Posted by Michael Glickman on December 5, 2018

THE DIVERSE AND THE UNIFORM

My subject is the Muncombe Hill crop circle of 14th July 2018 (1) which I believe will come to be recognised as one of the classic exemplars of this phenomenon. There is an interesting sting in the tail of this tale. We will come to that!

1. Muncomb Hill 14th July 2018

We must first go back some years to the vigorous arrival of sevenfold geometry in 1998.

2. Oliver’s Castle 11th August 1996

The Oliver’s Castle sixfold star of 11th August 1996 (2) and (3) was a crucial event in the crop circle narrative. This was the formation that produced the much-disputed video footage of a crop circle forming under (or perhaps being created by) the passage of a team of luminous spheres. Inevitably this event, graceful and balletic but above all revealing, was stridently dismissed by the usual debunkers.

3. Oliver’s Castle diagram

The farmer, a Mr Butler, enraged by this uninvited intrusion, was furious and refused to allow anyone onto the formation. Oliver’s Castle is an ancient rampart on top of a steep escarpment overlooking the plain of Mr Butler’s farm. It is one of the best viewing positions in Wiltshire and, because access was forbidden, it became for a few days a convivial assembly point for crop circle enthusiasts. I visited the hill three or four times to gaze down on the formation in the field below. It was a simple six-armed glyph with three diminishing circles positioned along each arm but, simple as it was, something about its proportion was intriguing.

After a few days Mr Butler ran a combine harvester through the heart of the formation. This meaningless and spiteful gesture seemed to calm his anger and, on receipt of a five pound note, he was happy to let us to go in and measure. Even after the harvester’s passage, the stubble of the formation accurately indicated the profile and we spent some hours measuring.

THE SEARCH FOR CONSTRAINING GEOMETRY

I lived with the survey drawing both in Wiltshire and on my return to California and I was convinced that the Oliver’s Castle crop formation had more to offer. Inevitably I thought of John Martineau’s crucial work of the early ‘90s which demonstrated how often crop formations will reveal a hidden controlling geometry. I tried overlaying the drawing with triangular, square, pentagonal and hexagonal geometries but, despite numerous attempts, nothing was revealed. I confess I did not initially have the imagination to go beyond the familiar threefold, fourfold, fivefold and sixfold geometries.

A MYSTERIOUS NUMERICAL CLUE

While measuring Oliver’s Castle we noticed something extraordinary. The six avenues of the arms displayed an unusual accuracy of dimensional width. Referring to Diagram (4), every one of the six avenues A – B was exactly four feet, or forty-eight inches, wide. The unerring consistency of this dimension was remarkable and in my experience unique. But more was to follow. The twelve sections, paths B – C – D, displayed the same unusual accuracy but in this case reduced to three feet or thirty-six inches. These dimensions were checked and rechecked across the formation but we could not find the tiniest change.

I had never experienced such meticulous (and insistent) accuracy. What might this mean? This question nagged.

Back in California I returned to the Oliver’s Castle drawing. I had watched the famous video many times and, despite the debunker’s noise, it was for me a real and valuable piece of evidence. I assumed that, if this formation had been chosen as the occasion to disclose such crucial information, then the crop circle itself must be the container of further revelation.

INTUITIONS OR NUDGES

There can be no doubt that this phenomenon is, in some sort of mix, both telepathic and interactive. Those of us who are blessed with a close involvement here can choose, when we make some connection or discovery, to credit either our own intuition or a hint or nudge from elsewhere. I find generally that I belong to the elsewhere crowd.

And suddenly (elsewhere?) I recognised the importance of four feet and three feet. I had not understood why Four and Three had been whispering to me for weeks after measuring Oliver’s Castle but now it was screaming! Four and Three. Four PLUS Three! Seven. I immediately went to my drawing board, drew a containing circle around the six circles B and placed a seven-pointed star, a heptagram, within it; see Diagram (4).

4. Oliver’s Castle diagram with heptagram

The arm crossing of the star sizes and positions the central circle A so precisely that there can be no doubt. The Oliver’s Castle crop circle was designed with an underlying sevenfold geometry.

Why did I place the circle enclosing B as opposed to C or D? On site we saw that, while circles A and B were sharply made with evidence of an energetic sweep, the quality of the lay diminished in the six circles C and deteriorated even more tangibly in the Ds. The distinguished video analyst Jim Diletoso in Arizona slowed the footage down to show that the swirling energy started and was strongest at the centre and weakened as it moved outwards. This accorded with our observations. The C circles were relatively careless and the D circles were tired and messy.

I was delighted with this discovery and phoned the great John Michell in London. He told me that seven represented, among other things, Spirit and Revelation. These seemed absolutely appropriate!

On the basis of these events I predicted, in my column for Sussex Circular, the arrival of actual sevenfold circles during the 1998 season. In fact, and very much to my surprise, sevenfold geometry did appear. The first event to be widely observed was the gigantic formation in East Field, 9th July 1998, though a small and tightly organised crop circle at Danebury Ring preceded it on the 8th July 1998. But it is the third sevenfold, Tawsmead Copse of 9th August 1998 (5), (6) and (7) that is our focus here.

5. Tawsmead Copse 9th August 1998

6. Tawsmead Copse interior

7. Tawsmead diagram

TAWSMEAD COPSE

It was widely agreed that the Tawsmead Copse crop circle was both charmed and charming. It attracted many visitors and the atmosphere in the lovely and rather remote location was particularly convivial.

It was a large sevenfold, similar in external profile to its East Field predecessor but, like its sixfold cousins of 1997, Tawsmead’s centre added an ornate rosette. The images (8), (9) and (10) show a little of the diversity of the small circles around the central rosette and the perimeter of the body of the formation. The central feature had 91 small circles while the edge of the formation had 84. You could walk around and easily peer down (6) into one hundred and seventy-five small circles, arranged very much like display cases in a museum. It was this perhaps, that was the most arresting feature of Tawsmead Copse 1998.

8. Tawsmead small nest

9. Tawsmead single stem

10. Tawsmead cone

The calm and bucolic setting enchanted everyone but, above all, people were astonished by the variety and ingenuity of the small circles’ centres. There were swirls and spirals, doughnuts and birds nests, whorls and knots, tetrahedra and teepees. Only 3 out of the 175 are shown here.

To my knowledge this astonishing display was not systematically examined and catalogued. I viewed many of these “showcases” and was impressed, above all by their diversity and the inventiveness. There might have been duplication but I, and those I spoke to, did not find a single matching pair.

Tawsmead Copse stands as an inarguable example of the inexplicable crop circle. The idea that these exquisite forms might have been produced with a plank and rope is ludicrous as is the possibility that a person could actually get into each of these 175 small circles to meticulously work his deception.

MUNCOMBE HILL

We come at last to Muncombe Hill of 14th July 2018 (11) and which in my view is another masterpiece of 2018. It is a beautiful but in many ways flawed and perplexing crop circle that is best considered in two separate parts – the centre with its three concentric rings of small components and the outer arrangement of twelve elaborate radial arms.

11. Muncombe Hill 14th July 2018

The diagram (12) shows how each of the radial twelve arm elements is based on a thin straight spine onto which are placed two circles. Every circle here has a “tail” which makes a feature similar to the well-known Paisley pattern. Two thin arcs in the case of the outer twelve circles and two thicker arcs, wide enough to be pathways, in the case of the inner twelve circles, generate this shape.

12. Muncombe Hill diagram

13. Muncombe Hill rings

Sadly, nobody measures nowadays and we generally have to make estimates from photos. I assumed that the thin, outer arcs would be the same width as the 12 straight radial avenues. I thought they would both be about five or six inches wide while the thicker arcs would be about two feet wide. Gary King’s picture (14) shows my colossal error! The thin paths are at least twelve inches wide! Shame on me.

14. Muncombe Hill spine

Those familiar with technical pre-computer drawing will remember (uncomfortably) the difficulties of compass work. Look at image (15) that shows, highlighted by the red ring, the point of connection of two fine arcs. An examination of the six arms shows that every one of the twelve junctions was perfect. They meet exactly where they should with no hint of overrun. This would be a difficult task on paper in daylight.

15. Muncombe Hill junctions

In the case of the thicker arcs the junction is achieved (16) by a clever tucking-under of the crop, the green below the red.

16. Muncombe Hill overlap

Each of the twenty-four circles generates two arcs whether thin or broad and in every case the arcs connect smoothly and precisely to the circle’s perimeter (17). In considering 24 circles and 48 arcs we should consider two critical points. First, there is no sign of centre points for either the circles or the arcs. How could this be? Second the 25 circles (and here I include the unique central circle) are absolutely identical. Each circle is a perfectly made tightly wound clockwise spiral and each is indistinguishable from its neighbour.

17. Muncombe Hill standard circle

AN IMPORTANT INTERVENTION

I will return to Muncombe but we must pause here to consider what is perhaps the very core of this piece. Tawsmead Copse demonstrated a remarkable ability to make a limitless variety of forms. I am great admirer of humanity’s creativity and inventiveness but I believe these surpassed human capability. Were they made by a small group of Belgian lace-making nuns or was it nimble fingered boys from an Afghani carpet factory?

On the other hand Muncombe Hill displays 25 spirals so identical, so perfectly similar, that they might have been mass-produced by an industrial process. I believe this is also technically beyond human ability. I challenge anyone to reproduce ONE of those perfect coiled spirals, let alone 25 matching clones. I will not hold my breath.

MUNCOMBE’S CENTRE

After the intricate precision of the outside twelve arms it is bewildering to view the poor quality of the centre. There seems to be no geometric order or strategy in the three concentric rings of twelve small elements. It could be an element of a separate formation. Diagram (13) shows that ring 2 was simply too small to accommodate the required twelve circles. Six circles, shown in grey, might have worked but this would have meant a new design approach.

A DRAWING

A trusted colleague who swears it was first seen in 2015 sent me a copy of a drawing (18). Despite my admitted bias, I have absolutely no reason to doubt this information. The source of the drawing, one “Dene Hine”, claims that he also made the formation and this is, in my view, an obvious deceit. Hine’s drawing is most impressive but flawed and reveals how little he has studied crop circle design protocols. The twelve arms of the formation (though similar to the sketch) stand clearly apart from each other (11) and (12) while in his drawing the elements crunch into each other (18) (see red arrow). Crop circles components never collide.

18. A prophetic diagram?

It is the quality of much of the formation that convinces me that Hine is, as expected, a liar but this leaves a question. How did he produce his surprisingly prescient drawing? We saw at Ansty (Antsy (but not nasty) about Ansty) November 23, 2016) an accurately reproduced Californian trademark. Despite the usual howls of “man made” the formation was clearly and beautifully real. Perhaps the Hine drawing is another event of the same type. I wish that Hine would clarify this (Intuition or Nudge?) but I fear that the water would simply be further muddied.

THE FIRST AXIOM

In the early ‘90s I published the First Axiom of crop circle research.

“Everything you hear about a hoaxed crop circle is a lie.”

A few colleagues reproached me but, over a quarter of a century later, my experience has consistently confirmed it.

“Everything you hear about a hoaxed crop circle is a lie.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Photography: Steve Alexander, Nick Bull, Janet Ossebaard
Diagrams: Michael Glickman, Ofmil Haynes Jr, Dene Hine
Web Design: Anthony Lovell de Souza
Consiglieri: Jineen Cronin, Frances Grey, Gary King, Albert Lamb, David Bell