Collie’s/Drew’s remarks concerning Yatesbury 2007 – “still unsolved” – got me thinking about this puzzling crop circle.  I tried the binary digit and ASCII code combinations for myself, and they produced gibberish.  (No surprise there!)  But then, treating the flattened circles and raised spaces as possible Morse Code, letters quickly emerged.  However, it wasn’t “clear sailing” because, to develop a complete solution, one needs a protocol for character and word breaks; and I found none.  (Well, “maybe one,” which I’ll address further, below.)  This was maddening because Morse Code gets one off to a fast start.  But without a protocol for fixing the end of one character, and beginning of the next, one quickly bogs down.

 Following are my method and results (as far as I took it this weekend): 

Going in, one cannot know whether a flattened circle represents “di” (.) or “dah” (-).  But each must be one or the other.  Therefore, starting from the centre and working out, I marked each flattened circle with a capital “D,” and each space with a lower case “d.”  Applying this method, one gets the following table (NOTE: One may also start outside and work in.  I did so, and the results were not promising.  But perhaps I gave up too quickly): 

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
D	d	D	D	d	d	d	D	D	D

11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
d	D	d	D	D	D	D	D	d	D

21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
d	D	D	D	D	d	D	D	d	D

31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40
d	D	d	D	D	D	D	D	D	D

41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50
d	D	D	d	d	D	D	d	D	d

51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60
D	d	D	D	D	d	D	D	D	D

61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70
D	D	D	D	D	d	d	d	D	D

71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79	80
d	D	d	d	d	D	d	D	D	D

81	82	83	84	85	86	87
d	d	D	D	D	d	D

 So, if one treats D as (-) and d as (.), one gets -.-- (Y) …- (V) --.- (Q) .--- (J), etc; which is not meaningful.  But reversed, treating D as (.) and d as (-), a message quickly begins to appear: .-.. (L) --- (O) …- (V) . (E) -.. (D)  

Going further, if one treats (..) and (.-), which follow next, as complete characters, one gets (I) and (A).  This is intriguing because the full text would resolve to “LOVED I A . . . .”  But it leads to a dead end; or at least, the permutations caused me to bog down with no ready solution coming to mind.

Alternatively, if one regroups, one might get (…-), which is the letter (V); and in that case, the phrase becomes “LOVED V . . . “ which does not look promising.  This is why finding the breaks protocol is key. 

Mind you, it took me hours to get to this point, which led to an insight: one must either use “force majeure” to crack all possible combinations, and then select those that are meaningful (tedious); or develop a reliable breaks protocol (requiring “more smarts” than I have). 

And now, concerning breaks, you’ll note that characters 34 through 40 are all the same.  By convention, seven equal units would be a “word break.”  This is helpful, but not very, because characters 57 through 65 are also the same, forcing one to ask “does this represent a 7-unit word break followed by two meaningful “Di’s” or “dah’s?”  Or if not, what on earth could nine sequential “Di’s” or “dah’s” possibly represent? 

On this note, I’ll close.  I’ll return to Yatesbury 2007 next weekend, when time again permits.  But in the meantime, there’s no reason why other minds shouldn’t have a go at a possible Morse solution.  (And à propos of that, I can’t help wondering if the Inspector Morse TV show was possible inspiration for those who contrived such a puzzling crop circle?)

John Del Campo   Falls Church, Virginia (USA)