1.2 The TODAY story: Day 2 (September 10, 1991)
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Transcript
Night we thought the game was up
CLUTCHING their DIY corn circle kit, Doug Bower and David Chorley edged through the fields in total darkness.
The last thing they expected to see was a police car.
It was the first time in 13 years they had been challenged, but Doug was ready.
As a member of the British Wildlife Recording Society, the 67-year-old had the perfect cover to be out at night in the fields last June.
“We had all our bird-listening equipment in the boot as usual,” said Doug.
“Once they had seen my card and a couple of letters from the British Library of Wildlife Sounds acknowledging that some of my recordings had been used in the archives, we were all right.
“They just wished us goodnight and went. It was funny to use our alibi after all these years for the first time.”
But the close encounter made them decide the hoax would have to end.
Doug said: “It is getting so that you can’t leave your car anywhere at night in the countryside without people being suspicious, or fear of it being vandalised.
“On top of that, there are now so many volunteers out in the fields at night looking for crop circles forming.
“You’re looking over your shoulder every two seconds as you are working, watching for any searchlights.”
“The farmers are about at night more as well because of all the fuss.”
One time, they were nearly shot at by farmworkers hunting rabbits.
“We were terrified. They came out in a Land Rover with searchlights blazing and shotguns going off as they shot the rabbits.
“We just kept out heads down and our fingers crossed. It shook us up a bit.”
1989 was a bad year for the circles. The two Southampton artists had fallen out after Dave, 62, missed his customary Christmas Eve visit to Doug’s picture-framing shop.
So when the “experts” announced they were mounting a week-long vigil, Doug decided it was time for his first circle of the year, alone.
On the last night of the watch, Doug crept behind the surveillance van and created a simple ring.
The circle society people were delighted – it was proof of a “superior intelligence” to outmanoevre them in such a way.
Before beginning the hoax, Doug and Bachelor Dave swore to tell no one – even Doug’s wife Ilene.
But after six years of his nightly disappearances, she had grown suspicious. “It started to cross my mind that he might be seeing another woman,” she said.
“Dave is one for the ladies and I thought the company you keep sometimes rubs off.
“I started checking the mileage of the car, like I had seen in a television play at the time – it was jumping up 400 miles a week.”
Doug said: “Eventually, she confronted me about it. I realised I was cornered so I grabbed all the scrapbooks full of all the pictures we had taken of the circles and threw them down on the table with such a thud.”
But it was not easy to convince his wife that he was responsible for the baffling circles.
Ilene added: “I wasn’t convinced till I said to him ‘all right tell me where the next one will be then’.
“When he was able to do that, tell me exactly when and where, that’s when I couldn’t doubt any more.”
To keep the “experts” puzzled this summer, Doug and Dave collected some meteorites and included them in a special circle at Stonehenge.
But once, as he was working on a circle with Dave, he was actually knocked unconscious by something which fell from space.
“I managed to stagger back to the car and I could feel the blood trickling down my neck.
“But when we got into the light I saw that the mess on my head was frozen discharge from an aircraft toilet.”
“I’m staggered when I think of the million-to-one chance of being hit like that.”
But not half as staggered as a host of embarrassed scientists are right now.
Come on, Pat, admit you were had
It was the moment corn circle experts Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews had waited years for – the moment the world’s greatest mystery was unravelled.
But what they were about to hear from Doug Bower and Dave Chorley would shatter their dream and leave them shaking their heads, at first in disbelief – and then horror.
For 13 years Doug and Dave had tricked the duo, and the rest of the world, into believing the circles they made were by a non-human hand. Now it was time to own up – the circle phenomenon is a hoax.
The day before we published the stunning revelation, TODAY put the four men together in a room. It was intended as a courtesy and as a way of cushioning the blow to their personal lives and professional careers after so many years of study.
Clues
All four men had met on previous occasions. Doug and Dave regularly rubbed shoulders with the experts, posing as interested observers and gleaning new clues on how to take the hoax further.
Doug said on the way to the meeting: “He’ll recognise us as soon as he sees us. I think he’ll probably reckon something’s wrong at that point. I hope he doesn’t have a heart attack when we tell him.”
Mr Delgado called his wife and daughter into the room when he realised the gravity of the situation.
Then he phoned Colin Andrews, saying: “Come quick.”
Mr Delgado’s jaw dropped as Doug and Dave began to unfold the true depth of their deception.
Time and again he tried to catch them out on minute details of locations of the 200 circles they claim to have created. Then, once his conviction started to grow that they were telling the truth, he asked, “What gave you the idea of the ladders?” – one of their trademarks – before adding: “I find this quite hilarious really. It’s almost like a relief.
“You are going to wreck thousands of lives by blowing this now, couldn’t you just tail it off with a couple more next year?”
Mr Andrews arrived and was told by his friend and co-author: “Sit down. This is bad news. This is 100 per cent bad news.”
Mr Andrews refused to comment on their revelations. All he would say was: “Pat has accepted that the phenomenon is over.”
Challenge
That was two days ago. Yesterday, the two men were scrambling across Southern England trying desperately to recoup the situation and damn Doug and Dave’s demonstration work before the cameras.
They even ducked a challenge from the pair to appear with them on TV, saying: “No cameras, we are not allowing them to debate.”
For Doug and Dave the first full day of knowing that their secret was out started off with a sense of growing excitement and fun.
TV crews from Japan, Australia, Germany, France and Britain scrambled to meet the artists whose pranks set the world alight.
Doug said: “We hardly slept with knowing what we were revealing the next morning. My wife, Irene, didn’t sleep a wink all night. It felt very strange indeed. To know that a secret you have kept for 13 years is suddenly out in the open is really quite something.
“I must admit I enjoyed it though. I think in a way we have been very lucky to have as much fun as we’ve had over the years, and then to enjoy the excitement of the moment you reveal it.”
Doug and Dave drove to a corn field in Sussex later to respond to requests by international television crews to show the equipment and techniques they used to make the crop circles.
One senior broadcaster said after meeting them: “You can’t help but know what they are saying is true when you meet them. You can’t catch them out they’re so natural.”
But soon scores of television and radio journalists descended in over two dozen cars on the scene of the demonstration, clambering to speak to the hoaxers.
Doug said: “I’ve no objection to speaking to anybody, I welcome any question. We know what we did and we are prepared to discuss it in the open. We are not afraid of being cross-examined.
“We started it in this country in 1978 and now we’re stopping it because we are getting too old and it’s gone too far. People can go on believing it if they like but they will see no more circles from us despite the fact that we invented the thing in this country 13 years ago.”
The demonstration was intended to show the artists’ techniques, but TV crews soon called in Mr Delgado and Mr Andrews.
Desperate
This time there was no suggestion of them being conned – as Doug and Dave had successfully done to Mr Delgado at TODAY’s invitation a few days ago.
The two experts walked through the rings and claimed they were badly trampled and uneven. Of course they were – minutes earlier several TV crews had been there.
Mr Delgado, Mr Andrews and dozens of scientists and corn circle buffs were mounting a desperate bid to save their multi-million pound industry last night. No-one was prepared to admit they had been duped by two conmen armed with pieces of wood, string and a baseball cap.
Author and scientist Dr Terrence [sic] Meaden said: “There are still genuine circles despite these hoaxers. I still believe many circles are natural and caused by weather conditions.”
Dr Meaden has written three books on the subject and spent 30 years [sic] studying crop markings.
“We have dozens of good eye witness accounts of corn circles being made,” he said.
“Just weeks ago a couple from Surrey reported seeing circles forming just feet from where they were standing.”
Dr Meaden, who claims warm weather whirlwinds cause the circles said circles had first been discovered 2,000 years ago [sic].
“Whatever anyone else says I honestly believe there are still lots of genuine circles left,” he said.
Scientist and soil expert Dr John Graham said: “I am still 100 per cent convinced many corn circles are genuine and made by the wind.”
“I have been sure that the more elaborate patterns of recent years were down to humans and this has now been proved. But the simple patterns remain real circles.”
The hoaxers’ revelation came as an acute embarrassment to Mick Jagger’s brother, Chris, who was on stage at the weekend at a conference on the phenomenon in Glastonbury, Somerset.
The meeting, attended by 1,500 disciples was organised to celebrate the first anniversary of The Cerealogist, the circles magazine.
Editor John Michell said: “We will have to wait and see what these two men can do under test conditions.
“Naturally we do not think all crop circles are hoaxes but no-one really knows how the genuine ones appear.”
Hundreds of callers jammed TODAY’s switchboard with their own theories.
A woman from Luton said corn circles off the A6 Luton to Bedford road were created by aliens.
Fakes
A man from Cheltenham said the circles were an MI5 plot and the Government agency was meeting in his home town to discuss the TODAY revelation.
Mr George Vernon, from Bath, said he could prove Doug and Dave were fakes because he was the real hoaxer.
Last night Paul Vaughan, the agent for self-proclaimed Son of God David Icke was desperately trying to contact his agent and tell him the circles are a hoax.
Mr Icke, who claims the circles are a “last desperate attempt by the spirit of the earth to ask creation for help before it is too late” was last seen in public dancing around a corn circle in the West Country in his turquoise track suit.
CLUTCHING their DIY corn circle kit, Doug Bower and David Chorley edged through the fields in total darkness.
The last thing they expected to see was a police car.
It was the first time in 13 years they had been challenged, but Doug was ready.
As a member of the British Wildlife Recording Society, the 67-year-old had the perfect cover to be out at night in the fields last June.
“We had all our bird-listening equipment in the boot as usual,” said Doug.
“Once they had seen my card and a couple of letters from the British Library of Wildlife Sounds acknowledging that some of my recordings had been used in the archives, we were all right.
“They just wished us goodnight and went. It was funny to use our alibi after all these years for the first time.”
But the close encounter made them decide the hoax would have to end.
Doug said: “It is getting so that you can’t leave your car anywhere at night in the countryside without people being suspicious, or fear of it being vandalised.
“On top of that, there are now so many volunteers out in the fields at night looking for crop circles forming.
“You’re looking over your shoulder every two seconds as you are working, watching for any searchlights.”
“The farmers are about at night more as well because of all the fuss.”
One time, they were nearly shot at by farmworkers hunting rabbits.
“We were terrified. They came out in a Land Rover with searchlights blazing and shotguns going off as they shot the rabbits.
“We just kept out heads down and our fingers crossed. It shook us up a bit.”
1989 was a bad year for the circles. The two Southampton artists had fallen out after Dave, 62, missed his customary Christmas Eve visit to Doug’s picture-framing shop.
So when the “experts” announced they were mounting a week-long vigil, Doug decided it was time for his first circle of the year, alone.
On the last night of the watch, Doug crept behind the surveillance van and created a simple ring.
The circle society people were delighted – it was proof of a “superior intelligence” to outmanoevre them in such a way.
Before beginning the hoax, Doug and Bachelor Dave swore to tell no one – even Doug’s wife Ilene.
But after six years of his nightly disappearances, she had grown suspicious. “It started to cross my mind that he might be seeing another woman,” she said.
“Dave is one for the ladies and I thought the company you keep sometimes rubs off.
“I started checking the mileage of the car, like I had seen in a television play at the time – it was jumping up 400 miles a week.”
Doug said: “Eventually, she confronted me about it. I realised I was cornered so I grabbed all the scrapbooks full of all the pictures we had taken of the circles and threw them down on the table with such a thud.”
But it was not easy to convince his wife that he was responsible for the baffling circles.
Ilene added: “I wasn’t convinced till I said to him ‘all right tell me where the next one will be then’.
“When he was able to do that, tell me exactly when and where, that’s when I couldn’t doubt any more.”
To keep the “experts” puzzled this summer, Doug and Dave collected some meteorites and included them in a special circle at Stonehenge.
But once, as he was working on a circle with Dave, he was actually knocked unconscious by something which fell from space.
“I managed to stagger back to the car and I could feel the blood trickling down my neck.
“But when we got into the light I saw that the mess on my head was frozen discharge from an aircraft toilet.”
“I’m staggered when I think of the million-to-one chance of being hit like that.”
But not half as staggered as a host of embarrassed scientists are right now.
Come on, Pat, admit you were had
It was the moment corn circle experts Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews had waited years for – the moment the world’s greatest mystery was unravelled.
But what they were about to hear from Doug Bower and Dave Chorley would shatter their dream and leave them shaking their heads, at first in disbelief – and then horror.
For 13 years Doug and Dave had tricked the duo, and the rest of the world, into believing the circles they made were by a non-human hand. Now it was time to own up – the circle phenomenon is a hoax.
The day before we published the stunning revelation, TODAY put the four men together in a room. It was intended as a courtesy and as a way of cushioning the blow to their personal lives and professional careers after so many years of study.
Clues
All four men had met on previous occasions. Doug and Dave regularly rubbed shoulders with the experts, posing as interested observers and gleaning new clues on how to take the hoax further.
Doug said on the way to the meeting: “He’ll recognise us as soon as he sees us. I think he’ll probably reckon something’s wrong at that point. I hope he doesn’t have a heart attack when we tell him.”
Mr Delgado called his wife and daughter into the room when he realised the gravity of the situation.
Then he phoned Colin Andrews, saying: “Come quick.”
Mr Delgado’s jaw dropped as Doug and Dave began to unfold the true depth of their deception.
Time and again he tried to catch them out on minute details of locations of the 200 circles they claim to have created. Then, once his conviction started to grow that they were telling the truth, he asked, “What gave you the idea of the ladders?” – one of their trademarks – before adding: “I find this quite hilarious really. It’s almost like a relief.
“You are going to wreck thousands of lives by blowing this now, couldn’t you just tail it off with a couple more next year?”
Mr Andrews arrived and was told by his friend and co-author: “Sit down. This is bad news. This is 100 per cent bad news.”
Mr Andrews refused to comment on their revelations. All he would say was: “Pat has accepted that the phenomenon is over.”
Challenge
That was two days ago. Yesterday, the two men were scrambling across Southern England trying desperately to recoup the situation and damn Doug and Dave’s demonstration work before the cameras.
They even ducked a challenge from the pair to appear with them on TV, saying: “No cameras, we are not allowing them to debate.”
For Doug and Dave the first full day of knowing that their secret was out started off with a sense of growing excitement and fun.
TV crews from Japan, Australia, Germany, France and Britain scrambled to meet the artists whose pranks set the world alight.
Doug said: “We hardly slept with knowing what we were revealing the next morning. My wife, Irene, didn’t sleep a wink all night. It felt very strange indeed. To know that a secret you have kept for 13 years is suddenly out in the open is really quite something.
“I must admit I enjoyed it though. I think in a way we have been very lucky to have as much fun as we’ve had over the years, and then to enjoy the excitement of the moment you reveal it.”
Doug and Dave drove to a corn field in Sussex later to respond to requests by international television crews to show the equipment and techniques they used to make the crop circles.
One senior broadcaster said after meeting them: “You can’t help but know what they are saying is true when you meet them. You can’t catch them out they’re so natural.”
But soon scores of television and radio journalists descended in over two dozen cars on the scene of the demonstration, clambering to speak to the hoaxers.
Doug said: “I’ve no objection to speaking to anybody, I welcome any question. We know what we did and we are prepared to discuss it in the open. We are not afraid of being cross-examined.
“We started it in this country in 1978 and now we’re stopping it because we are getting too old and it’s gone too far. People can go on believing it if they like but they will see no more circles from us despite the fact that we invented the thing in this country 13 years ago.”
The demonstration was intended to show the artists’ techniques, but TV crews soon called in Mr Delgado and Mr Andrews.
Desperate
This time there was no suggestion of them being conned – as Doug and Dave had successfully done to Mr Delgado at TODAY’s invitation a few days ago.
The two experts walked through the rings and claimed they were badly trampled and uneven. Of course they were – minutes earlier several TV crews had been there.
Mr Delgado, Mr Andrews and dozens of scientists and corn circle buffs were mounting a desperate bid to save their multi-million pound industry last night. No-one was prepared to admit they had been duped by two conmen armed with pieces of wood, string and a baseball cap.
Author and scientist Dr Terrence [sic] Meaden said: “There are still genuine circles despite these hoaxers. I still believe many circles are natural and caused by weather conditions.”
Dr Meaden has written three books on the subject and spent 30 years [sic] studying crop markings.
“We have dozens of good eye witness accounts of corn circles being made,” he said.
“Just weeks ago a couple from Surrey reported seeing circles forming just feet from where they were standing.”
Dr Meaden, who claims warm weather whirlwinds cause the circles said circles had first been discovered 2,000 years ago [sic].
“Whatever anyone else says I honestly believe there are still lots of genuine circles left,” he said.
Scientist and soil expert Dr John Graham said: “I am still 100 per cent convinced many corn circles are genuine and made by the wind.”
“I have been sure that the more elaborate patterns of recent years were down to humans and this has now been proved. But the simple patterns remain real circles.”
The hoaxers’ revelation came as an acute embarrassment to Mick Jagger’s brother, Chris, who was on stage at the weekend at a conference on the phenomenon in Glastonbury, Somerset.
The meeting, attended by 1,500 disciples was organised to celebrate the first anniversary of The Cerealogist, the circles magazine.
Editor John Michell said: “We will have to wait and see what these two men can do under test conditions.
“Naturally we do not think all crop circles are hoaxes but no-one really knows how the genuine ones appear.”
Hundreds of callers jammed TODAY’s switchboard with their own theories.
A woman from Luton said corn circles off the A6 Luton to Bedford road were created by aliens.
Fakes
A man from Cheltenham said the circles were an MI5 plot and the Government agency was meeting in his home town to discuss the TODAY revelation.
Mr George Vernon, from Bath, said he could prove Doug and Dave were fakes because he was the real hoaxer.
Last night Paul Vaughan, the agent for self-proclaimed Son of God David Icke was desperately trying to contact his agent and tell him the circles are a hoax.
Mr Icke, who claims the circles are a “last desperate attempt by the spirit of the earth to ask creation for help before it is too late” was last seen in public dancing around a corn circle in the West Country in his turquoise track suit.