2. Ooops, I did it again.(click me to enter)

3. Are the circles an art form: large-scale land art that will be written about in future art history texts as the most unusual artistic innovation to appear from the 20 th century? Or are they the result of UFO landings or mysterious messages from extraterrestrials? I did it! No, no. I did it!

4. Crop circles are unexplained pictures that are marked over one night in fields of mostly wheat and corn, but have also occurred in barley, oats, grass, trees, and even snow. They occur in crops during the spring and summer seasons throughout various regions of the world.

5. Precious few references have been found in early historical records that point to possible crop circles. Probably the most famous is the “Mowing Devil” case of 1678, in which a farmer's field was said to have been visited by a devilish creature that trampled the crops down in a circle. The event was captured for future generations on a woodcut, but today's modern skeptics dismiss its relevance.

6. Yet, they began to appear in significant numbers in the early 70's as individual circles that twisted either clockwise, or counter-clockwise. A major change occurred in 1990 when the circles became complex pictures composed of straight lines, angles and spiral rings (see the formation below).

7. There are many various theories of how these images are formed, but the mystery is far from being solved. Many people attribute them to hoaxers ( 騙子 ) without being aware of the complexities that are characteristic of genuine formations.

8. And those who connect them with UFOs often believe that their reality is as doubtful as those little green men, but as you will see here... they are very real. You can confirm this by taking a plane or a car to see them yourself. What’s your opinions?

9. The earliest known crop circle, known as the "Mowing Devil," is shown on this woodcut from Hertfordshire, England, 1678. The inscription on the woodcut is as follows:

10. “Being a true relation of a farmer, who bargaining with a poor mower, about the cutting down three half acres of oats: upon the mower's asking too much, the farmer swore that the devil should mow it rather than he.

11. And so it fell out, that very night, the crop of oat showed as if it had been all of a flame: but next morning appeared so neatly mowed by the devil or some spirit, that no mortal man was able to do the like. Also, the oats now in the field, and the owner has no power to fetch them away.” Back

12. On September 9, 1991, Doug Bower and David Chorley admitted to hoaxing nearly 250 circles. However, circles that they claimed to have made were already under suspicion of being hoaxed.

13. The large number of their claims, and the worldwide locations of the circles that they took credit for has come to discount them from hoaxing them all. Even if they had been able to hoax all 250 circles, they still do not claim to take credit for thousands of others discovered worldwide. Back