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Drawings and text © Freddy Silva 1997. Photos © Lucy Pringle and Dr. Andrew King.

Once again the Circlemakers up the ante with a fractal version of the Star Of Solomon, a more complex version of its earlier cousin at Silbury Hill. Located below Milk Hill, this one stands over 200 ft long in wheat and was discovered by farmer Nick Riley at 6 AM.

The formation sets a new record at 204 circles. With the addition of the central fractal pattern the design completes a sequence of hexagonal geometry. The design itself is again based on the Pythagorean geometry found in the earlier formation at Silbury Hill.

For the benefit of those who hold steadfast to the notion that all crop circles are man made I have taken the time (about four days) to demonstrate just how this year's Milk Hill crop circle, and its simpler cousin at Silbury hill, could be made over the course of an evening, with some of your chums on-hand to help.

First off is a lesson in geometry. Fig 1 above is a Tretactys. You will only know this if you are conversant with Pythagoras and Egyptian esotericism. For those discerning minds, this symbol contains the mystery of universal nature- the three creative points of light and the seven intervals of the pure music scale (or the seven creative periods of God plus the threefold, invisible causal universe.)

Fig 2. By connecting the ten dots of the Tetractys, nine triangles are formed, six of which form a cube. This begins to reveal the six-pointed star in the centre. Now comes the hard part. You have to take this basic plan into a field of wheat. To make matters slightly more complicated you and your group of helpers need to loaf about until, say, midnight; for this is summer in England and it is still possible to see people without the aid of electrically-generated lighting at 11.30 PM. You will then be required to wear very dark clothing to conceal your whereabouts in the field. Lights are out of the question because you are located at the foot of a steep hill, from the top of which it is highly likely that several groups of people will be religiously watching you, in the vain hope of witnessing a genuine crop circle appearing. But tonight you will fool the poor bastards with your lethal cunning. Also don't forget that farmers are out checking the fields for pests like you. So the use of night vision equipment, as cumbersome as it is, may be permitted.

Now the work begins. Because this is a particularly tricky one to attempt we shall forego the usual scientific proceedures at the end of your work that will verify signs of genuineness- plants bent not broken, higher radiation levels, electromagnetic anomalies, dowsing confirmations, soil dehydration, changes in the plants at cellular level, just to name a few. And besides, you will have to contend with tenacious mud all night because the clay ground is sopping wet beneath your feet and, frankly, any attempt to walk over grain will either yank the said crop out of the ground or will cover it in a dull blanket of grey/brown earth. This will give the game away, so avoid it at all costs. Right, you now have four hours before it gets light again. Begin.

Fig 3. Oh dear. I forgot to tell you- the previous diagram was just the blueprint. You and your friends will first have to bisect a few angles in order to lay down a latice grid. Sorry, there's no shortcut here: without this maze you will never line up the pattern outline, let alone the 204 circles which will be embellished upon completion. And try not to make a mess of the wheat while you are laying this on the ground. You are also not allowed to place stakes to mark the centers- you will leave telltale signs of hoaxing.

Fig 4. Well, that wasn't so difficult, was it? Now you have the basic shape. Try to lay the crop down neatly so it folds like a river, with centers circular and slowly becoming triangular to establish the sharp perimeter walls. And don't get that mud on the laid down stems or we will know you have been all over it. Then take a break, otherwise your body odour will attract bands of sex-mad hedgehogs. Which will only complicate matters.

Fig 5. Remember that latice grid in fig 3? Now you'll have to do the same to create the edges for the reverse fractal in the middle. And for heaven's sake- don't treat into the standing crop or you will crease the plants and give the game away. Since all the circles are several feet apart from each other, with standing crop in-between, you will have to levitate over the field so as not to make a mark while laying down the perfect spirals in each one. And you won't forget to do this for all 204 circles now, will you!? Incidentally, how are you going to accomplish this? You have about 240 minutes of night cover, which means just over 60 seconds per circle. No, you can't waste time for a pee.

Fig 6. There, that wasn't so hard. And all of them with standing crop in each center- a very nice touch. It shows that attention to detail is not dead in the world. How does it all look with the crop laying down softly above the soil?

Fig 7. You are a genius, a true Renaissance man/woman/in-between. Now go get some sleep and don't walk around the area for a while. The lack of sleep on your face, not to mention all the mud, will give you away as the original artist of this higher form of mathematical art. But how close does it match the real thing?

Fig 8. Honestly, it just leaves you speeechless.

NEXT PAGE of 1997

Figures 1 and 2 are what convince me people are just too desperate for these things to be mystical.

While in some circle (nice pun there) that triangle with the dots in it might have some super secret meaning, out here where I live it's a common toy, often found in crappy giftshops with either golf tees or horseshoe nails in all but one of the holes (the dots), you then jump one over another to land in an empty hole and the goal is to only have one nail left. I had one when I was 4.

As for #2 making a "tretactys" is the long way around to that. It's a simple doodle, first you make a Star of David, then you draw the outside hexagon (you could draw the hexagon first but I've always found that it's easier to draw a good haxagon if I draw a Star of David first, then I can erase the middle), then you draw the three bisectors.

And of course what none of these things answer is the most important question. Why? Why fly across the galaxy to grafitize a corn field? Of if it's more local why test oddball secret weapons out in the open where you can get caught? Anybody that's ever been in a snipe hunt or gone cow tipping or drove across town to pee on some symbolic spot knows that the bored human (or worse still the bored drunk human) will do just about anything. But why would aliens or super secret weapons plants do something like this? And please no "sacred geometry" crap, I've tried to read those things but every time I do I fall out of my chair in just a couple of paragraphs; very little in this world is sillier than "sacred geometry".