I
have been persuaded to recount a strange occurrence that took place
some years ago in the county of Norfolk, close to the ancient town of
New Buckenham. My informant, the father of a friend, is sadly no longer
with us, but he told me this tale so frequently that I almost feel as
if it had happened to me personally!
This gentleman, you should know, was at the time fairly highly placed
in the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. It was his business to inspect
farm premises across a wide swathe of East Anglia, to check compliance
with planning agreements and ascertain that no new structures had been
recklessly thrown up without prior agreement.
On this particular afternoon, our hero (who we may call 'John') found
himself driving down a hedge-lined country lane which afforded only
occasional and fleeting glimpses of the vast cereal plains that carpet
twentieth century East Anglia. As John rounded a bend in the road, a gap
in the hedge allowed a clear view down the shallow valley along which
he was driving. To his annoyance, John immediately noticed that the farmer,
(who he knew well to be a man with scant regard for bureaucracy!) had
erected a new and unusual grain silo on his land, The tall, cylindrical
object dominated the floor of the valley, and at a glance John took in
every detail of its novel construction, and further remarked that work
upon the silo must be continuing: certainly three or four figures in white
boiler suits seemed top moving purposefully beneath it. John at once determined
to investigate, and swung through a gate into the field: he was, perhaps,
three hundred metres away from the offending erection.
The labourers at once swivelled their heads in John's direction: he noticed
that they all seemed remarkably slim and short….almost child-like in fact.
Then, perhaps more surprisingly, they rapidly climbed up silver ladders
that had abruptly descended from the conical base of the putative 'silo'.
Just as John was beginning to formulate possible explanations for this
bizarre denouement, the silver structure became suffused with pale green
light, before quietly and majestically rising into the air, hovering
and accelerating away into the sky!
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What could John do? Who would believe his tale? He checked the ground where the strange craft had until recently been standing and found the deep imprints of its four 'landing legs'. In the centre of these was a scorched area of barley. Naturally, John considered alerting the farmer or his ministry, but ultimately decided to keep his own counsel: truly, there are times when discretion may indeed be the better part of valour!
A Crop Circle in Dorset!
Let me make my position clear at the very start of this tale: I am convinced that at least some crop circles are of totally prosaic origin: many of the most impressive and well-publicised structures are known to be the ingenious products of clever human progenitors!
BUT!!!!! Crop circles, as 'cerealogists' will readily contend, have been embellishing our corn-fields for hundreds of years! Some at least are of totally inexplicable origin.
I have only a single personal experience to recount: it dates from 1990, and has been a perpetual source of discussion for my wife and myself ever since!
Back then we worked together at Acle Primary School in East Norfolk... Salad days! An enlightened and far-sighted Head Teacher (Roger Eagle) supported my contention that educational opportunities lay outside the walls of the classroom as well as within. During our time together, I organised expeditions for my classes to Dorset, France, Yorkshire...... Roger not only expedited these field trips, he attended them too! How different from his narrow-minded and visionless replacement....
In 1990 I organised a week's residential trip to Dorset. We stayed in a somewhat run-down hotel on the 'front' at Weymouth, enjoying birdwatching expeditions to Radipole and Arne, fossil hunting at Charmouth and Lyme Regis and nightly discos at the hotel!
Local archeology was another important element: a decade and more later, the children who attended still remember their excursions to Cerne Abbas and Stonehenge.
But the real highlight was a visit to the Iron Age camp at Maiden Castle, near Dorchester. If you have never visited this site, do make time if you find yourself in the area: it is an incredible monument to the ingenuity and determination of our ancestors in the face of the Roman invasion: a series of unbelievably well-engineered ditches and ridges, enclosing the many acres of the settlement itself.
We visited the site on a Summer's afternoon and, following a strenuous ascent, paused on the ramparts for a group photo that took in the flat wheat-fields surrounding the hill fort.
The circumnavigation of the site took probably an hour : on our return to our starting point, we were amazed to see a beautifully defined circle in the wheat to the South. It was about 100 metres in diameter and had definitely appeared since the photograph had been taken sixty minutes previously!
We took further photographs for comparison, before leaving the hill in a much more thoughtful and subdued manner than when we arrived......
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