1990, summer - the British media was gripped by hysterical excitement: more than 700 crop circles appeared, of absolutely incomprehensible origin, in fields sown with various crops. Of course, this is not the first time this has happened. Back in August 1980, in some valleys of Wilgshire, shortly before harvesting, these "grain circles", as they began to be called, were discovered. Their number increased annually, but the ninetieth surpassed all the previous ones, both in the number of mysterious drawings on earth, and in the sophistication and complexity of their execution. Now these were not just circles, but whole groups of 3, 5 each, as well as incredibly suspicious pictograms that included images of gratings, rectangles and even arrows: it was breathtaking when looking at them from the air.
Having heard about such drawings for the first time, people, having looked at several dozen photos in newspapers, wanted to know why they were and what created them. At this point, the scientists had to stop ignoring the facts they had known for a long time and start discussing the mysterious phenomenon. Academic science came up with tentative explanations, which inveterate mysteryologists and a group of contemplative circles from parliament quickly rejected (largely due to the fact that the mysteryologists themselves, having been doing this longer than scientists, had already managed to put forward similar theories and had time to abandon them).
Although crop circles are periodically found throughout Northern England (and even in Wales), the vast majority of drawings are in two counties - Hampshire and Wiltshire. And, of course, this is not an exclusively English phenomenon - it turned out that there is something similar in another 24 countries of mainland Europe, and the earliest example belongs to Holland in 1503. But even accepting all this, it is worth recognizing that it is England in the matter of mysterious crop circles, the true champion, and more than 90% of all images belong to the two counties that in the old days constituted the British state of Wessex. Why this is so is unclear, however, in the same way it is possible to answer all the questions related to this phenomenon. In the sixties, Wessex became popular with all kinds of occult sects and UFO researchers who believedthat the proximity of monuments such as Stonehenge and other so-called mystical points provide an ideal place for communication with earthly forces and aliens. And when circles began to appear in the eighties, all these people decided that they could not find a better proof of their faith.
The tabloid press trumpeted their opinion all over the country, and for a time in the mass consciousness of the British, aliens were recognized as the most suitable respondents for these strange crops. But, unfortunately, the increase in the number of circles did not bring an increase in UFO encounters in any way, no direct connection between these phenomena was found, and the theory gradually lost its popularity. While ufologists nurtured their home-grown hypotheses, scientists from different branches of knowledge took this matter seriously and proposed a number of digestible hypotheses. There were also the mating oddities of moles, rabbits, even the intestinal gases of bulls …
Some biologists began to claim that the drawings were the result of unusual growth of fungi, and weapons experts suggested that they were accidentally executed by unmanned aircraft, at times launched from military bases in Wessex. A leading scientist from France believed that circles were a side effect of shots from secret weapons, shells, they say, hitting air targets, bounced to the ground and drew anything on it, environmentalists blamed the ozone holes for everything. None of these natural theories have won much recognition, people were prone to supernatural explanations. But here the English meteorologist Dr. Terence Meden put forward his theory - about the existence of special air currents, which he called "stationary enchanted vortices." Equating this phenomenon with the winds of "devil's dust", which, as you know,sucking in various debris and sand in deserts and other hot places, Mean deduced the combination of meteorological and geographical factors necessary to create drawings similar to the British.
And - hurray! - they were quite consistent with those that dominate the nature of those places in Wessex, and when the farmers added that they personally sometimes saw how small whirlwinds raised scraps of hay from the ground, the newspapers and the public felt that the riddle was finally solved.
But the introduction of more intricate crop circles in the mid-1980s, including the absolutely marvelous schemes in Braton, Wiltshire, seemed to sway Meeden's confidence. Not at all. In response, the meteorologist slightly improved his idea, suggesting that these same stationary vortices can also produce miniature hurricanes, which, under appropriate atmospheric conditions (on warm, quiet days), accumulate electricity and form a stable column of air curling downward.
This kind of hurricane, Meiden said, is capable of rising and falling, leaving several crop circle impressions. Although, of course, the same can happen over roads and water, but there are simply no traces left. Again, most experts believed in Meden's theory, but to ordinary people the sophistication of the production of circles seemed an obvious sign of reason, although scientists hastened to point out many natural phenomena, such as snowflakes, which are also very amazing in their perfection of execution. But even Meeden's intricate designs could not explain the devilishly sophisticated drawings that appeared in the south of England in the nineties. Triangular groups of circles, rectangular shapes, linear compositions, asymmetric spots and even arrows - all this came across among the images of lowland England.
Promotional video:
Some researchers of paranormal phenomena immediately put forward the theory of messages - and many religious leaders saw in them signs that foreshadow the approaching end of the world. Scientists have finally turned to their favorite hypothesis - a fake. The only problem was that the pictograms turned out to be too complex and so huge that only a whole army of trained and equipped people could apply them - and besides, on the fields of vigilant farmers. Meanwhile, the drawings appeared literally overnight, and none of the owners of the fields had ever seen the secret brigades of forgers in the vicinity of their possessions.
People began to appear, claiming that they drew circles, and some managed to demonstrate their art in front of a TV camera. There is no doubt that some images were falsified, but it is unlikely that even the most skillful and controversial fans of "ducks" would have been able to fabricate hundreds of huge drawings all over the country. At the same time, more complex drawings appeared: Maltese crosses and key images, such as the Mandelbrot complex, of fractal geometry, which clearly denied the possibility of their natural origin. The idea that some invisible mind wants to connect with us is quite attractive, but it's a pity that in this case we do not understand a word of their messages.
In the summer, a group of ufologists in Zhiguli repeatedly observed incomprehensible night lights hovering low in the sky and on the ground. After themselves in the fields of cereals, they left traces, no worse than the English ones. There were many crop circles. Sizes from one to two to forty meters. The shape is round, oval, elongated. Formed by lodged wheat, while the stalks lay in one direction, or clockwise, or counterclockwise, and at the edges they lie radially everywhere.
In the central parts of some crop circles, swirls of 1–1.5 m in diameter are visible with a distinct rounding or lodging of the stems in one direction or another. In some "vortices" in the center there remained untouched wheat in a bunch of 20-30 cm. In others, on the contrary, the ears are completely removed and the earth is bare. Artiodactyl footprints with a diameter of 6 cm were found in such places.
A total of five single tracks were found. What kind of demons left them? Plots of lodged wheat stretched a kilometer up the slope to a hill where the lights were seen. It was as if something was bouncing across the field at different intervals. There are many broken birches in the forest belt nearby. The direction of the trunks is mainly to the east, southeast.