Two days ago, a distinguished inventor from North Carolina (by the name of Michael Reed) sent emails to Linda Howe and Lucy Pringle, informing them of his novel theory concerning Barbary Castle of June 1. Linda then forwarded his message to me for evaluation, and I quickly realized that Reed had made an important discovery---probably the most important since Crabwood of 2002---that needed to be told worldwide as soon as possible.   The basic theory behind Reed's novel and astute observation is explained in two diagrams below. He noticed that ten successive angles of rotation from the long right-handed spiral which appeared at Barbury Castle one week ago show a one-to-one correspondence with ten successive digits of the mathematical constant pi, as "3" then "decimal point" then "1" then "4" then "1" then "5" then "9" and so on:   To make matters even more clear, I prepared a second diagram as shown below, where the first four angles of rotation as "3" then "1" then "4" then "1" have been directly labelled:     In summary, each individual digit of pi as either "3" or "1" or "4" or "1", etc. seems to be coded for in the Barbury Castle crop picture by 36 degrees of angular rotation within a long, right-handed spiral. The actual numerical data are summarized in Table 1 below. I had measured angles of rotation earlier from an overhead photograph of that crop picture, using ruler and protractor, but wondered what they might mean?     Table 1. Successive angles of rotation in the Barbury Castle crop picture of June 1, 2008 code for ten successive digits of pi = 3.141592654   Number of angle counting out from the centre Measured angle of rotation Individual digit of pi Predicted angle of rotation n x 36 degrees 1 105 3 108 dot ------ decimal ------ 2 35 1 36 3 145 4 144 4 35 1 36 5 180 5 180 6 325 9 324 7 70 2 72 8 215 6 216 9 180 5 180 10 145 4 144 Total 1435/1440 40 1440   The entire spiral after four complete turns gives 1440 degrees of rotation, which likewise matches a sum of the first ten digits from pi as 3 + 1 + 4 + 1+ ...... = 40 when that total is multiplied by 36 degrees. (Note that the sum of ten different protractor-measured angles from column two above equals 1435 degrees, whereas an overall angle as measured directly across four turns of the spiral equals 4 x 360 = 1440 degrees. Such a slight difference might be expected, because individual angles in column two have been rounded off to the nearest 5 degrees. )   Now I will quote from Michael Reed's email to Linda Howe dated June 5, 2008:   "On looking at the Barbary Castle crop pattern, a ratio of angles of the radial jumps equals apparently the first ten (10) digits of the mathematical constant pi (which is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter). A dot after the first radial jump is even positioned correctly as the decimal point in pi.   Take the pattern and draw radial lines from the centre through each radial jump. Next take the smallest angle sector and call it 'one' (1). Then compare enclosed angles from the other ten sectors to that of the smallest. Those ratios come out as 3.141592654. Note that the last digit has been rounded up to four (4), since the value of pi out to eleven digits would be 3.1415926536.   The significance of three circles of decreasing diameter at the outer end of spiral may be to convey the idea that the number pi goes on indefinitely. I would be interested to learn whether there have been any other interpretations?"   Well, yes, there were other interpretations, but none so simple, direct and elegant! This is the first time to my knowledge that a fundamental mathematical constant has appeared in an English crop picture, although it should be noted that a similar right-handed spiral from Yatesbury on May 30, 2007 (one year before Barbary Castle) still remains unexplained. The chance of human fakery for both pictures seems almost zero, based on detailed inspection of those field patterns by long-term experts such as Charles Mallet.   I believe there may also be a second overlapping code in Barbary Castle, which tells where the message came from, but those speculations would be better left to a separate text, so as not to detract from the simple elegance of Michael Reed's important discovery.   Red Collie