A new picture from West Overton on August 17 shows a stylistic repeat of Toot Baldwin and Sugar Hill, but now its "day cube" symbols have been cut almost in half, and have been arranged into groups of six. Hence in the context of other crop pictures over the past few weeks, it could mean "6 x 0.5 = 3". Recall how Sugar Hill on August 1 said "18", while Stanton St. Bernard on August 12 said "6".

Technically each day-cube symbol from West Overton has been sliced off at all of its corners. In which case, each could represent one-third of a day, giving 6 x 1/3 = 2 rather than 6 x 1/2 = 3. And so August 16 at midnight (when it appeared) plus 2 full days = August 18 at midnight.

 

Click on hot spots to link to previous formations.

Click on hot spots to link to previous formations.

But I found such details hard to draw by Powerpoint, and chose for that reason to say "cut in half" instead. Any geometers in the audience would be welcome to disagree. Clever, clever, clever! As Alexander Thom once wrote, "I find the intelligence of those people who lived long ago in the British Isles to be somewhat superior to my own."

This reminded me of an article I had read in Popular Science years ago about a tile shape which I believe originated in ancient Persian tile mosaics. It is one shape which can be used in many patterns to fill any flat surface, or tile any flat surface. The crop circle of August 17 shows such a tile pattern as it uses only on tile shape and one design within that shape. The entire circle explanation may be no more complicated than that. The overall patterns reflect complex geometry as a natural consequence of their seemingly endless ways of combining.