Reports of Unidentified Flying Object: The English Corn Circles in 1988 – The Oadby Circle
So consistent are the Circles with regard to places and the sort of places where they appear-usually in the immediate vicinity of prehistoric sites or tumuli-that it is of great interest when one is found outside the usual area. A few have been found in previous years in Sussex, and some near Wantage in Oxfordshire, but nothing of this kind had ever been found north of Wantage.
On June 26 I wrote to my brother, a geologist living in Leicestershire, on the subject of the Circles. I concluded with the sarcastic remark that if he really wanted to see what I was talking about he would have to travel to Wilt shire or Hampshire, since I could not possibly arrange for a “stationary whirlwind” to travel to his part of the world.
Rather curiously, just one day after he received this letter, he saw a report on the local Central Television news that a mysterious ringed circle had appeared in a cornfield at Oadby, just outside Leicester. At this point, let me hasten to disclaim any credit for this strange occurrence, which had in fact been first discovered about a week earlier! This flattened circle of wheat was about fifty-three feet in diameter and surrounded by a narrow concentric ring. Symmetrically disposed about this were three small satellite circles (each of four feet diameter) which were approximately at the apexes of an equilateral triangle (see Figure 3:2).
Members of the Circles Phenomenon Research group, who examined this, were cautious at first, but (inally decided that it was indeed the genuine phenomenon. The configuration was not the same as any seen previously, and the plants in the main circle had been flattened radially with hardly any swirl and as if by tremendous force from the center.
On the night before the Oadby Circle was found, a lay preacher from Fleckney, who asked to remain unnamed, was driving near Oadby with his wife and son, when they saw a very bright, white light apparently hovering over the field. The family were alarmed and stopped. After a time the object vanished upward into a cloud at great speed. It was later established that there had been no night flying from the nearby airfield on that night. The lay preacher, who was apparently disturbed by what they had seen, said: “It was weird, but we know what we saw. “
A Mrs. Hudson, whose house in Oadby overlooks that field, said that although she does not usually draw her curtains on that side, she was overcome with a panicky feeling at 11 p.m. and felt she had to draw them. Her neighbors, who were having a late supper at the time, saw a bright, white flash from the field, followed a few minutes later by a second flash.
A local resident subsequently made a number of tape recordings in the Oadby Com Circle. Some of these, which I have listened to, have picked up distinctive repetitive noises which are similar to noises that registered on tape-recordings made in Circles in Hampshire and Wiltshire.
When BBC Television were making recordings for the Country File program, screened in October, they too picked up this sort of noise when interviewing Colin Andrews in a Circle, and there were also “ghost voices” on one of their tapes. At Oadby the recorder was left to run while those present withdrew a good distance to ensure their sound would not be heard. Recordings were made at various times of day with different tape-recorders to eliminate instrument faults. At no time are the recorded noises heard directly by anyone in or near the Circle. In view of this, it is possible that what is picked up is caused by sharp variations in the magnetic field, since the recording medium is magnetic. In particular, there is a hollow tapping noise with a beat of about 100 per minute. Its slightly irregular variation gives the impression of, say, a heartbeat rather than anything of mechanical origin.