Reports of Unidentified Flying Object: The English Corn Circles in 1988 – The Celtic Cross
After the discovery of a sixth huge quintuple Circle in wheat near Hungerford, fifteen miles east of Silbury Hill, on August 16, things seemed to go quiet. By this time most barley had been harvested and within a week or two the combine harvesters were at work in the wheat fields. It seemed natural to assume that the 1988 Circle season was over.
At the beginning of September, Colin Andrews mentioned on several occasions a Celtic Cross, which fellow CPR researcher “Busty” Taylor had discovered in 1985 in the churchyard at Goodworth Clatford, not far from his home in Andover. He showed me photographs of this, and speculated that we might get Com Circles of this pattern something that I thought most unlikely, since the only Circle remotely like this had been an ordinary ringed one, but with four small satellites outside the ring, on the Long wood Estate, Hampshire, in 1986.
The churchyard Celtic Cross at Goodworth Clatford commemorates various members of the Thornton family including Herbert Thornton, Canon of Winchester, who died in 1923. It bears a fair resemblance in shape to the magnificent High Crosses of Ireland, which were carved between the eighth and tenth centuries AD, and of which there are particularly fine specimens at Clonmacnois and Ahenny. The Thornton’s Cross, like these, has a central circle in the cross, and four smaller circles on the positions where its large concentric ring intersects the arms of the cross. The ornamentation on the central circle even has a distinctive clockwise swirl . Colin had become so interested in this cross at that time that he even took a Canadian TV crew, who were making a program on the Circles, to see it.
A week later, on Saturday, September 10, Colin received a telephone call from the farmer on whose land the double-ringer Circle at Charity Down had appeared in June. “Do you want to look at another one?” he said. “If so, you’ve got just four hours. I ‘ve got men standing by, and the field has got to be cut today”
Two days earlier, on the Thursday evening, Colin had visited the double-ringer and had made certain electrical measurements. He had noticed then a significant increase in energy at this Circle, which had been more or less dormant since June. The new Circle formation, which had appeared since, was less than 100 yards away. Its shape was that of an enormous Celtic Cross.
The central circle, in which the com was swirled in a clockwise spiral, was about forty-seven feet across. Sur rounding this at a comparatively great distance, unlike any other ringed Circle, was a vast outer ring, measuring 153 feet in diameter and four feet wide. Equally spaced around the ring were four satellite circles, each of about fourteen feet diameter and clockwise. These lay on top of the flattened ring, since one could see that the com in these had been laid down later, if only perhaps by a few seconds.
And instruments showed higher electrical readings in this formation than in any previous Circle.
Nothing quite like this extraordinary and elaborate hieroglyph imprinted in the com at Charity Down, just two-and-a-half miles from the stone Celtic Cross in the churchyard, and four miles from Colin’s home, had ever been seen before. It was recorded on video from both the ground and the air that day, and a photograph of it appears on the front cover of the book, Circular Evidence. 2 In view of Colin’s earlier obsession with the Celtic Cross, one might be forgiven for assuming that “they” had read his mind–or else that he had read “theirs. ” Skeptics who are unable to assimilate such a bizarre conjecture would probably insist that he must have faked this Circle. But this was undoubtedly the genuine phenomenon at work, and for anyone who knows Colin, there is not the remotest possibility that he could have done such a thing.
During that afternoon on September 10 the crop was cut, and so ended the 1988 Com Circle season. But the fallen com is merely an outwardly visible sign of what is at work here, and the ”Circles” are undoubtedly with us even after they are harvested. The episode of the Celtic Cross Circle had a curious sequel some weeks later.
On January 14, 1989, Colin went with Pat Delgado and George de Trafford (another researcher) to visit Isabelle Kingston for the first time. After discussing the Circles, he drew her attention to a small Celtic Cross ornament which she possessed, just as they were leaving. Three hours later, while watching TV with her family, the set turned itself off and a similar Celtic Cross, composed of many red and blue dots, appeared on the TV screen, de spite the fact that the set was unplugged from the main supply. This was witnessed by Isabelle’s mother and by her neighbors. Isabelle says that she was aware of “exceptionally high energy levels” in the house, during and after the visit .
How can one possibly interpret what happened here?
Clearly some agency of which we only have the haziest perception seems to be at work. Perhaps more of the enigma will be revealed in the coming months. If the Circles run true to form, they will return to perplex and amaze us once more in the summer of 1989. [Indeed, they have! Editor.] Most likely we will see more Celtic Crosses, in the same way that 1987’s unique double-ringer was thrice replicated at the start of the 1988 season. Whether or not we come any closer to understanding what lies behind this mystery is anybody ‘s guess. But there seems little doubt that quite a few people will have to set aside their prejudices and preconceived ideas, and look once more at this strange phenomenon with rather more open minds.