Crop Circle Hunting

A few years back, in the year 2000, when the markets were booming and many felt rich and secure, before 9-11 and terror threats, I decided to attend my nieces wedding in London with my wife and our three oldest children.

Well, for me, no trip to England would be complete without at least looking for a few well known oddities. The stone henge, ruined castles, and crop circles.

I planned our stay in the Bath area for an extra day or two to provide ample time for our adventure. We visited Avesbury and had a little birthday celebration for Emma, who turned 8. As I looked over the hill at a nearby field, I noticed a 'blank' spot.

My First Crop Circle!!! '

Over in the field was a two part simple crop circle. I was kind of surprised. I had heard about these things from a physics prof who gave talks about aliens occasionally. I had a great deal of respect for Dr. Kasher as an educator, in fact, he was a favorite of mine while studying Engineering/Physics. I walked over into the field, about 200 feet, and found two circles of about 7 feet and maybe 15 or 20 feet, connected by a arcing path about 3 feet across. Continuing the hunt, and encouraged that it may be pretty easy to find them, I headed down a dirt road and found an enormous formation in a thick barley field. It was July 19, 2000, and this one was much bigger. Perhaps 250 feet across. It had three, sort of,'petals' and the circular path around these thin football shaped petals was itself pretty wide. We took pictures and went on our way. After seeing a few less interesting patterns in the crops, we saw people walking up a high hill. Asking a couple from germany, we heard there was a good view of a formation from atop the hill. It was really fun. Not just to see the formations, but to see other people searching them out.

The Barge Inn

Well, after several other looks at some very intricate crop patterns, we found the 'Barge Inn'. It was plenty hot, so I think we decided to get a bite to eat and something to drink. This was obviously the mecca for crop circle hunters from all over the world. We met one woman whom we still quote to this day.' Keep an open mind', she said,' There's wonder all around'. It was as if she was trying to tell us a secret formula for happiness.

There is a classic white horse formation on the hill across the way from the Barge Inn. Those two days of hunting crop circles were some of the best parts of the trip. I don't care who is making them. Some think it is a couple of guys with a board. Others say it is aliens. It's funny, I didn't really stop to examine the individual stalks even when I was in there. If I had my digital camera (that I have now ) I would have taken tons of photos.

These were the most interesting ones we saw that day. My photos are not digitized yet. Those people walking around in there could be us!

This is the picture we took from the hill.

Throughout most of our travels, the most enjoyable and memorable times have been the ones that just sort of happen. The places you find where you least expect them. These crop circles are a modern and elaborate mystery. Whoever is making them is quite busy. It's hard to believe that some entity keeps doing this, spending the time, money, effort to keep making this 'CR-op art' year after year. If you are reading this, thank-you. It was fun. By the way, so were the castle ruins in Wales...