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Touring the Crop Circles

MARLBOROUGH, July 20, 2008 - We spent the entire day today touring the various crop circles, both from the air and on the ground.  So far, it was by far the most interesting day so far, even though things also moved as slowly as ever.  Take a look...

On our way to the first crop circle sighting of the day in the East Field (rightmost photo - also see it later on from the air), we checked out some of the local fauna.  The white horses are famous in Wiltshire.  They are man-made sculptures.  The soil around here is so pale that it looks like pure white from the distance.  So people have removed the underbrush on some hills in the shape of giant white horses (two left shots).  As it turned out, we weren't alone observing that East Field crop circle.  A bunch of Angus beef steaks also peered at it from behind a barbed wire fence at a neighboring farm (middle right).

A Flying Shaman...

For me personally, what came next has been the biggest thrill so far on this trip.  Roeland drove a group of us to a grass airfield from which these tiny two-seater airplanes took people on aerial tour of the nearby crop circles.  Considering that it was quite cool this Sunday morning, I wore a poncho I had bought and brought home from Peru.  It's a good thing I did, too, because it was freezing up there in an open aircraft, even at just a 700 ft flying altitude. 

Meanwhile, I did look like a "flying shaman"...  And I loved every minute of it.  As some of you know, I have always been a "birdman."  The only other time I had a chance of really feeling like a bird was when I went parasailing at Catalina Island in June.  This was the second closest experience.  Take a look at the pictures above and below.

These airplanes are basically two-seat mopeds with wings.  And the wings are made of plastic.  About the only thing of substance on these aircraft is the engine which hangs on a pole above the windshield.  They don't even bother with doors.  "It makes it easier to take pictures," Chris, my pilot, explained.  "And to fall out, too," I suppose.  But I had no intention of trying to be an Icarus this morning.  Roeland took the two seated pictures.  They may look identical but Chris insisted that he take one of me after I had put on my headset.  "Now you look like a pilot," Chris said.  Well, looks can be deceiving.  We would not have gone very far if I had piloted this flying moped. :-)

Here are, taking off... (left), and then approaching our nearest crop circle, one of the most spectacular ones to have come down this year, only a few days ago (July 9).  Bert and Heather named it Quetzalquotl, a winged serpent that was believed to be God, according to Mayan mythology (see an artist's interpretation of it - right).  He has been always depicted as wearing the jester's cap with three floppy ends, which was a sign of deity to the Mayan kings.  You can see the same three floppy "pompoms" in each of the four wings of the above crop circle.  

What's also interesting about Quetzalquotl from a personal angle is that a couple of months ago, after I had returned from Montenegro, he appeared to me in a dream.  And I rarely remember anything I dream.  He also appeared in a voice as I was waking up.  At the time, I had no idea who he was.  I had to go to the Internet to look him up and research the Mayan mythology dealing with him.

From mythological to the three-dimensional world, later the same afternoon, I had a chance to talk to and through the Quetzalquotl crop circle (above).  You can see the amazing precision with which the barley helms are bent to form the exact design.  And the rightmost picture shows the jester's "pompoms" in their real size on the ground.  Notice the small clumps of helms left in the middle, no wider than a foot, to denote the center of the pompom?  Another example of the amazing precistion with with crop circles are carved into the fields.

And what you're about to see now is the crop circle that caused a buzz among the "croppies" all day.  For, Chris, my pilot, and I were among the first humans to see it from the ear.  It had only appeared a a short while before, probably in the pre-dawn hours.  Chris had noticed it only a few minutes before we saw it together for the first time.  It was also an amazingly elaborate designs - two large and four smaller circles, perfectly fitted within the large ones, looking like four eyes.  What was the message "they" were trying to give us with this design?  That's what's now occupying the minds of the many crop circle readers that are assembled here this year as every summer.  Feel free to join them in deciphering the message.  Crop circle decoding is an art not a science, and everyone is welcome to participate.  So let me know what you think.

What's not so apparent from the air as it is when one walks into this new crop circle on the ground (above pictures), are the spokes that radiate from inside each of the four smaller circles.  They are truly a fine art (right photo). They run alternatingly, as you can see, in and out of the circle in a way that you can imagine an artist drawing them without ever lifting his pencil from the pad.  I counted them to see if there may be a message in that.  The two nearest the road had 48 spokes in them.  The other two had 50 and 47 respectively.  Janet claims that nothing ever happens by accident when it comes to crop circle makers.  So I'll leave to you to puzzle out why the four circles weren't identical, at 48 spokes each, and what hidden message lies in the 50 and 47 deviation inherent in the two of them. 

Meanwhile, since I was the only one with aerial photographs in my camera, I became an instant hit with the people looking at the new crop circle on the ground from where it is pretty nearly impossible to figure out its shape.  Also, while waiting for a ride to another crop circle, I had a long chat with a nice local chap who arrived on a motorcycle.  While we were standing by the side of the road, a cop showed up and rolled down the window. 

"I'll come back in half an hour," he said with a smile.  "So you'd better clear out before then, because I will have to start taking names." 

"Unless the farmer first shoots," you the policeman added with a broader smile.  "He sounded pretty angry."

"Thanks, mate," I said waving him a goodbye.  "Your cops are really nice," I said to the local Englishman.

"Yeah, they're not bad blokes.  It's the farmers that get on their cases because they are afraid the crowds would damage their crops."

Back in the air, we next flew over a crop circle in a field that a farmer had already harvested (left).  And then we were on to the Avebury "stonehenge" again.  It's funny I was practically standing on its doorstep yesterday without realizing it was there (the right three shots).

Our next two crop circles were relatively simple (two left shots) in comparison to the last one - the one in the East Field that came down on July 9, whose view with shared earlier with the Angus bulls. 

That one was a pretty spectacular, as you can see from the two left shots.  And then it was time to land among the sheep who kept on grazing oblivious to the noise of the flying mopeds around them.  That was the end of my "flying shaman" experience.  Even at £2 per minute (about $4.50 per minute), I thought it was worth every penny of it.  Seeing Chris and Dave (another pilot) up in the air all afternoon, I realized that they must be doing pretty brisk business on days like this, when a new crop circle crops up.  So I felt rather fortunate to have been among the first to see it.

We finished the day at this little cottage, the "Silent Circle," that acts as a meeting place for the "croppies."  Inside, it looks like a combination of an art gallery, a shop, a hippy hangout and a science museum all in one.  I took some photos of the photos of earlier crop circles that appeared this year (middle left), and the best of the designs from 2007 and earlier (the two right panels).

And that's all she wrote from this Sunday, July 20, in Wiltshire, England.

P.S. Here are also two photos of the last crop circle we had seen on our tour that I have just received from my roommate Walter (Aug 3, 2008).  It's a beautiful and very elaborate design. 

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