Each year we look forward to Crop circle season, anticipating the mysterious designs that will appear in the fields. 1999 was no exception to the wonder—the CircleMakers did it again.

Again, they touched our hearts and minds with their awesome works of art in the fields of oilseed rape (canola), barley and wheat. Each year they grace us with the gift of exquisite swirled and flattened designs that miraculously appear in the grain fields of England.

Actually, Crop Circles are appearing all over the world. This year includes formations in USA, Canada, Germany, Holland, Israel, the Czech Republic and Peru. However, the majority of formations, and the most complex patterns, appear in England during the summertime. This year there were 144 formations, most concentrated in the Wessex area of southern England.

There were some absolutely amazing formations during the ’99 season. Several eclipse patterns appeared early in the season, previewing the August 11th total eclipse; and a design at Hackpen Hill depicted the cycles of eclipse paths over this century. Many of the formations had a star like quality to them; we had a six-pointed star and two nine-pointed stars. There were pyramids and an Egyptian-looking winged disc; a Minora, complete with the tools that go along with it (oil lamp, wick tweezers, and snuffer); a Celtic knot; a Zerpinsky gasket, a new fractal formation made up of triangles; and an extraordinary formation composed of hexagons that was, in fact, an unfolded octahedron.

During this season many formations had a very three-dimensional perspective to them and several featured squares in their design, which had only appeared in two designs in the past. Amongst the lovely squares this year was an Escher-like cube, a Tibetan-like mandala at Windmill Hill which had a record 288 circles, and a sphere within a cube within another sphere in a field behind the Barge Inn, the famed “croppie” hangout. In the famous East Field at Alton Barnes, two formations appeared in the same night. One, measuring over 1000ft long was a medley of pictograms from the early nineties; the other was a beautiful nine-looped serpent.

Unfortunately, the season finale was mowed down by the farmer shortly after it was discovered. At least we do have a record of it from German and Swiss researchers (see the     continued

Crop Circles

as Sacred Sites

NOTE: The following is an article by Denni Clarke that appeared in issue #70 of Magical Blend, Spring 2000,

reflecting on the crop season of 1999.