Mandolin
East Field 2004

RENDEZ-VOUS
In June 2004, at the very start of the season, a crop circle appeared in East Field — “The Mandolin,” as we called it. It was the sixth formation reported that year in England. At the time, we were spending long days in the fields, examining the condition of the stems for any trace of human intervention. At the same time, we began noticing subtle and unexplained visual or contextual events — moments so delicate they felt like a genuine exchange between some intelligence and ourselves, expressed through symbols.

In the case of the East Field formation, the evidence emerged quickly: the pattern clearly represented a stringed instrument, close to a guitar. William often carried his mandolin with him — not to play, but as a visual reference for scale and proportion.

When the outline of the formation was compared with the instrument, the match proved astonishingly precise: several curves followed the shape of the object exactly, down to the pickguard and other distinctive details — remarkable considering it was a rare handmade piece. A series of overlays and composite images confirmed the correspondences. Even more strikingly, the formation seemed to have been oriented with intent: the neck of the mandolin depicted in the field pointed directly toward Adam’s Grave, as if tracing an axis — a symbolic link with the surrounding landscape.

The instrument thus appeared as an interface — a bridge between the human and the phenomenon — turning this resemblance into a genuine dialogue. That is precisely what explains William’s presence at East Field on the evening of 25 June, where he remained through the night. He then found himself at the heart of a particular sequence.

Equipped with his camera, he recorded several shots toward the hills and the Adam’s Grave area. On frame-by-frame review, a strange downward-pointing triangular cloud can be seen — unnoticed at the time of filming. At dawn, two reddish, cone-shaped clouds, also pointing downward — likely tinted by the rising sun — appeared in turn above Adam’s Grave, roughly where the triangle had been captured an hour earlier. They do not share the same geometry as the first triangle; most likely “remanences” of the initial phenomenon, possibly related to a local evolution of cloud structure.

Thus, in the night of 25 to 26 June 2004, one of the most complex crop circles of that period would be discovered — though less extensive than the legendary Milk Hill formation (2001, 409 circles) on the nearby ridge.

By following clues, however tenuous, William found himself at East Field that night and may have witnessed one of the methods used by the unknown authors of crop circles. Not glowing orbs darting over the field this time, but rather a kind of cloud — possibly a vortex.

This succession of events could be seen as a reciprocal exchange — non-verbal yet symbolic and visual.

With this cloud, we draw closer to what is known as the lodging phenomenon — the natural flattening of crop stems — yet it is clear that crop circles cannot be explained by wind alone.

In this dossier, the perspective of the Mandolin set in the field has been corrected from an aerial image, as if the formation were viewed from directly above.

The gallery brings together many previously unseen images that complete the original 2004 archive. Some photos appear blurred, but when viewed in full context, their significance becomes clear. Several researchers have reported unexplained effects — possibly linked to electromagnetic disturbance — that sometimes interferes with cameras inside formations. On that morning, William experienced it firsthand.

Throughout that calm night, no sign of movement — no vehicles, no human presence — was observed.

Twenty-one years after the recording, we are finally releasing this video, recovered from its original mini-DVD and restored. You can view the original version here, with colour corrections to compensate for camera distortion. Targeted effects were also applied to highlight the strange clouds that morning, which seemed to hover directly above the still-unknown formation: the Bee.