What are crop circles?

A Brief Introduction

Since at least the early 1970s, and much earlier according to various records, unexplained "crop circles", flattened circular or geometric areas in field crops or other vegetation, have been appearing every year in fields around the world. Initially gaining widespread publicity in England in the late 1980s, they have since appeared in greater numbers in many countries around the world.

While most earlier reports are of simple small circles and rings, the phenomenon has "evolved" over the years into a wider variety of several thousand known formations to date, including much larger and increasingly complex geometric patterns, often ranging up to several hundred feet or more in size. They have been found in almost every type of cereal crop and other vegetation, including wheat, barley, canola, oats, flax, canary seed, cattle corn, rice paddies, blueberry plants, wild grass pasture fields and even trees.

In many formations, the crop is flattened in complex, flowing spirals and alternating layers, sometimes with elaborate "bird's nests" and other intricate features, with bent or curved, but undamaged plant stalks (not to be confused with natural bending from phototropism). While formations in Canada may be simpler for the most part in terms of shape or design, the ground lay pattern of the flattened crops can sometimes be quite complex, more so than is often thought.

Most formations, at least in England, appear during the night, within a maximum time window of about four or five hours of complete darkness (during summer months). Many circles have also appeared during rainy, stormy or moonless nights. In a few cases, simpler circles have reportedly been seen forming, a process which reportedly takes only a matter of seconds according to similar various accounts over many years from eyewitnesses.

In southern England, which continues to be the focal point of activity, reports generally begin in late April or early May and continue until late August or early September. In North America, formations are reported from spring to late fall; in Canada most circles are found by farmers during harvest in August and September, who often literally stumble across them as it were while harvesting. While Canadian formations have tended not to be as complex as their European counterparts, they are still prolific; they have been reported literally across the country, mainly in the prairie provinces, Saskatchewan in particular, which has long been the Canadian equivalent of Wiltshire in England as the region with the most numerous reports on average each year.

related phenomena?

There are also other types of "circular phenomena" found worldwide which may or may not be related to the crop formations, including circular or other geometric formations in crops or other vegetation (burned or missing plants), ice, snow, dirt / soil, sand, gravel, etc.. While these are characteristically different from the usual "classic" types of flattened crop circle formations, and have not yet been proven to have any direct connection, their usually circular or geometric nature certainly makes them of interest for comparison studies, and it is in this sense only that they are referred to as “related phenomena.”

The ice circles are a now much-debated phenomenon themselves; most found in Canada and other countries in recent years have been on small ponds and lakes. Like crop circles, most have appeared overnight, although there are various theories as to how these may be natural in origin, involving underwater vents or currents affecting the surface ice, in particular those rings with diffused edges or "splash patterns" (the most likely explanation). In some cases though, the rings have been almost perfect circles, cleanly incised into the ice with smooth, sharp edges, such as Sudbury, Ontario in 2005 and Delta, Ontario in 2000. Most of these have been in thin surface ice, too thin for a person to have walked on. There are currently 13 known reports in Canada since the 1970s.

Other miscellaneous circles have also been found in crops or other vegetation (burned or missing plants), snow, dirt / soil, sand, gravel, etc. They are usually, but not always, circles or rings. A number of such formations have been classified over the years in older research archives as possible UFO "landing traces," the Ted Phillips' Physical Trace Catalogue being a good example. There are currently 41 known reports since 1880.