The sun sets on a field in southern England. When it rises again the following morning, that field has been transformed into an enormous work of art. A large section of the crop has been tamped into a pattern of circles, rings and other intricate geometric shapes. But who created it?
Are crop circles the work of alien visitors? Are they a natural phenomenon, created by electrically charged currents of air? Or are they elaborate hoaxes perpetrated by savvy, talented and very determined circlemakers? Believers and naysayers each have their own theories, but the truth remains elusive.
Farmers have reported finding strange circles in their fields for centuries. The earliest mention of a crop circle dates back to the 1500s. A 17th-century English woodcut shows a devilish creature making a crop circle. People who lived in the area called the creature the "mowing devil."
In an 1880 issue of the journal Nature, amateur scientist John Rand Capron reported on a formation near Guildford, Surrey, in the south of England. He described his finding as "a field of standing wheat considerably knocked about, not as an entirety, but in patches forming, as viewed from a distance, circular spots." He went on to say, "... I could not trace locally any circumstances accounting for the peculiar forms of the patches in the field ... They were suggestive to me of some cyclonic wind action ..."
Mentions of crop circles were sporadic until the 20th century, when circles began appearing in the 1960s and '70s in England and the United States. But the phenomenon didn't gain attention until 1980, when a farmer in Wiltshire County, England, discovered three circles, each about 60 feet (18 meters) across, in his oat crops. UFO researchers and media descended on the farm, and the world first began to learn about crop circles.
By the 1990s, crop circles had become something of a tourist attraction. In 1990 alone, more than 500 circles emerged in Europe. Within the next few years, there were thousands. Visitors came from around the world to see them. Some farmers even charged admission to their mysterious attractions
The stalks inside a crop circle are typically bent into what is known as a swirl pattern, and the circles may spin clockwise or counterclockwise. In patterns with several circles, one circle may spin clockwise and another counterclockwise. Even a single circle may contain two "layers" of stalks, each spinning in a different direction.
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 Photo courtesy www.circlemakers.org A crop circle near Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, England, that resembles an Aztec Sun Stone |
 Photo courtesy www.circlemakers.org A formation at West Kennett in Wiltshire that looks like a Celtic symbol called the Triskell |
Some of the more sophisticated patterns are based on mathematical equations. Astronomer and former Boston University professor Gerald S. Hawkins studied several crop circles and found that the positions of the circles, triangles and other shapes were placed based on specific numerical relationships. In one crop circle that had an outer and an inner circle, the area of the outer circle was exactly four times that of the inner circle. The specific placement of the shapes indicates that, whoever the circlemakers are, they have an intricate knowledge of Euclidean geometry (the geometry of a flat surface introduced by the mathematician Euclid of Alexandria).
Some circles have thin lines leading away from them. These lines, called spurs, are not actually a part of the circle. They are created by the farmer's tractor.
Most circles are concentrated in the south of England, primarily in the counties of Hampshire and Wiltshire. Many of them have been found near Avebury and Stonehenge, two mystical sites containing large stone monuments.
 Photo courtesy www.circlemakers.org Formation at Avebury Trusloe in Wiltshire |
But crop circles are not confined to England. They have been spotted in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, India and other parts of the world.
The "season" for crop circles runs from April to September, which coincides with the growing season. Circles tend to be created at night, hiding their creators (human or otherwise) from curious eyes.
Crop circles can be found in many different types of fields -- wheat, corn, oats, rice, oil-seed rape, barley, rye, tobacco -- even weeds. Most circles are found in low-lying areas close to steep hills, which may explain the wind theory of their creation.
Now, let's get into some of the crop circle theories.