Back in the 1990s, I spent a lot of time running around England in search of Crop Circles - chiefly in the circle-saturated county of Wiltshire, but sometimes elsewhere too. One of the things that interests me is the perception that many people have of Crop Circles - namely, that they are huge, sprawling designs of intricate design. Well, yes, some of them are.
But, not all of them.
While the photo above shows a huge formation - taken by me at ground-level in the summer of 1997 - with Wiltshire's famous Silbury Hill in the background, the one below shows a very small Crop Circle, which I captured for posterity in a field in Staffordshire, England in the summer of 1999.
In this latter case, the "formation" (if you can call it that!) was brought to my attention by a local newspaper, after the farmer who owned the land stumbled across the intriguing little circle - which was no more than a few feet across.
A natural event? A Crop Circle of "Mini Me" proportions?
Whatever the answer, it raises a thought-provoking question: How many similar circles of the small kind are overlooked each year, simply due to the fact that - for the most part - they are almost impossible to see, unless you happen to have reason to be in the relevant field where it sits?
Perhaps, in a classic "not seeing the woods for the trees" scenario, the number of Crop Circles that manifest, appear or are made in England each and every year is far greater than we suspect.
But, while focusing on the huge formations that certainly make for spectacular photographs and that reel in the media and the tourists, we are missing the equally intriguing, but far smaller, ones...
Those 'mini-circles' actually look a lot like the 'original' crop circles that were found by Australian farmers in the 60s.
ReplyDeleteI put 'original' in quotes not because those were the first crop circles in history, but because they were the first thought to be connected to the UFO phenomenon.
Good point.
ReplyDeleteWhile even Colin Andrews himself has long said he happily admits most, and recently admitted he could concede all, crop circles are man-made, there are still some which defy any attempt to find any evidence of having been made by anyone or anything. Generally, they are the smaller, simpler ones, like the one you show here.
"But, while focusing on the huge formations that certainly make for spectacular photographs and that reel in the media and the tourists, we are missing the equally intriguing, but far smaller, ones..."
That's an interesting point - good food for thought. Thanks for making it.
I like the background you've used on this page, too - 'Europe at Night'. I've always thought of pictures like this as a good way of seeing how close to the fire you are: as insects are attracted to (insectocutor) lights at night, so are people drawn to cities - the closer you are to a big light, the more likely you are to get burnt.