Crop circles: an encounter with mystery.

The Wiltshire countryside in south-central England scintillated as if there was magic in the air. Small villages, hundreds of years old, nestled amongst vast expanses of green rolling hills were canopied by a large sky like I had only seen in the New Mexican desert. Certainly there is a connection between the sense that the veil between worlds is thin here and the fact that Wiltshire is home to numerous ancient Neolithic stone circles (Stonehenge and Avebury are the two most famous), dozens of barrows (ancient burial sites dating from 3000-5000 years old) and the famous man-made Silbury Hill. Five acres at the base, and built about 4500 years ago, its purpose still remains a mystery.

We had come to visit a crop circle. Found in over 27 countries, these often complex geometric formations, laid down overnight in fields, have been recorded as early as 800 AD. The fields of Wiltshire are home to the majority of the intricate circles that are appearing at an increasing rate, mostly in June and July.

After a long night of rain, my two daughters and I left our night's lodging, a youth hostel housed in a 17th century pub in the tiny village of Clyffe Pypard, and drove the nine miles of winding, one-land blacktop roads, to arrive in the neighboring village of Cherhill, for breakfast at the Silent Circle Cafe. We had altered our plans due to the rain, and instead of hiking some of the walking trails along the Ridgeway (a Roman highway), we would instead pass the rainy morning drinking hot tea, writing in our journals, and downing an English breakfast of sausage, bacon, eggs, beans, grilled tomatoes, and toast (highly recommended!).

The Silent Circle is one of two hubs where crop circle seekers from around the word converge in vast numbers during the summer, when circles can appear even daily. They check maps and find directions to the newest circles. This being May, things were still pretty quiet. Only three circles had been reported so far this month.

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As we sat with owner Charles Merrit, chatting about our United States government, crop circle formations, and the consciousness shift, a local pilot came in and mentioned to Charles that a new circle had been spotted by the farmer near his air strip. Charles looked at us suggestively, and then looked sceptically down at our shoes. Of course we would be willing to accompany him on this rainy morning in search of the fresh circle. His only reluctancy was getting into the car with a United States driver, green to England's left-sided ways.

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We drove down the highway a bit, and then turned onto a private gravel farm road. Charles knew only approximately where the circle would be. In the English drizzle, we parked, got out our umbrellas and set off in the mud, skirting the fields of young, waist-high, barley.

An hour passed, and then two--we weren't finding the crop circle. But knowing we were traipsing around where some of the most magnificent formations have been discovered was a thrill. The land rises and falls in smooth gradual hills, making it very difficult to see any disruptions on the surface of the barley that might indicate the location of the circle. We would walk a few hundred yards, and then stop and scan the surrounding fields that seemed to stretch forever. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

After two and a half hours, soaked to our waists, shoes covered in mud and sloshing with every step, the rain tapered off and the clouds parted, revealing the most crystal blue sky I have ever seen. Within minutes, we stopped on the path and considered calling it a day. Suddenly, we saw them. On the field's edge were two perfectly round circles. Charles entered one and immediately kneeled down to check the lower nodes of the stalks.

The stalks of authentic crop circles are bent and not broken at the point in which they are laid down. An important point--mature grains are dry and brittle, and easily break when bent over.

As we walked into the field, we saw that there were many circles of the same size, all connected by thin strips of neatly laid down barley. There was a pattern, but from the ground we could not decipher it. It seemed like an outer ring of circles, with some sort of inner set of circles. There were more than 50. It wasn't until we returned home and viewed an aerial photo of the formation, that we saw we were in a symmetrical spiral of 57 circles, each about 12 feet in diameter, spanning over 300 feet. Not as ornate and complex as many of the circles over the years, but to us, it was brilliant in its simplicity.

What was striking was the way each circle was laid down in a spiral fashion, with a woven basket-like effect.

I quickly dispelled the idea that two men with boards and strings created this as a hoax in this remote location during the rainy night. Surely they would have tracked in some mud and trampled some grain, as we obviously were, even though we were trying to be careful.

So then--what was it? There are many theories as to the origins of these beautiful formations--from aliens to angels, from fairies to the men with the board and strings, and indeed there are circles that have been man-made. Some people believe that beings from higher realms are communicating to us through a language of form, or perhaps the forms themselves impart a vibrational imprint on the planet such as one might experience while meditating on a sacred symbol or mandala. Healings have been experienced inside of them, and camera equipment and electronic devises have been known to fail.

I can only express my own sense of things, which was experiential. It began with the series of events that led up the discovery of the circle--altering our plans at the last minute, striking up a good conversation with the owner, the pilot coming in, the fact that we were only in the area for two days. Once in the circle, I found myself feeling self-aware. I was witnessing a physical phenomena that I could not explain. I knew I was in the presence of something sublime and etheric in nature. Things seemed transparent. I felt reassured that the world was wide open with possibilities, and that there is a higher order to things, and human beings are part of it, and can be aware and participate in it co-creatively, if they so choose. I had encountered a mystery, and it was mine, it is in me, and I brought it home.

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