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cloudbase and the ground at a slight angle, striking the ground in the vicinity of Silbury Hill. The tube had appeared from a glowing patch on the cloud. Schnabel's account of this in Round in Circles (see Further Reading) describes Mary Freeman experiencing a surge of energy inside her car as she witnessed this and she later told investigators that she felt 'privileged' to have witnessed the 'ethereal' beam. Two days later the quintuplet set of circles were found in a field adjacent to the A4 main road opposite Silbury Hill. As described in Chapter 2, these circles, with other sets which appeared subsequently, seemed to provide the whole phenomena with a geographical focus in the 'spiritual landscape’ of the Avebury region. A local medium, Isabelle Kingston described a sense of being made aware that the area around Avebury would manifest a sign, two years before the Quintuplets appeared. She may be seen as epitomizing the New Age themes described above, with interests encompassing dowsing, channelling (essentially a new term for the art of mediumship), a belief in the energy system of the Earth and its connection to ancient sites and a deep sense of belonging to the Avebury area. She later predicted both the location and most of the design of the famous Alton Barnes pictogram in 1990, by using as combination of channelling, which she described as ‘thoughts appearing in her head’ and map dowsing. This method uses a pendulum, held in one hand while the other points at locations on a map. The responses of the pendulum are observed, while a question is held in the mind. She also reported electrical malfunctions plaguing her house when engaged in talks about the circles, a regularly reported event by many circles researchers. Colin Andrews describes a succession of similar events which occurred when he had taken a soil sample from a circle into his research office and found his intruder alarms repeatedly triggered, for no apparent reason, over the next few days, with these events clustering at 04: 15. This experience probably influenced Andrews' perceptions of the phenomena, for Circular Evidence reads as a compendium of other strange effects which took place in or around the circles. He talks of his experience at Kimpton in 1987, when investigating a ring that had been discovered by Busty Taylor when he was landing at a nearby airfield. After experiencing a 'black flash’, which momentarily blotted out the sun, he returned to the site and asked God to give him a clue as to how the circles were created. He then heard a crackling noise reminiscent of static electricity, which reached a crescendo, driving him out of the field. * photographic anomalies such as the appearance of objects on film not seen when the exposure was taken Channelling and Paranormal events Almost all circles researchers have had some paranormal experience during their investigations. There have been descriptions of: ¢ 'black flashes’, also blue ones