Woman Witnessed 1996 Crop Circle
Appearing Opposite Stonehenge

© 2009 by Lucy Pringle
Reprinted with permission.

“There was an apparition, an isolated mist over it
and as the circle was getting bigger, the mist was rising above
the circle. As the mist rose, it got bigger and the wheat circle got bigger.” 
- U. K. Eyewitness “M”

October 15, 2009  Petersfield, Hampshire, England - Recently, U. K. crop formation researcher and aerial photographer, Lucy Pringle, contacted me about her meeting a woman she calls “M,” who described watching the July 7, 1996, fractal Julia Set literally forming before her eyes during an estimated 20 minutes. [ Editor's Update:  Back in 1996, the formation was originally linked to July 8, 1996, as date of first report, followed by later off-the-record comments from a pilot that the formation occurred in a 45-minute window of time on Sunday, July 7, 1996, in the late afternoon, which is consistent with M's recall to Lucy Pringle below.]

The fractal Julia Set was first reported across the A303 highway from ancient Stonehenge
on July 7, 1996. The formation measured 915.5 by 508 feet, covered a square acre
and was made of 151 circles. The center of each circle twisted differently, according to
field investigators. Aerials above and below © 1996 by Lucy Pringle.

The wheat formation's spiral design matched mathematically-produced images
called Julia Sets. One Julia Set pattern is illustrated above. Julia Sets were first
discovered during World War I by the French mathematicians Gaston Julia
and Pierre Fatou. Later, in the 1960s to 1970s, IBM researcher Benoit Mandelbrot
explored the repetition of complicated processes in simple formulas and found
that he could create one image, the Mandelbrot, that would serve as a catalogue of
Julia Sets. His research evolved to develop the field of fractal geometry now used to
study Chaos Theory and its application to patterns of growth in the natural world.
Source:  Math.youngzones.org

Until now, there had allegedly been three people - a pilot, a groundskeeper and a security man - who told investigators that the wheat field was normal without any pattern at 5:30 PM on July 7, 1996. However, about forty-five minutes later, the pilot flew back over the field and discovered all the circles in the Julia Set pattern.

Lucy Pringle knew about the three witness reports, but not until 2009 did Lucy meet “M” who described watching the wheat go down below a mist. M has never wanted to talk publicly and does not want her name used. The following report by Lucy Pringle is from her exclusive interview with M.

Lucy Pringle in English crop formation. Lucy has been photographing
crop formations from the air and on the ground since 1993. She is a founding member
of the Centre for Crop Circle Studies (CCCS), a member of the British Society of Dowsers,
and Chairman of the Unexplained Phenomena Research Society (UNEX). Lucy Pringle is
author of three books: Crop Circles: Art in the Landscape © 2007; Crop Circles:
The Greatest Mystery of Modern Times © 1999; and Crop Circles © 2004.
Her website is: http://www.lucypringle.co.uk/

Lucy Pringle reports:  “ This July 1996 event is especially noteworthy for several reasons: a pilot flying a light aircraft from Exeter to Thruxton flew over the field opposite Stonehenge on the afternoon of Sunday, 7 July, with a passenger taking photographs, at which time the wheat field opposite on the A303 was unmarked. The pilot disembarked at Thruxton, completed the necessary landing and flight forms, refueled and then got back into the same plane to fly back to Exeter. Imagine his surprise when flying over the same field opposite Stonehenge some 40 to 50 minutes later, he observed an enormous formation measuring 915.5 X 508 ft imprinted in the wheat below. A gamekeeper and a guard at Stonehenge both confirmed that the pattern had not been there that morning.

The formation was named the ‘Julia Set’ as it represented a complex computer- generated fractal image to the mathematicians; to musicians, it represented a base clef; and to marine biologists, the cross-section of a nautilus.

Many strange things happened to people visiting this formation. http://www.lucypringle.co.uk/articles/fractal/, the most important being several reports that led me on to develop my research into hormone levels. 

This report has remained one of the most important in the history of the crop circle phenomenon as rarely do crop circles appear during day light hours.

In April this spring of 2009, I had been giving a talk at Alton College in Hampshire. Shortly after that a friend telephoned me to say that a friend of hers had been in a taxi and had mentioned to the taxi driver that she had just been to a fascinating talk on crop circles. M told the taxi driver, ‘I saw one appear opposite Stonehenge.’  Thinking M meant this year, my friend telephoned me. But after making extensive inquiries, I realized that here was no circle anywhere near Stonehenge in 2009. I was given M’s telephone number and told her what I had heard.

‘O dear me, no, it was years ago.’  I mentioned that only two formations had appeared close to or opposite Stonehenge, 2002 and 1996. 

‘It was 1996 as my son who was in the army was on holiday and I was driving down to see him.’

I eventually managed to arrange a mutually convenient date to meet M and get her story down on tape. M and Tim (her son's friend) were driving to Somerset in July 1996 to see her son who was in the army. Driving down the hill towards Stonehenge, she saw a lot of cars pulled in on the grass verge by the A303 opposite Stonehenge. She mentioned that when people see maybe two cars or more pulled in and looking down into the field, other cars stop and gradually the traffic builds up and more and more cars draw in to have a look. 

 As M drew nearer, Tim said, ‘Mrs. M, there's a corn circle there.’

 A car drew out and she managed to pull into the empty space, got out and joined the crowd of other people who were also watching what was happening.

M said, ‘There was an apparition, an isolated mist over it and as the circle was getting bigger, the mist was rising above the circle. As the mist rose, it got bigger and the wheat circle got bigger.

‘There was a mist about two to three feet off the ground and it was sort of spinning around. On the ground, a circular shape was appearing, which seemed to get bigger and bigger as simultaneously the mist grew bigger and bigger and swirled faster.

‘It was gradual and you are standing there and you are thinking what is going on and everyone is discussing it and more and more traffic is building up and everything, and you just think that all the time you don't really realize what is happening. Then you think then that's it and the thing is getting bigger and you are thinking of the beginning and end. But you don't realize what you are looking at. I didn’t understand what was happening.

‘The mist wasn't anything from the ground as there was a clear space between the ground and the mist. There was no wind and no dust (she is an asthmatic). It was the strangest thing I have ever seen. It was a calm summer’s day.’

 

When I asked M how long she stayed looking at the event, she said it was hard to say, but maybe 20 minutes or so. But she couldn’t say as she had lost track of the time because she could not believe what she was seeing. The mist was still there when she left, but whether the formation was still expanding, she couldn't say.   

‘What colour was the mist?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t brown or blue or pink; it wasn’t coming off the ground. And it didn’t go far up into the sky.’

‘M, did you feel strange?’

‘I felt, ‘My God, what is going on? Look what’s happening! Are we going to see a leprechaun or the men from Mars or a Sputnik in a minute or something?’  

When I asked M which date it had appeared, she thought a bit and then took my pad and wrote Sunday 7 July, 1996. She said she remembered this particularly as being a Sunday because she was driving against the traffic.

M asked me, ‘Why haven’t you heard about this before? There were so many people watching what was happening, not just me. Why didn’t the other people talk about it?’

Indeed, it was only by chance that I got to hear about it some thirteen years after it happened due to a passenger in M’s car who had been to my lecture! M hadn’t mentioned it herself, except to her family and friends.

On leaving M, I was puzzled by the time element of approximately 20 minutes. I could not budge M on this. She was adamant and insisted that was what she had witnessed and nothing I could say would make her change her mind.

In contrast, all the other reliable reports I have had of people witnessing crop circles appearing, they have all quite independently mentioned that the circle took between 4 and 20 seconds to happen. So why had this one taken so long?  Was it due to the fact the other circles had just been small single circles whereas this one was large and complex?

I made several inquiries and I understand that it is generally accepted that as a result of work conducted in the 1990s, it is possible to calculate the time a formation takes to appear based on the size and number of circles. The method relates to the earth’s gravitational and magnetic fields. This predicts a velocity of the resulting vortex filament of some 10ft/sec. The filament propagates not unlike a solar flare, repeatedly looping through the earth’s surface ‘embroidering’ a gradually evolving pattern. To create the 151 circles in the 915.5 x 508 ft pattern would take of the order of 20 to 25 minutes to create.

The mist would appear to be as a result of cool water vapour rising from the aquifer (underground spring) beneath and behaves in a manner similar to what happens in the lab when electrical discharges are created through water. Mist forms a little distance from the triggering point, which would support what occurred in this case, M could see the circle growing.  It is when the hydrogen atoms re-combine that all this happens as it draws in ambient energy. This is where the excess energy appears from. As for height, it would be no higher than the radius of the formation created and the mist cloud would grow as the formation grew. 

This is enormously exciting - a real break through and gives us a window into the manner and time in which genuine crop circles appear. Indeed, not only does it appear that M was correct is every aspect, but it also corroborates the report by the pilot, the guard at Stonehenge and the gamekeeper. A truly remarkable event.”

More Information:

For further information about crop formations, please see my book Mysterious Lights and Crop Circles in the Earthfiles Shop and ten years of crop formation reports 1999 to 2009 in the Earthfiles Archive, from which a few titles are listed below.

• 10/05/2009 — Part 2 - 2009 Canadian Crop Formations: Stettler, Alberta and Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
• 09/26/2009 — Part 1 - 2009 Canadian Crop Formations: Wheat Circles in Stettler, Alberta, Canada
• 08/18/2009 — Part 3: Silbury Hill “Quetzlcoatl Headdress” First Filmed At Dawn
• 08/17/2009 — Part 2: Windmill Hill and West Overton After Rains
• 08/12/2009 — Part 1: Windmill Hill Pattern Near Ancient Avebury Came in Rain
• 08/05/2009 — Extraordinary Details in New Silbury Hill Formation Destroyed by Farmer
• 08/03/2009 — "Settlement" Wheat Formation Inside Ancient Celtic Settlement
• 07/31/2009 — Silver Disc Videotaped Near Barbury Castle
• 07/31/2009 — Infrared Video of Light Flashes, Moving Darknesses - and Entity?
• 07/30/2009 — Inside the 12-Armed Ogbourne St. George Wheat Formation
• 07/16/2009 — Part 2: Silbury Hill “Quetzlcoatl Headdress” and Mysterious Tall Blonds
• 07/15/2009 — Part 1: Silbury Hill “Quetzlcoatl Headdress” and Mysterious Tall Blonds
• 07/14/2009 — 2-Stage Cannings Cross Wheat Formation Scene of Farm Arrest
• 07/11/2009 — Update: Is Sudden Solar Intensity of July 5 - 7 What U.K. Spring Crop Formations Forecast for Oddly Quiet Sun?
• 07/06/2009 — UK “Quetzalcoatl Headdress” and “Sixth Sun Tzolkin”?
• 07/03/2009 — UK “Nazca Hummingbird” - Astronomical and Mayan Counting
• 07/03/2009 — Part 3: “Alien Symbols” in Milk Hill and South Field
• 07/02/2009 — Part 1: “Alien Symbols” in Milk Hill and South Field
• 07/02/2009 — Part 2: “Alien Symbols” in Milk Hill and South Field

Website:

Lucy Pringle:  http://www.lucypringle.co.uk/