I know the people who make most of the crop circles, and I’ve made some myself. There are various answers to the question.
First of all, yes, sometimes the formation was made over a much longer period of time than is imagined. E.g. you get some farmer or eyewitness saying that the field was perfectly normal at 5am but had this fantastic formation on it at 5.30am and it’s impossible… yada yada yada. Well, the eyewitnesses are wrong. That’s all there is to it. Talk to anyone with some years’ experience in the legal system, and you’ll learn a lot about how reliable eyewitnesses are (answer: not a whole bunch).
However, almost all formations are made in one night, since it is obviously hard-to-impossible to keep the formation un-noticed in the day time. In the only cases I know where a formation was laid down during more than one night-time session, it was for some commercial or sponsored purpose and there was no need to maintain secrecy.
And so to the issue of complexity. The circle makers I know have been at it a long time, so they’ve had plenty of practice, and at least two of them are trained designers and artists who have a good understanding of design principles and the kind of basic geometry that designers find useful. They did begin with relatively simple patterns, but straight repetition is no fun, so naturally as each season comes round they like to see if they can exceed their previous efforts. Don’t confuse complexity with detail. The underlying geometry is often fairly simple if you onderstand these things - and have to do with simple and fundamental relationships between basic figures such as circles, inscribed triangles and hexagonal sections. They map these out on a piece of graph paper first. After that, it’s just a case of starting somewhere, and basing everything else on whatever element of the design they started with.
However, while the level of complexity can be deceptive (especially if you don’t know much about geometry), the level of detail is often very impressive. There’s no way around this - they just have to put in the hours and build up the details step by step. However, skilled practitioners can achieve a lot more in an hour than you would think. They can lay down a basic circle in less than ten minutes, and one of the most spectacular, large-scale and ‘complex’ formations ever made was created in less than 6 hours. We know because it was filmed in time lapse and timed.
Sometimes, for the really large formations, it’s a team effort. There was one very impressive specimen in 2001 which I know was the work of a team of 12, but this size of team is very unusual (1 2 or 3 people is the norm).
Friendy respect to Chalkpit, but I would have to offer some gentle corrections on most of his post.
I’ve made formations at night, and it’s no harder than it would be by day. As a ‘townie’ all my life, I was surprised to discover just how much visiblity there is, even in a field in the middle of nowhere at the dead of night. A full moon helps, but even wihtout it you can still see what you’re doing.
It’s not quite true that circle makers are never caught, but this is very rare. There’s nothing mystical about this. There arent’ that many people out trying to catch them, and there are lots and lots of fields that the circle-makers can work in, covering a vast area. The makers only need to find one where they can work undetected. Besides, all the circle-makers have to do is drive or walk by their chosen field a few times and check it out for safety. if there’s any risk, they go somewhere else. If not, they get out the kit and start working.
Practising beforehand… parachute manoevres… nope. I’ve never heard of this going on, or being necessary. Field, bit of graph paper, pick a starting point and then derive everything else from there.
As for people ‘messing up’ - it happens all the time! The formations can look nigh perfect from the air or from a distance, but close-up you’ll find many ‘good’ sections that look very neat and careful, and some that are messy.
Not one of the group has talked? Not true, and not that surprising anyway. First of all, most participants don’t see any point in talking about it. Making crop circles is many things to many people - a form of art, a form of therapy, a way to perpetuate a harmless mystery, fun etc. Not many of them see any benefit in yakking about it. Plus, why leave themselves wide open to charges for criminal damage? However, many circle makers have given interviews about their work - provided it’s done in such a way as to avoid liability for prosecution!
The ‘couple of old geezers’ were Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, two guys from the Southampton area who first decided that since UFO-nuts were always going on about ‘physical evidence’, they’d give them some! One of them was an artist, and still is. (The other sadly passed away some years ago). They gave their story to the ‘Today’ newspaper some years ago, 1995 I think.
A week before the piss poor ‘Signs’ movie opened in the UK, there was a special free screening organised for all the UK circlemakers! Lots of people attended (I was there) and we all signed a Signs poster for Doug Bower.
It has never been suggested that Doug and Dave were the only circle-makers, or that they were responsible for all the formations.
Local military… nope, nothing to do with it.
- Ianzin, doing his bit to try and fight ignorance. Much good though it may do me.
