Pranksters & Hoaxers

A LITTLE WRECKING JOB AMONG FRIENDS
This image gallery, shot on site by William Betts in spring 2009, shows clearly what a crop circle looks like when executed in oilseed rape using boards. Discovered on April 29 at Roundway Hill, near Devizes (Wiltshire), it was photographed on May 2. Four days after it appeared, the plants display the telltale condition: by phototropism and/or gravitropism the flowers and heads lift back up, but the stems remain pressed to the ground — not because they were gently bent at the base, but because they were folded, broken or crushed.

At that point in the season, footfall in the fields is still low, especially when the formation sits outside the usual epicenter — the Vale of Pewsey and its close surroundings. The main goal for phenomenon websites is to secure an aerial shot. Few online platforms then documented in detail what was actually happening on the ground, where direct observation is crucial.

This series makes full sense when compared with the Golden Ball Hill case in 2005, which appeared at almost the same time of year, give or take a few days. Conditions are never strictly identical from one formation to another — plant variety, weather, inputs, soil — but board work always leaves a recognizable signature. Even when part of a motif may give the illusion of being “clean,” ground truth tells the difference.

These documents thus serve as a classroom case: by showing what mechanical trampling actually produces in oilseed rape, they provide an essential comparison point for assessing other, more complex formations.

Commenting on images and contradicting is one thing; going into the field, inspecting and documenting reality is another.

OILSEED RAPE DOSSIER — Other photo galleries of oilseed rape formations made with boards