As described in Part 1, my wife and I had to rely on some fun coincidences and random meet-ups to help us find our first circle of the summer. The route to our second circle was a bit more straightforward: we learned about this one through the Crop Circle Access website. It was located on a famous, historically important spot – Oliver’s Castle. It’s not really a castle, but the remains of an Iron Age hillfort, and was the site of a Royalist victory over Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarians at the Battle of Roundway Down in 1643 (one which only delayed the eventual defeat of the monarchists and the execution of King Charles I that ended the First English Civil War). We found the parking site quite easily, and although the fort ruins – really, just a mound – are barely visible, it was worth the trip if only for the fabulous view of the surrounding countryside, a spectacular checkerboard of grain fields in all directions.
The campers who were staying in vans at the edge of the lot pointed us towards “that field over there”, and after a 20-minute walk in the boiling heat (over 900F), we saw the circle. Again, from the ground level it was hard to know what the pattern was, while we were approaching it and even while we were sitting inside it.
By contrast, here is an aerial image from a helicopter, courtesy of noted crop circle photographer Steve Alexander (his Temporary Temples website, aside from having a great name, is a wonderful archive of classic crop circle photos dating back 30 years). He and I have been in touch over the years, and I had hoped to book a seat on that flight. But my presence, in addition to Steve, his wife, and the pilot, would have bumped the flight up into the “tourist” category, and flights in that non-professional category are not allowed to get any closer than 500’ to ground level. So it wouldn’t have been worth the cost for Steve, even though it would have been a Top Ten Lifetime Experience for me!
Here are some images of what Steve saw when he was able to get up close.
Its lovely circular symmetry, along with seven-sided flashings, might (or might not) have deep mystical significance – 7 is an unusual irregular number with many overtones (7 chakras, 7 days of creation, 7 colors of the rainbow, etc.). Again, it’s something of a guessing game as to what the circles signify. In fact, some sources suggest that the point of the circles is not to deliver hidden messages waiting to be deciphered, but to be stunningly beautiful patterns that are beckoning us to enter a state of awe rather than analysis.
And then 3 days later, another circle appeared right next to it, as if it there isn’t enough canvas elsewhere to “paint” some new images on!
And finally, there’s a modern version of the ancient ley lines of power that linked all their sacred sites – the high-tension power lines that are so common we hardly think twice about them. These are the pathways for the form of energy our modern society most values – electricity. Fortunately, the Roundway Downs section of Wiltshire has been declared an Area of Natural Beauty (AONB), and so a dozen pylons are in the process of being dismantled as part of the National Grid’s Visual Impact Project, and 3 miles of wiring will soon be buried under ground.
If we did things like that in America, we might attract some crop circles of our own! To be fair, though, there have actually been a handful of circles in the US over the years. But Wiltshire is the world center for the circles, perhaps because the landscape’s beauty is so evident that it can’t be overlooked – by power companies or by ETs. 🙂
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