Case file · Crop circle
Wiltshire crop circles
The English chalk downs around Avebury and Stonehenge are the world capital of crop formations.
1990 CE · 51.42, -1.85 · status: disputed
The researched reading
The world centre of crop formations, which people make. They are land art, not landing marks.
| Explanation | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A hoax or fabrication | 90% | Doug Bower and Dave Chorley confessed in 1991 to making circles since 1976, and teams of artists have made complex designs on commission ever since. |
| A known natural phenomenon | 3% | Wind and rain flattening (lodging) explain some crude marks. |
| A poorly understood natural phenomenon | 2% | Terence Meaden’s plasma-vortex idea was abandoned once complex designs appeared. |
| Perception, memory or mind | 2% | Believers report odd feelings in formations, which reflect expectation. |
| Something known, misidentified | 1% | Not relevant: the formations are physical. |
| Secret human technology | 1% | Not relevant. |
| Genuinely anomalous | 1% | No formation has shown properties beyond human making. |
Official position: No official investigation; the makers have publicly demonstrated their methods.
Connections in the atlas
- Warminster 'Thing'
- ? Who makes crop circles?
- Tully 'saucer nest'
- The Mowing-Devil pamphlet
- Julia Set crop formation, Stonehenge
- Linda Moulton Howe