Updated Saturday 28th September 1996
An aerial shot by Lucy Pringle. Copyright 1996.
MICHAEL GLICKMAN tells the full story of one of the most significant events ever to have happened in the world of crop circle research... (Initialed insertions by SC editor ANDY THOMAS) This article was written specifically for, and originally published in, SC, the monthly crop circle journal.
"Vandalism. It’s all vandalism!" The farmer, John Butler, was enraged with the Snowflake formation at Oliver’s Castle. We had passed by his drying barn to get permission to go in and measure. He refused, growling about the trouble he had been caused and warning us that Devizes police had been informed.
Days later, when it was clear that the field was about to be harvested and when Butler himself had committed an act of gratuitous vandalism by spitefully directing his combine through the centre of the formation, we managed to get in by paying him. Patricia Murray and I surveyed it and spent time recording the miraculous construction. The crop was long-eared wheat, possibly Soissons.
When the formation was new and access was forbidden, we had looked down on it several times from the edge of the hill. It was a six-fold geometry, a large centre circle of 85’ diameter radiating six spokes, each of which had three satellites of diminishing sizes. I was fascinated and determined to survey it. I was convinced - mistakenly as it turned out - that the Snowflake would yield geometric and proportional revelations beyond the obvious ones. It had other surprises to offer.
We shall simply call the cameraman John. He is 21, a student, and has so far wished to remain anonymous. He is interested in the circles and on the evening of Saturday 10th August he was at The Barge pub at Alton Barnes where he told people of his intention to spend the night crop-watching at #Oliver’s Castle. He was awakened there at dawn by the famous circle-makers’ noise: a distinctive humming. He got up and saw lights in the field below him. He reached for his video camera which, initially, would not work - presumably because of the damp (Some camcorders automatically shut off if there is dew in the air, to protect the recording heads). Moments later he was able to film. He recorded the movement of the luminosities; it is not clear at what point he observed the formation below them.
Consider, for a moment, the young man’s frame of mind. He had just viewed an event unseen that night by anyone else on Earth. He was alone and his experience was, at one level, truly shocking. While he was not turned to a pillar of salt, the comparison with Lot’s wife is appropriate. They both glimpsed manifestations from, and perhaps for a moment were in, other dimensions. I have not met John but I get the impression that he has been much exposed to the government involvement-CIA conspiracy/military interest view of crop circles. This will have done little to help him calm down.
And then, as he left, or prepared to leave, Oliver’s Castle, he saw a party of soldiers jogging towards him. The sergeant, apparently, spoke to him as they passed. It has been suggested that he said "Did you get what you came for?" This is an extremely strange thing for him to have said whether (a) as I believe, he was supervising fitness exercises and met a young camper or (b) he was a leading member of the UK intelligence community. Some, irresponsibly building on John’s fears, have suggested military involvement. What nonsense! If the British Government, or any of its agencies were involved, John would have seen helicopters, black vans with elaborate small aerials and specialist teams who would have taken the video and detained him. (It has been speculated by those of the conspiracy persuasion that John was ‘allowed’ to take the video as part of some military experiment to test the public’s reaction to such an event - this would, however, suggest the military knew the formation was about to occur or created it themselves in some unknown way. There is no evidence whatsoever that they would be capable of this - AT.) The truth is almost certainly far removed from these adolescent fantasies. It was dawn and there is a military building, Lemarchant Barracks, less than two miles away at the base of the hill. It houses a part of the Territorial Army who use the conveniently placed Oliver’s Castle for early morning runs.
Just before lunchtime that Sunday, John called The Barge, trying to contact Peter Sorensen. He was shaken by what he had filmed and seen and needed help and advice. He had not met Peter but knew his name and his work. He was told that Peter was not there. John came to The Barge that evening, once again looking for Peter who, once again, was elsewhere. He showed the footage - through the viewfinder - to several people, including Nick Nicholson, Lee Winterston and, crucially, Freddie Silver, one of Colin Andrews’ research associates.
It is important to understand that, at this stage, viewed only through the camera viewfinder, the full significance of the video was unclear.
Two or three evenings later, John found Peter at The Barge. He told Peter that he had viewed the material through a large colour monitor: It clearly showed the Snowflake forming. Ulrich Kox, who spent some time talking to John, was struck by how nervous he was. His hands were shaking.
It came to light at about this time that Colin Andrews had secured a copy of the video. The circumstances are unclear (Colin met with John at the Wagon & Horses pub) but it is certain that John kept the master copy. Andrews said he needed to subject the tape to analysis implying that it might be a fake. He promised to keep John informed and left England immediately, reportedly without saying goodbye to his associates and colleagues. He immediately issued heated press releases on the Internet in the James Bond adventure style which is by now so familiar.
Colin did not keep John informed and failed to return several calls. John is a student and cannot afford transatlantic telephone bills. Though nervous, he wishes above all that the video be made accessible, unaltered, to the general public. He has come to question Colin Andrews’ intentions. At the time of writing, Colin is on US radio promoting his video. His last press release informs us that he has hired a private detective agency to investigate certain aspects of this case. I always felt it would be better, on employing detectives, not to broadcast it world-wide.
As a result, John gave a copy to Peter Sorensen who undertook to make it available. (Recent reports suggest John may now be openly selling copies himself - AT.)
Peter Sorensen organised a small viewing of the video on Saturday 7th September at The Barge. There were perhaps twenty people present. He repeated the showing the following evening to an equally impressed group.
I was present at both. I must formally thank Peter on behalf of all those who saw it. He is committed to making this breathtaking footage freely available and should be applauded for his generosity, openness and prompt response. Acknowledgement is also due to John for his courage in difficult and unusual circumstances. He should be proud.
We have learned to expect that every event, no matter how stunning and miraculous, will be debunked and rubbished by someone. I was naive to assume that this astonishing video might in some way be spared. As early as the second evening showing of the footage, people were pontificating about the ease with which it could have been faked. In the era of Jurassic Park and Independence Day it is difficult to deny humanity’s burgeoning skills at artifice.
However, in this case, reality knocks rather firmly at the door. None of the hoax explainers had actually visited the formation. If they had, they would have seen a crop circle as un-man-made as ever existed. (Some reports have stated the lay was messy and many stalks were broken - this is patently untrue; quite the reverse, in fact - AT.) They were unaware that the time between the formation’s arrival and the showing of the video was, at most, 16 hours. One could argue that this is plenty of time for a well-equipped and skilfully staffed special effects studio to fake this film, but where - on a Sunday in Wiltshire - was this studio? How were the personnel aware that this was the day on which they were to fake this film? How did the cameraman know where the formation was going to arrive? How could he be so confident that his co-conspirators at the studio were going to do such a good job that he could start to advertise the existence of the footage? How could he be so certain that Peter Sorensen was not available at lunchtime on the Sunday, and wishing to view the footage immediately? Had Peter been there, the fantasy video fakers would have had a maximum of six hours.
The really desperate will suggest that the formation itself was made for the film. Very few people visited this formation, largely because the farmer was so objectionable. Everyone who did get in was impressed with its quality. It was a viciously wet night and the site is the most visibly overlooked in the area. This is the last field in Wiltshire in which one would choose to carry out a hoax. (Two skeptic theories run like this: Either a) fakers film the empty field, take the footage and apply, with computer graphics, their invented formation and the balls of light. They then wait for a night with similar conditions to the original video and then send out hoaxers to actually create a pattern of the same shape in the field, thus being able to very quickly produce a video of that formation ‘appearing’. Or b) the formation is found or deliberately hoaxed, filmed and rushed back to a studio to ‘reverse-engineer’ its miraculous ‘appearance’ - AT.)
The video shows a consistent and unchanging light quality as it would in a real-time sequence of a few seconds. Whatever else might be said about this video, it is not stop-motion for light levels shift dramatically in minutes at dawn in Wiltshire. I predict that this footage will be condemned as a fake. With equal certainty, I predict that it will never be condemned as a fake by anyone who is in possession of all the facts.
I was deeply moved by the video and started to assemble my notes as soon as I returned home. There is no doubt in my mind that this is one of the most important pieces of film in the world.
I will describe it in as much detail as I can. Sooner or later, every reader will see it; for the moment a description must suffice.
John is on the hill to the north of the field. Thus we are looking south; right frame is west and left frame is east. It is dawn and there is no direct sunlight. However there is enough light to see the landscape clearly.
The luminosities move with great speed and purpose. There is an overwhelming sense that they have a clear task to perform. The key part of the video is no longer than five seconds; it is impossible to comprehend at a single viewing. Each evening the video was shown it must have been repeated literally a hundred times.
To understand what is happening, you must focus on a single part, one of the luminosities for example or part of the field, for five or six viewings. You must ignore everything else, concentrating on one aspect. This becomes easier with repeated viewings. There is no discernible sound, though in the early seconds before the action truly starts John can be heard talking to himself, asking where the lights have gone.
The camera focuses on the field where presumably John had first seen the lights. A second shot closes in on the field. It is flat and untouched. There is no formation. Two luminosities, numbers One and Two, move rapidly from right to left. One is 25% or 30% larger than Two. They follow a semi-circle over the field and then move back to the right and exit upwards to the south. As they leave, they actually pass under power lines to the south of the field. It was originally thought they actually passed through the adjacent hedgerow, but closer inspection has shown this is not so. Their going under the cables is indicated by the lights appearing to go out for the briefest of moments.
I would estimate that they are three to five feet in diameter. They seem, generally, to be fairly high, possibly twenty or thirty feet up.
As luminosities One and Two perform their semicircle at left frame the Snowflake forms. It appears to happen in the following order. First, a light patch can be seen in the centre of the field as the crop begins to fall and the exposed stems reflect light. The patch immediately becomes the centre circle. Second, the first ring of six circles appears. The nearest of the circles, the northernmost, exhibits the same effect. Third, the six paths, 48’ in length, connecting the centre circle to the first six circles appear. Fourth, the six middle circles appear, followed shortly by the tiny outer circles and their pathways.
This formation appears within five seconds. The only way these events can be un picked is by multiple viewings.
As luminosities One and Two are moving out of the field, luminosity Three can be seen in the next field at the top left of the screen. It moves in at great speed, crossing the screen diagonally and exiting right. As it passes, another, fainter, luminosity, number Four, appears beneath it.
They re-enter almost immediately from the right. Three goes across the screen and out of left frame. Four, still dimmer than its partner, also moves out of left frame but seems to dip briefly towards one, or possibly two of the outer circles. Three and four, having circled back off screen, move directly west. Four, in the lead, is dimmer and seems to disappear in the field. Three goes off-screen right.
Throughout the sequence with the second pair of luminosities, the completed Snowflake formation is clearly visible in the field.
I repeat that the development of the formation takes about five seconds, but it is possible to reconstruct these events as individual components of a sequence. No doubt with further time, others will provide a more comprehensive and detailed analysis.
We are simple humans, trapped in our three-dimensional world. This video brings us our first glimpse of interventions from other dimensions into our mechanical reality. I had assumed that there would be a clear relationship between the movements of the luminosities and the geometry of the formation. There is none.
The luminosities make their pass and the circle simply manifests before our eyes. Clearly the luminosities are responsible; their presence at precisely the moment of formation is too much of a coincidence. However, there is no point of contact, no acknowledgement in their trajectory of the geometry of the crop circle which forms.
There are other parts of this sequence that were not recorded. We know that John saw lights before he started filming. We can never know what they were doing but it is reasonable to assume that they were there for a purpose.
I offer two hypotheses. First. The object of the exercise was to show John and thus the rest of us the formation of a circle. The noises and the early sightings were irrelevant except for the need to move him into concentrated action.
Second. The luminosities’ first task was to key-in the exact form of the crop circle. Had we been able to see this, we might have seen them performing a precise geometric dance, acting as the stylus which drew the Snowflake. The brief pass we witnessed is, in this hypothesis, simply the trigger which causes the wheat to fall in its preordained pattern.
When Patricia and I surveyed the formation, we found that each of the six arms of the Snowflake had the narrow underlay path which had been so prevalent this season. It ran from the large centre circle to the end of each arm and varied in width from eight to sixteen inches. In every one of the eighteen satellite circles it was overlaid by the circular swirl. These observations are contradicted by the video. The first six main pathways, four feet wide, are clearly laid after the first ring of circles has been formed. I cannot explain this. Perhaps the video, when enhanced, will demonstrate that the six narrow tracer pathways were indeed laid first. (It is quite possible that the underlay paths are there initially but simply can’t be seen given the murky half-light resolution of the picture - AT.)
We have been offered an astonishing window. I have been privileged to look through it early and I am shaken and profoundly grateful. This may be the most important footage on Earth and it is for all of us.
This is why I am sure the video is real: If it was faked, who directed it? Forget the usual, boring mechanistic explanations of how it could have been done (explanations, incidentally, which always, inevitably, miss out a section of fact), the real question is who conceived it, who wrote the plot? For the remarkable thing is that the unexpectedly disjointed relation between the luminosities and the formation itself is new and - hitherto - unimagined.
I recall the impact of the Alton Barnes pictogram, of Barbury Castle, of Bythorn and of so many others. In retrospect these were steps in an elaborate progress. The Snowflake video lets us know that we are ready for further revelations. The curtains will be drawn back yet further next season and the world is somehow different.
The Crop Circle Connector obtained permission is used this article by Michael Glickman. This article appeared originally in issue 57 of the SC .
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