Since our Instagram account Crop Circle Explorer ran a brief question and answer session with a human circle maker, we’ve had a fair few messages and emails from readers wanting to know more about the motivations and experiences of the makers. With time and persistence we’ve convinced some of the makers we know to fill us in on their experiences for a new series of articles. These aren’t people who regularly give interviews and they have asked to remain anonymous.

After a break, our series of Circle Makers Speak is back. This time, we bring up one of the biggest issues that seems to bug crop circle enthusiasts about human circle makers: Do you see yourself as deceiving croppies when you make circles?

No, I don’t feel as if we’re deceiving croppies. We’re simply making circles and leaving them authorless for others to make what they want of them. One of the numerous reasons why I’m a circle maker is because I love crop circles and am of the view that the world is a better place with them in it, but it’s not my job to tell people what to think about them. That’s their choice entirely.

Crop circles are an invitation and a question mark. It is entirely up to croppies what they make of the evidence in the field and in the public arena. Whatever one’s view as to the circles’ origins, one can find evidence out there to support it. Beyond that, I think the process, the journey, one goes through via the circles is a fascinating and most rewarding one. Crop circles have transformed many people’s lives. I’m very happy to be contributing to that.

It’s an interesting question and one that I have a lot of trouble reconciling with a binary answer. Sometimes there are shades of grey to consider and this is one instance.

The late Michael Glickman held an axiom which stated that everything to do with what he called ‘hoaxing’ is a lie. He saw circle makers as no more than bullshitters and that was the only justification he needed to dismiss them out of hand. One particular team who attracted a lot of his ire openly admitted to following the process of pseudo-ostension with their work. This means they were purposefully falsifying evidence, read making crop circles, to corroborate existing legends of paranormal forces making patterns in the cereal fields. So, if you look at it like that, circle makers can be accused of deceiving croppies. A team like that didn’t hide what they were doing. Then there was an older group called UBI who feature in [Jim Schnabel’s] book Round In Circles. They made crop circles as part of a two-way dialogue with what they believed to be a supernatural circle making force. Regardless, they didn’t advertise what they’d made so numerous tourists visited their work, none the wiser as to its origins. But, given the intent of UBI, were they being deceitful or not? Like I said before, there are different shades of grey to consider.

Of course, not all circle makers are thinking of ostension or maintaining a dialogue with ET when they are going out into the field, but we are all aware that some croppies will believe our work to be the product of extraterrestrial origin. Do we have a moral responsibility to these people? Possibly, but it’s the same for the creators of any other pieces of authorless art. Should we have to erect a sign saying ‘made by humans’ next to the crop circle? I don’t think so. It defeats the performance art element of the crop circle ritual — anyhow, who wants a crop circle openly made by people?

When I go out into the field to make a crop circle my perspective is that I’m making a pattern for people to interpret as they see fit. They can say it was the work of aliens, humans, Earth energies, whatever they think. In that sense I look at my work as a series of large Rorschach tests. I’m essentially asking the audience what they make of a particular crop circle. I’m not telling anyone my work was the product of alien intervention. It is up to us as individuals how we choose to interpret the world around us, whether it be the meaning we find in a book, the faces we see in the clouds or a pattern in a field.

No. Not at all. I’m in this for the art aspect, mainly. Yes, I know I’m also creating mystery but that’s not really my aim, it’s the challenge of getting everything right in a pitch black field. There’s no other agenda. Of course I love the fact that many people get a hell of a lot of joy from the formations, but that’s a by-product of them. Believers choose to believe what they believe without any influence from myself, and as one who would never shout about what I do, I can’t control that side of things in any way.

Crop circle makers are mostly good earthy folk with good intentions, though you do get the odd big mouth seeking fame from it, but I’d personally never work with such people. It’s not what it is about at all for myself and the people I work with.

I’m not sure if I feel I’m deceiving anyone when I’m in a field at night. I might be deceiving myself! Who’s to say I’m not being manipulated by an exterior force or just in my own virtual reality simulation?

Being a croppie before anything else, I had my own ideas of the origins of circles. On my visits to them, I met and still meet interesting people. There are lots of various opinions and it’s always enlightening to hear them.

I feel quite strongly that it’s up to the person observing the formations to make their own mind up on how they come to be.

There have been occasions, when I get a moment in a night to stop and think, I hope people will enjoy this. Crop circles have always been a positive place for me and my hope, when I’m a creative place, is that others will feel that positivity.

With that in mind I have never really confronted any ideas on deception. It would have to be confined or compartmentalised further back in my head. The circles have their own mystery and that is the foremost importance. For me, that is the most important thing of all.