Reported: 16 April, 2017
Location: Cherhill White Horse, Cherhill, near Calne, Wiltshire
Lead photograph by Charles Mallett/Silent Circle
Cherhill White Horse
With oil seed rape fields plentiful in Wiltshire, and some now in pungent full bloom, it was only a matter of time before the first crop circle of the season was found.
Charles Mallett of the Silent Circle seems to have been first to enter this formation underneath the Cherhill White Horse. He’s not impressed:
Photograph by Charles Mallett / Silent Circle
The pattern is approximately 250ft in overall length and sits within a depression in the field. This spot has had dozens of crop-circles placed in it over the past 30 years-or-so, much to the annoyance of the farmer, no doubt.
On close inspection of this event on the ground it was abundantly clear that the pattern in it’s entirety was brought about by means of a heavy mechanical process that involved physical stomping of the plants to the ground. The vast majority of the thicker laid plants were noted as broken over at the base with further scrape-marks up many of the stems and some physical damage to the flower-heads also well apparent, as if whatever was used in the construction process was dragged over the plants for the following crush-action – rather than lifted. The thinner slightly less developed plants in the affected area were largely unbroken as they are much more rubbery, thus held to the ground by the broken plants on top of them. The pattern of damage recorded on the ground is consistent with the physical effects recorded in ‘known’ man-made (commissioned) crop-circles in this type of crop.
Photograph by Charles Mallett / Silent Circle
