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Field Acne The crop circle phenomena has been with us in the UK since the mid seventies, but the first reported crop circle was in Hertfordshire in 1678. A report of the 'Mowing Devil' tells of unexplained circles of mown oats appearing overnight:
Westbury got it's first mark on the 'crop botherer' map in mid-August 1980. A local farmer, John Scull, was walking around the edge of his oat field when he was greeted by the sight of what looked like wanton vandalism, someone (or something) had been trampling his oats on a vast scale. There were three circles, approximately 20 meters (60 feet) in diameter, grouped in one area of the field. The oats had been neatly flattened in a clockwise direction, without breaking the stalks. The Wiltshire Times printed the story on the 15th August 1980, together with a photograph (that I've been unable to locate - sorry). It was the first British paper ever to publish a photograph of a crop circle. The report brought Dr Terence Meaden, editor of the Journal of Meteorology, to Mr Scull's farm. When he examined the circles, Meaden found that they had not all been made on the same night. John Scull had simply not noticed them until now. Dr Meaden also noted that the circles weren't perfect circles. The radius of the three 'ellipses' varied from eight to ten meters (twenty-six and a half to thirty-five feet). It is possible that this is a message from the aliens/supernatural beings, showing us that nothing in life is perfect, or maybe the blokes-with-the-planks were drunk. Two years later, in 1982, the aliens/blokes-with-planks returned to Westbury. This time they created three circles, forming an equilateral triangle. The new circles placed Westbury firmly into the crop circle scene, but it would be another five years before crop circle mania truly hit, bringing Westbury to the attention of the media. In August of 1987 Westbury had a run of eight separate groups of crop circles. Some of the groups changed shape, grew, or spawned satellite circles overnight. This was enough to spur the 'believers' into action. The next year, in a blaze of publicity, multiple cameras were setup in order to catch the formation of a circle on tape. Strangely, there weren't any new crop circles that year. I'm guessing that the aliens/blokes-with-planks were camera shy, and had read the Wiltshire Times!
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