so did the plasma vorticist expand his thesis. Others embraced more esoteric explanations, such as psychokinetic downloading from the collective unconscious, UFOs and higher intelligences. And the number of circles grew and grew, many of them 30 miles from Doug and Dave’s patch, and highly complicated. Doug and Dave were clearly not alone.

Still, it was Doug and Dave who went public in 1991: Doug told television cameras that there was nothing like being in a field of English corn at two in the morning, after a few pints and some cheese rolls, stomping corn.

Interestingly, the ITN report on their self-disclosure said: ‘This doesn’t mean all the circles are fake. After all, one counterfeit coin doesn’t make all coins counterfeit.’ And, among some devoted cerelogists, it became accepted wisdom that 80 per cent were man-made and 20 per cent ‘genuine’.

But a display of circle-making by a team of young engineers who won the 1992 International Crop Circle Making Competition was a revelation to the maverick biologist, Rupert Sheldrake: ‘For flattening the crop, they used a roller consisting of a piece of PVC piping with a rope through it, pushing it with their feet. To get into the crop without leaving footprints, they used two lightweight aluminium stepladders with a plank between them, acting as a bridge. For marking out a ring, they used a telescopic device projecting from the top of an aluminium stepladder. A string was attached to the end of it in such a way that by holding the string and walking in a circle around this central position a perfect ring could be marked out without leaving any trace on the ground in the middle.’ That’s complicated kit.


Mark Pilkington, a writer and publisher who helped with some of the more beautiful and complex late Nineties/early Noughties formations, talks of teams of three or four, using only the planks et al. It is, he says: ‘Physically and mentally hard work. Even after a modest job, you’re flat out. It’s often disorienting. I’ve worked on formations and when I’ve seen the photographs afterwards, I’ve thought: “Bloody hell! How did we do that?” ’

The designs are marvellous: perhaps it’s no wonder that, as Pilkington says, some cerelogists believe human ‘circle makers are channels for a greater force and that some formations are made by divine intervention’. Certainly, when Pilkington has told people what he’s done, he’s got into near fights: people want to believe. Such antipathy has gone to extremes: according to one of their number, one group of circle-makers had ‘potatoes stuck up their exhausts, wing mirrors ripped off our cars and threats of violence’.

Irving thinks people want to take ‘a vacation from rationalism’. And, he adds, it’s particularly the case that ‘people associate certain landscapes with legends. That’s why circles come to sacred sites: Avebury and Stonehenge galvanise this idea of mystery. I see it as a feedback route: people go to a certain place with certain expectations. Then something happens and they leave satisfied.’

It’s to sustain the mystery, he says, that circle-makers never claim authorship of a particular circle: ‘In our culture, art is all to do with artists: it’s about whodunit, not about what art does. With the circles, it’s about the effect they have on people.’

On the afternoon I meet him at the Barge Inn, Irving finishes his pint of Croppie and takes me to see what he classifies as ‘a schematic plan of a set of cruciform solids’ – or a formation that looks from above like a cross-hatched 3D image that reminds Irving of a pharmacist’s sign. It’s on Cley Hill, near Warminster, and in its middle are a collecting box (suggested fee £2) and a plastic folder containing an aerial photo and a copy of the Crop Circle Etiquette Guide. Irving nods appreciatively: ‘They’ve gone the extra mile. Normally, this would be set in a circle, but they’ve gone to the trouble of putting an outline round the thing.’


We move back towards my car. A couple appears and the woman asks if we’ve been at the circle. They’re Inga and Erik, and they’re Dutch, over here to look at circles. They were at Chisbury yesterday, and it was perfect: they’re very keen to see the Cley Hill formation. And what, I ask, do they think brought the circles into being?

Inga smiles, knowingly. ‘You mean, are they man-made, or not?’ She smiles again. ‘That’s mystic: that’s a mystery.’ And off they go, ready for a sense of wonder.

by Colin Andrews on Tuesday, 24 August 2010 at 15:04
There is a great deal I could say here but briefly in response to Nancy's here.

I come from a family of scientists and engineers and am the latter myself.  Training in scientific protocols is the starting point of each of our careers but its not the BLT science so much I would question here but the very materials they are testing.

As Nancy knows but has never engaged publicly, I worked with Pat Delgado and Levengood on plant analysis before Nancy was even aware of crop circles.  My family members visited his lab and inspected his protocols and my own research colleagues were in fact engaged by BLT as the first sampling team in England.  I give this short back drop to my point and its this. 

It does not always necessitate replication of a finding to prove the scientist is heading down the wrong road, it takes evidence that his interpretations (conclusions) are wrong and that does not require replication of results.

In two important cases, as Nancy Talbott is aware, while working myself with Rockefeller funding I filmed her own crop circle plant samplers making a crop circle, sending samples to her from it and then finally viewing Levengood's findings back to them. These were very important and I think the reason for so much doubt. Mr. Levengood concluded that the plants from this circle were among the best examples of the real phenomenon and showed the highest crop circle making energy.  But the team and I knew differently.  What- ever the science and protocols, what -ever his findings, the plants came from a man made crop circle. The results showed what- ever they showed but the interpretation was wrong

To add salt to the scientific wound, a small area of plants which had lodged after heavy rain in the same field were also sent by BLT samplers to Levengood, via Nancy Talbott. Again he concluded that his findings showed a very high level of crop circle making energy – The real thing and very important.

I will not engage the points made by the Italian sceptics here but in the interest of truth and common sense and regardless of my own qualifications, like Nancy herself I am not a biologist, but something went very wrong in the BLT work during their early days and Im not sure things are yet straight.

I don't think many would doubt that we have learned a great deal more about flattened plants than we ever knew before crop circles showed up.  Also as long as we can all be big enough to adjust our work to account for new findings and move forward, its clear that organizations like BLT should be supported in its efforts to work on this subject. Scientists adjust to current findings and facts.  Dr. Terence Meaden back in the early 90s found to his loss that adjusting the data or findings simply to hold onto a theory or position is not what science is about.

None of the above is news to Nancy, she has had the tapes showing all of this since shortly after those events occurred.

Colin Andrews

www.ColinAndrews.net

The croppie world awaits with bated breath the next move in acontroversy which has arisen between two top researchers ofthe phenomena, Nancy Talbott of the BLT group and Colin Andrews.

Colin says some of the conclusions of BLT's researcher William Levengood are plain wrong and the group should admit the mistake.
He claims to have filmed proof that circle plants Levengood said showed good evidence of the genuine "crop circle making energy"  were in fact from a fake circle made by Nancy's own plant samplers.
Nancy sparked the dispute in a piece she wrote for the Reporta Crop Circle Facebook page responding to questions about published papers by her BLT group.
She suggested "No reputable professional scientist would challenge already published work without having carried out research replicating the research they are challenging"
She adds: "And if some of the lay-people involved in the crop circle situation are themselves raising questions about the scientific work,such questions are basically insignificant...precisely because these lay-people do not have the academic or scientific training needed to correctly understand what the published material actual says."
But weighing in with his own statement headed: "BLT got it wrongand should admit it and move on", Colin argues: "It does not alwaysnecessitate replication of a finding to prove the scientist is headingdown the wrong road".
He claims he filmed Nancy's crop circle samplers making a cropcircle, sending samples to her from it and then finally viewing Levengood's findings back to them.
Writes Colin: "Mr. Levengood concluded that the plants from this circle were among the best examples of the real phenomenon and showed the highest crop circle making energy. But the team and I knew differently. Whatever the science and protocols, whatever his findings, the plants came from a man made crop circle. The results showed whatever they showed but the interpretation was wrong".
He adds that downed plants from wind and rain in the same fieldwere also judged by Levengood to show a "very high level" ofthe mysterious energy. In an email exchange, I asked Colin why Nancy's team were making their own crop circle. Colin responded: "It was a legitimate blind test of BLT analysis.
I asked the sampling team to join me to blind test Levengood.
BLT received samples as normal as they would from any other crop circle. I have it all on video and sent Nancy a copy. I've not wanted to make it bad for Levengood but its important to get some balance back into this."
I have forwarded Colin's Facebook statement to Nancy and will report further her reaction if she chooses to respond.
The full text of Nancy's statement is here: http://tiny.cc/dts6bThe full text of Colin's statement is here: http://tiny.cc/97umy

BLT's Nancy Talbott responds to questions about published papers
by Report A Crop Circle Formation on Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 11:02pm

August 12, 2010 email from Nancy Talbott: (Please note comments about Italian group of skeptics with an eye on the hoaxed formations in Italy in 2010.)

Vis-a-vis the BLT Team's work and the Levengood 1994 paper, the Levengood & Burke 1995 paper, and the 1999 Levengood & Talbott paper, the fact is that they were all published in peer-reviewed journals--which, of course means, the scientists at each journal who read the articles before publication by the journals accepted the work as adequately meeting the journals scientific standards. My suggestion to you if/when lay-people (or anyone else) raise questions as to the competency of any or all of these papers, that you refer these individuals to the BLT web-site and ask that they direct any questions they may have to us, the authors of the papers. Further I would suggest that you remind people that science is a METHOD, and that each new paper (by us, the authors of the only peer-reviewed papers dealing with the crop circle situation so far, or anyone else who carries out similar fieldwork and laboratory analysis) tries to build on the original facts presented so far--or to discredit those already published statements by replicating the work originally carried out and then presenting whatever NEW results--if any-- are obtained.

No reputable professional scientist would challenge already published work without having carried out research replicating the research they are challenging. And they would only challenge previously published results by anyone if their OWN work produced what they felt were DIFFERENT results. Regarding the 3 published papers by BLT personnel so far, no one has yet done this.

Some members of the Italian skeptics organization did publish a paper attacking primarily Eltjo Haselhoffs remarks (his "Balls of Light" remarks which he presented to Phys. Plantarum in a Letter to the Editor, NOT as an original, peer-reviewed paper of his own). Grassi et al. used a clever sleight-of-hand in their paper in which they linked Levengood's work to Haselhoff's statements, as if the remarks made by Haselhoff were representative of Levengood's work....which they were not. These Italian skeptics did not carry out any actual fieldwork themselves and made no attempt to replicate the BLT work reported in our 3 papers. Without having made this effort, their comments must be understood in that context: they carried out no original field or laboratory work on crop circle plants or soils and made no attempt to replicate the studies reported in any of the BLT papers.

In the scientific arena whenever brand new situations are first studied and examined, and results published, there are almost always questions raised by scientists not involved in that research. But usually the questions raised are based on attempts by the critic to REPLICATE the original work being questioned. When this is NOT the case (as with the Italian skeptic group), it is a pretty clear sign of insincere interest in the actual research, but instead an inadequate attempt to discredit the published work they disagree with. This is not professional scientific behavior.

If anyone (Dr. Vaughan Hurry or anyone else) is not happy with the any peer-reviewed, published work then it is up to them to replicate the published work they disagree with...and then to publish their OWN studies to show WHY they disagree with the original published work.

As I said, science is a methodology....certain facts are slowly established, and then built upon by either the original researchers or by others, in an ongoing attempt to uncover precisely what is going on. Anyone, like Grassi et al., can disagree with published material....but the only serious or reputable way to do this is to carry out one's OWN work replicating the original. This has not been done by anyone so far.

Since the lay-public is generally not well-enough informed regarding many areas of scientific inquiry it is very easy for debunkers to confuse lay-people in the manner attempted by Grassi et al. This is a typical (if totally unprofessional) method used by debunkers of all sorts of things. No well-trained scientist would fail to recognize the Grassi et al. failure--which is why, I am sure, Dr. Hurry refused to publish the Grass et al. paper. in Phys. Plantarum.

I think you should not be concerned that there is debate regarding the BLT papers. The subject being researched is so novel that it is bound to attract detractors....but what we all need to see if more original work carried out, real research based on in-depth fieldwork and laboratory analysis such as BLT carried out. It is entirely possible that new facts will be discovered. It is even possible that what has been accepted as factual in the past will be overturned or modified. But one cannot do this sitting at home. One has to get out and do the actual work.

And if some of the lay-people involved in the crop circle situation are themselves raising questions about the scientific work, such questions are basically insignificant...precisely because these lay-people do not have the academic or scientific training needed to correctly understand what the published material actual says.

Again, please suggest that people who have questions regarding the BLT work address those questions to me. I will do my best to clarify any detail I can.

Nancy

In our own research we have discovered that in ALL cases of plant anomalies are in fact NATURAL plant deformaties and  behavior. In this kind of research no one takes into consideration simple botany.
IF a paranormal force did create a crop circle then why on earth would it only affect a handful of random plant stems in a circle of several thousand flattened stems - would it not affect the entire flattened crop or at least 90% of it ?
Everyone who has a vested interest and has to justify huge donations will fabricate information which is pleasant to the ears of believers.
Cropcirclewisdom

Over the 2010 season I researched and investigated and I was informed that a large formation was going to made somewhere in the central location of the Pewsey Vale. At this stage we didn't know the exact location but due to the history of East Field we suspected that this would be the primary choice as Milk Hill had already a formation ( Milk Hill formation was also witnessed being made by 3 members of the public). So colleagues out in the field monitored East Field on a nightly basis. On this night in question - we struck gold !!!

Regardless of what anyone tells you - this formation is 100% Man Made. However attempts are being made in trying to make you the public think that its a real paranormal creation, it is NOT!.  These smoke screen attempts are coming from mainstream researchers, which I classify as shameful  act of mind manipulation in order to keep you the public believing in that all crop formations are created by aliens or other paranormal forces, they are NOT !.
Anyone who has a vested interest in the so called crop circle phenomenon did not want you to see that man has the capabilities to produce large and complex crop circle formations. They did not want a situation where the circle makers were caught in the act and exposed, especially while still in the process  of the formation being made. They did not want this to happen as it now puts doubt on the many intricately designed formations that have been made in 2010 and in previous seasons.
Screen captured image shown above: For the first time cropcircleconnector announces that a complex pattern is man made.
This exposes that for many years deception within the crop circle phenomenon has been rife. All who have a vested interest threw in all kinds of stories and lies just to create confusion and  prevent you from thinking that this East Field crop formation was  made by man.
Circle makers took a risk in making this the largest formation of the 2010 season as it was a bright cloudless sky and East Field being one of the most famous and most watched fields in the county was brightly lit by moon light.. The makers attempted a feat which in theory they could have got away with as most campers at the time were either sleeping or were preoccupied with other things and other night watchers ( earlier in the evening ) were at Crop Circle Connectors evening being entertained at the Coronation hall in Alton Priors by a crop circle slide show and a band.
However one person remained vigilant at the top of Knapp Hill.  With a camera mounted on a tripod a chap know as Cosmic Dave begun taking long exposure photography, to his surprise he captured more than he bargained for !.

This is how we exposed the East Field Man Made formation:
On the 29th of June I received a call from Cosmic Dave at approx 01.15am (BST - British Summer Time). For Dave to have called me at this time of the morning I knew that this call was important.
Dave stated " There are people inside East Field making a crop circle formation right now and its big". I had a choice to make whether to drive there to the location or document the incident live through Facebook. I felt that I would achieve nothing by being there so I chose to broadcast this historic event live through Facebook. At least this way several thousand people would be aware of this live event. I posted the first comment through Report a Crop Circle Formation Page and then Circle Chasers page and Steve Alexanders page. Steve Alexander chose to delete my announcement.
Cosmic Dave stated that 7 people were visible in the field ( clear skies and bright moon light at the time so visibility was good ). We agreed that Dave should not venture into the field by himself, so Dave alerted tourists and campers on Knapp Hill which decided to make their way towards East Field. These are the first steps taken as shown below. ( Some Screen shots of the live event as it was broadcast on Facebook ). All posts are dated and time stamped..

I kept in touch with David by phone every half hour or so... Dave in the mean time was capturing long exposure images on his camera..

Long Exposure image of East Field - First parts of the Crop Circle are already created.

Above images show digital stamp print showing times and camera settings. Right image showing the arms of the formation being added. (click on above images to enlarge )

Tourists and night watchers were first to go into the field - Dutch tourist spoke to 3 hoaxers who remained in the formation while the other 4 disappeared.  Crop circle artists protocol is to never leave a formation looking unfinished. Incredibly they completed the first phase while the 3 tourists watched.

Image above: Crop Circle artists return once again to add extra parts to the formation ( Clearly shows that this formation was incomplete ). This time night watchers were sat inside this formation and were amazed at the audacity of the makers. They called the Police - when the police turned up they tried to arrest the ones who reported the incident in the first place, the makers left the field by the time Police arrived.

Image Above: Third and final stage of completion. On this night we were invited to watch it being finished but later we were diverted to watch Lurkley Hill instead. We returned to East Field after the Lurkley Hill incident only to find that another circle making team completed this formation.

In between the 3 phases of this formation, some desperate measures were taking place in the field as well as on facebook. Well know tour operators continued to inform the visiting public that this formation was not man made. Other individuals started a campaign to discredit us in order to silence us from bringing you the public any further news. All that has been said and shown is the TRUTH !

This formation was made by a guy called ' Terry '. Terry is well know in the community and is regarded as one of the best crop circle makers. It has been reported that 5 people were charged by the police in connection with this incident, however no charges have been made. !!!????

Previous designs with lots of similarity ....

Image below: East Field 2010 completed.

Above Image: Please notice the line running through the centre of the formation. This is called the construction line, a crucial part of any crop circle design.

It took us 4 seasons in research and investigation to discover FULLY that  all crop circle formations are MAN MADE. This should however not discourage you from investigating the phenomenon further as I can assure you that there are things out there which we have seen and photographed, things which are truly unexplainable at this moment in time. Things which are an entity of some kind, an entity which shows an interest in what we do and how we use the language of symbology.

We must also stress that we are not some secret agents, MI5, debunkers or some misinformants. Our own independent research with the support of some very good and dedicated people has revealed the truth to what is really happening in Wiltshire.

We truly apologise to everyone who is finding our words distressful but we believe in the true human spirit rather than some fiction which man has devised in order to capitalize out of your good spiritual nature. Every theory that we and you have created has been humiliating to say the least as others behind the scenes are simply laughing and encouraging you to provide such theories, so their twisted nature can fulfill their egos and pockets. Sad but true.

On August 2nd approx. 3.00pm I received a phone call, the voice was of a well spoken male, the words were short and simple " If you want to see East Field Formation completed, be there tonight".

I was in two minds at first whether to go or not as I felt that this might be another set up or even a genuine call - the caller did sound like the informant I spoke to few weeks earlier!

The curiosity got the better of me so I set of to Wiltshire. I arrived at East Field in the late evening of 2nd August. I surveyed the area in order to find a good spot to hide in the field. I was at East Field no more than 10 -15 minutes when I spotted a red vehicle driving at speed from the direction of Pewsey, this vehicle slowed down temporarily as it approached the silage pit area of East Field, then drove of at speed once again. ( The front registration plate  had mud smeared over the numbers, rather than a splatter - I feel that this was done on purpose, so reading this number on a speeding car, would be virtually impossible )

Minutes later I received yet another call from the same caller, the caller said: " Change of plan - if you want to see a formation being made, be at East Kennett, Manor Farm entrance, go to the top of the hill, do not turn into the farm, last field on the left just before the small wooded area, no police, 11.30pm, hide in the bushes on the very left, this is for real ".

(The red speeding car was obviously there to check if I had arrived )

The instructions were a little to precise for my liking,  so I was beginning to think that this was indeed going to be some kind of set up. Being on my own I wasn't going to venture in as instructed so I called some friends and explained the whole story to them. They agreed that we should go ahead with the plan, so I waited for their arrival and as soon as it became dark we headed towards the location. We parked our cars beyond the wooded area which were reasonably well hidden from view. We changed the hiding position rather than the way it was instructed, just in case something else was planned, rather than just a crop circle demonstration!.  So we hid on the right of the field rather than the left. We were in position by 10.45pm or so, the evening was dry and pleasantly warm so hanging around in bushes was bearable. By 11.40 we were starting to wonder if anyone was going to turn up and then we all looked at each other as if a penny had dropped. We all came to the conclusion that this could be some elaborate plan to divert us/me away from East Field, but why would someone tip me of about it then divert me to somewhere else?.
Within minutes later we heard voices and shuffling footsteps. Three lads turned up whistling away as if to  alert us of their arrival. They entered the field and walked up to almost the very middle. The night was lit by periodic moonlight which shone through the occasional cloud cover, so from our vantage point we could clearly distinguish figures moving around in the field.

At this point we crawled out from our hiding position and we were now crouching at the edge of the field. We whispered to each other and asked what should we do now?

I decided to take the risk and venture in with my camcorder. I crawled along into the field and then continued to crawl on all fours along the appropriate tram line. I can assure you It isn't something that I recommend to anyone. Crawling along a tram line in a field of wheat in the dead of night and not knowing what to expect the other end is rather silly in my opinion, but as everyone kept on ranting " have you any footage to show us ? ", so I took the risk. Some of the comments from the public are quite outrages - one question I received was " Did you take at least a 100 photos and video footage?". Hmmm I don't wish to sound rude to the person in question but do you really think that the crop artists/hoaxers would stop and say cheese - I don't think so.

Crawling along the tram line was quite awkward as the wheat stems brushing past me made a rustling sound, so the crawl was slow and gradual. Approx. 3/4 of the way into the field I switched on my camcorder, using only the view finder so there would be no screen illumination. The camcorder made a ping sound which made me duck and stop, but it appeared that it wasn't heard as the sound of stomping was quite loud and the lads within carried on stomping the wheat.

I finally approached the edge of the main circle but at this point I wondered what the hell do I do now ? So a rather rash thought came to mind, as one of the lads stomped his way past me I waited a few seconds then stood up and shouted out loud " What the bloody hell do you think you are doing ?". The next thing I remember was an almighty shove from the right and I ended up hurtling to the ground, totally unexpected I found myself lying at the edge of the circle in wheat. ( The dent in the main circle is visible in aerial shots ).

I landed heavily on my arm and wondered what would come next - but all I could hear was distant laughter as the lads run of towards the opposite end to which they entered.

My colleagues heard me shout so they quickly run it just in case I required assistance. All was OK apart from my camcorder which broke in the fall. The screen pinged open and snapped off ( currently awaiting repair - whatever has been captured we will release as soon as finance allow for it to be repaired )

With the thought still in mind that this was an elaborate set up and possibly even a diversion, we quickly headed towards East Field, this was just after 1.00 am. By 1.30 am we entered East Field and found the formation in a completed state. ( Three phases of the insect looking thing ). In the very centre of the formation we also found a plank which was conveniently left to be found.
The question still remains - why tell me about East Field then divert me away from it - what was the motive behind this elaborate set up?

Rather crude inscriptions - the plank which we found in the middle of completed East Field formation.

East Field Formation in its full completed state 2nd/3rd August 2011. Image Lucypringle.co.uk

Rather nice dome effect !

The following morning I reported  the Lurkley Hill formation to Crop circle connector under the condition that it was man made. Crop Circle Connector reluctantly posted this after we questioned why it wasn't reported to you the public. Crop Circle Connector have also failed to tell you that this formation is clearly man made. Photographs and posters are on sale in the Henge Shop In Avebury of this formation but there is no notification to say that its man made.

We visited this formation several days later and tried to tell the visiting public  that this formation was man made - but the public  argued and said its  authentic paranormal creation due to a report made by Silent Circle about the egg slicer formation which was also made on the same night. Silent Circle stated that the Whitefield hill egg slicer  Crop Formation was a genuine paranormal creation as the flattened plants had straightened heads, but the standing plants had bent heads, so the argument was how was it possible for heads of the plant to become straight when flattened when the original standing stems had droopy heads ? . As we found the same effect ( droopy heads in standing wheat and straight heads in flattened wheat ) in Lurkley Hill which we knew 100% that it was man made ( as we saw it being made ) we passed on this report to Silent Circle - a report rather disappointingly  was fully ignored !

Lurkley Hill Formation: This image shows flattened wheat with straight heads
Image: Ross Holcombe (c) 2010

Lurkley Hill Formation: Image shows that standing wheat has bent ( droopy heads ). So the theory that something powerful had swept this formation or the Whitefieldhill Formation is rather flawed !

The formation which we coined as the ' Egg Slicer Formation ' was also made on the same night as Lurkley Hill and The completion of East Field. So 3 teams of circle makers were out on this night 2nd/3rd of August 2010. This formation also had the same bent and straight heads as Lurkley Hill. MAN MADE !!!!
Image: Lucypingle.co.uk

Charles Mallett  - Silent Circle

Couple of interesting points on this interview which are worth pointing out. When Charles speaks about black helicopters the telephone line goes dead, leaving Charles hanging on the line and wondering to what has happened. Seondly, when Charles begins his rant about Crop Circle Connector Patricia Corri is rather keen to end the interview. Apologise for sound quality as it was recorded on a mobile phone.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3