Food, Drink & Travel

Apart from having more royals per square mile than any other country, England also has over 90% of the world’s Crop Circles, although these two facts are not necessarily related.

Most of the earliest crop circles were pretty tame affairs – just round discs of flattened wheat appearing in the middle of fields on Salisbury Plain. Then in the later part of the 1990s, crop phenomena of varying descriptions started popping up and the whole thing began to sound like a figure skating competition. There was the Mandlebrot formation, the Scorpion, the Think Bubble, the 10-petalled Mandela, the Asteroid and the DNA Double Helix formation: crop circle chasers were in their element.

But then came the downer. Two elderly gentlemen, Doug and Dave (obviously pensioners with way too much time on their hands), admitted to creating the circles as a hoax. The Crop Circle boffins, however, were not about to take that lying down. How, they asked, could two elderly men with a mower, some string, a bit of two-by-four, and a little fluffy dog, create these intricate monuments to precise mathematics? The boffins went on a scientific rampage, citing complex mathematic formulae, Euclidean geometry, and DNA analysis of the flattened wheat, to prove the involvement of higher intelligent beings.

It’s fairly obvious that Doug and Dave can’t be responsible for all the crop circles in all the world (they are, after all, only two pensioners with one fluffy dog), so who else is involved in the making of these weird agriglyphs? Most are partial to the little green men in spaceships theory (but what are they doing in the wheat fields? Having drag races with other UFOs?) while others favour the theory that it’s the end result of the psychic phenomenon that occurs when the Avatar appears. Well, naturally.

For those not inclined toward any of those theories, there is the possibility that the circles are caused by an unusual weather phenomenon that goes by the high falutin’ name the Plasma Vortex. Basically, it’s the same kind of vortex as a tornado or dustdevil but with the added thrill of electromagnetic charges to account for the strange lights that often accompany the appearance of a crop circle.

Whatever the reason, if you’re in the area check out the ye old worldly aura of Stonehenge, Glastonbury and the Salisbury Plains and the amazing sight of all those crop circles. And if you see Doug and Dave, tip your hat to the busy old geezers.