Ben Hubbard - What Do We Know About Crop Circles?

People have reported seeing crop circles for hundreds of years. A short booklet from 1678 describes a circle in a field of oats in Hertfordshire, England. Oats, like wheat and barley, are crops that farmers grow and cut down at harvest time in late summer. But in 1678, the farmer could not find someone to cut the oats. He needed a mower to harvest them. Although he was rich, the farmer was also miserly. He did not want to pay the wages the mower had asked for. He told the mower that the devil himself should mow his oats before he should have anything to do with them.

That night, the field of oats appeared to be on fire. The next day, the farmer found that the oats had been cut down in a round, swirling circle. No one could have done so much work in one night, and it frightened the farmer. He explained the circle as the work of a Mowing Devil and was too afraid to remove his crops. The Mowing Devil is illustrated with a creepy figure cutting the crops.

It is not the only example of such strange circles in England at this time. Circles of flattened grass, called fairy rings, were also reported. In the Middle Ages, fairies were believed to be creatures with magical powers. Some were thought to look like tiny, winged women and live in the woods and cause mischief. Fairies dancing together in circles were believed to be responsible for the fairy rings of flattened grass.

In 1686, Oxford University professor Robert Plot was asked to investigate the fairy rings. Some of them were up to 150 feet across! Plot said the circles may have been caused by male deer rutting (locking horns) or by moles during mating season. He also thought a whirlwind or a lightning storm may have made the circles. Plot interviewed people who said they saw hollow tubes of lightning and bright balls of light around the circles. Plot did not solve the mystery.

Crop circles, balls of light, and objects from the sky had also been mentioned in North American legends by the Algonquian people, who were among the first to settle in parts of Canada and the United States. The Algonquian were made up of separate nations, such as the Cree, Cheyenne, and Odawa, who all shared the Algonquian language.

According to an Algonquian legend, a hunter named Algon found a perfect circle of flattened grass in a prairie one day. But there were no footsteps leading to the circle. While Algon wondered how the circle was formed, a basket full of women descended from the sky and landed in the circle. In the middle of the circle was a shining ball that the women danced around. They used sticks to strike at it.