by UFO History Buff & Author, Charles Lear 

Within UFOlogy, there are several areas of specialization, such as abductions, landing traces, humanoids, contactees, military encounters, etc. They often have their own specialized literature put out by individual researchers or organizations, and many have come and gone in terms of popular fascination and press coverage. One aspect that has fallen by the wayside is crop circle research, also known as “cereology.” Its early history, and the reasons for it falling out of favor with the press, and even among UFOlogists, is summed up neatly in the 1986 report, Mystery of the Circles, “compiled by” by Paul Fuller and Jenny Randles (Randles is the writer) for the British UFO Association. Of course, their report didn’t put an immediate end to the phenomenon or the activity of researcher/investigators who were focused on it, but it did presage the eventual waning of interest to where very few in the community continue to consider it seriously as having anything to do with UFOs.

According to Randles, mystery circles in the British West Country first started getting media attention in August of 1980, but “persistent local rumors” of them appearing in oat, barley, and wheat fields throughout Wiltshire and Hampshire goes back to at least 40 years before that. As of the release of the report, mysterious circles had shown up in fields between May and August for six successive years. Randles points out that the reason BUFORA became involved was because of the appearance of circles in the area of Warminster, which was notorious for a UFO flap in the 1960’s involving an object known as “The Warminster Thing.” She explains that this “created a definite hype which sees these marks regarded as ground traces left by a landing, or hovering, spacecraft.”

Tulley NestWhile this is very likely a valid argument for crop circles in England becoming associated with UFOs, mysterious circles that started appearing in the area of Tulley, Australia, in 1966 were called “Tulley nests,” and notably, “saucer nests,” in the press, so the association of mysterious circles with UFOs goes back far earlier than 1980. However, the Tulley nests consisted of swirled reeds and swamp grass, so they can’t be called crop circles.

There is an article covering the Tulley nests headlined “1966 – Tully” posted under the “Related Cases: Australasia” section on the Old Crop Circles website run by Terry Wilson. According to Wilson (we assume he is the writer), they actually occurred closer to the town of Euramo, south of Tully, which is “known informally as Horseshoe Lagoon.” The first incident there involved a witness, George Pedley, who reported that while driving a tractor in the area at around 9 a.m. on January 19, 1966, he heard a hissing sound and then saw a flying saucer rise up out of a swamp and fly away. When he went over to investigate, he found a circle of flattened reeds swirled clockwise in a 3o-foot-diameter circle. He later brought the landowner, Albert Pennisi, to see it, and when Pennisi waded out into the circle, he found that the reeds had all been uprooted and were floating as a mat on the surface of the water. Five more nests appeared, all in swamp grass, including one with a scorched center.  That same year, also in Australia, circles in the grass were said to have been seen where around 200 school children and a teacher reported seeing at least one saucer land in a field on April 6th. This was near Westall High School in Melbourne.

According Randles, what “seems” to have been the first West Country crop circle newspaper report appeared in the August 15, 1980, Wiltshire Times. It told the story of two circles being found by John Scull in his oat field just below “the famous Westbury White Horse Hill.” A UFO group from Bristol that had recently formed, NUFORA (soon to be renamed PROBE) investigated. Ian Mrzyglod and Mike Seager interviewed Scull, and with the help of Dr. Terence Meaden (a meteorologist), took measurements (the circles were 64.5 and 58.5 feet in diameter and had an 80% and a 93% eccentricity respectively) and samples, and learned there had originally been three circles, but the first one was destroyed when Scull harvested that section of his field before the other two appeared. Mryzglod published an account (page 8 of the pdf) in the Vol. 1, No. 2, August 1980 Probe Report and told his readers that “UFOs are not ruled out, (but) neither (are they) readily accepted as an easy answer.” He noted that natural explanations were possible.

Crop CirclesAccording Randles, the story fizzled out “like all nine-day wonders” until three circles all in a line were discovered a year later “at Cheesefoot Head, near Winchester in Hampshire.” Quickly on the scene was Ken Rogers of BUFOS who had promoted the idea that the 1980 circles were created by a UFO and held up the latest circles as evidence to support this.

As local farmers became concerned about their fields getting vandalized, the August 26, 1981, Southern Evening Echo reported that one landowner, Giles Rousell, claimed that the circles were caused by the downwash of a twin-rotor helicopter. An MoD spokesman said that an American Chinook helicopter may have been involved.

Meaden advised PROBE (it is emphasized that he was not a member) that the new circles were similar to the ones from the year before in that they were eccentric and swirled clockwise. His theory was that they were caused by a weather-based phenomenon.

Randle lauds PROBE for its stance that UFOs were an unlikely cause. They quote Mrzyglod from the March 1982, Vol. 2, No. 4, PROBE Report: “…even to suggest that the flattened circles were UFO landing nests is wildly speculative wishful thinking, without any foundation.”

There was a lull in press reports in 1982, and it was announced in the October 1982, Vol. 3, No. 2, PROBE Report, “It is now time that the ‘mystery’ be dropped from (the circles) definition, as they are seasonal as Christmas and regular as clockwork.” However, PROBE’s efforts to demystify the phenomenon were in vain, as, in 1983, eight sets of mostly five-ring formations (a large central circle with four smaller circles “on a compass point grouping” around it) appeared, and the press presented not only UFO theories, but the idea that the mating habits of deer and hedgehogs were a causal factor. That year, the circles received nationwide coverage via the July 11, 1983, Daily Express, and Randles describes that morning as “one of the busiest in my life.”

According to Randles, “every newspaper in Fleet Street” called her (as she was BUFORA’s director of investigations) asking if she had heard about “the UFO landing.” She says her “obvious lack of interest in speculating about giant spacecraft was met with varying degrees of incredulity” by those she spoke with.

With the circles now receiving national attention, Randles says it was felt at BUFORA that this would result in more people looking for them and more reports coming in, and would also embolden those with intentions of hoaxing them.

Next week: Hoaxes and confusion cause researchers to pack it in.