MESSAGE FROM THE STARS OR DOUBLE BLUFF IN THE BARLEY?

June 29th, 1996
Source: Daily Mail newspaper.
By Bill Mouland

To the believer, it is a message from the beyond that mankind must change his ways. To the sceptic, it is an elaborate hoax.

Either way, it has to be said that the pattern which appeared overnight in farmer Tim Carson's barley field is an impressive representation of the secret of life, the DNA chain.

Beneath the humpback hills of Pewsey Downs yesterday, a thin curtain of drizzle was falling on the pilgrims to the paranormal. Even from the top of the hills the pattern did not have any defined shape. But from the air -where gliders and Army helicopters were practicing their manouvres - the phenomenon took on an entirely new meaning.

At the 17th century farmhouse, Tim Carson's wife Polly was convinced that something extraordinary had happened.

"There is no way it could have been a hoax," she said. "We know it wasn't there at midnight and it was light by 4am, so there just would not have been time to make anything on such a grand scale. Besides it was so perfect, with no tracks made between the circles. There are more than 90 of them."

So concerned has she become that she has faxed a drawing of the design to Parliament.

So far there has been no reply - not even an extra-terrestrial one.

Mrs Carson, 43, took one of the stems of barley plucked from the field. "Look," she said, rubbing its still-green stalk. "You can see that if a crop like this is touched by people, a milky white mark is left. None of the barley which was bent over inside the circle bore any mark at all."

The crop has also been bent perfectly at the node - a joint halfway down the stem - which is impossible to do by hand.

Mrs Carson said: "Something very odd is happening in the fields - but it is not frightening; it's benign."

In the East Field, meanwhile, the string of circles was being treated with reverence by most of its visitors. Some walked with their palms outstretched to try to catch its alleged healing powers.

Philippa Coxall, from Fording-bridge, Hampshire, said she could feel the circles pulling her to left and right as if by some magnetic force.

Her boyfriend Alan Foster said: I have felt energies very strogly in my hands. We have to wake up to the fact that we are destroying the planet. I am sure this is a sign."

Mr Foster said he did not know how 'they' made the circles.

"By they, I mean a higher intelligence," he said. "Beings who are working for the evolution of mankind."

Sceptics, and there are plenty of those around during the West Country's annual crop circle season, still said it must be a hoax for all its intricacy. Across Hampshire, for instance, a star shaped pattern had appeared in a field in Upper Clatford.

"I certainly didn't feel anything when I was among the circles," said Alec Walland, 46, a lift engineer. But he had to confess himself impressed.

"I don't know about these things," he said. "There's just so many circles in this one."

At his desk in the Ministry of Defence, Nick Pope, whose book Open Skies, Closed Minds, has just been serialised in the Daily Mail, made plans to visit Alton Barnes for himself. He said: "My theory is that at the end of the day - like UFO sightings - nine out of ten are probably hoaxes. But there are always some unknown phenomena possibly with extra-terrestrial connections."

Among the theories about how crop circles are made are: little green men from Outer Space landing in their flying saucers; a laser beam, possibly a new weapon devised by the Ministry of Defence; a wind vortex, which swirls around the fields because of the shape of the surrounding hills; magnetism from underground or Space; clever flying by trainee Army helecopter pilots.

Or it could be an ancient force which picks up its powers from ley lines connecting prominent points in the landscape - Alton Barnes lies close to Stonehenge and Avebury.

Many, however, put their belief in hoaxers. But Southampton prankster Doug Bower, who has made many a pretty pattern using rope and a plank, has been ruled out of this one. He is laid up at home with arthritis.

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