2009 Proves Poor for Crop Circles

WILTSHIRE, ENGLAND- Proof of alien life or elaborate hoax? Some farmers call them otherworldly art and are thrilled to discover one of the mysterious visages gracing a hillside. Others say it is outright vandalism, no more than a waste of valuable grain by mischievous pranksters.

Whatever your belief, in the world of crop circles the southern region of England is the place to be. No other place on Earth has a higher concentration of crop circles than right here.

And it was in the county of Wiltshire last week that Mr. Jeremy Benthingham first discovered his fields had joined the ranks of the ethereally decorated. On the morning of October 30th shortly after the farmer pulled his tractor from its barn, Mr. Benthingham first saw the mysterious designs. And he was not impressed.

“If you ask me it looks like a damned joke. The fellow must have been bloody blind” he said. “Or just learning” he added with a chuckle.

In place of a soothing circular pattern or complex geometric mandala, the field had been transformed into a mishmash of drunken squiggles. “It's embarrassing” he said. For farmers of this and the neighboring counties which make up the breadbasket of England, the first crop circle is normally a badge of honor. But despite his disappointment, Mr. Benthingham is not alone in his less than stellar experience.

In June a farm 30 kilometers to the south was visited by a mysterious crop-circler that left behind a barely discernible representation of a human form. “The left arm was completely out of proportion from the body like a fiddler crab,” said one witness of the amateurish attempt. “It had no neck, sort of a stick figure with a crooked spine.” In the nearby town of Saxsbury a mangled rendering of the Solar system was said to resemble “a rather unsuccessful Etch-a-Sketch” said the landowner Jamie Spitts. Not only were the orbits wavy and badly skewed, but there were only seven planets. One of which embarrassingly intersected with the Sun. An area of crude back and forth swipes has many believing it to be an attempt to cover a mistake. “Like second grade art class.”

While some state the entire episode is a hoax on a hoax, Ken Potter of the Crop Circle Alliance disagrees. “Could it be there's a hidden meaning in the misshapen forms, and that our primitive minds can't understand them?”

Crop circle enthusiasts disagree on the reason for the recent spate of poor quality visitations. Some of the believers say the ethereal beings responsible are indeed training new artists or trying out new equipment. “Even the military has training exercises” says Potter. “Or for all we know, the circles we've seen all these years were performed by a handful of very talented beings. Perhaps the torch is being passed. And no one's born a Picasso”, said Potter. “Except Picasso I suppose.”

Whatever the reason, most agree that 2010 can only be an improvement over what many are calling the lost year of the crop circle.