Once referred to as "Croppiedom's King of Controversy" Michael Glickman has long occupied a central space at the heart of public comment on the crop circle phenomenon. A former architect and teacher, he is now a renowned and inspirational speaker and writer. His work on the geometry and interpretation of the crop circles has spanned over 16 years. Michael has written several regular columns on the crop circles over his career, both in print and on the internet. Wheat from the Chaff is his latest incarnation. His book, 2008 brought us four disparate crosses. I believe this was the first season which featured crosses so specifically. Fig. 1 shows (A) the West Woods “wavy cross” of 17th July, (B) Etchilhampton of 15th August, (C) Broad Hinton of 24th September and (D) Avebury Down of 28th September. Before we look at these four formations in any detail there are two points which might be relevant.
Fig 1.
First, the origin of the cross, or at least one origin of the cross. We move on the surface of the earth. A sweep of the hand, side to side, describes the horizon. A vertical gesture indicates the line of gravity which magically holds us to its surface. In these two movements we have delineated the archetypal cross and also the archetypal right angle. This primordial relationship, gravity and earth, is one of the prime engines of our existence. Remarkable then that it generates the right angle and, if the impulsive movement of our arm is turned into a diagram, it must produce an accurate 90° angle.
Second, one of the most ubiquitous crop circle types, the quintuplet and its sibling the celtic cross, where the satellites are linked by an orbit ring. Fig. 2 shows nine examples of quintuplets and celtic crosses which show, perhaps obviously, the implicit cross which each contains. The quintuplet is based on orthogonal, or right angle, geometry. Drawing connections across formations inevitably produces crosses; linking the four satellites around the formations inevitably produces squares. Allan Brown has produced a remarkable study which shows that the majority of quintuplets (including the nine shown here) use subtle geometries which demonstrate the squaring of the circle. Many of these protocols, unveiled by the crop circles, were previously unknown to mathematics.
Fig 2.
On the 17th July in West Woods the beautiful “wavy cross” formation (Figs.1 A & 3) appeared. Unlike the other three examples, its aspect ratio, that is the proportion of its vertical to horizontal axes, was equal. Each of the four arms of West Woods was the same length. The other three crosses adopted a more conventional proportion with left, right and top arms of equal length and the lower being longer.
Fig 3.
The four arms at West Woods were of identical length and form and were, I believe with the benefit of some hindsight and some consideration, flames. I wrote here (“Selfish, thoughtless and stupid” 22nd July 2008) about the impeccable and deliberately inaccessible central ring of this formation which we dumb humans chose impulsively to crash into. Looking back at the lovely West Woods formation I understand that the isolated little ring was surrounded and protected by fierce symbolic tongues of fire.
True crop circle obsessives will note with joy that 17th July was also the birthday of the seminal Barbury Castle triangle in 1991.
I wrote a previous “Wheat from the Chaff” (“The Etchilhampton Cross and two colleagues” 16th August 2008) about the numerological content of this formation (Figs. 1 B & 4). It might be worth rereading
Fig 4.
The curious little formation of 24th September 2008 at Broad Hinton, Winterbourne Bassett (Figs. 1 C & 5) makes some important historical connections and before going any further we should look at the earliest and best-known crop circle in this area.
Fig 5. Courtesy of Tami Paxman
On 23rd July 1995 the formation (Fig. 6) which appeared at Winterbourne Bassett was significant in several respects. It was the first actual manifestation of the square in a crop circle although squareness had been implied by the quintuplets and celtic crosses for many years. The Winterbourne Bassett formation was the first ever crop circle representation of a three-dimensional solid, in this case a cuboctahedron (Fig. 7). The cuboctahedron has, like the cube, six square surfaces but also, like the octahedron, eight triangular surfaces. The cuboctahedron can be envisioned as two pyramids stuck together base-to-base.
Fig 6.
Fig 7.
The Broad Hinton towers was formed in a field of corn. This is a relatively new medium here in the UK and gives, in photographs, a strange corduroy-like impression. The other ancestor was of course the Wayland’s Smithy Towers (Fig. 8) of 8th August 2006.
Fig 8.
Wayland’s Smithy was the first use of one-point perspective by crop circles though the same system was used again the following year in at the West Kennett Longbarrow. It is curious that, just as we and our planet seem to be shifting dimensionally, the crop circles contrive to find new ways of shifting their two-dimensional diagrams into three-dimensional representations
Wayland’s Smithy had twelve towers in three groups of four while its descendant, Broad Hinton, had only a single group of four. At Wayland’s Smithy, each of the three groups grew from short to tall and each of the tallest three towers had a complex woven roof-square. The more modest Broad Hinton had three equal towers and one significantly taller although here the photograph reveals no variation in the lay of the roof-squares.
In a curious way the Broad Hinton formation recalls the West Kennett Longbarrow fractal square of 1999. I include the diagram as a reminder (Fig. 9).
Fig 9.
Of the four crosses of 2008, Broad Hinton, alone, makes no reference to the quintuplet/celtic cross type though, for the other three, it is clearly of great significance. West Woods positions a celtic cross at the centre, further shielding the inviolable central disc. The arms of the Etchilhampton formation intersect to form an implicit quintuplet and Avebury Down, the last of the four, seems to be shouting “Quintuplet!” across the fields.
At Telegraph Hill in Hampshire on 12th June 1995 there was a remarkable “quintuplet of quintuplets” (Fig. 10). Each of the satellites around the centre circle became itself the centre circle of another quintuplet, each of which had its own four smaller satellites. In classic crop circle fractal manner, the procedure (four satellites becoming sixteen) did not continue (with sixteen becoming sixty four) but the possibility was made clear. I believe Avebury Down was signalling a similar impulse towards fractalisation (though I am not sure if that is a word!) To test this idea I developed the diagram through the two iterations (Figs. 11 & 12) which are shown here.
Fig 10.
Fig 11.
Fig 12.
I was not alone in being intrigued by the four crosses of 2008. Jaime Maussan was so moved by these events that, having returned home to Mexico towards the end of the season, he was pulled back by the late-September Broad Hinton and Avebury Down formations
A confession. I approached this piece, arrogantly I now understand, believing I would be able to make some (hopefully revelatory) link between this quartet. I failed. Clearly the first response was that there might be some Christian references here but - apart from the obvious and rather simplistic symbolism - I discerned nothing. Having finished the core of the article some weeks ago, I must admit I could not find any convincing connection between these crosses. The only connecting thread seemed to be the word “cross” itself.
Karen Alexander, whose opinions on these matters I value, believes that the crucifix is a symbol of transformation and that their appearance at this time is self-explanatory. I remain perplexed!
My thanks to “Tammi Paxman” for permission to use the Broad Hinton photograph. All other photos are by Steve Alexander to whom, as always, I am grateful. Both Andreas Mueller and Berthold Zugelder have helped me with diagrams.
MG