Avebury, UK And Surrounding Area: Crop Circles are weird things you can quite easily experience for yourself. A friend and I recently went on a trip to Avebury, Wiltshire, to sample these visual delights and to get first hand experience of the phenomena. We actually stayed in a tent at the back of a pub called The Woodbridge Inn, in North Newnton, about three miles south of Pewsey. The trip lasted four days and was well worth the journey.

Even before we reached The Woodbridge Inn we found our first crop circle. We had stopped at the car park near Avebury across the fields from Silbury Hill, to get our bearing. While we checked the map we saw a Crop Circle across the field towards Silbury Hill!

This is important, time seemed to SLOW and light is tangled.

It was quite difficult at first to see and we would probably have missed it if we didn't have a clue that it was there. This was exciting because before this event I had never seen a Crop Circle first hand. We set off towards it. crossing the road, heading through a gate into the field and down one of the tramlines. As we got closer it was quite strange seeing the Crop Circle getting larger and taking shape, with Silbury Hill in the background.

We entered the Crop Circle and looked around. To be honest it was a bit unimpressive seeing it from ground level, and a bit strange. To appreciate the complexity of a Crop Circle they have to be viewed from above. The crop (wheat, barley, corn? I'm no agriculturalist!) was bent down to create a flat surface which had a strange whirl to it.

Looking at the edges we found that there was quite an abrupt cut-off between the bent corn and the undisturbed corn. The immense diameter and complexity of the circle makes it amazing how someone or something could create it. It seems that the circle was greater than a week old when we saw it, so the crop was actually trodden down and slightly damaged from previous visitors. We took a few photographs although none of them were from above the Circle (none of us can jump 32 feet high). They sort of give you an idea of it's size and complexity but some other photo's I have seen are totally spectacular.

Anyway, back to the plot. We left the Crop Circle, went back to the car and went in search of the Woodbridge Inn.

During the evening we spoke to someone who knew of a Crop Circle quite near to where we were staying, so the following day we set off early to find it. We eventually found what was a nice temporary car park on the edge of a field. There were a few people near the top and when one of them came down the field we asked them a bit sheepishly what was at the top. A Crop Circle was the reply, as if we should have known! This one was situated at the top of a slope which gave a great view. I don't know the immediate area it was situated in, but it overlooked a White Horse (relatively modern by the looks of it). I think it's the same White Horse you can see from The Barge Inn. This Crop Circle was of similar construction to the previous one, albeit a bit larger. The corn was compressed as before and the edges seemed to have perfect cut-offs. From the ground it appeared to be one circle with concentric circles crossing it. While we were admiring the view, we noticed another Crop Circle which was in the distance, appearing to be just under the White Horse.

We saw two more Crop Circles that day which were just as impressive (If I can get any aerial photos of these circles then I'll add them to this page). It's strange, but after having never seen a Crop Circle first hand and then seeing four in the space of twenty four hours, it was amazing.

Not A Natural Random Creation?

Observations

• Crop Circles seem to 80% be created either using a tramline as the central axis, or tramlines as boundary markers, judging by the photo's I've seen.

• They seem to have progressively gotten more complicated as time has gone by. Possibly because whoever is creating them is 'introducing' us to their message in steps, or maybe because the 'hoaxers' are getting better.

• I think that some people are defining the term hoax or fake Crop Circles wrongly. OK, people think they could be created by vortices of air compressing the crop, UFOs landing and leaving a mark or maybe humans. The latter is termed a hoax. In my view this is incorrect. Just because they are created by humans does not constitute a hoax. There is no such thing as a fake Crop Circle! It could be that they are all created by humans with planks of wood and a rope. If they are then good luck. They are still works of art, still spectacular.

• If you measure a Crop Circle they are actually elliptical and not exactly circular.

These are our observations taken during the visit and it is to me both exciting and quite weird at the same time.

As a matter of interest, we also saw a few UFOs in the sky from our tent. They were single small illuminated dots moving in an exact straight line through the night sky.

They seemed to slow down as they reached the horizon. We came to the conclusion they were probably satellites with the sun shining off them (the sun had gone down but it would reflect off the objects if they were high enough).

I'll say one thing though: some of the amazing photographs of patterns in fields look way too complicated to be hoaxed in a day (or night, or at all). Some may be hoaxed (smaller, less complicated ones), but I can't believe it's possible to hoax some of the mind-blowing designs I've seen. This is a phenomena where only time will an answer appear. It's also quite possible that no answer will ever appear.

The Crop Circle phenomena is a very unusual, beautiful puzzle, which you should try and experience first hand. If anything, it makes you stand back from the daily grind of life, to appreciate things in a new and enlightening way.