Circlemakers

December 26, 2003 12:46 AM

Circlemakers. 'Home of England's crop circle makers.' Circle stories, images etc.
posted by plep (14 comments total)

some of them are beautiful, but the overtly commercial ones are just sad (although i guess it's a good living).
posted by amberglow at 9:11 AM on December 26, 2003

I have no idea how the most complex crop circles are made, but find it hard to believe that they are man-made, appearing as they do overnight. There are some great ones here. I hope one day the mystery is solved - could it be line-dancing hedgehogs boot-scooting at dead of night?
posted by essexjan at 9:40 AM on December 26, 2003

The best time to visit the site is at the end of the crop season to get a review of the year's best crops, but I try to have a look regularly (which amounts to every time I remember it exists).

I agree with you, amberglow - there's something about the idea of a commissioned crop circle that seems fundamentally wrong (the Richard and Judy circle, for instance), a bit look commissioning a graffiti'd rail carriage, I suppose.

Great stuff, though. I really hope they keep at it.
posted by nthdegx at 10:07 AM on December 26, 2003

Those wacky Brits! Too much cheese? Greasy food?

A culture which has yearly contest-races where contestants chase rolling cheese wheels down murderously steep hills is a culture that's capable of almost anything.

I'd like to think that aliens are responsible, but about 30 second's thought proved to me that it would be quite easy to pull off these circles with small teams of people carrying boards (to flatten the plants) and pre-cut pieces of rope.

Note that virtually all of the crop circles are circles - hint: hammer a stake into the ground and tie a rope to it. Hold on to one end of the rope, and use your board to flatten plants as you walk around in a circle....

But then there's the giant, topologically-shaped cartoon alien face that showed up a year or two ago. That one would be a lot harder, I'd have to say.
posted by troutfishing at 10:39 AM on December 26, 2003

I thought the big mystery about some of the circle was that there were no footprints - no signs of humans or anyone having made them. That combined with the 4-10 hour periods they were made seems incredible that a person could do such a thing.

I've read a lot of sites on crop circles. Still makes me wonder if some of them aren't manmade.
posted by christian at 11:23 AM on December 26, 2003

They've produced videos demonstrating how they do it. Note the name of the site is not merely crop circles, but circle-makers... there's really no mystery to these any more.
posted by nthdegx at 12:11 PM on December 26, 2003

Walking on flattened wheat or barley leaves no footprints. Try it sometime.
posted by normy at 1:29 PM on December 26, 2003

nthdegx, normy - STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT !

You two have killed my rich interior life, my dreams and my fantasies about those circles. You - you rationalists! Are you happy now?
posted by troutfishing at 2:28 PM on December 26, 2003

well, troutfishing, maybe aliens implanted the idea to create the circles into these guys' heads during an abduction or something? ; >
posted by amberglow at 2:35 PM on December 26, 2003

Flying over the Nazca lines a few years ago, what struck me was not so much how they'd done it (not so hard with some basic geometry, rope and lots of slave labor), but why somebody would go to all the trouble.
The human psyche is truly the final frontier.
posted by signal at 4:35 PM on December 26, 2003

amberglow - you missed the obvious. Maybe they are the aliens! Occam's Razor has spoken. It's obvious.

signal - I agree. As another example, take The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick ! (as illustrated by R. Crumb in Weirdo #17)
posted by troutfishing at 4:58 PM on December 26, 2003

ooo, you mean they walk among us?

/emits high-pitched squeal a la Invasion of the Body Snatchers
posted by amberglow at 5:07 PM on December 26, 2003

Why they do it? Wait - you don't think it's ridiculously cool? I should have come back sooner.
posted by nthdegx at 12:46 AM on December 28, 2003

Is it more cool than chasing big rolling cheese wheels down dangerously steep hills?
posted by troutfishing at 9:19 AM on December 28, 2003