Reports of Unidentified Flying Object: The English Corn Circles in 1988 – GEORGE WINGFIELD
George Wingfield was educated at Eton College and Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 1966 with an M.A. Hons. degree in Natural Sciences. He worked ·briefly at the Royal Greenwich Obser vatory, Herstmonceux, on stellar spectra and the Earth’s magnetism. He currently works for IBM U.K. Ltd. in the field of Systems Engineering.
George Wingfield became interested in the Com Circles phenomenon on August 8, 1987, after visiting Westbury, Wiltshire, where a number of Circle formations had recently appeared. This also led to an interest in the related subject of Ufology.
During 1988 the strange phenomenon of the English Corn Circles developed once more in the most unexpected fashion. Since the early 1980s when the press first drew public attention to the Circles, a furious controversy has raged as to their cause. There were those who considered that they had to be hoaxes. There were those who thought they must be caused by the downwash of helicopters, and others who were convinced they were made by animals chasing in circles in the crop. Some insisted that they were meteor ological effects. And, naturally enough, there were those who suggested that they were made by UFOs.
The more serious investigators of the phenomenon in this country got together to form a Circles investigation group a few years ago. Among the five original members were Colin Andrews, an electrical engineer from Andover who works for the Test Valley Council; Pat Delgado from Alresford, Hampshire, who once worked for NASA in the U.S.A. ; and Dr. Terence Meaden, a prominent meteorologist who runs the Tornado and Storm Research Organization (TORRO) fron1 his home in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire.
To these researchers it soon became abundantly clear that the Circles could not possibly be produced by helicopters or wild animals, and that their sheer numbers, going back over the years, precluded hoaxing as an explanation, although just a few Circles were recognized as hoaxes. Certain features of the Circles which were regularly seen would moreover be impossible to hoax. So what then was the solution to this mysterious problem?
There were certainly no easy answers. From the outset, Dr. Meaden was convinced that the Circles were caused by atmospheric vortices of wind, and he has maintained that view until recently. Although he has propounded this theory at great length_ in The Journal of Meteorology, it is fair to say that there are many meteorologists who do not support his standpoint.
None of the other four members of the Circles investigation group agreed with Dr. Meaden ‘s meteorological ex planation, and subsequently the group split away from him in 1988. Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado now head a larger team, Circles Phenomenon Research (CPR), and their book, Circular Evidence, was published in 1989 .
Their approach to the Circles phenomenon is much more widely based. In addition to a wealth of conventional scientific data which has been amassed, they have researched evidence of a UFO connection and also investigated the possibility that the Circles are caused by “Earth Energies , ” a concept that has been developed by other scientists and archaeologists. This subject is often referred to as “Earth Mysteries. “
Unfortunately, serious study of the Circles along these lines is frequently ridiculed by the ill-informed and by those who are anxious to rubbish explanations which conflict with their own. Their usual method of avoiding discussion of uncomfortable facts about the Circles which do not suit their theories is to try discrediting their adversary with charges like: “But he is a UFO believer. ” This is, of course, intended to invoke the public’s preconceived idea of UFOs-that peddled by the tabloid press-as solid circular spacecraft flown by little green men. This is a cheap trick. The UFO phenomenon is something far more complex and subtle than this simplistic concept, and it would be a foolish man indeed who maintained that the UFO phenomenon, whatever its nature, was nothing but an illusion.
Certainly the Circles remain as much of an enigma as ever, but 1988 brought many new clues which gave considerable support to both the Earth Mysteries interpretation and to the UFO connection. Quite possibly these two approaches have much in common, and there readers must make their own judgment.