INTRODUCTION - Back in 1991...
Before getting to the business of D&D, and their numerous claims, we ought first to have a look around the world of crop circles in 1991. D&D stepped forward right at the close of that year's circles season, when virtually every field in the country had been harvested. But the crop circle subject has moved on considerably since then - so what was the context in which they put forth their claims?
A credible subject
Crop circles had probably been recorded in the national press for the first time during the 1980s, prior to which they were effectively unknown, except to farm workers. Reportage appears to have been sporadic through much of the 1980s, although no proper research has ever been conducted into the scope of media coverage.
In the years prior to D&D, the media appears to have been open to the idea that we were dealing with a genuine phenomenon, a view accepted by society in general. It is instructive also to consider the British Government's official position by the late-1980s. On July 21, 1989, Teddy Taylor MP had tabled a question to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (John Gummer) as to whether the Minister had received "any scientific or other advice on the causes of the flattening of cereal crops". This was an opportunity for the Government to pronounce the circles a hoax; and yet the answer (read out by Richard Ryder MP) was: "I am advised that the phenomenon is most likely to result from a combination of wind and local soil fertility conditions in cereals which are prone to lodging."
During 1990, the Koestler Foundation made a public offer of a £5,000 prize to anyone who could solve the mystery. A couple of days later, on July 22, the Sunday Mirror responded not by ridiculing the prize offer but by trumping it, offering no less than £10,000 for a solution, announcing researchers Archie Roy and Terence Meaden were to act as judges. This is significant in the D&D story, as we shall see later.
In the years prior to D&D, the media appears to have been open to the idea that we were dealing with a genuine phenomenon, a view accepted by society in general. It is instructive also to consider the British Government's official position by the late-1980s. On July 21, 1989, Teddy Taylor MP had tabled a question to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (John Gummer) as to whether the Minister had received "any scientific or other advice on the causes of the flattening of cereal crops". This was an opportunity for the Government to pronounce the circles a hoax; and yet the answer (read out by Richard Ryder MP) was: "I am advised that the phenomenon is most likely to result from a combination of wind and local soil fertility conditions in cereals which are prone to lodging."
During 1990, the Koestler Foundation made a public offer of a £5,000 prize to anyone who could solve the mystery. A couple of days later, on July 22, the Sunday Mirror responded not by ridiculing the prize offer but by trumping it, offering no less than £10,000 for a solution, announcing researchers Archie Roy and Terence Meaden were to act as judges. This is significant in the D&D story, as we shall see later.
Hoaxing
The story of Fred Day appeared in The People a week after the Sunday Mirror had offered their cash prize for a solution to the circles, with his claim to have been hoaxing circles for decades; thus The People demanded £10,000 from their rivals! 59-year-old Day claimed to have started the phenomenon as a child as far back as 1943, which is interesting in itself. Come 1990, he was still at it and apparently using stilts to navigate through the crop without leaving a mark. His story was even accompanied by photographs of "his" crop circles. (His claims were no more unsound than the later D&D claims however.)
Not so easily forgotten was the hoax carried out during a surveillance project at Bratton Castle in Wiltshire. Prominent researcher, Colin Andrews, had arranged a team of observers to monitor the fields around the site close to Westbury in Wiltshire. One morning, some circles appeared in the field right in front of the cameras. The excitement soon evaporated, when the circles were examined at close hand and seen as obvious hoaxes. This event was viewed even by the media as a prank which merely upset research, rather than undermining the whole subject. The newspaper cutting, right, makes the point: the shoddy Bratton Castle formation is pictured but captioned, "the work of human practical jokers", while the Alton Barnes double pictogram, of July 12, was described as the "real thing". |
The written record
To understand the crop circle phenomenon as it was perceived in 1991, we only need to look at the literature extant at the time. (There was no internet, of course.) Since the subject was still in its early days, the crop circle bookshelf was slim, with just seven books in existence, plus four dedicated periodicals. The following books are by far the most significant, and informed the public perception of the phenomenon:
- Circular Evidence (P. Delgado/C. Andrews, 1989)
- The Circles Effect & Its Mysteries (T. Meaden, 1989)
- The Crop Circle Enigma (Ed. R. Noyes, 1990)
- Crop Circles: The Latest Evidence (P. Delgado/C. Andrews, 1990)
Circular Evidence
The key title in the above list is Circular Evidence, and as we shall see,
the coverage in this book forms the basis of D&D’s story, as presented to
the world in 1991. I therefore intend to pay particular attention to it.
Circular Evidence is frequently described as having been a best-seller (although it reached a peak of number 3 in the listings), and was certainly far more widely disseminated than anything else on the subject. By the time the D&D story broke, it had sold around 85,000 copies plus foreign translations (including Japanese, German and Italian). I do not have accurate sales figures for works such as Terence Meaden’s The Circles Effect and its Mysteries, but it probably sold in the low thousands; In other words, Meaden’s book probably reached a few percent of the number of readers which Circular Evidence did, give or take. |
Circular
Evidence was appealing for the way it presented the
phenomenon to the uninitiated (which in 1989, was virtually everyone). John
Michell summarised it thus, “Full of beautiful colour photographs of the
English summer cornfields, marked with symmetrical designs of circles... the
phenomenon is fully and fairly described, individual cases are examined,
strange personal experiences in the field are bravely acknowledged.”
The book benefited greatly from the fact that it showcased the circles as a series of case studies with full-page colour photographs of each, many of them taken from the air. The circles are arranged in chronological sequence, although none which lacked a corresponding photo were included. If one did not know that there were countless other circles on record from throughout the period, and indeed before, one would naturally assume that the book was presenting the full sequence of events in the order they happened, from the “first” formation in 1978, though the “first” appearances of quintuplets and then ringed circles, right up to 1989.
The book benefited greatly from the fact that it showcased the circles as a series of case studies with full-page colour photographs of each, many of them taken from the air. The circles are arranged in chronological sequence, although none which lacked a corresponding photo were included. If one did not know that there were countless other circles on record from throughout the period, and indeed before, one would naturally assume that the book was presenting the full sequence of events in the order they happened, from the “first” formation in 1978, though the “first” appearances of quintuplets and then ringed circles, right up to 1989.
So this, in summary is what was in the public domain at the end of the 1980s. The picture we had was of an evolving phenomenon, exhibiting increasing complexity and ordered development with time – a result in no small part of the selection and sequencing of formations which comprised the contents of Circular Evidence. We know that this impression of ordered development is illusory, and caused by the paucity of cases available for assessment in the 1980s, but when D&D went public in 1991, they were of course unaware of the body of evidence still waiting to be uncovered, which would refute such a picture by demonstrating the perceived chronology to be erroneous.
So let's hear from the duo for the first time, with their original newspaper revelations.
ON TO PART 1 - Testimony from D&D >