Posted by Michael Glickman on April 13, 2019

THE HORTON EGG AND THE HORTON BEEHIVE

A reverse history

Horton itself

Horton is a small one-street village. It is enclosed in a loop of the Kennet and Avon Canal; thus you can enter Horton only by passing over one of its two bridges. Turning right out of my house the road goes west to Devizes and left, east, to Alton Barnes. Less than a quarter mile from my front door is the magic field (with the pillbox) that is the subject of this piece.

The story of the four formations that appeared here over twenty years is told backwards. We start with the recent mysterious oval and end with the small star formation of 2000 that for me remains enigmatic and enchanted.

4 Horton: Early March 2019

Strangely early in the season, this unusual formation in very young wheat, was quickly dismissed by some as the imprint of a historic construction (1) and (2). There have certainly been ancient settlements in this area and indeed in this field but (and here my prejudices are well-known) I believe this to be a crop circle and perhaps the earliest one ever. It has been widely ignored.

1 The Horton Egg early March 2019

2 The Horton Egg close up

I would be happy to see evidence supporting the ancient construction hypothesis but until then I must treat this as a significant crop event.

There are two principal elements; a large egg-shaped oval (3) over two hundred feet in width and a smaller perfect ring positioned carefully between tramlines. The oval contains, at the geometric centre of its larger end, a concentric part-circle with a straight path connecting to the perimeter. The small ring at the point of the oval appears flawless both in its circularity and in the consistency of its width. The path surrounding the oval is largely similar in the consistency of width apart from a section at the north that is almost double the thickness. The laying down of the young wheat forms the paths defining both shapes. This must be one of the least accurate surveys I have ever produced. Do not rely on it!

3 The Horton Egg diagram

Perhaps the most arresting feature of this design is the way the tip of the egg/oval responds to the ring. Diagram (4) shows that the dimple in the oval shares the concentricity of the ring itself and offers a symbolic housing for the ring.

I find it hard to believe that these shapes might echo ancient earthworks. Could this archaeology be telegraphed so meticulously through many centuries of time and several feet of earth?

3 Horton: Vesica 24th June 2008

5 The Horton Vesica 24th June 2008

6 The Horton Vesica

This exquisite little crop glyph (5) was as perfectly conceived and made as any I have seen. Photographed from a different angle (6) it seems to become a 3D object, perhaps a small table. But the simple Vesica Pisces (Vessel of the Fish) (7) on which this design is so clearly based is the first exercise of Sacred Geometry, the Division of Unity. This is a device which has often been a part of the crop circle narrative, either unadorned as at Enna in Sicily (8) or enhanced as this formation in Horton.

The tramlines are occasionally included in crop circle designs but this must be the most elegant example ever of tramline incorporation (8).

8 Enna Vesica 15th June 2013

9 The Horton Vesica diagram

2 Horton: Confetti 3rd July 2005

In 2005 I could still walk with the help of a stick. I drove to a new and accessible formation and lay down in the centre. It was of course delicious but I was alone and discovered – for the first time – that I could not get up! After a while two kind people came by and helped me to my feet. As I drove home I realised that the last formation I had truly been able to walk through was the majestic Milk Hill event of 2001. I called, as I occasionally do, to the crop circle making cousins: “Why is it so hard for me to visit circles?”

10 Horton Confetti

A few days later, driving towards Alton Barnes, I saw, to my astonishment, that I was driving though a confetti-like scattering of six circles (10). The road passed through the centre of the largest one, cutting it in half. There were two and a half circles on the north side of the road and three and a half on the south side. The small hexagonal structure by the road in the photograph and also at the bottom right of (1) is a World War 2 defensive “pillbox”, one of many which are now preserved in England.

I drive regularly along that road and in 2005 I passed often through, in and out, of that formation. I know of no other crop circle that has crossed a road. Was this their answer to my question? The circles will visit you!

1 Horton: Small star 6th August 2000

I returned from California at the end of the millennium and by January 2000 I was happily installed at the eastern end of the village. I was not yet familiar with the area and, though I had passed by it countless times during previous seasons, the Horton field (apart from its closeness to my new home) did not appear exceptional.

And then a small, unassertive formation arrived (11).

11 Horton Small Star 6th August 2000

It was very special and was to become one of the most important crop circles of my career! A perimeter ring encircled the formation, three or four feet wide, on which was placed a small laid circle. Within this was a precisely formed standing miniature pentagram. Moving inwards there was a broad doughnut of standing wheat out of which the star-bearing circle had taken a semicircular bite! At the centre of the formation was a large disc of flattened crop.

Unfortunately I am unable to include photographs of this event and its significant features. If anyone could let me have photographs of this crop circle, the miniature star or the beehive I would be very grateful.

This fine but otherwise unremarkable crop circle was soon to reveal several curious events, skills and characteristics that would challenge the ubiquitous doubter or explanologist. Four examples follow.

A Patricia Murray’s arrival
Patricia had been my colleague for some years. We established Crop Circle Radius in Santa Monica and lectured on both the circles and geometry in California and the south-western states. She was due to arrive from America on the 6th of August 2000 for her annual crop circle visit. She had no prior knowledge that there would be a circle on the morning of her arrival in the nearest arable field to the house in which she was to be a guest. I had a phone call to notify me of the formation’s arrival before Patricia called from the airport.

The cynic would scoff and proclaim “coincidence!” But…

The previous year, 1999, arriving from Heathrow to Stanton St Bernard my son who was driving noticed a shadow in the field as we turned into Stanton. It was a crop circle in the nearest arable field to the house I was to stay in. It was 23rd June 1999 and again the formation had arrived that morning

B The Beehive
Towards the edge of the central circle a unique and anomalous feature stood out from the flattened wheat. It was shaped like a traditional beehive and was about three feet in height. The construction of the object was ingenious. Though it was made entirely of wheat it was swirled so cleverly that it had become surprisingly rigid. People could sit on the ground and lean back against it without producing the least movement. It was hollow and there was an aperture at the bottom. You could lie down, put your head inside and view the inside of this remarkable, tightly woven interior.

I believe the circlemakers’ skills in geometry and two-dimensional design are unchallengeable but the Horton Beehive demonstrated their equally impressive third-dimensional constructional abilities.

C Triangle of stars
Image (12) shows the wall of my living room where photographs and silhouettes of the 2000 season were displayed. It has been my practice for many years to put the drawings up as they are completed. They stay there through the winter and are replaced only when the subsequent year’s surveys become available. I live with these forms, shapes and geometries through the winter and the following spring until they are superseded by the crop circles of the next season.

12 Diagram wall 2000

They become a normal part of my daily life and occasionally they appear to initiate a conversation or perhaps they become a surface off which ideas can be bounced. I have long maintained that the circlemakers, our cousins, regularly offer gentle hints or nudges to aid our work; others will say that nothing beyond personal intuition is at play. I can accept either supposition but, as my regular readers will know, I am an ex-hippy, card-carrying New Age bliss bunny who can believe in almost anything! Thus for me, after thirty years of close involvement, I know we are nudged!

And in 2000 the first nudge was “Look for triads!” I was told to look on the wall for groups of three. I quickly found the three crop circles with small stars.

Horton, with its single pentagram, was clearly the first. Silbury, 24th July, with its six stars and Pewsey, 7th August with three stars made up the first triad group.

I continued with the exercise and discovered three more groups of three.
The next nudge, or intuition, was very specific. “Locate them on a map!” which I did. Each of the four groups formed isosceles triangles (that is triangles with two equal sides) and the first one (13) was the most impressive. The longest side was a staggering 7.7 miles in length. Its almost twin was over 98% of that length. The angle between the two was 30°.

13 Triangle of pentagram formations 2000

We know that, like all artists, location and framing is always carefully considered but to engineer apiece of land-art of this size and at this scale is amazing.

D 7-fold geometries
For some years I had been interested in number seven and its related forms. I cannot recall what stimulated me to test seven-fold geometry on the lovely little Horton star but – to my delight – a fat heptagram precisely sized and contained the flattened central circle (14). Even more surprisingly a thin heptagram (15) sized the orbit circle holding the star.

14 Fat heptagram

15 Thin heptagram

The other three groups formed smaller isosceles triangles in the landscape. The smallest dimension was 4 miles and the accuracy of the comparison between the twin sides was never less than 98%.

What can we do with this? I recall that someone, in the early ‘90s, discovered that three of the eight “dolphin” formations formed a huge triangle when placed on a map. Perhaps more work could be done on this?

Each one of these four items, A,B,C and D, is at least surprising and each of them challenges the conventional Newtonian Worldview. I acknowledge my own prejudices and I delight at the privilege of living so close to this magical field. I daily confront the possibility that I might be completely nutty.

KNOWLEDGEMENTS
Photography: Nick Bull, Gary King, Lucy Pringle
Diagrams: Michael Glickman, Ofmil Haynes Jr,
Web Design: Anthony Lovell de Souza
Consiglieri: Jineen Cronin, Gary King, Albert Lamb, David Bell