features

formations, formations, formations

the inevitable links page

At the tail-end of August 1998 I visited Wiltshire to soak up the very last of the season, view the few surviving formations and bask in the ambience of the circles one more time, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to do so again until the following Spring.  Very few fields remained unharvested; one of the few surviving wheat fields was host to a formation that had appeared some months before and which, for one reason or another, I’d never got round to visiting.  I arrived at the field late in the afternoon, spending some time in the formation before heading for the Barge Inn.  As I was walking the road that curves past Adam’s Grave and down the side of East Field, I noticed a ball of light suspended about ten feet above the road, and about fifteen feet in front of me (both guestimates).  It was a little bigger than a pool ball, and not particularly bright; it seemed more to glow from within than to radiate.  As I watched, it sank down to knee-height, pausing before shooting off into a maize field to the right.  Needless to say, I had a peek in the maize field afterwards but could see nothing.  I met a friend in the Barge and we chatted, and it transpired that he too had visited the same formation that afternoon.  I mentioned a few details I’d noticed which he had not, and we decided to return to the formation so that he could see them.  We arrived, some two hours after my first visit, and looked around.  We soon noticed a second, much smaller formation, a slight distance away in the same field.  It comprised a very simple and slightly scrappy dumb-bell, with two circles linked by a path.  Neither of us remembered seeing it earlier, though the field in question did have a number of wind-damaged areas in the same vicinity so I may have looked in that direction and assumed that any dip in the crop was also lodging.  The possibility that it had appeared in between our visits - ie, in daylight, and that the BOL sighting (little more than a mile away) may have been in some way connected, was clear.

Who believes this story?  Its actual truth or otherwise is secondary for now.  But the chances are that many who have read this far accepted the story without question.  You (probably) haven’t met me.  You haven’t seen any actual evidence that this event occurred.  But my tale was likely accepted.  Why?  Because it conforms to the reality tunnels (belief systems) we have formed about how the crop circle phenomenon operates, about the phenomenon’s possibilities and mechanisms, and what is and isn’t likely within those parameters.

As far as I am aware, nobody  - other than myself and the friend mentioned above - visited this formation.  In reporting this formation, nobody else’s testimony was asked for.  My word was accepted in its entirety, by people who had no idea who I was.  Photographs, though available, were not requested before this story was taken as true.  The BOL account was equally accepted, despite the fact that I can provide no corroborative data for it whatsoever.

If I were to now claim that none of what I have related above actually happened, and that the truth of the matter was that my friend and I entered the field the night before and made the formation, I would not be believed.  Photographic evidence of our making it would be demanded, as would detailed diagrams and minutae of the construction process, and perhaps a replay in front of witnesses, the likely conclusion then being that whilst it was feasible, in theory, the proof of the matter was still not evident.  I would be considered a liar and a charlatan, by people who would happily believe - with no evidence at all - the first story.

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For a different version of the events described in this article, click here.  For a clarification of what actually hapened, click here.