Posted by Michael Glickman on December 24, 2013

Fig.1 – Cheesefoot Head. 9th August 2012

For clarity I will examine the four components of the formation separately. I move from the smallest to the largest and, while I have no evidence that this was in fact the sequence of construction, I believe it might have been.

Fig.2 – Diagram showing 64 dots at 33 foot centres.

Fig.3 – Cheesefoot Head. Drawing of formation.

Look for a moment at Fig 2 and imagine it as a board with 64 small pegs or nails fixed accurately in place. Now imagine stretching a very large elastic band over the nail-heads to replicate the diagram. This might offer a sense of the intricacy of the path’s seemingly simple trajectory.

I have carefully calculated the length of the path at 4032 feet. This is certainly not a precise figure but is fairly close. The width varied but averaged at around 4 feet. This will be seized on with glee by members of the fundamentalist man-made crew who will see this as irrefutable evidence that this precise and elaborate track (four fifths of a mile long!) was stomped down with a forty-eight inch board. What do you think?

THE COLLAR
In the making of this formation the serpentine path was the stylus or drawing instrument. I assume that the small circles or dots having been placed on their modular positions, the stylus arrived to weave its preordained way around and between them. As it placed its track around each laid circle it left a standing form, which I call the collar [Figs 4 & 5]. The wall of standing wheat was about twenty inches wide in its “ring” section but was clearly thicker at the pointed ends.

Fig.4 – “Teardrop” collar.

Fig.5 – “Eye” collar.

There were obviously 64 collars and 44 of these were Teardrops while the remaining 20 were Eyes. I chose the words Teardrop and Eye because these were most indicative of the shapes. It was only on rereading that I realised the fundamental connection between the two words. Please believe that no hidden meaning or significance is intended. It is, as they repeatedly assure me, just a coincidence!

There was a very clean circle, about 9 or 10 feet in diameter outside the main formation and near to one of the corners. I believe that this circle is to the north of the formation. Is there anyone who can help me with this?

Assuming it was north (or up) I treated it as the hole in a calendar and hung the drawing from it in a diagonal orientation [Fig 6]. This immediately opened up a number of interesting options. The 20 eye collars are marked in red and show not only the diagonal patterns that are set up but also the powerful similarity to the quintuplet form. For those of you who do not know (or have forgotten) the quintuplet, I refer you to the “Water Eaton” section in the first part of this article posted on September 21st 2013. Of course, the real anomaly here is that the so-called Mother Circle has become the Mother Square. There are 21 of these in the formation and they are fifteen feet square. [Fig 7] shows one of these elements with a central circle of 15’ diameter fitted into the square.

Fig.6 – Diagonal orientation with redeyes.

Fig.7 – Implicit quintuplet.

THE FRAME
The frame is the last component of the four elements and, as often with crop circles, perhaps the least interesting. A laid circle of about 375 feet in diameter contains the standing square that is to become the stage for this formation. The photograph (Fig 1) shows the laid perimeter ring of the circle, which is about eight foot six inches wide. The four corners of the 250’ by 250’ square touch the inside of this ring precisely.

DEVIL’S DEN 12th AUGUST
For me one of the overwhelming charms (and mysteries) of the crop circle phenomenon is its infinite inventiveness. A substantial majority of formations, when considered carefully, will reveal some formal or stylistic link to previous designs. However each season can generally be relied on to bring at least one event of shocking originality or ingenuity. Devil’s Den [Fig 8] was another one of these.

Fig.8 – Devil’s Den. 12th August 2012.

[Fig 9] is a detail from Fig 8 and is a useful example of the crop circles’ gracious implementation strategies. It shows the way the square frame is maintained while enclosing the standing area with a flattened border and the laid area with a standing border. At the junction here, not only is the angle of the saw-tooth maintained, but the circlemakers’ hospitality portal makes access from one laid area to another conspicuous and easy.

Fig.9 – Devil’s Den. Detail.

The lay of the large flattened area is remarkable and again, I believe, utterly new. Each point of the zigzag wall generates a rounded, almost concentric, set of wave-forms in the downed wheat. These curves are tightest nearer the points but gently straighten towards the edge of the square. Who cares enough to offer us such gratuitous beauty?

My knowledge of this phenomenon, though neither encyclopaedic nor infallible, is pretty good yet I cannot recall a previous use of either this saw-tooth theme (especially in three-dimensions) or the meandering scalloped lay. I was bewildered by Devil’s Den which seemed to be a crop circle without apparent lineage; no parents, siblings nor even distant cousins.

I am charmed by this elegant and enigmatic little formation.

A DIGRESSION
In the first episode of this piece I discussed he remarkable cube at Chilcomb Down of 1st July 2012. Karen Alexander, observant as always, corrected my assertion that this was the only formation displaying true multi-point perspective. She drew my attention both to the Longwood Warren event of 23rd July 2012 [Fig 10] and the Owslebury formation of 5th August 2012 [Fig 11]. In my confusion about the credentials of Devil’s Den, I seized intuitively on both of them.

Fig.10 – Longwood Warren. 23rd July 2012.

Fig.11 – Owslebury. 5th August 2012.

They both involved pointed, zigzag, sawtooth form, one in a line which, though straight, began to twist elegantly at one end and the other swept into a circle, resembling a crown.

My inclusion of the two formations in a discussion of Devil’s Den is, as I say, intuitive and irrational. However, I believe that they were produced by the same team and might have some connection.

Returning to Devil’s Den, there has been much discussion, veering from scholarly and erudite to bonkers and incomprehensible of its mysterious bars, 7, 8, 7, 7 and 7 in number. Responding to this tumultuous interest in seven and eight (and here is a digression within a digression) I looked for 7 and 8 in Longwood Warren and Owslebury.

Confirming that Owslebury has seven points I rushed optimistically to stare again at Longwood Warren. It had nine points, not the eight I had hoped for.

But here was the surprise. It is reasonable to assume that the nine-pointed crown would be based around a nonagon, a nine-sided figure, but the form of the base polygon is a little awkward. I drew an octagon, an eight-sided polygon [Fig 12], over the image and it seemed to sit comfortably.

Some might feel that this digression is irrelevant. If so I apologise.

Fig.12 – Owslebury with octagon.

Fig.13 – Stitchcombe. 23rd August 2012.

Fig.14 – Stitchcombe diagram

Fig.15 – Central quintuplet.

Fig.16 – Stitchcombe. Ground shot of central circle.

[Fig 17] shows a diagram of the Stitchcombe with an extra twelve circles, in pale blue, added to show the 6 x 6 formation with its full complement of thirty-six. This shows the precision with which the four central circles define the size of the divided Mother circle.

Fig.17 – Stitchcombe diagram with grid of circles completed.

[Fig 18] shows Bert Janssen’s proof that Stitchcombe squared the circle or, as I prefer, circled the square. A square (red) is constructed through the centres of the twenty outermost circles. A circle (blue) is then drawn to touch (green arrows) the inside edges of the four corner circles. The length of the perimeter of the red square is equal to the circumference of the blue circle to an accuracy of marginally under 100%.

Fig.18 – Bert Janssen’s diagram showing squaring of circle.

Who envisioned this?

HACKPEN HILL 25th AUGUST
But, perhaps more importantly who could have envisioned THIS?

Fig.19 – Hackpen Hill. 25th August 2012.

THE CUBE
In the first part I wrote “My own inference (a speculation only) is that the Circle Mistresses and Masters, subscribing to the ancient Earth/Square association, invent their overwhelming variations on squareness to suggest to us the infinite choices and possibilities now becoming available to the world.”

Reading back and reconsidering the nine examples cited in these two articles I suspect that my speculation is a reasonable one. The crop circle phenomenon seems to work symbolically; would it stretch logic too far to suggest that the shifting of 2D square to 3D cube might mirror our own shift from the Third to the Fifth Dimension?

Who would dare to predict what these current world changes might bring? Who could venture to foretell the impact of the next dimension? Thirteen of the units that make up the cube (and of course the number might be another clue) appear to defy perspective. Many see this as a “mistake”, a misdrawing and therefore hard evidence of human involvement. But would any agency, human or otherwise, with the skill to contrive this huge and elegant masterwork, make such a “mistake”? And once having made it, would they repeat it another twelve times?

Clearly not. I believe these through-the-looking-glass distortions suggest what we might expect. Perhaps they are clever alterations that hint at (and encourage) our ability to see things from multiple perspectives. The world would clearly benefit if we could all view matters from simultaneous, disparate positions. I am reminded here of those nice gentlemen, Mr Picasso and Mr Braque and the origins of Cubism.

Fig.20 – Hackpen Hill diagram.

All cubes have six surfaces and each side has four corners of 90°, thus 6 x 4 x 90 or 2160. The Hackpen cube [Fig 20] is formed of 6 x 6 x 6 or 216, elements. The way 2160 and 216 are thrown up here will be dismissed by many as “coincidence”, that good old standby. But when we register the fact that 2160 years marks the approximate point of precessional shift between the Piscean and Aquarian ages we might realise that we are presented here not with coincidence but with evidence of a greater, though for the moment hidden, order.

Karen Alexander has written persuasively of the references the Hackpen formation makes to time. Perhaps this elaborate cube is an elegant Cosmic Chronometer. We seem to be as bewildered as the 2001 apes prancing around the enigmatic monolith. It is clear that understanding, for now at least, must elude us. A little Humility, Respect and Wonder might help.

HACKPEN AS FRACTAL
Both the photograph [19] and the drawing [20] show that each side of the cube has a central flat panel of sixteen squares. [Fig 21] shows that the removal of these undetailed panels reveals an intriguing hollow cube-frame. [Fig 22] is a drawing of the single hollow cube units which make up the formation itself. 21 and 22, though of different size, are essentially similar.

Fig.21 – Hackpen Hill hollow cube diagram.

Fig.22 – Hackpen Hill single unit.

AN AFTERTHOUGHT
I hope that some of my comment, analysis and speculation here is useful. As always, to be so closely involved in the contemplation these beautiful and multi-layered artefacts has been an enriching experience But let us put this into some kind of perspective. My subject in these two pieces has been simply Squares and Cubes; clearly a tiny component of the crop circle narrative. I have further restricted the discussion to a single year, 2012. And yet this limited catchment has raised, for me at least, a spectacular array of questions and insights.

The magnitude and continuous self-refreshment of the Crop Circle enterprise is stunning.

What is happening here?

Acknowledgements and thanks
Photography: Steve Alexander, Paul Jacobs, Bert Janssen
Diagrams and graphics: Ofmil Haynes Jr, Bert Janssen
Conversation and advice: Karen Alexander, Gary King, Albert Lamb, Daniel Rozman