Reported: 4 August 2017
Location: Bydemill Copse, Hannington, nr Highworth, Wiltshire
Lead photograph by the Crop Circle Connector
Great news! Further to completing this report, The Croppie has learned the farmer at Bydemill Copse has had a change of heart and decided to open up the crop circle to visitors. Admission is at £2.00 per person.
Photograph by Neil Petherick.
What’s this? A crop circle in Wiltshire? Surely not! After a lengthy, unheard of gap that began on 18th July, the circles have returned to the county with this archetypal formation. Unusually, it has appeared well away from the so-called ‘central area’ and can be found to the northeast of Swindon.
The farmer responsible for the field wasn’t happy.
Initially, a posting by a farm worker on Facebook has made it very clear how unwelcome this circle and any prospective visitors were:
Please stay away you have ruined a perfectly good crop, we have better things to do than spend all day watching people needlessly trampling all are [sic] hard work into the ground, the only people to gain from this are the drone owners that sell the pictures,the fields are NOT open for public access, you will be trespassing and treated accordingly.
Photograph by Neil Petherick.
The Croppie guessed the final sentence meant trespassers will be asked to leave the field. More importantly, the farmer is forwarding the idea that drone operators are linked to the creation of crop circles; in this case the farmer suspects they will be selling their photographs of the formation. So, just who are these photograph sellers?
Photograph by Crop Circle Connector
The farm worker went on to say:
we have been warned by the police that people claim to collect money for charity to see the circles but really just rip the farmers off and give nothing to charity, already the rest off [sic] the crop has been damaged by people indiscriminately walking all over it, why do people have no respect!
The first premise is nonsense. Paul Jacobs has and continues to work legitimately worked with farmer James Hussey in the Hackpen area to raise money for charity.
However, in a gracious turn of opinion, the farmer decided to recoup some of his losses and opened up the circle to paying visitors. The Croppie went along and got some photos:
Visited the Crop Circle at Hanington this morning. Disappointed at being charged £2 when the signs clearly say donation. Also, If I wanted to use a drone there was a fee of an extra £5.00. There was a cherry picker run by the farmer’s father who would invite people to go up at an additional charge of £5 however, I think that was for two people.
I appreciate the costs of losing around £800 of the crop, and for the farmer, this must be very frustrating but they will be gaining that back ten fold by the number of visitors and drone flyers wanting to get a good view. The only real way to film this circle is from the air as there are no clear views from the road or from any hills.
II love the art form and the possibility of the potential for paranormal activity creating these but is there an alternate motive at play?
Hats off to the creators whom ever you are. Feel free to contact me as I would love to do a documentary on this subject matter…
Hi Paul — thanks for the comment. Based upon what I have heard from very reliable sources, I would be extremely shocked if there is any form of collusion between circle makers and farmers these days, if it ever occurred at all. Of course, I’ve heard the rumours, but I would be keen to hear more of these.
Hi there, just found your website. I have bin in the circle last week. A guy from Belgium brought my attantion to some common plastik drinking strows, which lay around, partly melted, however now sooth on it and even under layers of crop; Please have a look at my report. I am a crop circle layman.:
https://steemit.com/cropcircles/@johano/crop-circle-mystery-solved
Hi Johano — thanks for your comments and enjoyable report. It’s good to see someone else writing up the reports of their visits to crop circles. With regard to the straws, I doubt they would be linked to the creation of the crop circle. They are probably the detritus from other visitors or have maybe been in the field before the crop circle appeared. Interestingly, the farm manager told me just today that she has had issues with someone attempting to set crop and hay bales on fire in another field. Maybe they are linked?
Good to see you again Johano. You’re always welcome here. There have been suggestions by the likes of William Levengood that heat is involved with the construction of crop circles. His ideas though are somewhat dubious.
Hi Croppie, I am late with my response. Sorry, I didn’t look at your page for so long. I find the fire idea interesting, however as I said there was no soot on the drinking straws, and it was in mid the straw and even as you could see on my pictures, the straw was stained by the colour of plastic stuff. This morning I tried myself to burn some drinking straws, but the result was very different to what I have seen in the field.. Have you ever heard about other reports concerning heat involved in crop circle making?
Unfortunately, I am no longer in the UK, so I have to come back more often to your blog.
(for some reason I can write only capitals in your name and address line)