1970 (?) - Warminster
Wiltshire UFO spotter/author Arthur Shuttlewood published a series of books in the 1960s and 1970s documenting his experiences in the Warminster area. Within them are details of what he calls saucer landing marks swirled into reeds and grass. (These are detailed in the "Related cases" section of this site, since they do not concern crop fields.)
However in his book, UFOs - Key to the New Age (1971) he does carry four images of markings in crop fields, which have been put forward since as evidence of early crop circles. Having obtained a copy of the book, I beg to differ. The four images are shown below, which were printed as a "frontspiece" to the volume, which does not otherwise discuss them. (I have not, and cannot plough through the 200-plus pages of drivel to be 100 percent sure, but I have skimmed every page and found no mention.)
Each photograph is captioned, which is all the documentation we have. The captions mention swirling and imply defined shapes such as triangles, but the images speak for themselves; these cannot by any stretch be thought of as crop circles. I include them here for the record, but do not consider them part of the phenomenon.
However in his book, UFOs - Key to the New Age (1971) he does carry four images of markings in crop fields, which have been put forward since as evidence of early crop circles. Having obtained a copy of the book, I beg to differ. The four images are shown below, which were printed as a "frontspiece" to the volume, which does not otherwise discuss them. (I have not, and cannot plough through the 200-plus pages of drivel to be 100 percent sure, but I have skimmed every page and found no mention.)
Each photograph is captioned, which is all the documentation we have. The captions mention swirling and imply defined shapes such as triangles, but the images speak for themselves; these cannot by any stretch be thought of as crop circles. I include them here for the record, but do not consider them part of the phenomenon.
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Bryce Bond, 1972
Bryce Bond was an American journalist who came to the UK to go UFO spotting with Shuttlewood. He described some unusual experiences which took place on the evening of August 26, 1972. He has recounted these several times for various publications, and the story is worded differently from version to version, but with the same core details. Bryce speaks of formations in crop fields, and we quote here from his account cited in Shuttlewood's The Flying Saucerers (1977):
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"Suddenly I heard a noise - like something crushing the wheat down ... and there, before my eyes, a large depression was being formed. The wheat was being crushed down in a counter clockwise position. It too was shaped like a triangle and measured about twenty feet from point to point ... Speaking of the field, Arthur pointed out some landing impressions in the section fronting the farm barn: a circle about thirty feet in circumference, with another depression spotted, but this one in a long cigar shape. All the depressions, recently made and noticed, were in a counter clockwise fashion." (Elsewhere, the formation of a circle is described as being, "like the opening of a lady's fan".) |
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Mollie Carey
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In respect of these accounts, and especially in the light of the poor photographic evidence above, it is important to point out that another person present, Mollie Carey, has gone on record to state that these 1972 wheat field impressions were definitely not of the crop circle type.
In Cerealogist magazine (issue 3, page 7) she states quite unequivocally, "There was no magic flattening of the corn, only that which was flattened by the weather". Given that Mollie herself was a farmer, we feel it prudent to accept her remarks, and discount the descriptions from Shuttlewood's books. Unusual markings were no doubt seen, but we now know enough about crops and crop circles to recognise them as ordinary weather damage, as Molly says. |
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historic old crop circles - UK circles
