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Randles and Fuller published one of the earliest references to hoax as an explanation of the circles, in their BUFORA booklet, Mystery of the Circles. In 1990 they elaborated on this in Crop Circles, a mystery solved, which has a chapter on hoaxing, acknowledging that 'it would be foolish for any circles researcher to claim that hoaxing cannot be a realistic answer for at least some of the circles that They describe being contacted in 1986 by a ‘freelance journalist’, who claimed to have evidence that he was behind all the circles in the United Kingdom of the last few years. A demonstration was arranged, at which he was accompanied by two others. A circle was produced, using a pole and chain. They circlemakers added the detail that they carried a trowel to fill the hole left by the pole at the centre of the circle. Following the demonstration the journalist commented that: 'It seems to me that everyone has overlooked the possibility that these are a hoax, and that somewhere someone is sitting back killing himself laughing at all the publicity’. Randles and Fuller commented, with some foresight, that this episode emphasizes the 'need for caution when thinking about the possibilities of a large-scale successful hoax’. It was largely their experience of hoaxing in the UFO scene which had suggested caution in their dealings with the circles: there have been many hoaxes perpetrated on gullible UFO researchers. Andrews and Delgado discuss hoaxing in Circular Evidence: ‘It is perfectly natural to ask if the circles are hoaxes, but very difficult to explain why they cannot be hoaxed satisfactorily. ' They go on to describe various attempts to simulate the flattening effect found in the 'real circles'. They concluded that it is impossible to artificially flatten crop without leaving tell-tale traces, such as damage to the plants and footprints and that there are ‘certain aspects of true circles that could never be produced... manually’. Their assertions are important because, appearing in a best-selling book and coming from two of the leading researchers, they became accepted as facts. Many other researchers made similar statements concerning the difficulty or impossibility of reproducing effects seen in the circles manually or mechanically and the ways in which genuine circles can be distinguished from hoaxes. There had been a number of well-known hoaxes - in particular the 1983 attempt by the Daily Express to fool their rival newspaper, the Daily Mirror, and the hoax at Bratton during Operation Blackbird - but, up until 1991, there was a large measure of agreement that, while hoaxing occurred, 'experts' were capable of distinguishing between man-made circles and the 'real thing’. In 1991, however, there were various developments that were to eventually cause a substantial revision of the assumptions described above. Articles in The Cerealogist by Peter Williams and Ken Brown drew attention to the existence of a number of issues which were highly suggestive of human 7. Hoax! The Circlemakers are appearing.’ Development of hoax theory involvement in the circles. Williams was a veteran 'sky watcher' during the UFO flap that surrounded Warminster. Like Randles