Milk Hill, Alton Barnes, Wiltshire. Reported 12th April

The very first formation to form on the Avebury area this year, has to be this event in the shadow of the White Horse on Milk Hill, near Alton Barnes.

Unfortunately the weather didn't fall to kindly on me, so I was unable to gain access to the formation, but from the hillside it would appear to be a line of circles and rings in Oil Seed Rape.

The largest of the circles is apparently 76 feet in diameter, and to the north is an annular ring about sixty feet in diameter, with the central section of crop some 53 feet in diameter.

To the south of the largest circle is an off centre crescent moon with a very narrow pathway connected, which was very hard to distinguish from such an acute angle on the hill.

Further to the south of the crescent design is another shape possibly another ring with a small central circle.

As I walked down the side of the formation I noticed that the plants themselves were recovering, which implied that the event has been there for nearly a week. This could mean that it may have formed prior to the Newton St Loe formation, but we can't be sure at this stage.

Hopefully a more detailed report will be forthcoming soon.

Report by Stuart Dike 16th April.

FIELD REPORT

We visited the Milk Hill formation yesterday. The crop had grown a great deal and the downed crops are now hardly any shorter than the standing ones. This is not surprising since the farmer reported having seen it on April 4th which would make it nearly a month old. It was very difficult to survey but we paced it and I can give a rough idea of its size. The three large circles (a ring, a plain circle and a circle with a crescent that is traversed by a line that continues as a very thin line in the surrounding crop making kind of halo) are about 85ft in diameter each. The small ones consisting of a ring and a circle with a crescent are both 45ft in diameter. The alignment is over 600ft long. It is impossible to see the overall formation at ground level as the plants are now at least 5ft tall.

Although there are indications it has been visited, the crop shows little damage. The thin line through the standing crop that forms a kind of halo to the large circle with the crescent is only two stems wide. As I expected the thin line is not detectable at ground level. The only way to see it is by going on all fours looking at the ground through the standing crops following the main line from the formation. There we can see the plants lying on the ground two by two stretching into the distance. I estimate the halo to be 85ft in diameter.

Reported by Francine Blake (The Spiral Magazine).