Part 6: Summing up
When D&D announced their story in September 1991, they brought about a fundamental shift in the public perception of crop circles. It was as if the answer had at last been found, and what had seemed a bizarre unexplained phenomenon suddenly looked like a silly prank. Even within the inner circle of researchers, belief was shattered, with several prominent figures either dropping away entirely or developing a deep scepticism. We need not go over all this now - suffice to say, the world of crop circles was changed forever, with yet more hoaxing being inspired over the years which followed.
On this website, we have been over everything in the D&D story which warrants our attention. Paradoxically, there seems to be very little of substance to support their story, and in fact at almost every turn we find questions and inconsistencies which make us wonder where the facts lie. Moreover, hardly anyone really accepts the details of what they say, including those who have given their whole-hearted support to the pair. So what conclusions can we come to?
Reasons for coming forward
If D&D really were being creative with the facts back in 1991, we might ask what their motive could have been for coming forward at all. As it happens, we have been told outright by them, on several occasions. Of course it would be nice to have a clear, comprehensible statement as to why they chose to break their cover – but as with so much of their story, there are several competing versions which don’t fit neatly together.
In chronological order, these are the explanations given:
1. “We are getting too old and it’s gone too far” ... “It had gone on too long and too far”. (Today 1991)
This is understandable, for two men in the 60s. After all, it would have been physically demanding, and publicity had reached an apex with the amount of media coverage then going on.
2. “Why are we now spilling the beans?... the main reason being that now it’s become a multi-million pound business, and also... about two weeks ago they [researchers] decided to try and ask our government for money.” (Chorley on Canadian radio, 1991)
This is slightly more elaborate. Chorley is talking about money, the circles becoming a “business”. He also mentions the moral issue of government money being wasted.
3. "The reason why we've decided to close it down is the fact that we're getting older, and the amount of energy used to create these circles for about four months, during the summer months, is quite a lot." (Interview included in the video, Crop Circle Communiqué)
Clear enough - they are stopping their circle making because it takes lot of effort making so many circles. Nothing to do with money.
4. “In the end we felt that, er, it was involving scientists who would be better, well better to do something that was worthwhile... Dr Terence Meaden, who’s a meteorological expert... approached the government for money to go into the project. We thought, once you get into this political field, then you’re in hot water. And also, the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles, er, wished to be informed about what was happening, and when you get into that sort of world, I mean, we said, this is enough!” (Dutch TV, 1991)
More elaborate again. Now there is concern for scientists being distracted from their important work, another mention of government money but also – Andrews and Delgado-style – extravagant claims about the British Royal family. And, D&D seem to be implying they are scared of where this is leading – a good reason for bailing out!
5. [Chorley] "The government may have given them [researchers] a grant, mightn't they? During the next course of - 'til next summer" ...
[Bower] "Dr Terence Meaden suggested in his last interview on television, that it's about time that [he] approached the British government for funds, and I think really it could be spent into better things, really." (Interview included in the video, Crop Circle Communiqué II: Revelations)
They're now back onto government money being wasted, with the possibility that a 'grant' might have otherwise been paid.
6. Paul Fuller reports: “It was one of Dave Chorley's sons who accidentally let the Doug and Dave story out of the bag to a reporter from the Daily Mirror.” (Marlborough meeting, 1993)
This is news indeed! Note the word “accidentally”, which suggests it is nothing at all to do with any of the various reasons previously tabled (although I accept that this is not first-hand testimony). And what situation spontaneously arose for his "accidental" confession to even be able to spill out to a tabloid reporter?
7. “It wasn’t for the publicity... we didn’t want any publicity, we were only having a laugh over it.” (BBC Countryfile, 1999)
This is yet more awkward. No-one forced D&D to step out of the shadows; they could just have given up making the circles and kept the prank to themselves, or perhaps approached crop circle research groups in an attempt to confess the truth to those affected. Yet they chose to make a very public admission through the magaphone of the tabloid press, followed up by a blaze of media appearances. Not quite the actions of two people who don’t want any publicity.
8. "The real reason why we eventually went public in 1991 was because Dave's health was failing... I was just a publicity seeker, really" (2005 interview in The Field Guide p239 and p240)
Yet another version, with a little confession tagged on for good measure!
In chronological order, these are the explanations given:
1. “We are getting too old and it’s gone too far” ... “It had gone on too long and too far”. (Today 1991)
This is understandable, for two men in the 60s. After all, it would have been physically demanding, and publicity had reached an apex with the amount of media coverage then going on.
2. “Why are we now spilling the beans?... the main reason being that now it’s become a multi-million pound business, and also... about two weeks ago they [researchers] decided to try and ask our government for money.” (Chorley on Canadian radio, 1991)
This is slightly more elaborate. Chorley is talking about money, the circles becoming a “business”. He also mentions the moral issue of government money being wasted.
3. "The reason why we've decided to close it down is the fact that we're getting older, and the amount of energy used to create these circles for about four months, during the summer months, is quite a lot." (Interview included in the video, Crop Circle Communiqué)
Clear enough - they are stopping their circle making because it takes lot of effort making so many circles. Nothing to do with money.
4. “In the end we felt that, er, it was involving scientists who would be better, well better to do something that was worthwhile... Dr Terence Meaden, who’s a meteorological expert... approached the government for money to go into the project. We thought, once you get into this political field, then you’re in hot water. And also, the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles, er, wished to be informed about what was happening, and when you get into that sort of world, I mean, we said, this is enough!” (Dutch TV, 1991)
More elaborate again. Now there is concern for scientists being distracted from their important work, another mention of government money but also – Andrews and Delgado-style – extravagant claims about the British Royal family. And, D&D seem to be implying they are scared of where this is leading – a good reason for bailing out!
5. [Chorley] "The government may have given them [researchers] a grant, mightn't they? During the next course of - 'til next summer" ...
[Bower] "Dr Terence Meaden suggested in his last interview on television, that it's about time that [he] approached the British government for funds, and I think really it could be spent into better things, really." (Interview included in the video, Crop Circle Communiqué II: Revelations)
They're now back onto government money being wasted, with the possibility that a 'grant' might have otherwise been paid.
6. Paul Fuller reports: “It was one of Dave Chorley's sons who accidentally let the Doug and Dave story out of the bag to a reporter from the Daily Mirror.” (Marlborough meeting, 1993)
This is news indeed! Note the word “accidentally”, which suggests it is nothing at all to do with any of the various reasons previously tabled (although I accept that this is not first-hand testimony). And what situation spontaneously arose for his "accidental" confession to even be able to spill out to a tabloid reporter?
7. “It wasn’t for the publicity... we didn’t want any publicity, we were only having a laugh over it.” (BBC Countryfile, 1999)
This is yet more awkward. No-one forced D&D to step out of the shadows; they could just have given up making the circles and kept the prank to themselves, or perhaps approached crop circle research groups in an attempt to confess the truth to those affected. Yet they chose to make a very public admission through the magaphone of the tabloid press, followed up by a blaze of media appearances. Not quite the actions of two people who don’t want any publicity.
8. "The real reason why we eventually went public in 1991 was because Dave's health was failing... I was just a publicity seeker, really" (2005 interview in The Field Guide p239 and p240)
Yet another version, with a little confession tagged on for good measure!
Possible motives
Reading the half-dozen different explanations above tells us nothing concrete about what was really going on. But again, if we sift through the testimony, we start to turn up statements which make sense. Let's buy into one part of their story and accept that they made some of the 1991 circles, shortly before they went public. It turns out that there is evidence that they were laying the groundwork for a publicity move some time before the September story broke:
Bower: Last year we signed most of [our circles] with two Ds, I’m Doug and the other chappie is Dave – Doug and Dave, and we used to put two Ds in the cornfield, but of course the so-called experts poo-pooed that, they said it was eyebrows or half-circles.
Svahn: Why did you do that?
Bower: To let people see eventually, because we did intend to release the news, we can’t keep on [hoaxing] forever, and we thought we’ll sign them [so] that when it does come to light that we did all the circles over the years we did sign them, being artists.
The above is from the Clas Svahn interview. By this admission, D&D reveal that they “intended” to go public at least as early as July 1991, and were apparently laying some coded clues with the use of the DD signature in readiness (assuming again, that we believe that part of their account). In other worlds, having decided to go public, they made circles in anticipation of bolstering the story.
But why go to the papers, like they did?
Let's rewind twelve months. In the summer of 1990, speculation over the circles was at its height with the new pictogram formations making front-page news. It is a matter of record that the Koestler Foundation offered a £5,000 reward for a solution, but – and this is significant – the Sunday Mirror bettered it with a £10,000 prize. So, we have a substantial reward for proof on offer, from the newspapers, and the next summer we have D&D planning to come forward with their DD prank.
According to Bower’s comments in the Clas Svahn interview of 1992, “We rang the Daily Mirror first of all and they turned it down.” And as Paul Fuller reports from the Marlborough meeting of 1993: “It was one of Dave Chorley's sons who accidentally let the Doug and Dave story out of the bag to a reporter from the Daily Mirror.”
The Daily Mirror !! For those not in the know, this paper is essentially the weekly edition of the Sunday Mirror – the very paper which placed £10,000 on the table for anyone to claim. I don't have to join the dots – you, the reader can see where this is heading. This, I suggest, is now making much more sense than the duo’s own convoluted explanations of why they came forward, concerning ill health, scientists and the Queen. (I do not in any way criticise D&D, if claiming the prize was their goal. It was there for the taking!)
Bower: Last year we signed most of [our circles] with two Ds, I’m Doug and the other chappie is Dave – Doug and Dave, and we used to put two Ds in the cornfield, but of course the so-called experts poo-pooed that, they said it was eyebrows or half-circles.
Svahn: Why did you do that?
Bower: To let people see eventually, because we did intend to release the news, we can’t keep on [hoaxing] forever, and we thought we’ll sign them [so] that when it does come to light that we did all the circles over the years we did sign them, being artists.
The above is from the Clas Svahn interview. By this admission, D&D reveal that they “intended” to go public at least as early as July 1991, and were apparently laying some coded clues with the use of the DD signature in readiness (assuming again, that we believe that part of their account). In other worlds, having decided to go public, they made circles in anticipation of bolstering the story.
But why go to the papers, like they did?
Let's rewind twelve months. In the summer of 1990, speculation over the circles was at its height with the new pictogram formations making front-page news. It is a matter of record that the Koestler Foundation offered a £5,000 reward for a solution, but – and this is significant – the Sunday Mirror bettered it with a £10,000 prize. So, we have a substantial reward for proof on offer, from the newspapers, and the next summer we have D&D planning to come forward with their DD prank.
According to Bower’s comments in the Clas Svahn interview of 1992, “We rang the Daily Mirror first of all and they turned it down.” And as Paul Fuller reports from the Marlborough meeting of 1993: “It was one of Dave Chorley's sons who accidentally let the Doug and Dave story out of the bag to a reporter from the Daily Mirror.”
The Daily Mirror !! For those not in the know, this paper is essentially the weekly edition of the Sunday Mirror – the very paper which placed £10,000 on the table for anyone to claim. I don't have to join the dots – you, the reader can see where this is heading. This, I suggest, is now making much more sense than the duo’s own convoluted explanations of why they came forward, concerning ill health, scientists and the Queen. (I do not in any way criticise D&D, if claiming the prize was their goal. It was there for the taking!)
Books
It is interesting to get D&D's perspective on the money they thought was being generated through crop circles. They clearly felt there was plenty being earned by someone, and Dave Chorley drew attention to this, for example in his comments shown in the video documentary, Crop Circle Communiqué where he says "people with brains" are making money from it. Let’s hear some more of Dave Chorley’s words, this time from the Canadian radio interview he did in 1991 (I've edited it a little):
Chorley: It’s become a multi-million pound business...
Interviewer: When you say it’s become a [multi] million pound industry... Who’s making the money?
Chorley: People writing books.
"Books"!
And this is Bower speaking to Clas Svahn: "I mean it’s a very lucrative industry now, with all the books that have been published...”
"Books"!
This "very lucrative", "multi-million pound business" seems, in their eyes, to be centred on "people writing books". They had just watched Circular Evidence sell tens of thousands of copies, and of course if D&D wanted a share of the riches, then writing a book of their own would seem to be the way forward. As it happens, they never published one, but the behind-the-scenes planning is there for all to see, if we look. We have already noted that they were in preparation for coming forward while the 1991 circle making was in full swing. Again, we can reference the Clas Svahn interview for a little more information:
Svahn: And you’re not planning to write a book or something?
Bower: Well yes, we’ll probably write a book. It’s taking time but I suppose it’s just as well that we didn’t launch a book on the market in September because there’s not very many people that have accepted our story.
Has Doug let something slip here? The interview was conducted in August 1992, but he expresses relief that they hadn’t released their proposed book “in September”. Does he mean September 1991 – ie at the time they went public? If so, it must have been substantially written by the end of that summer.
The next we know comes from John Macnish's remarks in Crop Circle Apocalypse (p236) where he comments on events of 1992: "Ken Brown plans a book with Doug and Dave but can't find a publisher. A copy of the proposal soon falls into George Wingfield's hands..."
By 1993, it seems that the book idea seems to have been laid to rest, since at the Marlborough meeting it was stated that it had not appeared because of fears that a written confession might have resulted in “a fine of £10,000 or a 3 month prison sentence”. But as Paul Fuller pointed out, D&D had not only made claim after claim on record, they had even submitted a full account of their story to German circles researcher Jurgen Kronig (which, incidentally, I have never read), which was published in Germany in the first edition of his own circles book. (Macnish's explanation sounds more plausible - that they couldn't find a publisher.)
So did they make anything in the end? In the interview shown in the documentary Circlespeak, Bower recounted how he first approached the TODAY newspaper:
“The Today newspaper was the paper that I took [read] at that time. We rang up there, and erm, I said, ‘What’s the story of the crop circle phenomenon worth?’.”
The original TODAY report stated that, “TODAY has paid no money”. I’ve no reason to think this is not true, and was put there to lay any suspicions to rest. “No one’s paid us any money” said Dave Chorley in the Up-front debate more than a month later. Fine, you would think - but Bower clearly had his guard down when speaking to Clas Svahn in 1992, for he makes another admission:
Svahn: Some people say you were paid for [making] all these circles.
Bower: We had a small sum but not a great deal of money.
This is new information! We learn a little more about this “small sum” in 1993, when at the public meeting in London it was revealed that “Doug Bower admitted that he and Dave Chorley had both made £3,000 from TV appearances and newspaper articles.” That’s six grand between them to date.
Still, it is far from the fortune they might have wondered about in 1991...
We’ll allow Bower himself to have the last word, speaking to John Lundberg in 2005, Bower is apparently smarting over his failure to get rich, and still thinking about that £10,000 prize: “I think I could have done with a good PR agent. We were taken for a ride, there’s no doubt about that. We were very green. We didn’t get a penny for any of it. Not even from the Sunday Mirror who had offered so many thousand pounds for proof.”
Not quite the same unmaterialistic old fellow who back in 1991 said he was only coming clean because the duo were getting too old, and the prank had gone too far...
(In fairness to Dave Chorley, we should point out that the main driving force behind the public 'confessions' and the subsequent media attention, was Doug Bower. Chorley, by contrast, kept a more diginfied low profile.)
Chorley: It’s become a multi-million pound business...
Interviewer: When you say it’s become a [multi] million pound industry... Who’s making the money?
Chorley: People writing books.
"Books"!
And this is Bower speaking to Clas Svahn: "I mean it’s a very lucrative industry now, with all the books that have been published...”
"Books"!
This "very lucrative", "multi-million pound business" seems, in their eyes, to be centred on "people writing books". They had just watched Circular Evidence sell tens of thousands of copies, and of course if D&D wanted a share of the riches, then writing a book of their own would seem to be the way forward. As it happens, they never published one, but the behind-the-scenes planning is there for all to see, if we look. We have already noted that they were in preparation for coming forward while the 1991 circle making was in full swing. Again, we can reference the Clas Svahn interview for a little more information:
Svahn: And you’re not planning to write a book or something?
Bower: Well yes, we’ll probably write a book. It’s taking time but I suppose it’s just as well that we didn’t launch a book on the market in September because there’s not very many people that have accepted our story.
Has Doug let something slip here? The interview was conducted in August 1992, but he expresses relief that they hadn’t released their proposed book “in September”. Does he mean September 1991 – ie at the time they went public? If so, it must have been substantially written by the end of that summer.
The next we know comes from John Macnish's remarks in Crop Circle Apocalypse (p236) where he comments on events of 1992: "Ken Brown plans a book with Doug and Dave but can't find a publisher. A copy of the proposal soon falls into George Wingfield's hands..."
By 1993, it seems that the book idea seems to have been laid to rest, since at the Marlborough meeting it was stated that it had not appeared because of fears that a written confession might have resulted in “a fine of £10,000 or a 3 month prison sentence”. But as Paul Fuller pointed out, D&D had not only made claim after claim on record, they had even submitted a full account of their story to German circles researcher Jurgen Kronig (which, incidentally, I have never read), which was published in Germany in the first edition of his own circles book. (Macnish's explanation sounds more plausible - that they couldn't find a publisher.)
So did they make anything in the end? In the interview shown in the documentary Circlespeak, Bower recounted how he first approached the TODAY newspaper:
“The Today newspaper was the paper that I took [read] at that time. We rang up there, and erm, I said, ‘What’s the story of the crop circle phenomenon worth?’.”
The original TODAY report stated that, “TODAY has paid no money”. I’ve no reason to think this is not true, and was put there to lay any suspicions to rest. “No one’s paid us any money” said Dave Chorley in the Up-front debate more than a month later. Fine, you would think - but Bower clearly had his guard down when speaking to Clas Svahn in 1992, for he makes another admission:
Svahn: Some people say you were paid for [making] all these circles.
Bower: We had a small sum but not a great deal of money.
This is new information! We learn a little more about this “small sum” in 1993, when at the public meeting in London it was revealed that “Doug Bower admitted that he and Dave Chorley had both made £3,000 from TV appearances and newspaper articles.” That’s six grand between them to date.
Still, it is far from the fortune they might have wondered about in 1991...
We’ll allow Bower himself to have the last word, speaking to John Lundberg in 2005, Bower is apparently smarting over his failure to get rich, and still thinking about that £10,000 prize: “I think I could have done with a good PR agent. We were taken for a ride, there’s no doubt about that. We were very green. We didn’t get a penny for any of it. Not even from the Sunday Mirror who had offered so many thousand pounds for proof.”
Not quite the same unmaterialistic old fellow who back in 1991 said he was only coming clean because the duo were getting too old, and the prank had gone too far...
(In fairness to Dave Chorley, we should point out that the main driving force behind the public 'confessions' and the subsequent media attention, was Doug Bower. Chorley, by contrast, kept a more diginfied low profile.)
Showing us their skills
To recap, come 1991 D&D had supposedly made at least a couple of hundred crop formations, including geometrical groupings (which they say they invented) and even pictograms (which they also say they invented), and repeatedly executed them to such perfection that the circles were frequently described as beautiful, and compared to works of art. They tended to be executed neatly and accurately, and after hundreds of circle-making missions, D&D must have been skilled proponents of the art.
There is footage of the due in action, but the filmed demonstrations tend to have vague surrounding details. There are, however, three open cases where we can look and see how their skills measure up. We need to ask whether the evidence of their known circle-making demonstrations resembles the work of skilled craftsmen, or rank amateurs. If their story is true, we might expect the former...
1. Demo formation made for the media in 1991
We have mentioned this already, but it's worth looking again. The background is that when the original TODAY story was published, D&D immediately went before the cameras to construct an 'insectogram' formation, thus proving how easy it was for two aging gents to execute a complex circles design. This is what they created for the world to see:
There is footage of the due in action, but the filmed demonstrations tend to have vague surrounding details. There are, however, three open cases where we can look and see how their skills measure up. We need to ask whether the evidence of their known circle-making demonstrations resembles the work of skilled craftsmen, or rank amateurs. If their story is true, we might expect the former...
1. Demo formation made for the media in 1991
We have mentioned this already, but it's worth looking again. The background is that when the original TODAY story was published, D&D immediately went before the cameras to construct an 'insectogram' formation, thus proving how easy it was for two aging gents to execute a complex circles design. This is what they created for the world to see:
Both from the air, and when viewed on the ground, this formation is a technical disaster. In terms of demonstrating their abilities, it only exposes their failure to replicate the kind of circles which had been appearing for many years, with geometrical perfection and carefully swirled, cleanly detailed floors. This failure was excused by D&D's supporters on the basis that they were under pressure because of the attendant media circus, but one must remember that they were executing the design in broad daylight, legally, without time pressures. It looks from the evidence as if they only half-finished the pattern before throwing in their stompers, and leaving behind the mess shown in these photos - so hardly a convincing demonstration.
So was this just a one-off, a bad day at the office for two accomplished crop artists? Or did it expose them as incapable of having made all the previous, well-crafted circles?
2. Hoaxing with John Macnish
John Macnish went out and about with D&D in the early 1990s, witnessing (and to some extent contributing to) their circle hoaxing, and was able to see first-hand how proficient the two were. As a result, his testimony is of particular value to us, and worth special consideration.
It seems the jewel in the crown of the resultant circles was the East Meon formation of 1992, and footage of the formation in construction was included in the video, Crop Circle Communiué. There was no media pressure now, just a normal hoaxing scenario which they'd experienced hundreds of times - so did they emerge as the master craftsmen they would have been?
The formation doesn't look too bad. There is something clumsy about the proportions, but on the whole, this formation is certainly more impressive than their public demo the previous summer. But this is what John Macnish observed from close-up (Crop Circle Apocalypse p155):
"Doug and Dave made many 'mistakes' during the construction of the East Meon formation. Using the baseball cap with built-in sight Doug formed the central axis of the formation but only ran it as far as the edge of the larger circle. Dave only guessed where the avenue would intersect the centre of the top circle, and as a result when the large circle was made it appeared offset, almost lopsided in relation to the central avenue."
Check once more that public demo circle above. The same thing occurs. The central avenue is not aligned with the circle centres, and we know why - as Macnish explains, they didn't think to run the central pathway beyond where the edge of the circle would be, to make sure it was 'aiming' at the circle centre. This is a basic error for experienced circle makers, let alone the actual inventors of pictograms.
Recall also that D&D claimed to have made that perfect triangular triplet at Corhampton (as covered in the 'Case Studies' section of the site), with the precise geometry rotated a fraction to sit neatly inside the tramlines, and incorporating impressive implied tangents. Now contrast to Macnish's observations on what he witnessed at East Meon. Macnish described how Bower used a wooden cross placed in the centre of the half-ringed circle, to 'point' at the positions of the three satellites. Of course the satellites, as we can see in the photo, are very poorly positioned, quite unlike the symmetry evident in the perfect but much larger quintuplet formations the duo had supposedly been rattling off for fun since (according to Macnish) 1978.
Macnish's remarks are illuminating, but not in the way he intended:
"This [technique] would have worked fine if Dave had been moving in an arc which passed through the centres of the small circles but as the idea was to position the small circles outside the semi-circular avenue considerable positioning errors crept in."
This 'explanation' is nonsensical and displays Macnish's blindness to what he is seeing. The fact is, the cross will point in the correct direction regardless of where Dave (executor of the little circles) happens to be. His task is only to look at where the cross arm is pointing, but he makes a mess of it. There is no logical explanation, other than he and Bower are inexperienced at making satellite circles. That's what Macnish ought to have concluded. (Little wonder that when the duo were facing the dilemma of whether they should enter the hoaxing competition that summer and show what they were capable of, he advised them, "definitely not" (p136).)
But rather than question whether the cack-handed creators of this formation really had made hundreds of superb circles previously, he instead remarked: "None of these errors seemed to matter when the formation was subsequently inspected by the 'experts'."
The lopsidedness is not in itself evidence that the formation was made by pranksters, except when viewed in the context of the other well executed formations which had been found over the years. The fact that this pictogram differed from many of the others ought to have bothered Macnish, who had the advantage of knowing for a fact that they were unintentional errors, and yet he pokes fun at 'experts' rather than face up to what he is seeing with his own eyes. He should more correctly have said: "None of these errors, as I knew them to be, seemed to matter when the formation was subsequently inspected by me."
3. BBC Countryfile hoax
Another filmed demonstration was staged in 1998, this time with Bower hoaxing a circle alone (Chorley was no longer alive). Bower was taped attempting to recreate the "swastika" formation of 1989, and the sequence was aired in 1999, as part of a special episode of the TV programme, Countryfile.
In the show, we see Bower working on the formation - in essence, just a circle with the crop flattened in novel directions. But he makes a fatal error in that he makes the circle at double the size it needs to be. Consequently, despite the fact that there is no real geometry to construct, he is unable to finish it, and calls for help from the other circlemakers involved in the show. This is how things were presented to the viewer:
Voice over: Doug admitted later, he'd got confused and measured it wrong. The circle is twice as wide as it should be. That's four times the area of wheat.
Presenter (to camera): As you can see, it's getting light... what we've got to do is get some help from the next generation. How about it lads, are you going to give us a hand? I'm begging...
Bower: The biggest laugh of the century, this is.
Some real circlemakers flatten out 'Doug's' circle!
How could Bower have made such a crude error? One might suppose he is not clear on this difference between a circle radius and a circle diameter, absurdly thinking that to make a 10m circle, one needs a 10m string or tape. It is genuinely difficult to see how else he might have made a circle twice the size he intended, such that it was too large for him to complete. The debacle is again dismissed for him by his supportive colleague presenting the show, on the basis that they'd been running about and trying to evade hostile onlookers. And yet, see what the circlemaking team above were able to do that night, at precisely the same time, in the same field, finishing up with enough spare time to do Doug's circle for him too:
Are you convinced that Bower's story is true? With more than 20 years' experience, he couldn't make a single circle, and it wasn't just any old error he made, but a fundamental one in which he confused the diameter with the radius!
The facts of the matter
Let's get down to the basics of D&D's story. It is true that they sometimes claimed to have invented crop circles, and stated that there were no circles prior to 1978. But it is fascinating to see how they qualified this in their early statements. Here are some examples, with my emphasis added:
- “The first one we did was in the summer of 1978” (TODAY story, 09.09.91)
- “We started it in this country in 1978” (TODAY story, 10.09.91)
- “We invented the thing in this country 13 years ago” (ibid).
- "Up until 1978 there was not one circle in England" (BBC radio, 10.09.91)
- “The first night we ever did it... that was the first one ever in England” (Dutch TV, 1991)
This is a very clever way of phrasing things. Use of terms such as "the first one we did" and “in this country” discretely implies that there was an extant crop circle phenomenon elsewhere prior to 1978, and that D&D, far from inventing it, merely caught on and brought it over to England. This is of course a very different thing from actually devising the whole idea of a crop circle, and making every single one ever, until 1987.
Given that they reserved their claims in this way from the outset it is surprising how their supporters and critics seemed to imagine that D&D were claiming to have invented everything. It wasn't long, of course, before they were making such extravagant claims, but in September 1991, they were not claiming any such thing.
A viable hypothesis
Given what we know about D&D and about the history of the subject, we can sketch out a plausible scenario of the duo's role. Let's agree that crop circles have been known for many decades. Let's also agree that Bower and Chorley made some of them.
Are there any other hoax claimants known, from the years in which D&D say they were making the circles alone? Yes. There was an individual called Fred Day who appeared in the press prior to D&D, claiming to have invented the circles as far back as 1943! Day was featured in The People a week after the Sunday Mirror had offered their cash prize for a solution to the circles, and his story was accompanied by photographs of "his" crop circles. Of course no-one took it seriously; his claims were no more ludicrous than D&D's however.
There was also a character called Merlin the Magician, who had a similar story to tell. We also know that circles were known internationally in the 1970s, and that D&D restricted their claims to the UK. Moreover there is evidence that at Westbury in 1980, someone else had made those circles.
What should we conclude then? Simply this: that D&D were circle hoaxers who probably made a few formations in the 1980s, while others were also doing likewise. They did not 'invent' crop circles however, and neither did they make the first UK ones (Patrick Moore, for example, reported some in the 1960s.)
When the circles' publicity was as its height in 1991, D&D hatched their plan and went before the world as the claimed inventors of the whole thing, thereby "solving" the mystery (and, one would have thought, having a reasonable claim to the cash on offer). Had they just said they were one team among many hoaxers on the scene, no such claims could have been made.
The degree to which intelligent people have been duped by this tabloid story is staggering. D&D proved themselves in front of cameras, to be incapable of making the formations they claimed to have been constructing for years. Moreover their story doesn't stand up to scrutiny, and flies in the face of a substantial body of real, tangible evidence that crop circles were around long before they even claim to have started. It is practically surreal to read remarks like this, from the introduction to the book, The Field Guide:
"John Lundberg's interview with the original crop artist Doug Bower - the man who started it all - provides an insight into the origins of the form."
I think I have made the case as strongly as I can. Ultimately I will never bring everyone round to my way of thinking, and some people will continue to invest in the D&D story, as is their right. So be it.
I will close with the comments made by David Chorley on Canadian radio in 1991, on the day their story first broke:
Are there any other hoax claimants known, from the years in which D&D say they were making the circles alone? Yes. There was an individual called Fred Day who appeared in the press prior to D&D, claiming to have invented the circles as far back as 1943! Day was featured in The People a week after the Sunday Mirror had offered their cash prize for a solution to the circles, and his story was accompanied by photographs of "his" crop circles. Of course no-one took it seriously; his claims were no more ludicrous than D&D's however.
There was also a character called Merlin the Magician, who had a similar story to tell. We also know that circles were known internationally in the 1970s, and that D&D restricted their claims to the UK. Moreover there is evidence that at Westbury in 1980, someone else had made those circles.
What should we conclude then? Simply this: that D&D were circle hoaxers who probably made a few formations in the 1980s, while others were also doing likewise. They did not 'invent' crop circles however, and neither did they make the first UK ones (Patrick Moore, for example, reported some in the 1960s.)
When the circles' publicity was as its height in 1991, D&D hatched their plan and went before the world as the claimed inventors of the whole thing, thereby "solving" the mystery (and, one would have thought, having a reasonable claim to the cash on offer). Had they just said they were one team among many hoaxers on the scene, no such claims could have been made.
The degree to which intelligent people have been duped by this tabloid story is staggering. D&D proved themselves in front of cameras, to be incapable of making the formations they claimed to have been constructing for years. Moreover their story doesn't stand up to scrutiny, and flies in the face of a substantial body of real, tangible evidence that crop circles were around long before they even claim to have started. It is practically surreal to read remarks like this, from the introduction to the book, The Field Guide:
"John Lundberg's interview with the original crop artist Doug Bower - the man who started it all - provides an insight into the origins of the form."
I think I have made the case as strongly as I can. Ultimately I will never bring everyone round to my way of thinking, and some people will continue to invest in the D&D story, as is their right. So be it.
I will close with the comments made by David Chorley on Canadian radio in 1991, on the day their story first broke:
Interviewer: How do we know, Mr Chorley, that you’re not hoaxing us now about the hoax?
Chorley: You don’t know do you !? Interviewer: No, I don’t. Chorley: Well, you don’t know. You don’t know ! |