The UFO report: The English Corn Circles in 1988 – Tracks into the Circles
Despite the widely differing theories as to the origin of the Circles, most serious researchers are unanimous in agreeing that the Circles phenomenon is not a hoax. Over the last five years or so there have certainly been several hoaxed Circles, which usually looked neat and impressive to the unititiated but could always be seen to be fake by those who were familiar with the phenomenon. This was because genuine Circles almost always show fine details which would be extremely hard for a hoaxer to replicate.
First, the swirl patterns are mostly in the shape of anelabo rate spiral and not just concentric rings, such as would result – from the drawing round of a chain or rope attached to a central post. Second, the com is usually laid flat with a kind of ‘ ‘veining’ ‘ effect, in that it is alternately bunched together and thinned out on the ground
And third, the Circles are nearly always slightly elliptical, which is indicative of a rotating force, and not something that a hoaxer would find easy to reproduce. The “tramlines” in the crop almost always intersect the Circles and allow access on foot without any treading down of the crop. For quite some time this led people to believe that hoaxing could still be the case. But with an increasing number of Circles to inspect it was soon apparent that satellite circles, or smaller ones not intersected by tram lines, were very often without any tracks through the corn to or from them, in the case of fresh Circles. Naturally, unless one was first on the scene, it was not possible to make much in the way of sensible judgments about tracks, since the tendency of visitors is to go into every Circle in the group, and where there is no tramline access, to push through the standing crop.
But the Circles investigation group did find that unvisited Circles occasionally had thin tracks to them even though the Circle was ostensibly fresh. Initially it was assumed that these tracks were made by animals, such as deer or hares, which were sometimes seen in the Circles.
On a few occasions a single, thin track, whose direction was indicated by the way the com was bent, led either into or out of a satellite Circle without a return track. This looked strange indeed! Could they have been made by birds which had landed in the Circle or had flown out of it? There seemed to be no reason why not, since game birds, in particular, often run through the crop rather than fly.