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Gifts in the Fields Crop Circles OF 2008 Gifts the Fields Crop CIRCLES 2008 ads come and go and mysteries rise and subside, but, despite the constant attacks from sceptics or damage from plain media ignorance, against all the odds the crop circle phenomenon somehow continues to entrance its devotees after all these years. From simple circles in lonely fields in the earlier years to the sudden explosion of complex glyphs and subsequent wide public fascination in 1990, the development of this never less than intriguing puzzle has seen the rise and fall of many design genres and styles, but always there has been a sense of a constant, slow progression of evolution towards...something. The dismissive view that all works of this mystery are merely human art (inevitably one still fostered by the usual dedicated debunkers) is countered in too many cases with evidence biological, statistical and geometrical that suggests something else at work outside the mundane. Whatever the case, the fact remains that, whether one believes the circles are patterns of nature, projections of collective consciousness by physical or metaphysical means or intelligent encoded communications from a great beyond, the view that the crop formations are heralds of some coming time of huge change, perhaps connected to the many predictions now surrounding the year 2012, has come to predominate the scene. But with that message now rightly or wrongly successfully lodged in so many minds, the phenomenon has seemingly reached some kind of plateau, as if it has done the bulk of its set-up work and is now biding its time to await either closure or the dawning of something even more momentous than spectacular glyphs. During the summer in England, the fields were graced with beautiful, precision-made crop formations, one of them apparently depicting planetary positions for the December 2012 northern winter solstice. An enthusiastic response Last year I described the crop formations of 2007 as a "holding operation", a consistent supply of beautiful yet not shockingly groundbreaking designs which kept the faithful happy and continued to bring a modest influx of new enthusiasts into an awareness of something very curious going on in their world. I also suggested that 2008 was likely to be much the same, and that has turned out to be a fair prediction. This season has seen another run of ambitious and striking formations but without any major developments, yet still offering plenty of crowd-pleasing elements. And please the crowds it did, with the crop circle phenomenon enjoying a surprisingly high profile in its UK heartlands (in contrast to 2006, when the press and its readers seemed inexplicably convinced the circles were dying away) and a seeming resurgence of buoyant enthusiasm firing up its aficionados. The annual crop circle coach tour of the longest-running circle-related gathering, the Glastonbury Symposium, had more subscribers than ever before. Meanwhile, the rejuvenated Silent Circle at Compton Bassett in Wiltshire—once the crop circle-themed cafe at Cherhill and now reborn in a new venue next to The White Horse Inn as a shop and information point—was a constant hive of activity. It saw a steady stream of visitors each day of the summer and held many by Andy Thomas © 2008 Southern Circular Research 3 Old House Courtyard Southover High Street Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1HT, UK info@vitalsignspublishing.co.uk Websites: http://www.vitalsignspublishing.co.uk http://www.swirlednews.com 3 Old House Courtyard Southover High Street Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1HT, UK info@vitalsignspublishing.co.uk Websites: NEXUS ¢ 57 by Andy Thomas © 2008 Southern Circular Research OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 2008 www.nexusmagazine.com