1973 - Bordertown
This fascinating case involved the appearance of seven individual crop circles spread across a single site at Bordertown, South Australia. It seems the circles were found on Saturday December 8, 1973 and reported to the press the next day.
The text above is a reproduction of the consequent report in The Advertiser on Monday 10 December. It names the farmer as Kevin O'Connell, and is factually correct. That Friday, Keith Basterfield and Garry Little travelled to the site to investigate. They described the location as, "About three miles west of Bordertown, 1/4 mile off the Western highway and adjacent to a railway line." The road mentioned is the A8 Dukes Highway, which has a railway track parallel to it, but the details are too vague to enable us to identify the exact field. The circles were scattered across the farm land in a configuration which doesn't appear to be entirely random, though makes no meaningful pattern. A diagram by Basterfield is reproduced below, showing the layout of the seven circles. |
This case is particularly important for the photograph above. This is one of the best pre-1978 images available, and shows a swirled circle, pressed very decidedly to the ground.
Basterfield concluded that the circles were probably a couple of weeks old at least, and perhaps as old as a month. They varied in size from 2 metres to 4.5 metres diameter, with the crop described as "giving the appearance of a woven mat". Once again the local police were alerted and paid a site visit. They were unable to account for the circles and did not offer any official explanation. |
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New witness comes forward
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We have been contacted by an eye witness to these circles, Wayne Creaser, who lived in the area when he was a teenager. Wayne went to visit these circles and has offered his recollections...
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"My father was a friend of Kevin O'Connell and took me out to see the circles (I was 15 at the time). I recall that there were several flattened circles in the crop paddock, all the stalks flattened in the same direction in a circle. I also seem to recall that it was noted the earth had been packed down in the circles harder than the rest of the paddock.
"I know it created a lot if interest in the UFO fraternity at the time and also amongst a number of my fellow students at my high school. From memory, someone from the Adelaide UFO Society (possibly Keith) addressed a public meeting at the time for anyone interested in their work." |
historic old crop circles - overseas circles
