In last week’s blog, we looked at the beginning of the modern crop circle phenomenon that first got the attention of the media and UFO researchers in 198o. This was described in the 1986 report compiled by Paul Fuller and Jenny Randles (written by Randles) for the British UFO Research Association titled Mystery of the Circles. According to Randles, the idea that UFOs had something to do with the mystery came from the fact that the first circles appeared in the West Country in the area of Warminster, which had become famous in the 60’s as a UFO hotspot. When we left off, that idea was falling out of favor with researchers, particularly Ian Mrzyglod of the newly formed organization, PROBE, who is quoted 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.” After a lull in attention in 1982, things picked up after eight sets of five circles appeared that were made up of one large circle surrounded by four smaller circles at equidistant locations. Prior to this, there had been only single circles or two or three in a row.

Playing a large part in the media attention was the fact that the circles appeared in the summer, often called the silly season due to the fact that stories of a less-than-serious nature are used as filler in the midst of what is traditionally a slow news period. And, it did get silly. One example presented by Randles is Daily Express columnist Jean Rook being sent to one of the sites “to come up with a lovely, poetic ode to ‘E.T.,’” the titular alien from the movie. According to Randles, Rook “found physical evidence of his presence in the midst of one of the rings – a poppy.”

Randles emphasizes that “serious UFO investigators refused to get involved” and notes that she, herself, refused to appear on BBC and ITV television, even though she had a new book to promote, The Pennine UFO Mystery.

According to Randles, members of PROBE took visitors out to see the five circles at Westbury and were shocked to see an identical set right next to them. Somehow, they had been missed by the media. At this point, the group was looking out for hoaxers who might be encouraged by all the attention from the press, and Randles notes that the five-ring patterns looked “remarkably symmetrical and artificial.”

Throwing confusion into the mix, it was found that aerial photos taken by Now magazine for a story on the first circle reported in Westbury in 1980 showed there were three smaller circles around it with a hedgerow running through the position where a fourth circle would be. Randles sees this as supporting the possibility that the five-circle patterns could be naturally formed.

What was odd about the second set at Westbury was that the circles were swirled counter-clockwise, whereas every circle previous had been swirled clockwise. They were finally reported on in the August 29, 1983, Wiltshire Times, and Francis Sheppard, son of the owner of the Westbury field, Alan Sheppard, said they were possibly hoaxed because he and his family were able to create a circle themselves using rope and a chain.

PROBE followed up and discovered that the Sheppards had created the entire second set. The story that came out was that the Daily Mirror, not wanting to be outdone by The Express, had paid the Sheppards to have Francis, his father, and some Mirror reporters create the circles. They filmed the operation with a stop-motion camera, and the whole process from arrival to departure took under an hour, with only 24 minutes spent actually making the circles.

The idea was that the circles would be discovered and reported on, hopefully by The Express, and then the Mirror would step in and expose the hoax. As it turned out, interest in the circles had already died down that season, and the only report covering the whole affair was in the Vol. 4, No.2, October 1983 PROBE Report, which was the final issue before the organization folded. Randles describes Mrzyglod, a council member of BUFORA during this period, quitting UFOlogy after becoming frustrated by “people who did not want to know the facts.” The Sheppards are said to have “insisted” that they were only responsible for the one set and not for the other on their land or any of the others elsewhere.

According to Randles, while she and BUFORA stuck to playing down the UFO connection when dealing with the media, the media played it up. She cites the article “Healey’s Comet” (named after Shadow Foreign Secretary Dennis Healey who took photos of a five-ring pattern featured in the article) in the August 4, 1984, edition of The Daily Mail that mentions a “giant spaceship” and people being “totally baffled.” She points out repeatedly that not a single UFO was reported in connection with any of the circles.

The report is broken up into five sections, and after “A Historical Review of the Mystery Circles,” the remaining four are: “Facts About the Mystery Circles,” “Theories,” “The Weather Theory,” and “Conclusions.” Randles starts off the “Theories” section saying that the most popular theory is that the circles are hoaxes, and other theories, all of which are presented along with their “problems,” include helicopter downwash, “hippies” marking areas for aerial drug drops, and UFOs.  “The Weather Theory” section is a detailed look at the work of meteorologist, Dr. Terrence Meaden, who argued that the circles were caused by whirlwinds. Finally, in “Conclusions,” Randles states that BUFORA doesn’t intend to offer a solution and that UFOs are low on the list of possible causes. As anyone who was following the UFO subject in the late 20th century is probably aware, the report failed to make the mystery go away, and its association with UFOs, mostly in the press, continued.

In 1990, Bob Kingsley put out the first issue of The Circular, which is a compilation of articles, news clippings, and reports, and it is noteworthy that the only mentions of UFOs are in the news clippings and one instance where Kingsley includes ufology in a list of other “ologies” that might be of use in exploring the mystery. He provides the phone number of the information line of the Circles Phenomenon Research group run by Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews since 1984, but notes that he’s not sure it will be set up for the next year’s season.

At this point, the circles are more plentiful and elaborate, and Kingsley mentions in the introduction that hoaxers are making research more difficult. The very next year, the media caught on to the hoaxing aspect when two landscape painters, David Chorley, 62, and Douglas Bower, 67, came forward claiming that they had been making circles since 1978 and would make 25 to 30 every season.

Kingsley teamed up with The Center for Crop Circle Studies, and starting with the Vol. 2, No.1, March 1991 issue, The Circular became that organization’s quarterly journal with Kingsley staying on as editor. They kept publishing until 2005, and in the final issue it is announced that CCCS is shutting down. In his editorial, Kingsley sums up the state of the phenomenon at that time:

As someone who has kept a watchful eye on the phenomenon, and those involved with it, since 1988, I have been saddened to see the evident loss of its ‘magic’ over the years. Both the hoaxers, or self-styled ‘land artists’ aided and abetted by the media, and an increasing band-waggonism by so-called croppies, have sapped much of what was once a mystery and replaced it with a dull repetitiveness -of pretty patterns, ‘new-age’ commercialism and of often tiresome adages repeated at summer gatherings. But this is not to say that the mystery, the ‘genuine crop formation’ has ceased, as numbers of most interesting and unusual events are continuing to be recorded both in Britain and across Europe and America.