The Formation of Circles

 There are many theories about the formation of mysterious and bizarre crop circles. Some believe that aliens leave their marks on Earth, while others claim that humans create them to attract tourists and create stories about "green" visitors from distant (or nearby) planets. Here are a few of these theories.

Hordes of copulating hedgehogs!

Some researchers claimed the circles were the work of fraudsters, while others, skeptical, proposed "rational" explanations. Thus, the hypothesis arose that deer trampled the grain with geometric perfection to give birth and raise their offspring within the circle. Roe deer and foxes give birth in the grain. However, they exploit the natural terrain and do not trample the circles. The most incredible, interesting, and ridiculous hypothesis is that the grain was trampled by herds of fleeing, and even more bizarrely, copulating hedgehogs.

New Age "fans" saw these circles as "signs of the times," coded messages sent to humanity perhaps by Mother Earth herself. Following this path, one can find esoteric and cosmic symbols within the circles.

In their book "Circular Evidence," Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado argued that the circles were created by some unknown force field controlled by an alien intelligence, and that current science cannot explain this phenomenon. 

Who are these intelligent beings? Pat Delgado wrote in "Flying Saucer Review" in 1986: "Perhaps these circles were created by aliens who use an unknown force field for this purpose. Perhaps they manipulate Earth's energy..."

There's no doubt that UFOs exist, and that they were seen at the site where the circles were formed. However, there's no evidence that they're controlled by any intelligence.

Attempts

have also been made to explain the phenomenon of the pictographs' formation as air vortices, allegedly caused by a helicopter rotor. However, a rotor can't precisely define the circle's boundaries. Sometimes, mushrooms grow within the ear of corn, but they have nothing to do with it either, as no trace of them has been found in the pictographs.

Archaeologists suggested that the pictographs appeared in prehistoric sites that were always circular. However, they couldn't explain why the grain fell to the ground in those places.

Other researchers theorized that biochemical processes occurring in the soil (for example, through pesticide fertilization) could have weakened the grain growing in those areas. However, this theory fails to explain the random occurrence of the circles, their symmetry, their complex patterns, or the fact that the circles appeared in the same field at long intervals.

Another explanation proposed was that unusual meteorological conditions caused the circles to form. Delgado and Andrews categorically rejected this theory. In their opinion, the most complex patterns were created by fraudsters.

"Everyone fell for it."

In 1991, Douglas Bower and David Chorley made headlines. They admitted that they had been deliberately carving crop circles in England since 1978. "Everyone fell for it!" they marveled. Next, they showed journalists how they did it—using only wooden planks and coils of string, they created repeating insect-shaped patterns, which Pat Delgado (the originator of the alien intelligence theory) had deemed brilliant during a private site visit three days earlier.

The researchers were outraged. Delgado and other members of the Center for Circle Research ruled out the possibility that anyone could have fabricated the circles.

However, before Bower and Chorley came forward, Dr. Terence Meaden, founder of CERES (Circle Effect Research Group), admitted that fraud was quite common, and that several people had been caught red-handed. CERES members, searching for fake circles, found around 150 in 1991 alone.