Britain from the Air – Crop Circles
In 2008 one of Britain’s most complex crop circles appeared in Wroughton, Wiltshire. Measuring 150 feet across, it was said to be a coded diagram for the first 10 digits of ‘pi’ – 3.141592654
Fact or folklore?
The first crop circle ever reported was in 1678. According to the story, a farmer and a crop mower were arguing about the cost of harvesting the farmer’s oat field. The farmer was furious at the mower’s price, and stormed off swearing that the Devil himself should harvest the crop.
That night, a dazzlingt light lit up the oat field and in the morning the farmer discovered perfectly round circles in his crops. He was so frightened by the circles, which he thought could only have been so “neatly mowed by the Devil or some infernal spirit”, that he abandoned any attempt to harvest the field.
A phenomenon in British fields since the 17th century, crop circles continue to puzzle us. There have been many bizarre explanations for them. Some have said they are the work of aliens trying to communicate with us using symbols. Scientists have suggested tornadoes, lightning, plasma, and more convincing suggestions, such as wind, heat and animals.
Although there are many theories for why crop circles occur, most have been identified as pranks. Doug Bower and David Chorley admitted to creating 250 crop circles over 13 years using wooden planks and two lengths of string.
Fact or fiction?
One of Britain’s most enduring hoaxes is the Loch Ness Monster. A photo of the creature taken in 1934 by the surgeon Colonel Robert Wilson made its way into the papers and for decades was taken as evidence that a sea monster lived in Loch Ness. Wilson refused to have his name associated with the photograph, so it became known simply as ‘The Surgeon’s Photo’.
Finally in 1994, sixty years after the photograph first emerged, the truth came out. One of the men involved admitted to creating a model from a toy submarine fitted with a serpent head. The hoax was well planned; Colonel Wilson was chosen as a frontman because of his respected status.
‘Nessie’ is not Britain’s only hoax. In 1912 the skull of a “million year old” human was discovered in Piltdown, Sussex by an amateur archaeologist. Scientists believed this ‘Piltdown Man’ was the missing link between primates and humans. Then in 1953 it was exposed as a hoax. The skull fragments were only 500 years old, and the jaw bone belonged to an orangutan.
In 1917 two young girls produced photographic evidence of fairies living in the bottom of their garden. The pictures only emerged as hoaxes in the early 1980s when the women admitted to faking four of the pictures. They used paper cut outs propped up with hat pins. They insisted, however, that the fifth photo was real.
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England’s crop circle controversy
(Image credit: Krzysztof Dac/Getty Images)
Although these mysterious formations have appeared worldwide, south-west England is the unlikely world capital of crop circles, baffling locals and farmers alike.
Ears of wheat prickled my shins and the sun beat down on my neck as I trudged through the tractor lines of a golden field on Wiltshire’s Hackpen Hill. It was August – the height of crop circle season – and I’d been directed here by frenzied online reports of a new formation, which had appeared, as they are wont to do, overnight; apparently unseen by observers. From the ground, I could make out nothing but intersecting lines of trampled wheat – but photographed from above the pattern resembled a crosshair.
Was this the nexus for some kind of potent Earth energy? Or, terrifyingly, a target for extra-terrestrial weaponry? In this instance, something more mundane. “That’s the logo of the Barge Inn down in Honeystreet,” chuckled a fellow visitor, a potbellied man in a Dark Side of the Moon T-shirt. “Probably man-made, this one.”
Although such formations have appeared worldwide, from California to the rice paddies of Indonesia, south-west England is the world capital of crop circles. They are particularly concentrated in the county of Wiltshire, where a treasure trove of ancient history includes the Neolithic sites of Stonehenge and Avebury – both crop circle hotspots.
Carving artwork into the landscape is an age-old tradition in these parts; chalk horses adorn eight hillsides in Wiltshire; while the UK’s oldest geoglyph, the stunning Bronze Age Uffington White Horse, sits just across the border in Oxfordshire. Reports of mysterious patterns appearing in wheat, barley and corn fields in the area began to circulate in the 1970s, but it was in the late ’80s that the phenomenon exploded. Circles began to appear more frequently and became far more ornate: some resembled trippy fractals; others rune-like hieroglyphs; others stylised animals recalling those of the Nazca Lines in Peru.
The county of Wiltshire is home to around 80% of the UK’s crop circles (Credit: Daniel Stables)
The intricacy and size of the formations, coupled with the fact that they would appear overnight, seemingly out of nowhere, baffled locals and farmers alike. In 1996, a crop circle appeared opposite Stonehenge depicting a mathematical fractal called a Julia set; a similar formation that emerged on Milk Hill in 2001 was one of the largest ever, stretching 900ft. A 2008 formation near the Iron Age hill fort of Barbury Castle required decoding by an astrophysicist, who concluded that it was a geometric representation of the first 10 digits of pi.
The phenomenon peaked in the 1990s and early 2000s, but continues today; an average of 30 crop circles appear each year in the UK, around 80% of them in Wiltshire. Formations reported in 2021 have included a hexagonal pattern overlaid with spirals in Avebury, and a pattern of concentric “bubbles” in Tidworth Down. Crop circle season usually begins at the end of May, with the first ripening of the barley, and ends by September when the harvesting of the crops cuts away the circle canvasses.
Read More – England’s crop circle controversy
Crop Circle Hotspots
Veiled in mystery, crop circles multiply relentlessly, with an average of 30 formations emerging annually in the UK. Crop circle enthusiasts attribute them to ley lines—ancient pathways aiding navigation—while others perceive them as extraterrestrial messages, cautioning humanity about perils like climate change and nuclear war.
With this in mind, BonusFinder were intrigued to find out which counties across the UK boast the greatest abundance of these mysterious formations? They scraped records of crop circles since 2005, along with their location, crop type, and survey details in order to establish the county with the highest number of crop circles.
BonusFinder also collaborated with Monique Klinkenbergh, researcher and founder of the Crop Circle Visitor Centre & Exhibition, to help unveil some of the mystery surrounding crop circles.
Wiltshire is the UK crop circle hotspot! With its idyllic villages and the iconic Salisbury Cathedral, it surpasses all other counties, boasting a staggering 380 crop circles since 2005.
The South East county of Hampshire follows in second place with 51 crop circles.
It’s official! Wiltshire is the UK’s crop circle hotspot with an impressive 380 crop circles having appeared in the county since 2005. Crop circles in Wiltshire often emerge in fields of wheat and barley where shapes are flattened into the vegetation. The county’s idyllic rolling hills and farming land provide the ideal framework for these creations. The most recent formation in the county was observed on the 28th of May 2023 in Broad Hinton and is described as a six-fold spinner with standing ‘arms’ within a laid circle and a central unbroken ring of standing stems with a flattened centre.
The South East county of Hampshire comes second with 51 crop circles. Known for the historical Winchester Cathedral and expansive countryside, Hampshire is an ideal location for these mysterious formations. The designs range from simple circles and rings to elaborate patterns. The village of Chilcomb in Hampshire saw the most recent formation on the 12th of July 2022 with a series of laid circles and rings contained within a narrow outer ring.
In third place is the county of Oxfordshire with 35 crop circles recorded. Once again, the scenic countryside offers a perfect landscape for these formations with complex geometric designs leaving crop circle enthusiasts amazed. The most recent formation was discovered on the 9th of August 2020 in Uffington Castle and is described as a wheat formation with concentric, rotating, triangular elements around the central circle and standing ring.