Montegrotto, near Padova, last week was host to Italy’s first ever specific crop circle day, attended by hundreds, and Swirled News contributors were honoured to be guests…


On Friday and Saturday 17/18th May 2002, the Italy-based paranormal investigation website ‘X-Cosmos’, in association with magazines ‘Hera’ and ‘Nexus’ (Italian edition), held its first full conference at the Centro Congressi delle Terme events centre, Montegrotto. The town, surrounded by ex-volcanic mountains, is home to hot springs first utilised by the Romans, whose bath house remains are still there to be seen outside the hall.

Around three to four hundred people gathered to hear Friday speakers (including, among other notables, Mexican researcher Carlos Diaz) discussing UFOs, followed by a Saturday devoted to the crop circle phenomenon entitled ‘Cerchi Nel Grano: La Conoscenza Silenziosa’ (‘circles in the grain: a silent knowing’), the first time such a specialised event has been held in Italy.

Swirled News was proud to be there in the shape of Andy Thomas, Michael Glickman, Karen Douglas and Steve Alexander, negotiating the brave translators to provide the English viewpoint on different aspects of the crop circles, while other researchers such as Dr Eltjo Haselhoff from The Netherlands and homegrown talents Alfonso Rubino and Adriano Forgione made their own valuable contribution.

The day was a successful first for the X-Cosmos group and though crop circles are very thin on the ground in Italy (to the point of non-existence!), the intense interest shown in the subject at the conference has encouraged it to consider following up the event with other crop circle days at some point in the future.

We would like to thank the organisers of the X-Cosmos event for the intense hospitality shown to us, which went beyond the call of duty to even include a magical visit to Venice on our last day there.

Photographs and a full report (in Italian) on the X-Cosmos conference can be found on their website at:

www.x-cosmos.it