Debate between Doug Bower and George Wingfield for BBC radio
Host, Nicky Campbell, interviews Bower and then chairs a (radio) debate between Bower and George Wingfield.
Campbell: Now, on the telephone line, a gentleman, Doug Bower. I welcome you to “Into the Night”, Doug. Thanks for joining me at this late hour, I know it’s been a hectic day for you. How are you this evening?
Bower: Nice to speak to you.
Campbell: Yes, you too. You claim that since 1978, you have been, with your accomplice Dave Chorley…
Bower: That’s right.
Campbell: …responsible for the crop circles?
Bower: Yes. We started them in 1978.
Campbell: Why?
Bower: Just for a laugh. We wanted to fool the UFO societies because in 1978, there was, er, the UFO business was quite strong in Warminster, in Wiltshire, where all the sightings were supposed to have taken place, and we thought a circular depression in the cornfield would probably bring them up [out to the field] to let them have a look, and think that a UFO had landed, you see. But, erm… we did that for three years without any notice being taken of us at all. We then discovered that we were putting them in fields where [neither] the motorists or pedestrians or anyone could ever see them. So, we had to find a location, preferably around hills, where people could look down into them, and we found a site at Cheesefoot Head near Winchester, and we put the first [sic] one in there and within 24 hours the first press report came out that this circular mark had been found in a cornfield – ‘what is it?’ and all the rest of it, you see, the big mystery had started. And so it’s gone on from there.
Campbell: How many have you done over the…
Bower: [Interrupting] Well, we average about 25-30 per year. Don’t get confused with all the thousand or more that has been done throughout the West Country as well, because in the past four years [ie since 1987] the West Country boys have copied what we’ve done.
Campbell: [Laughs]
Bower: So therefore, you see, we haven’t done all those down there. The Beckhampton, Avebury circle[s] and Pewsey Vale, they’re nothing to do with us at all.
Campbell: So, you started in 1978…
Bower: Yes.
Campbell: …you, er – are you still doing it?
Bower: No, we’ve finished now. We’ve retired. [Both laugh]
Campbell: You’ve retired from the crop circle business, have you?
Bower: That’s right, yes, yes. Well, when you’re getting on a little bit, you know, the amount of energy that you have to use in these cornfields at night doing these circles is quite enormous, especially when it’s hot.
Campbell: And it’s nothing to do with psychic energy at all, is it?
Bower: No, nothing at all, no. And, erm, we’ve had a, we’ve had a marvellous bit of fun.
Campbell: And have you actually been with scientists as they have marvelled at these crop circles, or been with psychic investigators, or people interested in extra terrestrial phenomena?
Bower: Well, let’s say for instance, let’s put an example to you. We do one tonight, we’ll say.
Campbell: Uh-huh.
Bower: Tomorrow night when it’s [still] daylight, about half past seven or something, we go up to see what we’ve done – because we haven’t been able to see what has… because it’s been done in the dark, you see. And of course, by the time we get up there to have a look at them, there’s probably 20, 30 people or more, cars parked all along the road, they’re all looking at it as well, so we join in the fun, as another spectator. And, erm, it is quite amusing really, I mean, we, er… David and I, we start asking these people, ‘What do you think’s caused it?’ [Both laugh] And, er, we know very well that it’s us that’s caused it, I mean, we’ve, erm, we’ve got quite some intricate patterns going in this last couple of years, I mean, we spend the winter months designing all these.
Campbell: You must have had a good laugh over the years.
Bower: It has been a great laugh, and I mean, the fact that we’ve enjoyed ourselves, er, if you can imagine a full moon, in August, a lovely warm night, 12 o’clock, 1 o’clock, half past one in the morning, walking down through the cornfields, no cars, no human beings, no nothing – it’s another world. And, erm, you know, for anyone – not that we’re in an office all day long, but I feel sorry for the people in offices in the big city. Er, they go home on a train and they don’t have much relaxation at all. But if you can imagine the beautiful Hampshire countryside in cornfields and that, it’s absolutely, erm…
Campbell: It’s a wonderful hobby!
Bower: Yes, it’s wonderful.
Campbell: But it’s not only just a hobby, I mean, do you not feel slightly guilty that you’ve pulled the – pulled the corn over the eyes of the entire scientific community [sic]? There’s books been written about this, there’s been television programmes!
Bower: There’s been four books written on it. [In fact, seven major books by then, plus some less important works.]
Campbell: Yeah, but the…
Bower: And I think there’s another one the offing, but I mean it seems really sad, really [that we’re stopping], I mean, er, I can’t keep pushing corn down year after year. I mean, I’m 67 years old, now.
Campbell: But Doug, you’ve…
Bower: Jumping over five-bar gates, and five strands of barbed wire at night, and, er…
Campbell: [Laughs] But Doug, you’ve conned people. Do you feel at all guilty about that?
Bower: Not really, no. It’s what they’ve made of it, isn’t it? [Both laugh] They didn’t have to make all this sort of fuss about it.
Campbell: What’s the best theories that you’ve heard?
Bower: Well, I mean [mumbles something] I was up on the Punchbowl one night when we [had just] did a lovely circle down there, there’s a man standing next to me, he said, ‘You know,’ he says, ‘I think the craft that did that is as big as Winchester Cathedral.’ [Campbell laughs] And, er, some of the most ridiculous thing that you’ve ever heard, really. Even the so-called experts have come out with a new language of their own, I mean there’s words they’re using that’s not even in the English dictionary.
Campbell: Like what?
Bower: I can’t even repeat them, they’re so complicated, you know, and I mean they’re… people listening to them with open mouth, you know, and they say, ‘well they must be experts!’
Campbell: Incredible. So…
Bower: It is, really.
Campbell: How do you explain the ones in the north of Scotland, in Wales…
Bower: Yeah, well, what it is, you see, you hear of them in Germany and Australia and Japan – well it’s the tourists that come over here. They have a look at what we’ve done, they go back home and sort of think, ‘we’ll have a go at one of those.’ And lo-and-behold there’s a report then that they’ve got some circles in Germany! Well of course, we speak to the Germans and the Australians and the Italians up here looking at ours. And they go back and they have a go.
Campbell: There’s a network of people going out on moonlit August nights, in the fields, making these crop circles, then?
Bower: Well, there’s David and I, we started it in ’78. [Campbell laughs] And there’s the crowd who started copying us four years ago at, er, down in the Pewsey Vale and Beckhampton.
Campbell: Well how do you, erm, create these crop circles then, which are, erm, as big as an implant [sic] that would have been made by a UFO the size of Winchester Cathedral? How do you actually go about…
Bower: [Interrupting] If you can imagine a length of 2-by-1, four feet in length…
Campbell: Yep.
Bower: With a string rein attached to it, so that you can put your right foot on it, and hold the rein in your hand, and you just walk forward with it, pushing the corn down. You hold the piece of wood up against, with your foot, against half way up the stalks of the corn and just push it forward. [Campbell laughs] That’s all it is, it’s flattened corn! How on earth can these people make all this out of a bit of flattened corn? I really, I really… it’s been the greatest laugh that David and I… we’ve laughed so much some nights I’ve had to pull into a lay-by and… because I can’t drive a car with laughing so much about it.
Campbell: [Laughs] So it’s as easy as that, you’ve got fairly rudimentary equipment?
Bower: Oh, yes, I mean a… 80 [or] 100-foot circle can be done in ten minutes.
Campbell: [Laughs] Well stay on the line, Doug, because we’ve got a gentleman here you might want to have a word with. We’ll hear from him first. Er, George Wingfield, good evening, George.
Wingfield: Good evening, good evening.
Campbell: You are a scientist, you are from the Centre…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] I’m having a good laugh here at what I heard from Doug.
Campbell: You’re from the – let me just, let me just introduce you, you’re from the Centre of [sic] Crop Circle Studies, right? Carry on, George.
Wingfield: Yes, the Centre for Crop Circle Studies, absolutely right. I know Doug and, er, [laughing] if you really believe a word he says, you must be joking! I’ve met this guy, I’ve met him, er, he’s been hanging around Cheesefoot Head for a long time, he’s always there, he’s been to meetings, he knows an awful lot about crop circles, coz he’s read all the books, and he’s immersed himself in the subject, he’s always hanging around there, but I wouldn’t really… I wouldn’t believe what he says, and I wouldn’t buy a second-hand car from him.
Campbell: OK, er, OK Doug, go on.
Bower: Can I ask you a question, George?
Wingfield: Yeah. I remember your grasshopper warbler, do you remember your grasshopper warbler…
Bower: [Interrupting] Yes, that is correct, yes. I’m a wildlife sound recordist [both talking over each other…]
Campbell: Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Can we have one at a time. First of all, I go back to you, Doug, for some comments, then George, I will come back to you. So Doug, what do you say to that?
Bower: What, about the grasshopper warbler?
Campbell: Never mind the grasshopper warbler, he says he wouldn’t… [Wingfield and Bower laugh] he says he wouldn’t…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] This man…
Campbell: Hang on, gentlemen! Gentlemen, please! Can I have some order here? [Both trying to interject] Gentlemen, please! Now, Doug, I’m going to come to you first, Doug…
Bower: Pardon?
Campbell: Doug, he says, Doug – George says he wouldn’t buy a second-hand corn flattener from you.
Bower: No…
Campbell: So what do you say to that? What do you say to… he says…
Bower: … a bit of 2-by1. Bit of 2-by-1’s cheap enough.
Campbell: [Laughs] He says that you’ve been hanging around these sites for a long time and…
Bower: [Interrupting] Yes, well we infiltrate them, you see! We want to find out all the information, we want to know what they’re going to do next, we want to know how many people they’re going to put on the fields and see if they’re going to start watching it. [Wingfield joins in; both talk over each other]
Campbell: Alright, alright, Mr Wingfield. Mr Wingfield.
Wingfield: Hello.
Campbell: What do you say to that?
Wingfield: Er, say to what, sorry?
Campbell: Say to the fact that he’s infiltrating your community and has, er, made a mockery…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] He’s not infiltrating my community, he’s hanging around Cheesefoot Head. He’s a familiar figure, he’s always there, he’s hanging around, he knows a lot about the circles, he’s seen all the circles, he’s always asking questions about the circles... [Bower tries to interject, but Wingfield continues] but I wouldn’t really take too seriously what he’s telling you. And I dare say he has, I dare say he has faked a few circles. But I think if anyone has been hoaxed along here, this is Today newspaper. Here is this, this, tabloid, which is rapidly losing circulation, which is in desperate search of a sensation to try and bolster up its readership.
Campbell: Just briefly, it’s been a fascinating talk tonight, and you two obviously don’t see eye to eye, and I have, er, [Wingfield tries to interject]. But listen, George, George…
Wingfield: Yeah?
Campbell: What do you think is causing the corn circles?
Wingfield: Well! [Laughs] Come to one of my lectures, I’ve got a lecture at, erm, at Farnham on, er, on Thursday evening. Do come along.
Bower: Yeah, I was coming to that, but, er…
Wingfield: Right, well, we’ll have some fun. I mean… surely if you really believe Today newspaper which says [affects haughty voice] ‘Oh, we’ve solved it all, we’ve solved the whole thing, this explains the whole thing,’ you must believe anything! [All talk at once]
Campbell: Alright, alright, one second, Doug. [All talk at once]
Wingfield: No, hold on! Let me get a word in!
Bower: I want to ask George a question.
Wingfield: I can’t just get a word in?
Campbell: Go on, briefly then George, yeah.
Wingfield: Tabloid newspapers? [Quoting an actual recent (spoof) headline] ‘World War II bomber found on the moon’? I mean, do you believe that sort of thing?
Bower: That’s the Sunday Sport [newspaper]!
Campbell: That was a different newspaper, right? [all trying to talk] Doug!! One second, one second, George…
Wingfield: Is there much difference?
Campbell: One second, George. Doug, Doug, you want to ask George a question?
Bower: Yes, I’d like to. I’d like to ask you why, of all the corn circles that David and I have done since 1978…
Wingfield: Yeah?
Bower: You [ie researchers collectively] have published the pictures of them in all the books that’s been published and called them all genuine?
Wingfield: I… I dare say you have done a… done a few, but I…
Bower: [Interrupting] No, I can show you a map where we’ve put a red dot, in the 13 years we’ve been doing them, on all the places that we’ve been to.
Wingfield: Alright, but I mean, that doesn’t mean anything. Do we really have to believe it? OK, if we find a red dot we say, [affects haughty voice] ‘Oh, goodness! My goodness! That one must have been a fake.’
Bower: Well, what about this year, 1991 then? There’s been no publicity whatsoever…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] Which ones have you faked this year?
Bower: There’s been no publicity whatsoever to the general public of where the whereabouts of the circles are in 1991…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] I’ll make you a bet, Doug. I’ll make you a bet. I’ll bring you a box load of 20 slides of circles which have not been published, and you tell me where they are, and which they are, and when they were made. And then I’ll believe you.
Bower: Have you noticed two Ds marked on all [sic] the ’91 circles?
Wingfield: Well in fact they’re Cs, but I guess that…
Bower: [Interrupting] No they’re not, they’re Ds, and that’s for ‘Doug and Dave’. [Campbell laughs loudly] We’ve signed every one!
Wingfield: I know that’s what you said in today’s newspaper…
Bower: Yes, that’s right!
Wingfield: But those only started [appearing] in July.
Bower: Well that’s when the season starts, more or less.
Wingfield: No, no, not more or less! There were plen[ty]… there were insectograms and things before that. We didn’t have the two Ds. You only thought that up in July, did you?
Bower: We did that this year…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] I’m sure you did!
Bower: …1991. We signed ourselves Doug and Dave on all the circles we’ve done this year.
Wingfield: [It] didn’t look very much like a D to me!
Bower: That’s a D alright, we used the tramline for the straight part…[all talking at once]
Campbell: Alright! Listen, listen, you two gentlemen definitely aren’t seeing eye to eye. George, I’ll say to you, thank you very much, goodnight. You’ve put up a spirited defence of crop circles. Thanks for joining us, George.
Wingfield: Can I ask one last question then, Nicky?
Campbell: [Appears to think Bower has just spoken] I’ve not finished with you yet, Doug, but on you go!
Wingfield: Can I ask one last question?
Campbell: Go on, yeah.
Wingfield: We see in the newspaper that Today newspaper haven’t paid you a penny. Can we ask you about MBF Services, who are a PR company [sic]? Have they paid you any penny for this?
Bower: You talking to me?
Wingfield: Yes, I’m talking to you. [Campbell laughs]
Bower: Oh, no. We’re not doing this for money, we’re talking [about it] because we’ve got too old for it!
Campbell: George! Thanks very much for joining us tonight. Doug, you’re still there, are you?
Bower: Yes I am.
Campbell: Right. Obviously, that was, er, that was a fairly entertaining little barny you had there…
Bower: They’re all entertaining, these people, you know?
Campbell: They believe it, don’t they?
Bower: They have a language of their own!
Campbell: Well why shouldn’t they believe it, because they’ve witnessed it for all this time. Can you look me straight in the eye, on national radio, with millions of people listening, and stake your reputation on it, you are not having us on? You are responsible for those crop circles?
Bower: We are responsible… up until 1978 there was not one circle in England.
Campbell: Are you a religious man?
Bower: Yes, fairly.
Campbell: Would you…
Bower: I will swear on the Bible, before anyone, that David and I started the corn circle hoax in 1978 and we finished it this year.
Campbell: And would you be willing to take a lie detector test?
Bower: Certainly, any time you like. You can ask us any question you like because we have the answers to it all.
Campbell: Doug, it’s been very nice of you to join us tonight, and, er, I think this is going to be very interesting…
Bower: Been my pleasure.
Campbell: …and, er, well done to Today newspaper and to yourselves, and if it’s true, if what you’re saying is true, I don’t mind being fooled because I think it’s one of the most glorious hoaxes…
Bower: It’s 100 per cent true, I can assure you of that.
Campbell: Well, in that case…
Bower: There’s no way that they can’t prove that it isn’t…
Campbell: In that case it’s one of the most glorious hoaxes of the 20th Century
Bower: Thank you very much.
Campbell: Congratulations to you.
Bower: We’ve enjoyed it.
Campbell: Goodnight Doug, thanks for joining me.
Bower: Bye bye.
Campbell: Bye.
Campbell: Now, on the telephone line, a gentleman, Doug Bower. I welcome you to “Into the Night”, Doug. Thanks for joining me at this late hour, I know it’s been a hectic day for you. How are you this evening?
Bower: Nice to speak to you.
Campbell: Yes, you too. You claim that since 1978, you have been, with your accomplice Dave Chorley…
Bower: That’s right.
Campbell: …responsible for the crop circles?
Bower: Yes. We started them in 1978.
Campbell: Why?
Bower: Just for a laugh. We wanted to fool the UFO societies because in 1978, there was, er, the UFO business was quite strong in Warminster, in Wiltshire, where all the sightings were supposed to have taken place, and we thought a circular depression in the cornfield would probably bring them up [out to the field] to let them have a look, and think that a UFO had landed, you see. But, erm… we did that for three years without any notice being taken of us at all. We then discovered that we were putting them in fields where [neither] the motorists or pedestrians or anyone could ever see them. So, we had to find a location, preferably around hills, where people could look down into them, and we found a site at Cheesefoot Head near Winchester, and we put the first [sic] one in there and within 24 hours the first press report came out that this circular mark had been found in a cornfield – ‘what is it?’ and all the rest of it, you see, the big mystery had started. And so it’s gone on from there.
Campbell: How many have you done over the…
Bower: [Interrupting] Well, we average about 25-30 per year. Don’t get confused with all the thousand or more that has been done throughout the West Country as well, because in the past four years [ie since 1987] the West Country boys have copied what we’ve done.
Campbell: [Laughs]
Bower: So therefore, you see, we haven’t done all those down there. The Beckhampton, Avebury circle[s] and Pewsey Vale, they’re nothing to do with us at all.
Campbell: So, you started in 1978…
Bower: Yes.
Campbell: …you, er – are you still doing it?
Bower: No, we’ve finished now. We’ve retired. [Both laugh]
Campbell: You’ve retired from the crop circle business, have you?
Bower: That’s right, yes, yes. Well, when you’re getting on a little bit, you know, the amount of energy that you have to use in these cornfields at night doing these circles is quite enormous, especially when it’s hot.
Campbell: And it’s nothing to do with psychic energy at all, is it?
Bower: No, nothing at all, no. And, erm, we’ve had a, we’ve had a marvellous bit of fun.
Campbell: And have you actually been with scientists as they have marvelled at these crop circles, or been with psychic investigators, or people interested in extra terrestrial phenomena?
Bower: Well, let’s say for instance, let’s put an example to you. We do one tonight, we’ll say.
Campbell: Uh-huh.
Bower: Tomorrow night when it’s [still] daylight, about half past seven or something, we go up to see what we’ve done – because we haven’t been able to see what has… because it’s been done in the dark, you see. And of course, by the time we get up there to have a look at them, there’s probably 20, 30 people or more, cars parked all along the road, they’re all looking at it as well, so we join in the fun, as another spectator. And, erm, it is quite amusing really, I mean, we, er… David and I, we start asking these people, ‘What do you think’s caused it?’ [Both laugh] And, er, we know very well that it’s us that’s caused it, I mean, we’ve, erm, we’ve got quite some intricate patterns going in this last couple of years, I mean, we spend the winter months designing all these.
Campbell: You must have had a good laugh over the years.
Bower: It has been a great laugh, and I mean, the fact that we’ve enjoyed ourselves, er, if you can imagine a full moon, in August, a lovely warm night, 12 o’clock, 1 o’clock, half past one in the morning, walking down through the cornfields, no cars, no human beings, no nothing – it’s another world. And, erm, you know, for anyone – not that we’re in an office all day long, but I feel sorry for the people in offices in the big city. Er, they go home on a train and they don’t have much relaxation at all. But if you can imagine the beautiful Hampshire countryside in cornfields and that, it’s absolutely, erm…
Campbell: It’s a wonderful hobby!
Bower: Yes, it’s wonderful.
Campbell: But it’s not only just a hobby, I mean, do you not feel slightly guilty that you’ve pulled the – pulled the corn over the eyes of the entire scientific community [sic]? There’s books been written about this, there’s been television programmes!
Bower: There’s been four books written on it. [In fact, seven major books by then, plus some less important works.]
Campbell: Yeah, but the…
Bower: And I think there’s another one the offing, but I mean it seems really sad, really [that we’re stopping], I mean, er, I can’t keep pushing corn down year after year. I mean, I’m 67 years old, now.
Campbell: But Doug, you’ve…
Bower: Jumping over five-bar gates, and five strands of barbed wire at night, and, er…
Campbell: [Laughs] But Doug, you’ve conned people. Do you feel at all guilty about that?
Bower: Not really, no. It’s what they’ve made of it, isn’t it? [Both laugh] They didn’t have to make all this sort of fuss about it.
Campbell: What’s the best theories that you’ve heard?
Bower: Well, I mean [mumbles something] I was up on the Punchbowl one night when we [had just] did a lovely circle down there, there’s a man standing next to me, he said, ‘You know,’ he says, ‘I think the craft that did that is as big as Winchester Cathedral.’ [Campbell laughs] And, er, some of the most ridiculous thing that you’ve ever heard, really. Even the so-called experts have come out with a new language of their own, I mean there’s words they’re using that’s not even in the English dictionary.
Campbell: Like what?
Bower: I can’t even repeat them, they’re so complicated, you know, and I mean they’re… people listening to them with open mouth, you know, and they say, ‘well they must be experts!’
Campbell: Incredible. So…
Bower: It is, really.
Campbell: How do you explain the ones in the north of Scotland, in Wales…
Bower: Yeah, well, what it is, you see, you hear of them in Germany and Australia and Japan – well it’s the tourists that come over here. They have a look at what we’ve done, they go back home and sort of think, ‘we’ll have a go at one of those.’ And lo-and-behold there’s a report then that they’ve got some circles in Germany! Well of course, we speak to the Germans and the Australians and the Italians up here looking at ours. And they go back and they have a go.
Campbell: There’s a network of people going out on moonlit August nights, in the fields, making these crop circles, then?
Bower: Well, there’s David and I, we started it in ’78. [Campbell laughs] And there’s the crowd who started copying us four years ago at, er, down in the Pewsey Vale and Beckhampton.
Campbell: Well how do you, erm, create these crop circles then, which are, erm, as big as an implant [sic] that would have been made by a UFO the size of Winchester Cathedral? How do you actually go about…
Bower: [Interrupting] If you can imagine a length of 2-by-1, four feet in length…
Campbell: Yep.
Bower: With a string rein attached to it, so that you can put your right foot on it, and hold the rein in your hand, and you just walk forward with it, pushing the corn down. You hold the piece of wood up against, with your foot, against half way up the stalks of the corn and just push it forward. [Campbell laughs] That’s all it is, it’s flattened corn! How on earth can these people make all this out of a bit of flattened corn? I really, I really… it’s been the greatest laugh that David and I… we’ve laughed so much some nights I’ve had to pull into a lay-by and… because I can’t drive a car with laughing so much about it.
Campbell: [Laughs] So it’s as easy as that, you’ve got fairly rudimentary equipment?
Bower: Oh, yes, I mean a… 80 [or] 100-foot circle can be done in ten minutes.
Campbell: [Laughs] Well stay on the line, Doug, because we’ve got a gentleman here you might want to have a word with. We’ll hear from him first. Er, George Wingfield, good evening, George.
Wingfield: Good evening, good evening.
Campbell: You are a scientist, you are from the Centre…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] I’m having a good laugh here at what I heard from Doug.
Campbell: You’re from the – let me just, let me just introduce you, you’re from the Centre of [sic] Crop Circle Studies, right? Carry on, George.
Wingfield: Yes, the Centre for Crop Circle Studies, absolutely right. I know Doug and, er, [laughing] if you really believe a word he says, you must be joking! I’ve met this guy, I’ve met him, er, he’s been hanging around Cheesefoot Head for a long time, he’s always there, he’s been to meetings, he knows an awful lot about crop circles, coz he’s read all the books, and he’s immersed himself in the subject, he’s always hanging around there, but I wouldn’t really… I wouldn’t believe what he says, and I wouldn’t buy a second-hand car from him.
Campbell: OK, er, OK Doug, go on.
Bower: Can I ask you a question, George?
Wingfield: Yeah. I remember your grasshopper warbler, do you remember your grasshopper warbler…
Bower: [Interrupting] Yes, that is correct, yes. I’m a wildlife sound recordist [both talking over each other…]
Campbell: Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Can we have one at a time. First of all, I go back to you, Doug, for some comments, then George, I will come back to you. So Doug, what do you say to that?
Bower: What, about the grasshopper warbler?
Campbell: Never mind the grasshopper warbler, he says he wouldn’t… [Wingfield and Bower laugh] he says he wouldn’t…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] This man…
Campbell: Hang on, gentlemen! Gentlemen, please! Can I have some order here? [Both trying to interject] Gentlemen, please! Now, Doug, I’m going to come to you first, Doug…
Bower: Pardon?
Campbell: Doug, he says, Doug – George says he wouldn’t buy a second-hand corn flattener from you.
Bower: No…
Campbell: So what do you say to that? What do you say to… he says…
Bower: … a bit of 2-by1. Bit of 2-by-1’s cheap enough.
Campbell: [Laughs] He says that you’ve been hanging around these sites for a long time and…
Bower: [Interrupting] Yes, well we infiltrate them, you see! We want to find out all the information, we want to know what they’re going to do next, we want to know how many people they’re going to put on the fields and see if they’re going to start watching it. [Wingfield joins in; both talk over each other]
Campbell: Alright, alright, Mr Wingfield. Mr Wingfield.
Wingfield: Hello.
Campbell: What do you say to that?
Wingfield: Er, say to what, sorry?
Campbell: Say to the fact that he’s infiltrating your community and has, er, made a mockery…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] He’s not infiltrating my community, he’s hanging around Cheesefoot Head. He’s a familiar figure, he’s always there, he’s hanging around, he knows a lot about the circles, he’s seen all the circles, he’s always asking questions about the circles... [Bower tries to interject, but Wingfield continues] but I wouldn’t really take too seriously what he’s telling you. And I dare say he has, I dare say he has faked a few circles. But I think if anyone has been hoaxed along here, this is Today newspaper. Here is this, this, tabloid, which is rapidly losing circulation, which is in desperate search of a sensation to try and bolster up its readership.
Campbell: Just briefly, it’s been a fascinating talk tonight, and you two obviously don’t see eye to eye, and I have, er, [Wingfield tries to interject]. But listen, George, George…
Wingfield: Yeah?
Campbell: What do you think is causing the corn circles?
Wingfield: Well! [Laughs] Come to one of my lectures, I’ve got a lecture at, erm, at Farnham on, er, on Thursday evening. Do come along.
Bower: Yeah, I was coming to that, but, er…
Wingfield: Right, well, we’ll have some fun. I mean… surely if you really believe Today newspaper which says [affects haughty voice] ‘Oh, we’ve solved it all, we’ve solved the whole thing, this explains the whole thing,’ you must believe anything! [All talk at once]
Campbell: Alright, alright, one second, Doug. [All talk at once]
Wingfield: No, hold on! Let me get a word in!
Bower: I want to ask George a question.
Wingfield: I can’t just get a word in?
Campbell: Go on, briefly then George, yeah.
Wingfield: Tabloid newspapers? [Quoting an actual recent (spoof) headline] ‘World War II bomber found on the moon’? I mean, do you believe that sort of thing?
Bower: That’s the Sunday Sport [newspaper]!
Campbell: That was a different newspaper, right? [all trying to talk] Doug!! One second, one second, George…
Wingfield: Is there much difference?
Campbell: One second, George. Doug, Doug, you want to ask George a question?
Bower: Yes, I’d like to. I’d like to ask you why, of all the corn circles that David and I have done since 1978…
Wingfield: Yeah?
Bower: You [ie researchers collectively] have published the pictures of them in all the books that’s been published and called them all genuine?
Wingfield: I… I dare say you have done a… done a few, but I…
Bower: [Interrupting] No, I can show you a map where we’ve put a red dot, in the 13 years we’ve been doing them, on all the places that we’ve been to.
Wingfield: Alright, but I mean, that doesn’t mean anything. Do we really have to believe it? OK, if we find a red dot we say, [affects haughty voice] ‘Oh, goodness! My goodness! That one must have been a fake.’
Bower: Well, what about this year, 1991 then? There’s been no publicity whatsoever…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] Which ones have you faked this year?
Bower: There’s been no publicity whatsoever to the general public of where the whereabouts of the circles are in 1991…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] I’ll make you a bet, Doug. I’ll make you a bet. I’ll bring you a box load of 20 slides of circles which have not been published, and you tell me where they are, and which they are, and when they were made. And then I’ll believe you.
Bower: Have you noticed two Ds marked on all [sic] the ’91 circles?
Wingfield: Well in fact they’re Cs, but I guess that…
Bower: [Interrupting] No they’re not, they’re Ds, and that’s for ‘Doug and Dave’. [Campbell laughs loudly] We’ve signed every one!
Wingfield: I know that’s what you said in today’s newspaper…
Bower: Yes, that’s right!
Wingfield: But those only started [appearing] in July.
Bower: Well that’s when the season starts, more or less.
Wingfield: No, no, not more or less! There were plen[ty]… there were insectograms and things before that. We didn’t have the two Ds. You only thought that up in July, did you?
Bower: We did that this year…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] I’m sure you did!
Bower: …1991. We signed ourselves Doug and Dave on all the circles we’ve done this year.
Wingfield: [It] didn’t look very much like a D to me!
Bower: That’s a D alright, we used the tramline for the straight part…[all talking at once]
Campbell: Alright! Listen, listen, you two gentlemen definitely aren’t seeing eye to eye. George, I’ll say to you, thank you very much, goodnight. You’ve put up a spirited defence of crop circles. Thanks for joining us, George.
Wingfield: Can I ask one last question then, Nicky?
Campbell: [Appears to think Bower has just spoken] I’ve not finished with you yet, Doug, but on you go!
Wingfield: Can I ask one last question?
Campbell: Go on, yeah.
Wingfield: We see in the newspaper that Today newspaper haven’t paid you a penny. Can we ask you about MBF Services, who are a PR company [sic]? Have they paid you any penny for this?
Bower: You talking to me?
Wingfield: Yes, I’m talking to you. [Campbell laughs]
Bower: Oh, no. We’re not doing this for money, we’re talking [about it] because we’ve got too old for it!
Campbell: George! Thanks very much for joining us tonight. Doug, you’re still there, are you?
Bower: Yes I am.
Campbell: Right. Obviously, that was, er, that was a fairly entertaining little barny you had there…
Bower: They’re all entertaining, these people, you know?
Campbell: They believe it, don’t they?
Bower: They have a language of their own!
Campbell: Well why shouldn’t they believe it, because they’ve witnessed it for all this time. Can you look me straight in the eye, on national radio, with millions of people listening, and stake your reputation on it, you are not having us on? You are responsible for those crop circles?
Bower: We are responsible… up until 1978 there was not one circle in England.
Campbell: Are you a religious man?
Bower: Yes, fairly.
Campbell: Would you…
Bower: I will swear on the Bible, before anyone, that David and I started the corn circle hoax in 1978 and we finished it this year.
Campbell: And would you be willing to take a lie detector test?
Bower: Certainly, any time you like. You can ask us any question you like because we have the answers to it all.
Campbell: Doug, it’s been very nice of you to join us tonight, and, er, I think this is going to be very interesting…
Bower: Been my pleasure.
Campbell: …and, er, well done to Today newspaper and to yourselves, and if it’s true, if what you’re saying is true, I don’t mind being fooled because I think it’s one of the most glorious hoaxes…
Bower: It’s 100 per cent true, I can assure you of that.
Campbell: Well, in that case…
Bower: There’s no way that they can’t prove that it isn’t…
Campbell: In that case it’s one of the most glorious hoaxes of the 20th Century
Bower: Thank you very much.
Campbell: Congratulations to you.
Bower: We’ve enjoyed it.
Campbell: Goodnight Doug, thanks for joining me.
Bower: Bye bye.
Campbell: Bye.