NEW SUSSEX FORMATION (Sussex 1999/09)

Found at: Mill Hill, Nr Shoreham, West Sussex

Date: 22nd August 1999

Description: Ringed circle and a triangle

Crop: Barley

Aerial Photo by: David Russell

Surveyed by: Jason Porthouse, Andy Thomas & Kaye Thomas

Report: This modest but attractive formation was discovered by SCR member Jason Porthouse on 22nd August in a field which has given birth to three previous formations in 1990, 1993 and 1995, just below the listed building of Buckingham Barn and adjacent to the busy A27. This event is much further east than its predecessors, which were placed more centrally in the field, and was just visible from the road.

The 66' ringed circle (including the 3' wide ring) was swirled anticlockwise as was the 31' 5" x 30' 5" x 36' 8" triangle which lay 11' to the north. The corners of the triangle were particularly well-delineated and though the crop itself was very low and scrappy (unusual for barley to still be standing at this time of summer) the general lay was fluffy and bouncy and the formation clear and pleasing. The main circle was laid in piled grooves, giving a three-dimensional effect.

The farmer was surprised at the news of this formation's arrival on the 22nd August because he had looked into this field earlier that day and had seen nothing. Later that afternoon, Jason Porthouse discovered it - a daylight occurrence or had the farmer just not been concentrating?

In an astonishing cosmic 'coincidence', Jason Porthouse had meditated in the lay-by at the top of this field a few nights previously, asking the circle-making forces to re-visit the field. It seems his call was heeded... Jason must be very much in tune with whatever's behind all this because he did exactly the same thing in 1993 - an 'insectogram' arrived the night after he made a similar request from the same car park. And before that, in 1992, he and his brother Mark invited the crop circles to do their thing at Sompting, only to receive the first of a string of formations in that area two days later. Some guys have all the luck. (See the book Fields of Mystery, 1996, S B Publications, for more on this and the previous Mill Hill formations.)

With the fields coming down fast in Sussex, chances are this will be our last formation for the season. After a series of very quiet years since the busy summer of 1995, we've had a bit of a renaissance these last few months, with nine events. Could this be due to the increased water table in Sussex after the drought conditions of the last three years, given the increasingly talked about aquifer/geological connection to crop circles..?

Report by ANDY THOMAS for Southern Circular Research