Chapter V

Chapter VI continued...

- Arthur C. Clark

I have seen UFOs, in fact I operate an adventure travel enterprise whose tours include several that guide people to a score of places around the world where one can reasonably count on seeing a UFO. After their first sighting, many of my clients shared my reaction - anti-climax. It is like seeing the ultimate Guru (who has all the answers) across a crowded room. Seeing but unable to communicate.To be within eyesight of all the prime answers, and unable to ask a single question, for me that is not a high point, that is pure frustration. For three decades, whenever I saw a UFO, I didn't see a flying saucer, I saw a giant, flying, question mark. It was late in the summer of 1990, in the crop fields of the Salisbury Triangle, when my UFO research made the transition from sightings to communication.

In modern centuries, there has never been a phenomena to equal the Crop Circles. Truely giant phenomena, appearing magically, over and over again, year after year. It is my opinion that the total essence of the phenomena was communication. Communication between two different cultures, galaxies apart. It was the ultimate cross-cultural event - it should have inspired the largest, collective, cultural-anthropology study since the science began. However, that is about the only event that never happened in the circus atmosphere of the Crop Circle fields every summer.

The reality of the matter is, the phenomena of the millennium created to communicate with humankind, created a situation that underlines the fact that humanities greatest problem is, our inability to communicate with each other.

Thus, let us begin this chapter on communication across galaxies with first confronting the problem of communicating across the Atlantic.

If you are an American - pardon me Canadians, if you are a citizen of the United States - and have done your homework on the phenomena, you know that they were first described as "corn circles". It was one of my perverse pleasures of the 80s, to hang around a corn circle after my research had been complete - to watch the comedy hour commence as a Mid-American (now Mexico is happy) tried to ask an English native what all the wheat was doing in the corn circle ... The problem is, what Americans (the heck with that aspect of correct communications) call wheat, the English call maize. The problem obviously continues, as the phenomena most often appears in corn/wheat fields.

The term Crop Circle began to be used after 1987 - not to satisfy American tourists - but because of a matter where the media/press failed in their role of communicators. From 1987 (possibly earlier) some of the circles began to appear in rape and barley fields. This was rarely mentioned by any of the international press. The presence of the phenomena in a rape field should have been an important factor when the crop fakers came out of the pubs. The prime test of the phenomena is see if any plants have been harmed or broken. If the event is real, though every plant within the shape has been bent to the ground, not one individual plant was ever harmed , much less broken. Prior to harvest time, wheat can be bent without being broken. (Though, to bend thousands of such plants within the minutes, maybe seconds, it takes for the real phenomena to be created in, is quite another matter - and, the real phenomena are quite often created in the final, brittle harvest stage of the wheat.) However, wheat is downright flexible when you compare it to the rape plant (which, is known by the same name on both sides of the Atlantic). A rape plant does not bend, it breaks or cracks - I personally tested several such plants myself ... Now, when men or youth, with far too much time to spare in their local pubs - communicated to the press that, "they had personally created all the circles" - then recreated for the cameras, a dubious example of the phenomena in a wheat field. There is not one instance of the press/media ever leading the self-avowed fakers over to a rape field and challenging them to a real test. To be quite cold about it, the press never conducted such a real test for two reasons: (1) Most never did sufficient homework on the subject ; (2) Then, there is the rather awkward name of the plant, a story about a scientific test in a rape field lends itself to confusing copy.

Then, in mid-June of 1990, the circles began to take on symbolic, complex configurations. Such as this one in a wheat field on Chilcomb Farm, East of Winchester. Pat Delgado, one of the "good Guy" researchers on the phenomena, observed that the word "Crop Circle" had ceased to be an adequate description. Searching for a new description, Delgado's first choice was "hieroglyph". How very correct and close he was. However, the final choice went to "pictogram" a suggestion from someone on the the staff of the British Museum. Thus "pictogram" became the common description for the complex forms of the phenomena. It is not the word I will use in this book since there is a prime error in "pictogram". When one is trying to just communicate about the two styles of ancient Rock Art, you use the words "paintings" or "engravings" (engraving - to identify art that has been created by carving or pecking out the image). If you wish to communicate in a manner that makes you sound "scientific" , you use : Pictogram , a word which has the feel of art being created by pecking, but actually defines art created by the addition of paint ; Petroglyph, describes art created by changing the physical shape of the rock (or a corn field). Thus, if one really wanted to be scientific about the matter, Petroglyph would be correct. However, I have only one agenda, I wish to communicate as directly and as simply as possible. So for about a decade, I have used the term Crop Symbols, which as you will soon see, is an equally correct term to describe the Crop Circles.

Quite frankly, I have looked upon the whole affair as a classic case of misdirected communication . By early 1989, when I had taken up full time residence in the South of England - the situation of the phenomena had created a massive number of "experts". Ever since 1982, I was certain the phenomena was linked to some form of cosmic communication - I just couldn't grok the key to it - but at that point , no one else had a good link to the answer either.

Which was no surprise, the way the experts and research leaders had focused their study of the phenomena. Virtually everyone perceived the Crop Symbols as messages - but the experts/leaders were fixated on the engineering aspects of the riddle - the technology, rather than the message seemed to be their concern.

I was not alone in seeing the following, obvious analogy to the situation. If the Crop Symbol experts had been guests at Belshazzar's feast, when the moving finger traced out its message on the palace wall the experts would have argued and quibbled over the mechanics of the finger, the chemical makeup of the paint the finger used - endlessly debating over every technical aspect of the phenomena, while totally ignoring the message. Remember when I said that 1982 was the year when the realization of the message was confirmed? Ironically, it was the one time the message senders paused in their standard plan to send a message with a totally unique form... In retrospect, it was possibly a matter of them concluding that humankind appeared to be at least partially illiterate, so they turned to their version of charades or riddles. However, it required two years to get their message across... To fully play the riddle game, you must first understand that, from the probable first Corn Circle ( at Headbourne Worthy in 1978) to 1981, there were a number of noticeable distinct patterns to the messages: (1) all messages at that point, were comprised of circles ; (2) apart from some efforts that could have even been tests, the circles were used to create two prime symbol - one using 3 circles, and one using 5 circles ; (3) no plants were harmed ; (4) and, there were no repeats on the same areas, some in the same fields, but never within the same approximate space ... Thus, in 1981, there was some extra notice given when two Corn Circles (a previously non-used number) appeared just off the A34 road, north of the village of Litchfield. The specific location was a corn/wheat field at a site known as "Seven Barrows" (Barrows - round, Megalithic tombs). The construction of the A34 and a now disused railway line had erased five of the barrows . The two Corn Circles, each with diameters approximately 15 meters, were somewhat similar in size , shape , and location to the remaining round tombs. Thus, that year, it certainly seemed like the cosmic visitors were trying to draw attention to the megalithic tombs. That was sufficient for several English archaeologists to take notice, and one, a previous co-worker, contacted me. It was my introduction to the phenomena and I would certainly have liked the idea of a Megalithic link. However, though new and rather unknowledgable to the subject, I had an inner feeling that the connection was not with the barrows - they were insignificant tombs - considering that the general area contains virtually all of England's major Megalithic monuments...

My hunch connected in 1982, when yet another pair of Corn Circles appeared at the Seven Barrows site. I was unable to participate in the research that year - however, researchers led by Delgado and Colin Andrews successfully pieced together the answers to the riddle. It was yet another example of - the researchers could achieve the correct answer - only after they knew the correct question to ask. Obviously, it was something far beyond a simple link with several small barrows. The question was, what was special about the place itself? Could there even be two special things? The answers came back in spades : (1) On the 10th of September, 1910, Geoffrey de Havilland made his first flight from that very same field. The land was England's version of Kitty Hawk ; (2) Just to the north of the barrows is yet another burial site, the final resting place of the Fifth Earl of Caernarvon. He was buried there in 1923, shortly after he took part in the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb... To a simple field archaeologist, the answer seems clear. Two messages incorporated into one - "We also fly, and we have links to ancient Egypt". Since there were a total of four Crop Circles (over the two years) to make that message, I could be tempted to add another two part message, this time linked to the name of the site, "the Seven Barrows" - "We are Seven, and we have links to the Megalithic era". That would make a nice four-part message... Whatever, the first two part message should have made a story worth sharing. The press/media has also failed to properly report that first instance of message received!

Now, to the task of translating/decoding all of the other messages. I have a good background in cryptography. And it has served me well in the past. However, the 7 barrows message had shown "they" were trying to communicate. So by 1990, I finally put aside my cryptography skills and created a three-way merging of past studies: (1) Cross-cultural Anthropology training ; (2) remembering from the best textbook for cross-galaxy contact - Heinlein's classic, Stranger in a Strange Land. Once Heinlein's novel has taught you the essence of "Grok", you are ready for cross-galaxy field work ; (3) Shaman training, that prepares one for mind-merging levels that Mr. Spock would have approved of.

These are the two prime methods I chose to follow : (1) Do not pick out one two symbols, twist them around to a meaning, and call the job complete. One must take the symbols from their beginning, move forward year by year, until a clear and connected series of messages have been achieved; (2) More than a method, it was the key to my whole effort - I strived to enter the mind of those who created the messages.

To enter the mind of the sender of the Crop symbols, I considered the prime messages any Anthropologist strives to share when first making contact with a primitive tribe ... First, in contacting an obviously paranoid population (modern, Western societies would be a prime example), I would begin with a message of my peaceful intention. That message was being overlooked by those so involved with the mechanics of the crop symbols. A true crop symbol is created from plants (wheat, barley, and rape) being suddenly bent to the ground flat. The mechanics of doing that is intriguing, but more important, look beyond the trees to see the forest, the total product is the message. To create symbols all across the land, some the size of a football field, and not harm one life form, including the plants, THAT is the message of peaceful intention.

The second prime message is obvious, you inform the natives where you are from. So now we look at the symbols. From 1978 to 1986, two messages were repeated over and over again. To be honest, I had walked through such messages many times, and did not make the connection. Then several years later, I painted a variety of the Crop Symbols on a T-shirt for a friend. The minute I transferred my perception of the symbols in wheat fields to black paint on cloth, the answer came.

The important thing to understand that these two symbols were created, with few exceptions, by the hundreds from 1978 to 1986 .I believe you would agree with me, that those two symbols do give rather specific location information about a far distant planet, and a place in the cosmos with a 3 star system ~ if I am being too subtle, please look again at the Dogon symbols for Sirius & the Star of Women. The exceptions could have been tests and/or the beginning of fake circles...

In 1981, the three-circle symbol for the Sirius star-system appeared in the "Punch Bowl", and created the beginning of national interest in the Crop Symbols. The publicity was unavoidable, the Punch Bowl lies in a low lying area beside the main Southampton commuter road. Because of the perspective of the motorists to the low lying field, it was first time the general public had an aerial view of a Crop Symbol - as well as being perfectly positioned for TV coverage . Thus, in the summer of 1986, when the message senders were ready to share a new Crop Symbol, a new message. It should be of little surprise that they selected the Punch Bowl as one of the first sites to display their next level in communication. The new symbol was the classic circle with a ring about it, a symbol that was then repeated for the next three years (intermixed with the two location symbols).

Over the years there were variations on that symbol, but its essential shape remained. And that shape was linked by both the Fifth Earl of Caernarvon and the Sirius location symbols, to Egypt, the land that venerated Sirius in the form of Sothis, the Star Goddess - for that symbol is a rather common Egyptian hieroglyph. For the sake of other researchers, I must underline the difficulty of looking at giant shapes in wheat fields, and making the connection with small painted symbols on Dogon cloth, or in this case, a really small hieroglyph in the midst of hundreds of more esoteric glyphs painted on an ancient wall.

has a variety of translation forms, usually related to the context of its use. It has been used to signify the end of a thought or subject matter, rather like our period is used at the end of this sentence. It is more often used to signify "the end of a time period". Normally it would refer to a time frame as limited as " the last day of a month ." That is how it is used in common usage - when the circle within the ring is but a dot , it denotes the end of a month. As the inner circle expands so does its 68 relationship to a larger time frame. I rechecked my conclusion with several others who worked with hieroglyphs. I didn't include a photo of the Crop Symbol, just a small card with the symbol drawn on it to focus their thoughts, and asked, "What would it mean if the inner circle was expanded to let's say, twenty feet?" All gave the essence of the same answer, two used the same words I had translated - "the end of an era".

The next evolution in Crop Symbols arrived in mid-August of 1989, virtually across the road from Stonehenge. It was the first of the complex Crop Symbols. Its very complexity kept me from translating it for two years. Even recreating it in black & white did not help. Then one day, the artist in me decided to cheat a bit, rather than free-handing with ball point pen the complex pattern of the weave of the wheat, I started with a pencil drawing of the prime pattern. The artist half of me was impressed. If someone had given me the task of creating the Dogon symbol of Sirius C, while using only the medium of Crop Symbols, I am not sure I would have achieved the task of creating that astronomical solar symbol across the road from Stonehenge, humanity's most famous solar observatory. Equally, I will not fault them (the governmental powers that be) if none of their workers managed to decode the Stonehenge Crop Symbol . However, all of the world's great powers have the very best of astronomers on their payrolls, and the Dogon connection with all the related symbols, would have been a matter that such scholars would have remembered well. This is a pause for paranoia. Surely the leaders of several countries had the translations, what did they do with that information? And did they take note of the Dogon symbol used to explain their manner of transport, the "beam ships", used first in 1990 at Chilcomb Farm?

I will allow that much of my work with the next level of messages should be totally credited to Fate placing me at the right places, at the right times ... The summer of 1990, was a cryptographer's nightmare. The new evolution in Crop symbols were obvious messages, even to the average person on the street. Without a doubt, the best of the best were giving it their all, but no sane conclusions were surfacing. I spent endless hours staring at black & white drawings of the complex symbols, all to no apparent avail.

I finally returned to my roots, Ogham. The average depiction of that alphabet is a series of lines, straight and angled across a long line that depicts the edge of a stone, all very good if you are translating messages written on the edge of standing stones. However, the more complex messages were placed on the center of flat pieces of stone, wood, bone, etc. . And as with the Ogham written within the tombs the center line was rarely used. In many of those instances, to avoid obvious confusion between vowels with straight lines across the line, and the 9 consonants , whose lines went to the line, from the left or right , the vowels were designated with circles ... The use of circles to designate vowels is validated in The Celtic Realms, the difinitive work on the subject1. With that version of Ogham in my mind, a connecting pattern began to emerge. For those who know of Ogham from only surface research, and are unaware of the use of use of circles as vowel markers, may I suggest you turnto page 207 in The Celtic Realms by Myles Dillon & Nora Chadwick ~ the variation used above, from their alphabet, is that I used the original/archaic Ogham alphabet ~ for that research,I suggest Robert Graves classic book on Ogham, The White Goddess.

Chapter V

Chapter VI continued...