FIELD REPORT

Here is the last of the field reports I can send from France this week - it concerns our visit to the small but exquisite formation across from Avebury Manor farm on Green Street at Avebury... 

Although the 150 foot Trefoil formation in mature wheat at Green Street in Avebury was first reported on July 29, our group did not have the chance to enter it until over a week later, on August 5, in the late afternoon.   Obviously, by that time, given its location near the Avebury Henge and easy access across from the Avebury Manor farm, the formation had been well visited by that afternoon.  Thus, its small central clockwise-swirled circle was quite "flat," its centre clearly the scene of many meditations and placing of various objects and so on.   The main "pathways" among the formation's three overlapping circles and the outer ring were likewise quite flattened, evidence of the formation's popularity and testament to the

improvement (temporary, alas) in the weather that week. 
 

Nevertheless, despite its popularity, the Green Street formation still felt quite "energetic" to those of our group who took the time to walk the perimeter ring, then along the three inner circles' edges, finally using the tram line to enter the central circle.    Although the outer perimeter ring was "walked to death," one of the inner circle's shorter (and less walked on) arcs of laid-down wheat still retained a beautiful flowing pattern of regularly-placed stalks and seed heads in several places (see my photo).  Also, one of the inner-circles' arc's edges revealed what was to me at least an important "anomaly": several individual or very small bundles of stalks from outside the laid-down ring were bent at the first node and actually lay UNDERNEATH the "flow" of the main grain pathway, as if enticed to lay down before the 18"-wide arc was swirled down over them.   My close up photo clearly shows this phenomenon, something virtually impossible to accomplish by purely "mechanical" means. 

Further, the nearby tram line - that furthest from the field's edge - showed many plant stalks still standing in the middle of the otherwise laid-down spiral.  This effect was also present but less evident along the other tram line that passed across another laid-down spiral in the formation and that was used by more visitors as it was closer to the field's border near the road.   Finally, our group was impressed by several beautiful "ridges" of laid-down crop nearly perpendicular to the main flow of one of the three spirals' clock-wise flow.   See photos. 

All in all, therefore, the Green Street formation although far from the largest, most spectacular of 2007's offerings that I visited, and despite it's having been literally pummelled by hundreds of human feet between it's discovery and my opportunity to visit it a week later, remained a visual delight for anyone taking just a bit of extra time to examine its less-travelled pathways and to look at some of the detail in laid-down and standing crop that made up its precise, trinity design features.  For me personally, visiting it even a week late was a classic crop circle experience totally worthy of a field that has seen many notable formations in the last dozen years and which highlights the Avebury Henge, one of England's most important ancient monuments and long the "heart" of the crop circle phenomenon.

All images Chet Snow Copyright 2007

 

Chet Snow

www.chetsnow.com/signs.html