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GENIUS IN THE FIELDS THE Crop Circes oF 2003 GENIUS FIELDS THE Crop CIRCLES THE 2003 An unusually warm summer in the UK shortened this year's crop circle season, but exciting new themes still emerged and formations were seen in much greater numbers in Europe as well as the USA. ast year had been a renaissance time for crop circles as far as the public was con- cerned, largely due to the impact of the Hollywood blockbuster film, Signs, which ensured that the phenomenon was plastered across our newspapers and television screens more than ever before. As a result, there were more minds focused towards the fields this season than in recent years. However, despite high expec- tations, 2003 was much quieter than anticipated, in the UK at least, where eyes are tradi- tionally cast to catch the most prolific and spectacular designs. The very hot English summer encouraged the crops in the fields to ripen early this year, and the combines stripped the canvas away so quickly that by mid-August there were vir- tually no fields left standing. This shaved almost two to three weeks off the usual length of an average UK crop circle season (which can sometimes stretch into September), leav- ing researchers and enthus: feeling rather bereft. General opinion tended towards the view that the season lacked some of the truly stunning masterpieces we have come to expect, and didn't deliver a "grand finale" as such. That said, the year still produced a variety of spectacular and intriguing designs that 10 years ago would have shocked and been marvelled at; so perhaps we have become rather too used to genius at work in our fields. Research into biological effects in circle-affected crop continues to show anomalous effects in many cases—effects which are yet to be reproduced by hoaxers. The human demonstrations continue to fall short of the standards seen in so many of the masterpieces that have appeared more mysteriously. The quality of the lay in these formations is still unsurpassed by the claimants’ work, and the long hours taken to create the human efforts challenges the idea that all crop formations are made in this way. We still have an extra- ordinary mystery before us. So what were the highlights of 2003? The year started on exactly the same date as the previous season, when a single circle in oilseed rape arrived at Ringmer in Sussex around 12th April, though it was not the first to be reported. That honour went to Privett in Hampshire, the day after: a curious, ringed figure-of-eight with a broken flow, looking a little like a metal puzzle. The first truly stunning formation of the season took the ring-of-rope idea started the year before at Alton Priors in Wiltshire and developed it further at Windmill Hill on 7th June. These designs are virtually impossible to draw on paper without a fine grid of criss- crossing lines over them, yet there is no evidence that such a technique was used in the field. Similar, if less well executed, geometrical themes would be used towards the end of the season at Alton Barnes and again at Alton Priors. On 15th June, a beautiful six-armed emblem of radiating crescents arrived at Ogbourne St George, and became the latest in a long line of formations to have strange balls of light videoed hovering over and around them, taken this year by Stuart Dyke of the Crop Circle Connector website. These small white balls of light are seen every year in association with crop circles and continue to mystify and amaze, though their origins remain unknown. Over the next few weeks, some intriguing themes and geometrical delights were pro- duced, but they were not all confined to the usual Wiltshire heartlands. On 21st June, much further north at Thornborough in North Yorkshire, a very complex emblem of clus- tered half-rings in a floral design appeared right next to the ancient site of Thornborough Henge. Many researchers saw this as a protest from the circlemaking sources, as the Henge is currently threatened with partial destruction due to quarrying and a campaign is by Andy Thomas © 2003 Swirled News Southern Circular Research 13 Downsview Cottages Cooksbridge, East Sussex, BN8 4TA United Kingdom Websites: http://www.swirlednews.com http://www. vitalsignspublishing.co.uk NEXUS = 55 by Andy Thomas © 2003 OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 2003 www.nexusmagazine.com