The ‘suspicious’ discovery of stomping tools near a formation fills some over-excitable column inches in the local rag…


This last week’s edition of the Wiltshire paper ‘The Gazette and Herald’ carries a front-page story about one of their journalists finding a plank on a blue rope, an aluminium pole and white-tipped marker pegs, conspicuously left by a bush near one of the local crop formations. This apparently sensational ‘find’ is screamed under a ridiculous headline along the lines of ‘Corn Circle Myth Exploded’, the report completely failing to see the huge unlikelihood of any self-respecting circle artists just ‘accidentally’ happening to leave their implements on show for all to see.

This ‘discovery’ sounds suspiciously like a deliberate ploy, tried before on other occasions, where hoaxing implements are very obviously left near fields with formations in them. Often, they are deliberately placed there sometimes days after a circle’s appearance, maybe by farmers wishing to discourage visitors or by sceptics eager to sway the faithful.

Either way, even if some hoaxer just got careless this time, ‘Corn Circle Myth Exploded’ is perhaps rather over-stating the case…