Alan Watson of Banbury has informed me of the first crop circle to appear in 1993 - an 18 metre diameter circle at Aston Rowant, just north of the M40 in Oxfordshire (OSGR SU 717984). Alan first saw the circle on the afternoon of Sunday 2nd May as he drove northwards along the M40. The circle was in oilseed rape and exhibited a 2 metre diameter central portion that was untouched. The rape was shoulder height but the crop was broken and damaged - a sure sign of hoaxing. Around the rim stems were laid down in a distinctive manner that contradicted the flow within the circle- almost as if the hoaxers had laid the outer rim first and then worked inwards. Readers will recall that in CW10 & 12 we exposed the activities of the Amersham group of hoaxers - seen creating the Butlers Cross quintuplet and caught leaving a field near Amersham shortly after a newly formed circle was discovered. Hoaxers frequently choose sites to obtain maximum publicity - this formation is in full sight of the motorway, although Alan tells me that the formation is invisible to people walking along nearby public footpaths. Also, this sounds like another weekend job - a few pints at the nearest pub then down the farm for some rolling around. Well, something like that anyway. If you see circles in your area please let us know, we need to keep track of the hoaxers and we are keeping the NFU informed of developments. Our thanks to Alan for his help. Also, Terence Meaden tells me that a 50 foot circle with 7 small outliers appeared near Saltford in Avon at the beginning of May. Without wishing to point any fingers it seems strange to me that there is a very active local crop circle group. Perhaps the "aliens" are trying to tell us something ?
Well, for those of you who read this sad rag I expect you
won't have been too surprised to see the torrent of abuse and
invective printed on page 26 of the winter issue by Editor John
Michell. Those of us on the meteorological wing of the crop
circle movement discovered long ago that to dare to question the
wisdom of the cerealogists was to invite a public flaying at
every opportunity. In his revealing interview Doug Bower comes to
pretty much the same conclusion that we did, that such tactics
come from people who seem to have lost more than just their
public credibility. The more sane UFOlogists get used to it, so
I'm not going to become involved in a slanging match. However, as
John Michell still refuses to withdraw errors of fact made in his
"studious" magazine, here, for the record, is the
letter I sent to Michell on November 10th 1992:
"Dear John, I was very amused to read your comments about how Dr Meaden has apparently 'left the [crop circle] scene', and how The Crop Watcher has 'bravely survived the decline of the plasma vortex theory to which it was originally dedicated and now makes a wider, humbler, more questioning approach to the phenomenon'. You seem to have an uncanny knack at rewriting crop circle history whilst avoiding some of the more unpalatable truths about the crop circle phenomenon. Despite what you say Dr Meaden and his meteorological collaborators (eg Kikuchi, Ohtsuki and Snow) are still conducting scientific research into the plasma vortex theory, having recently presented a paper to the Twentieth General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics in Vienna. Despite what you say I am still happy to support a meteorological explanation for simpler crop circle patterns whilst continuing to entertain the delicious irony that many classic UFO cases may represent encounters with a mechanism similar to that being investigated by Meaden and his colleagues. I hope therefore that you will allow me to set the record straight following your somewhat inaccurate comments.
Despite what you say it is a matter of public record that Jenny Randles and myself have always considered hoaxing as a reasonable solution for at least some crop circles. We were the only researchers to write a book where an entire chapter was devoted to crop-circle hoaxing. On page 73 of this book we stated 'In our view, there is growing evidence that SOME aspects of the circles mystery are the product of .... a controlled hoax'. We also discussed hoaxing in numerous media interviews dating back to the mid 1980s. Unlike others we also debated the strength of eye witness testimony, suggesting that perhaps some crop circles were meteorologically produced whilst others were hoaxes. Our evaluation of the evidence has now been proven beyond doubt, although I accept that we have had to revise our estimate of the extraordinary degree of hoaxing as new evidence emerges. It has been very disappointing to see the vicious and libellous dismissal of the Doug and Dave claim by your chief correspondent, George Wingfield, the former 'consultant' to Flying Saucer Review.
Thanks to Wingfield's actions other researchers of a more moderate disposition have found it difficult to evaluate this staggering claim. Nevertheless as the Doug and Dave story emerges CERES has come to accept the claim that Doug Bower and Dave Chorley made between 200 and 250 circles across central southern England since the mid 1970s. We also accept that the United Bureau of Investigation made many dozens of formations across Wiltshire. We believe that as many as 99 per cent of all modern-day circles have been created by the numerous groups of hoaxers we have been exposing in The Crop Watcher during the past two years. Strangely, this unwelcome evidence has not appeared in The Cerealogist. Why not ? It seems that as the crop circle subject dies a slow and lingering death, those researchers who consistently ignored eye witness testimony and crucially important historical evidence are also guilty of encouraging mass crop circle hoaxing around the globe. This seems to be a fitting epitaph for those flying saucer believers who refused to learn the lessons of history and who succeeded in blackening UFOlogy's name once more. In fifty years time scholars will rediscover the crop circle debate and will cast judgement on us all. When this time comes it will be interesting to see how The Cerealogist, The Circular and The Crop Watcher will be judged by historians of the subject. I for one have no regrets. The real question now is do you. Yours, etc."
Well, John Michell seemed to take exception to this
submission, and eventually responded on December 4th 1992:
"Dear Paul, Thank you for your letter. I was inclined to print it, but then I saw your mendacious [ie dishonest, PF] references to The Cerealogist having yearnings towards extraterrestrialism, being super-naturally inclined and so on. Since you should know full well that we have no yearnings or inclinations in any direction except towards assessing the evidence in search of the truth, your remarks are wilfully spiteful and unwarranted. I shall comment on them in the next issue.
You should acknowledge that we pioneered hoax theory [sic], publishing the first full statement of it, by Peter Williams, at a time when you were thinking and writing only about the 'plasma vortex', and running the Ken Brown series [sic]. Many readers have complained that we give far too much time to hoax theory [sic]. I merely try to reflect what is going on and am not, like you, a True Believer in anything [sic !!!].
I shall include a kind reference to The Crop Watcher in the next issue, especially Peter Rendall's amusing piece, hoping that all continues well with it and you. Despite claiming 'a Mystery Solved' I am sure you are as confused and uncertain about this phenomenon as is every other honest person. You should not be afraid to say so. Yours Sincerely, JM."
So, according to John Michell, The Cerealogist has
"no yearnings or inclinations in any direction except
towards assessing the evidence in search of the truth". Why
then has The Cerealogist failed to interview the two dozen
or so eye witnesses, or the numerous farmers we have spoken to
who recall seeing crop circles on their parent's land dating back
to the 1930s and beyond ? If The Cerealogist has "no
yearnings or inclinations in any direction" why has Michell
failed to publish (or comment on) the map we published in CW12
describing the two dozen (groups of) hoaxers known to be at work
in Southern Britain ? And if The Cerealogist is really
only interested in "assessing the evidence in search of the
truth", why does the extensive pre 1980 evidence not form a
central part of that analysis ? We invite readers to write in and
comment on Michell's facetious claims. But there is more ....
Astonishingly, Michell claims that his magazine "pioneered
the hoax theory" by publishing pro-hoax articles by Peter
Williams [issue 3, pages 10-11, Spring 1991] and both Williams
and Ken Brown [issue 5, pages 11-14, Winter 1991/92]. Michell
must have forgotten the fact that Jenny Randles first discussed
hoaxing as a solution in Northern UFO News way back in
July/August 1984 ["Mr Mossop (the farmer) ought to seriously
consider suing the press and daring them to print such twaddle
again next July/August when (I safely predict) some other moron
will fake more 'landing pad marks' to get his name in the
papers."]. Michell also seems to have forgotten that in July
1991 (two months before Doug and Dave went public) I had
dismissed "up to 50 per cent" of British crop circles
as hoaxes (in The Independent on Sunday, 18th August
1991).
I find it difficult to understand how John Michell can have
missed the article I wrote in April 1987 in the newsstand
magazine Exploring The Supernatural (Vol 1 Issues 9 and
10), where I debated crop circle hoaxing at length. I stated
"This quandary leaves us with one of two possibilities.
Either all circles are created by hoaxers, and there are several
teams of hoaxers at work in several countries over many years; or
else only a few circles are created by hoaxers, and the majority
must be caused by something else." My article discussed the
1983 hoax by the Daily Mirror at Westbury, and the
possible collusion of the Daily Mail in the suspected-hoax
at Alfriston [now known to be one of Doug and Dave's creations].
I also queried the authenticity of the 1986 Childrey circle [also
claimed by Doug and Dave] as well as the Headbourne Worthy
single. I concluded "If it can be shown that complex
formations have the same temporal and spatial distributions as
the single established circles, then it seems that a 'natural'
theory (in particular the whirlwind theory) can reasonably
account for all but the proven hoaxed circles. If, on the other
hand, no complex sets can be found pre 1980, then I for one, will
remain sceptical of Dr Meaden's explanation for the more complex
mystery circles that have been appearing with such regularity
across the wheatfields of Southern England over the past few
years."
Well, you just have to give Michell credit for re-writing crop
circle history so comprehensively. But next Michell falsely
claims that when Peter Williams' article was published The
Crop Watcher was "writing only about the 'plasma
vortex'". Strange, because in issues 1-4 (all published well
before Williams' first article) we dismissed the Seghill Key as a
"hoax" (CW2), we featured a "Hoaxer's
Diary" (CW3) whilst Jenny Randles produced compelling
evidence that numerous circles were hoaxes in her "Informed
Circles" articles. Of course Michell also ignores the whole
chapter devoted to crop circle hoaxing in our book Crop
Circles, A Mystery Solved with his ad hominem attack.
To round off this slur Michell implies that I am not an honest
person. For someone who has spent eight full issues desperately
trying to keep unwelcome evidence from his readers this is the
action of someone who has seen his fondest dreams exposed as a
fantasy. Given the very obvious links between "The
Cerealogist" and flying saucer believers like George
Wingfield and Colin Andrews I refuse to withdraw my claim about
"yearnings towards extra-terrestrialism". As Kevin
McClure says in the current issue of The Wild Places, The
Cerealogist encapsulates "every-thing you wanted to know
about human fortitude in the face of adversity...", a
magazine that has resulted in the "true believers... putting
up the shutters. ... To put it simply, forget about genuine
research and investigation, there's another religion in the
making, and it's as daft as the rest of them...".
As for his other comments, well yes we certainly did make
mistakes. We were quite wrong to accept the commonly-held belief
that it was impossible to walk through mature crop at night
without leaving a trail. We were also wrong not to undertake
extensive experimentation of hoax techniques back in the mid
1980s. And we were wrong not to give up our careers and sit in
the copse at Cheesefoot Head every night throughout the summer
with a pair of infra-red binoculars waiting for Doug and Dave to
do their dirty deeds. We'll be examining our mistakes in a future
issue to see what can be learnt.
Finally Michell dismisses our conclusion that only a few
circles might be created by wind vortices as an argument that is
"obviously artificial, for there [is] no reason to single
out any particular kind of formation as more or less genuine than
any other." Once again Michell conveniently forgets the fact
that we have uncovered numerous claims by farmers who are
insistent that either they have seen simple crop circle patterns
being formed by atmospheric vortex mechanisms or who insist that
their parents and grand-parents knew that simple crop circle
patterns were caused by the wind. Some of this evidence was
uncovered by Ian Mrzyglod before Andrews and Delgado began
claiming in Flying Saucer Review that the phenomenon was
the result of a paranormal force directed by an "unknown
intelligence". The fact that this critical evidence has been
ruthlessly kept from The Cerealogist's readership says
more than I could ever say about Michell's Editorial policy. So,
come on John, stop the insults and start debating the evidence.
No one likes a bad loser ...
PS: If readers want to see what John Michell really
believes about the crop circles, read his Editorial in issue 4.
"The intelligence behind the phenomenon is beyond our
knowledge and control, ... we are inescapably subject to its
influence. That influence is clearly benign, even god-like...A
great power has arisen...We can now see something of what the
ancients meant when they spoke of revelation...". Golly, for
a moment there I thought I was reading Flying Saucer Review !!