Editing Crop circle (section)

== History ==

=== Before the 20th century ===

A 1678 news pamphlet ''[[Mowing-Devil|The Mowing-Devil: or, Strange News Out of Hartfordshire]]'' describes a crop whose stalks were cut rather than bent.<ref name=dutch /> (see [[#Folklore|folklore section]]).

In 1686, an English [[naturalist]], [[Robert Plot]], reported on rings or arcs of mushrooms (see [[fairy ring]]s) in ''The Natural History of Stafford-Shire'', proposing air flows from the sky as a cause.<ref name=NatHist>{{cite book |author= John Aubrey |url= http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04/nhwil10.txt |title= The Natural History of Stafford-Shire |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070402233131/http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04/nhwil10.txt |archive-date= 2 April 2007 |df= dmy-all }} at [[Project Gutenberg]]</ref><ref name=PhiloTrans>{{cite journal |title= ''The Natural History of Staffordshire'' by Robert Plott; ''Sciotericum Telescopicum or a new Contrivance of adapting a Telescope to a Horizontall Diall, for observing the moment of time by day or night'' by Will Molineux |journal= Philosophical Transactions |volume= 16 |issue= 1686–1692 |jstor= 101866 |pages= 207–16 |department= Accounts of Books|year= 1686 }}</ref> In 1991, meteorologist Terence Meaden linked this report with modern crop circles, a claim that has been compared with those made by [[Erich von Däniken]].{{refn|group=n|Keving Greene wrote, <blockquote>The difficulties that exist in communicating the results of archaeology have undoubtedly contributed to the flourishing of writers, such as Erich von Däniken, who take a particular delight in deriding the inability of 'experts' to find explanations that seize the imagination of the public. (...) Few archaeologists have sold as many paperbacks as von Däniken; more recently, a meteorologist who linked crop circles to prehistoric ring-ditches or round barrows generated a reaction that no orthodox student of these monuments has ever achieved (Meaden 1991) [in reference to {{cite book |author= T. Meaden |year= 1991 |title= The Goddess of the Stones: The Language of the Megaliths |location= London |publisher= Souvenir Press}}]<ref>{{cite book |title= Archaeology: An Introduction: The History, Principles and Methods of Modern Archaeology |author= Kevin Greene |edition= 3, fully revised |publisher= Routledge |year= 1995 |isbn= 0203447204 |url= http://mey.homelinux.org/companions/Kevin%20Greene/Archaeology_%20An%20Introduction,%20The%20Histor%20(401)/Archaeology_%20An%20Introduction,%20The%20Histor%20-%20Kevin%20Greene.pdf |ref= {{harvid|Greene|1995}} }}{{dead link|date=March 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref></blockquote>}}

An 1880 letter to the editor of ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' by amateur scientist [[John Rand Capron]] describes how several circles of flattened crops in a field were formed under suspicious circumstances and possibly caused by "cyclonic wind action", stating "as viewed from a distance, circular spots (...) they all presented much the same character, viz, a few standing stalks as a centre, some prostrate stalks with their heads arranged pretty evenly in a direction forming a circle round the centre, and outside there a circular wall of stalks which had not suffered".{{refn|name="Capron1880"|group=n|John Rand Capron wrote, <blockquote>The storms about this part of Surrey have been lately local and violent, and the effects produced in some instances curious. Visiting a neighbour's farm on Wednesday evening (21st), we found a field of standing wheat considerably knocked about, not as an entirety, but in patches forming, as viewed from a distance, circular spots (...) they all presented much the same character, viz, a few standing stalks as a centre, some prostrate stalks with their heads arranged pretty evenly in a direction forming a circle round the centre, and outside there a circular wall of stalks which had not suffered. (...) I could not trace locally any circumstances accounting for the peculiar forms of the patches in the field, nor indicating whether it was wind or rain, or both combined, which had caused them, beyond the general evidence everywhere of heavy rainfall. They were suggestive to me of some cyclonic wind action, and may perhaps have been noticed elsewhere by some of your readers.<ref>{{cite journal |doi= 10.1038/022290d0 |bibcode= 1880Natur..22..290C |title= Storm Effects |url= http://www.iccra.org/Historical%20Research/Storm%20Effects_Nature_1880_J_Rand_Capron.pdf |year= 1880 |author= John Rand Capron |journal= Nature |volume= 22 |issue= 561 |page= [https://books.google.com/books?id=CJlFAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA290 290]|s2cid= 4078005 }} Retrieved from {{cite web |title= Nature archive for the decade 1880–1889 |url= http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/currentdecade.html?decade=1880&year=1880 |work= nature.com |publisher= Nature |access-date= 23 August 2011}} Republished in {{cite journal |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=BGIdAQAAIAAJ |title= A case of genuine crop circles dating from July 1880 – as published in Nature in the year 1880 |journal= Journal of Meteorology |volume= 25 |pages= 20–21 |date=January 2000}}</ref></blockquote>}}

=== 20th century ===
In 1932, archaeologist E. C. Curwen observed four dark rings in a field at Stoughton Down near Chichester, but could examine only one: "a circle in which the barley was [[Lodging (agriculture)|'lodged']] or beaten down, while the interior area was very slightly mounded up."<ref>Sussex Notes and Queries, 1937 Eliot Cecil Curwen pp. 139–40</ref>

In ''[[Fortean Times]],'' David Wood reported that in 1940 he made crop circles near [[Gloucestershire]] using ropes.<ref>{{harvnb|Eddie|2004}} citing: {{cite journal |author=D. Wood |year=2000 |title=Pioneer pranksters? |journal=[[Fortean Times]] |volume=131 |issue=52}}</ref> 

In 1963, [[Patrick Moore]] described a crater in a potato field in Wiltshire that he considered was probably caused by an unknown meteoric body. In nearby wheat fields, there were several circular and elliptical areas where the wheat had been flattened. There was evidence of "spiral flattening". He thought they could be caused by air currents from the impact, since they led towards the crater.<ref>Moore P. 'That Wiltshire Crater' Letter to the editor ''New Scientist'' 8 August 1963
{{blockquote|1=In the adjoining wheatfields were other features, taking the form of circular or elliptical areas in which the wheat had been flattened. I saw these myself; they had not been much visited, and were certainly peculiar One, very well-defined, was an oval 15 yards long by 41 broad. There was evidence of "spiral flattening", and in one case there was a circular area in the centre in which the wheat had not been flattened. In no case was there any evidence of an actual depression in the ground.

(...) [The crater] could have been caused by natural subsidence, but it did not give that impression, and in any case there are the areas of flattened wheat to be taken into account; it would be remarkable coincidence if these areas were not associated with the crater. Since the areas of flattened wheat "led" to the crater, it looks very much as though they, and the crater, were caused by something which came from the sky. In this case, the wheat would have been flattened by violent air-currents produced by the falling body.}}
</ref> Astronomer [[Hugh Ernest Butler]] observed similar craters and said they were likely caused by lightning strikes.<ref>Hugh Ernest Butler 'That Wiltshire Crater', ''New Scientist'' issue 352, 15 August 1963 Letters to the editor</ref>

During the 1960s, there were many reports of UFO sightings and circular formations in swamp reeds and sugarcane fields in [[Tully, Queensland]], Australia, and in Canada.<ref name=skepticssa/> For example, on 8 August 1967, three circles were found in a field in [[Duhamel, Alberta]], Canada; [[Department of National Defence (Canada)|Department of National Defence]] investigators concluded that it was artificial but couldn't say who made them or how.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/ufo/002029-1200-e.html |title= Canada's Unidentified Flying Objects: The Search for the Unknown: Duhamel, Alberta: August 1967 |date= 14 December 2007 |orig-year= 2005}} At Library and Archives Canada. ([http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/ovni/002029-1200.01-f.html Original] in French).</ref> The most famous case is the 1966 Tully "saucer nest", when a farmer said he witnessed a saucer-shaped craft rise {{convert|30 or 40|ft|m|0|abbr=on|order=flip}} from a swamp and then fly away. On investigating he found a nearly circular area {{convert|32|ft|m|0|abbr=on|order=flip}} long by {{convert|25|ft|m|0|abbr=on|order=flip}} wide where the grass was flattened in clockwise curves to water level within the circle, and the reeds had been uprooted from the mud.<ref name=skepticssa>{{cite web |author= Laurie Eddie |date= 4 November 2004 |url= http://www.skepticssa.org.au/html/cropcircles.html |title= The Skeptics SA Guide to: Crop circles |work= Skepticssa.org.au. |publisher= Skeptics SA |access-date= 2012-01-01 |ref= {{harvid|Eddie|2004}} |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110823020100/http://www.skepticssa.org.au/html/cropcircles.html |archive-date= 23 August 2011 |url-status= dead }}</ref> The local police officer, the [[Royal Australian Air Force]], and the [[University of Queensland]] concluded that it was most probably caused by natural causes, like a down draught, a [[willy-willy]] (dust devil), or a [[waterspout]].{{Citation needed|date=October 2023}} In 1973, G.J. Odgers, Director of Public Relations, Department of Defence (Air Office), wrote to a journalist that the "saucer" was probably debris lifted by a willy-willy.

After the 1960s, there was a surge of UFOlogists in [[Wiltshire]], and there were rumours of "saucer nests" appearing in the area, but they were never photographed.<ref name="smithsonian" /> There are other pre-1970s reports of circular formations, especially in Australia and Canada, but they were always simple circles, which could have been caused by whirlwinds.<ref name="skepticssa" /> 

British pranksters Doug Bower and Dave Chorley reported they started creating crop circles in British cornfields in 1978, inspired by the Tully "saucer nest" case.<ref name="dutch" /><ref name="skepticssa" /><ref>{{cite book |title= The Demon-Haunted World |author= Carl Sagan |author-link= Carl Sagan |year= 1997 |pages= 72–76|isbn= 0747251568 |publisher= [[Headline Publishing Group]] |ref= {{harvid|Sagan|1997}}|title-link= The Demon-Haunted World }}</ref><ref name="NGEO" /><ref name="smithsonian">{{cite web |author1= Rob Irving |author2= Peter Brookesmith |url= http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Crop-Circles-The-Art-of-the-Hoax.html |title= Crop Circles: The Art of the Hoax |work= Smithsonian.com |date= December 15, 2009 |access-date= 20 December 2012 |archive-date= 12 November 2013 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131112171948/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Crop-Circles-The-Art-of-the-Hoax.html |url-status= dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title= The flattened crops society |work= [[The Scotsman]] |date= September 7, 2002 | author= Jim Gilchrist |url= http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-12991491.html |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140611120139/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-12991491.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= June 11, 2014 }}</ref>

The first film to depict a geometric crop circle, in this case created by super-intelligent ants, was the 1974 science-fiction film ''[[Phase IV (1974 film)|Phase IV]]''. The film has been cited as a possible inspiration or influence on the pranksters who started this phenomenon.<ref>Pilkington, Mark (2010) "History, the Hive Mind, and Agrarian Art". In ''The Anomalist'', Vol. 14. http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/4106/</ref>

The majority of reports of crop circles have appeared and spread since the late 1970s<ref name=dutch>{{cite book |title= Reframing Dutch Culture: Between Otherness and Authenticity |series= Progress in European Ethnology |author1= Peter Jan Margry |author2= Herman Roodenburg |edition= illustrated |publisher= [[Ashgate Publishing]] |year= 2007 |pages= 150–151 |isbn= 978-0-7546-4705-8 |ref= {{harvid|Margry & Roodenburg|2007}}}}</ref> as many circles began appearing throughout the English countryside. This phenomenon became widely known in the late 1980s, after the media started to report crop circles in [[Hampshire]] and Wiltshire. After Bower and Chorley gave interviews in 1991 about how they had made crop circles, circles started appearing all over the world.<ref name="Taylor2011" /> By 2001, approximately 10,000 crop circles have been reported internationally, from locations such as the former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, the U.S., and Canada. Researchers have noted a correlation between crop circles, recent media coverage, and the absence of fencing and/or anti-trespassing legislation.<ref>{{cite news | title = Disease brings poor crop of circles | newspaper = BBC News | date = 2001-08-17 | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1496296.stm | access-date = 2007-02-08}}</ref>

Although farmers expressed concern at the damage caused to their crops, local response to the appearance of crop circles was often enthusiastic, with locals taking advantage of the increase of tourism and visits from scientists, crop circle researchers, and individuals seeking spiritual experiences.<ref name="NGEO">{{cite news |author=Hillary Mayell |date=2 August 2002 |title=Crop circles: Artwork or alien signs |page=[https://web.archive.org/web/20051116211153/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0801_020801_cropcircles_2.html 2] |magazine=National Geographic |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0801_020801_cropcircles.html |url-status=dead |access-date=28 October 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111115211610/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0801_020801_cropcircles.html |archive-date=15 November 2011}}</ref> The market for crop circle interest consequently generated bus or helicopter tours of circle sites, walking tours, T-shirts, and book sales.

=== 21st century ===
Since the start of the 21st century, crop formations have increased in size and complexity, with some featuring as many as 2,000 different shapes<ref name="Taylor2011" /> and some incorporating complex mathematical and scientific characteristics.<ref>{{cite news |author= Benjamin Radford |url= http://www.livescience.com/6546-beautiful-math-equation-crop-circle.html |title= 'Beautiful Math Equation' Found in Crop Circle |work= [[LiveScience]] |date= 8 June 2010 |access-date= 2012-01-01}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author= Marc West |date= 2008-06-30 |url= http://plus.maths.org/content/pi-appears-crop-circle |title= Pi appears in crop circle |work= plus.maths.org. |access-date= 2012-01-01}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/crop-circle-season-arrives-with-a-mathematical-message-1982647.html |title= Crop circle season arrives with a mathematical message |department= This Britain |newspaper= The Independent |date= 2010-05-26 |access-date= 2012-01-01}}</ref>

The researcher Jeremy Northcote found that crop circles in the UK in 2002 were not spread randomly across the landscape. They tended to appear near roads, areas of medium-to-dense population, and cultural heritage monuments such as [[Stonehenge]] or [[Avebury]]. He found that they always appeared in areas that were easy to access. This suggests strongly that these crop circles were more likely to be caused by intentional human action than by paranormal activity. Another strong indication of that theory was that inhabitants of the zone with the most circles had a historical tendency for making large-scale formations, including stone circles such as Stonehenge, earthen mounds such as [[Silbury Hill]], long barrows such as [[West Kennet Long Barrow]], and [[:Category:White horses in England|white horses in chalk hills]].<ref name="northcote"/>