Nexus - 1306 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

CryPTiCc CANVASES Crop Circies OF 2006 CRYPTIC CANVASES Crop CIRCLES 2006 Despite the slowest start to England's crop circle season for many years, several masterpieces appeared with stunning features including radiating rectangular boxes and time-tunnel effects. bring, with excitement, anticipation and cynicism in equal amounts as eyes turn to the fields and the stems begin to grow high enough to receive their annual dose of cryptically compressed patterns. But for long-time aficionados of the English crop circle phenomenon, 2006 began on a worrying note. In any given year, the UK can usually expect to have at least a handful of crop formations in April, but this year it took until 21st May for the first official sighting, only just sneaking inside the post-1980s record of 23rd May 1990 as the latest start. And this first event of 2006 was little to write home about: a rather rough-looking ring in oilseed rape (canola) at Alfriston, East Sussex. Actually, this was the second English event of the year, not the first: that honour went rather dubiously to a man-made logo created for a Wiltshire newspaper (the photo was published on 18th May)—not the greatest opening to a | i year there is a flurry of speculation as to what the next crop circle season will season. Though the rapeseed fields were late to bloom this spring, there were certainly enough prime canvases for early May formations to have appeared, yet none did. It took weeks for things to pick up. Other countries as far afield as Italy and even Australia (which had the first global formations of the year on 29th March at Conondale, Queensland) seemed to have early activity, but the main circle regions of the UK were strangely quiet until mid-June. Emails and web postings stirred the circle community, as concerned enthusiasts wondered where their favourite phenomenon had gone and what exactly it was up to. Various explanations were offered concerning the weather, changes in the magnetic fields of the Earth, reluctant ETs...and lazy plankers. Interestingly, many people missed one of the more ikely explanations: the water table. It is well recognised that the majority of crop formations cluster around the main aquifers (water-holding geological strata) in the UK, and many believe that natural energy generated by the water contributes to their creation. In 2006, the UK suffered the driest conditions since 1976: could this have been an important factor? Inevitably, some of the human circlemakers—who would have the world believe that they are the sole creators of the whole mystery—were obliged to proffer their own explanation for the low circle numbers, and news in the spring of the unfortunate suicide of a Wiltshire man who had allegedly helped create a number of patterns over the years (though few had heard of him before his death) provided the excuse they needed. His loss and the apparent ow morale which followed were claimed in some quarters as the reason for the lack of circular activity (an interesting change from an earlier credited reason from one planker: "hay fever"). This was not taken particularly seriously in the cerealogical community, but the newspapers leapt on the suicide story late in the day a few months on with a burst of reliably unbalanced press stories appearing in July, screaming that the phenomenon was on its way out and that the morbid demise of a hoaxer was one of the main reasons. Certain other human circlemakers, however, confusingly dissented from this position; their need to keep the phenomenon's profile high was doubtless stimulated by the forthcoming publication of their circle-debunking book on the "philosophy of human crop circle making". The irony of the claims that the circles were fading rapidly was that by the time these headlines appeared, the numbers of formations, while certainly lower than in many other years, were substantially catching up and the fields were being visited by an array of eclectic and inspiring designs which seemed lost on an ignorant media. Though the generally less circle-visited counties of Norfolk and Kent had unexpectedly produced a rush of unusual activity in early June, it took until the end of that month for the by Andy Thomas © 2006 Swirled News Southern Circular Research 3 Old House Courtyard Southover High Street Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1HT, UK Email: info@swirlednews.com Websites: http://www.swirlednews.com http://www. vitalsignspublishing.co.uk by Andy Thomas © 2006 Swirled News Southern Circular Research 3 Old House Courtyard Southover High Street Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1HT, UK NEXUS +59 OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 2006 www.nexusmagazine.com