On a warm late summer’s day, on the top of Shaw Hill, the Connector team found themselves chasing the Combine Harvester from cutting out this intriguing formation.

The town of Ludgershaw, is not a place you would associate a location for crop circles. It’s an old military town, with its own Castle, which I have visited and is well worth the extra excursion.

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We arrived at Shaw Hill, later on in the afternoon on a warm day, with bright intervals. The car had to be parked in the opposite field, as sometimes there are never any places to park, due to the high hedgerows. We suddenly realized that the Combine Harvester was literally cutting the field, but it was slowly harvesting the outer edges of the field, not through the area were the formation was positioned. It was placed quite near to the entrance of the field, but this sensation was probably enhanced by the fact, that we could walk across a large portion of the newly cut field.

Before we entered the section of the field, still standing, we took the opportunity to take some shots of the Harvester using the photographic pole. (See image above report) The driver of the Harvester turned out to be the Farmer of the land. He was rather intrigued of a technique for taking video, and had no objections of us entering his field. In interesting aspect of the conversation, was that this was the first time he has witnessed a formation on his land. He has been the Farmer of this land for years, and has never seen a crop circle before. It was rather nostalgic to hear him talking about UFO’s etc, as he was completely unaffected 

 It had a classic ‘S’ type swirl, but with a combination of them creating a meandering floor pattern, with impressive accuracy

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The formation itself was well worth the visit. Out short time at Shaw Hill, allowed us to take quite a few details for the floor construction, which was very impressive. Once again, we had a combination of new features, for the 2000 crop circle season. The first one, is the curtain of standing crop, around a central inner circle. This feature was first seen at Pewsey White Horse, some 9 days earlier, but on a much larger scale. Although this was a scaled down version, it was still intriguing, and maybe a hint of things to come in the 2001 season?

The second feature worth mentioning, was the largest of the 12 circles. This is the one placed as the central circle to the three arms. It had a classic ‘S’ type swirl, but with a combination of them creating a meandering floor pattern, with impressive accuracy. Each individual arm had its own characteristics. The smaller of the two arms had two rings around the first two circles leading out from the central circle.

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As we were taking further pole shots of the formation; the Harvester was moving closer to the formation, as he slowly cut the field around us. It was quite an unnerving feeling, as I stood there with a twenty-foot pole, with this loud mechanical noise behind me.

Images and Report Stuart Dike Copyright 2000