Introduction
Crop Circles - formations, usually found in grain crops, where the crop has been mysteriously found laid flat, in patterns, that did not exist in daylight the previous day.
Although thought by many to be a phenomena of the 20th Century, crop circles and formations have been around for a very long time, and records even date back well before the invention of the camera.
The most well known positive depiction of a crop circle is found in a woodcut made in 1678 with the title 'Strange News out of Hartford-shire’.
It depicts a devil-like creature cutting out a pattern in a crop with a scythe.
The woodcut has text, which told of a greedy farmer, who, having refused to pay a mower a reasonable rate for reaping his oats, swore that he would rather have the Devil do the work. The very following morning, the farmer awoke to find his crop had been harvested, but done so in such an amazing manner, with rounded circles of incredible exactness that no human could have done the same within the period and darkness of one night. The farmer was so afraid that he could not enter the field to collect his harvest.
It is suggested by some cryptologists and others that crop circles are depicted in prehistoric stone and wall carvings, such as in the spiral patterns carved in a stone at Newgrange in Ireland. For those that hold the view that crop circles are created by extra-terrestrials in spacecraft, some would say that reasonable recorded proof of this is depicted in some ancient Egyptian pictures.
The recorded incidence of crop circles in more modern times seems to have started in the early 20th century, with a gradual increase in numbers through to a marked incr4ease in the 1960’s, leading to a quite dramatic upturn in the 1990’s. At least 190 formations were discovered and documented in 1999, perhaps an omen for what is to come in the new millennium.
There are many who are under the impression that crop circles are only indigenous to the U.K. Sure, they are more prevalent here than elsewhere in the world, but there are countless examples of them appearing all over the world - in the USA from 1920, in Europe from the mid 20th century and in Africa, Canada, Australia, Central & Southern America, Russia in 1970, and Japan in the late 70’s.
Many visitors to the U.K. are amazed to discover that crop circles actually appear in their own country.
What odds, that formations in the 21st century will be found on the surface of the Moon and Mars, and beyond?
