Nexus - 0706 - New Times Magazine-pages

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— FORMATIVE FIELDS — UK Crop Circes oF 2000 FORMATIVE FIELDS Crop CIRCLES 2000 This year’s bountiful yield of crop glyphs featured circular, triangular, diamond-shaped and grid-like patterns as well as some unusual optical effects. n 1990, the crop circle mystery burst into the international media with a flurry of utterly extraordinary patterns etched into the fields. Until then, the phenomenon had been just another quaint, Fortean eccentricity; but these new arrivals leapt from the formerly simple circles and rings into an inexplicable evolution of complex designs which would blossom and develop over the next 10 years. As the century turned and another decade began, expectations were high that the phe- nomenon would take another quantum leap. It didn't quite happen like that, but the con- tinuing progress of its serene, upward curve ensured that the marvels of the 2000 crop cir- cle season were no disappointment. Things took a while to get going, with just a handful of formations gracing the fields between April and June, but of these, on 20 May, Alton Barnes—the classic circle-site of old—yielded up a sign of things to come with a pentagonal design which played 3D tricks with the eyes. The era of optical-illusion crop formations had dawned and would be followed up with some truly mesmerising patterns later in the summer. A chequerboard grid of rectangles at Windmill Hill on 18 June gave the startling effect of simultaneously appearing as a sphere. A "Chinese puzzle" emblem, which arrived at Bishops Cannings on the same night, resembled three pentagrams seen in perspective, clinging to the surface of another sphere. The incorporation of triangles in crop designs also became commonplace. One such example arrived next to the West Kennett longbarrow near Avebury on 2 June. Initially unimpressive with a very messy lay, the triangular outline which appeared there, ringed with 12 flattened smaller triangles, suddenly surprised everyone on 3 June by transform- ing itself overnight into an exquisite emblem of standing and flattened areas, the formerly haphazard lay miraculously combed into good order! In fact, the whole Kennett/Silbury Hill area was very much the major hotbed of circular activity this year, with virtually every other field in a square mile being visited by a formation. Mystics say this was due to a cylindrical shaft suddenly and unexpectedly opening up in the top of the ancient and mysterious Silbury Hill itself. Though this was almost certainly due, in part at least, to the shoddy workmanship over 200 years ago of treasure-hunting excavators who didn't fill in their diggings properly and simply plugged the top, many felt that potent forces were released when the plug finally collapsed inwards. Strange lights were seen over the Hill in the weeks preceding the hole's arrival. Whatever the real circumstances (however mundane) behind the subsidence, those who believe Silbury to be an accumulator of "Earth energy" hold that its unexpected opening must have led to a significant release of the focused natural power that fires up this sacred landscape. Of the formations which appeared in this hotspot, the most shattering was a grid, like a circuit board, comprising 1,600 rectangular components, which appeared at East Kennett on 2 July. The geometrical logic of how one would go about creating such a pattern— with merging sections of standing squares becoming flattened squares—troubled even the best crop circle geometers. On the ground, one could not make head nor tail of how the design worked, nor of how any human could possibly have attempted it. This formation, with its unique qualities, actually grabbed the attention of the newspa- pers; but the media, except for publishing one or two more positive pieces, soon slipped back into the easy scepticism which circle enthusiasts have come to expect, with a variety of hoax-promoting articles and letters. Several man-made circles were allegedly filmed in the making, the plan being for the footage to be broadcast later on television—to the Introduction by Andy Thomas © 2000 Southern Circular Research 13 Downsview Cottages Cooksbridge, East Sussex BN8 4TA, UK E-mail: SCR@landl.freeserve.co.uk Images from Crop Circle Connector website: www.cropcircleconnector.com Images from Crop Circle Connector website: www.cropcircleconnector.com NEXUS - 61 OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 2000