In 1998, two American women reported witnessing what was clearly the creation of the Tawsmead Copse seven-fold formation under aerial light phenomena (reported in SC journal, issue 85). Now a new eye-witness report to the same events has come forward, courtesy of circle researcher Charles Mallett. NIKKI SAVILLE records the extraordinary events she witnessed that night…


INTRODUCTION by Charles Mallett

I have personally known Nikki Saville for many years. Throughout these many years of friendship she has proven to be an incredibly honest, grounded and balanced individual whose word I consider beyond reproach. It has taken me this long to get Nikki to put down in words exactly what she saw in 1998; she is very shy and has not been at all willing to publicize the events too much.

The events detailed below represents, for Nikki and myself, and indeed most other people that meet her, a truly astonishing account of a crop glyph being formed under most mysterious circumstances.

Charles R Mallett


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My interest in crop formations began about two years before I finally had the chance to see them for myself. In 1998, I talked my brother into driving me to Wiltshire. My brother was a true sceptic and thought all formations were man-made. He was soon to be proven very wrong.

We arrived at the famous Barge Inn campsite, near Alton Barnes at 11.00pm, 7th August 1998. After pitching the tent I was ready for some sleep. My brother had problems with sleeping ever since he was a boy and fell out of a tree, cracking several ribs. This night, however, he was asleep in minutes and slept soundly all night. There seemed to be a very calming, relaxing feel to this place.

The next morning we met up with some friends who live in the area, then went to visit our first formation. The weather was extremely hot, but we went on to visit two more formations. The heat became too much to handle, so we decided to return to the campsite for a rest. My brother slept the afternoon away.

Early evening came and we retreated to the Barge Inn, being an ideal place if you have an interest in crop formations. On the wall was all the information we needed, a map with all the formations marked; there was also a note about the Lunar eclipse that was happening that night (so we thought). My brother and I had never seen a Lunar eclipse before, so we decided to spend the night on Adam’s Grave, also known as Walkers Hill.

We started the walk to the top of Adam’s Grave as the sun was setting. The view from the top was stunning. To the right of us, approximately five miles away, was the town of Devizes. About 10 miles to the left was the town of Pewsey and ahead the village of Alton Barnes. Also below us was a huge area they call East Field, and in its centre was a beautiful snowflake crop formation. After taking in the view, we laid out our sleeping bags. The sun had disappeared from sight; now the full moon was rising in the sky, bringing a cold wind with it.

The wind was becoming quite harsh, so we climbed into our thermal sleeping bags. We sat on the hillside watching the moon rise and the stars appear. At around 11.00pm, something grabbed my brother’s attention. In the distance, to the left of us, he saw two red lights just above the horizon. By the time I looked the lights had turned white, one above the other, very round in shape, brighter around the outside than the inside. In a second they were gone, but they didn't blink out like a light being switched off - they seemed to disintegrate like bubbles being popped. We were totally amazed and confused at what we had seen.

The night went on and we waited in hope for something else to happen. The sky was fantastically clear and the moon was full. I had never seen a sky so beautiful and with so many shooting stars. A short time later, a single ball of light appeared close to where we saw the first two. It travelled at some speed across the horizon and stopped just below the horizon line. It then moved down over the fields and stopped again. Three more lights seemed to come from within the first single light, not as big as the first ball of light, but just as bright. They moved in a diagonal line in a south-easterly direction. The first light seemed to be still in the top left corner of a field and another in the bottom right corner; we didn't see this fourth light appear.

While watching the lights, two people joined us, a couple in their early thirties, from a nearby town. We all watched as the three lights that split from the first moved around the field. The moonlight lit up the ground. We could make out a shape appearing in the field. It was obvious we were watching the making of a crop formation. We also noticed lights at an equal distance apart. We had a map with us, and it seemed the lights were in the same place as the pylons leading all the way down to Devizes. At the time I thought they were warning lights for aircraft. The next day we checked the pylons, but found no lights around or above the pylons. While watching the light show, the two strangers left to go home - we both thought that was very odd.

We sat on the hillside until we were sure nothing else was going to happen. At around 5:45am we began the walk back to the car. It didn't take long to find the fresh formation. We were in it by 6:00am. Totally incredible was an understatement. The formation created in wheat contained seven-fold geometry, with 84 outer circles and 84 inner circles, the whole design spanning 400ft in diameter. It was later said to be the largest and most complex formation of that year and named the ‘Magnificent Seven’. We didn't stay in the formation very long, which I deeply regret.

Thank you for reading.