UFOs in Reality (11 page)

These interviews, and others, were recorded by the BBC, but, like the rest of the footage, were never shown in Britain. The next year when I met up again with Japanese archaeologist and journalist, Kazuo Ueno, who had interviewed me more fully on the hill-fort site, he told me he had seen the BBC interviews on Japanese television. It seemed that there had been yet another British cover-up. (As will be told in PHASE 7, these encounters in Wiltshire established a working friendship between Kazuo and myself).

An impressive cipher.

We were told by someone on site that a huge formation, being called ‘a
pictogram
’, had been formed during July in a field at Alton Barnes, in the Vale of Pewsey. This was alleged to be the most complicated formation to that date. During one of our daytime periods off-duty we drove to the site and immediately saw that our informant had not been exaggerating. The farmer had set up a caravan at the entrance of the field and had been charging people £1 to enter the formation, so by then it had become much trampled. When I told the gatekeeper I was a serious researcher and involved in the ‘Blackbird’ project, but that I considered it was probably not going to be worth my while examining such a trampled mess, he invited me to just go in and look anyway. To show my gratitude I purchased a key ring with an attached aerial photograph of the pictogram when newly formed. As I moved into this long formation of connected circles with key-like appendages and ringed circles, I had to use that key ring photograph to help me to navigate through the maze I had then found myself in. Being in a ripe crop field on a very hot summer’s day is rather like being in a desert. Some considerable time later, after a thirst-creating investigation, I got back to Marion in the welcome coolness of the car. She was delighted when I presented her with the souvenir key-ring. She treasures it to this day.

Later, we were told of several other, similar formations, which had also been formed during July. We visited some of these during our subsequent excursions. But the Alton Barnes pictogram was of particular interest to me because I felt it really was a kind of cipher of some kind and required further investigation.

In between ‘White Crow’ and ‘Blackbird’ I had noticed that several outstanding UFO Close Encounter events had occurred at times when two major planets had been aligned in conjunction in the sky. The Alton Barnes pictogram reminded me of that observation, so I decided to check it out.

The formation had been discovered during the morning of July 11th, 1990, together with another one at nearby Stanton St. Bernard. My astronomical information told me that several major planets had been very close to conjunction during that period of July.

Referring to the pictogram, I pondered on the ‘key’ features of the pattern. Offset from the main alignment of circles and standing isolated in the crop were two small circles, one larger than the other, the larger one being surrounded by a thin ring. The relative sizes of these items suggested to me that perhaps they might represent the Earth and the Moon. If then I regarded the adjacent large ringed circle as representing the Sun, then, relative to the Earth, the Moon was located in what would have been its Full Moon position. My astronomical data told me that Full Moon had occurred on July 8th, three days before the pictogram had been created. Could it be purely coincidence that the circle provisionally designated to be the Sun had a ‘key’ feature with three prongs pointing backwards towards the depicted Full Moon? Could this be confirming the astronomical significance of the pictogram and suggesting the means by which the rest of the formation might be interpreted?

Another large circle, connected to the assumed ‘Sun’ symbol by a long bar, had a ‘key’ feature attached to it with only two prongs. Was there a planet aligned in conjunction with the Sun two days before or after the July 11th? The astronomical data did not seem to support this idea. Instead it showed that Jupiter had aligned in that way on July 15th, that is, four days after the 11th. However, that planet had been very close to conjunction with the Sun for several days prior to the accurate alignment and would have disappeared behind the Sun on the 13th and reappeared on the 16th. So it is possible to regard Jupiter to have been occulted by the Sun only two days after July 11th.

Concentrating next on the remaining part of the pictogram, it seemed to be suggesting that two bodies, one possibly being the Sun, had been aligned three days before or after July 11th. The astronomical data showed that the Sun and Saturn had been aligned
in opposition
on July 14th. This meant that they would have been in the sky on opposite sides of the Earth and would have been linked by a line drawn through the Earth. In the pictogram, the Earth’s position between the two major bodies could have been symbolised by those two flattened strips located on either side of the connecting bar. In effect, they might be regarded as representing an opposition situation.

The two smaller circles beyond the circle with the three-pronged fork were then the only unexplained representations. They were in alignment with the major elements of the formation but , astronomically, they were difficult to identify. In fact, I had to settle for the observation that Uranus and Neptune were in the same area of the sky as Saturn, but not in conjunction alignment.

A lot of conjecture had been involved in the interpretation of the pictogram at Alton Barnes, but I felt justified in regarding this as a cipher which, perhaps, we had been challenged to decipher. Other such challenges were to arise during the following year to further substantiate that idea.

More astronomical riddles in the fields.

During the summer of 1991, several more pictograms were produced in the fields of southern England and I felt challenged to attempt astronomical interpretation of them. Figs.22(a) and (b) represent them diagrammatically.

Fig 22a

Fig 22b

Taking them in date order, the first one considered was discovered on June 20th and consisted of a large circle linked by a bar to a smaller one. Astronomically, this could have represented the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus occurring at that time. A few days later, on June 24th, a similar pictogram had been found, but this had connected circles of a similar size together with a scattering of five small (grapeshot) circles in a cluster. This arrangement could again have depicted the Jupiter-Venus conjunction and, furthermore, the group of small circles resembled some of the stars of Cancer, the constellation providing the backdrop to the conjunction. On June 29th a pictogram possibly depicting the contemporary Venus and Mars conjunction was found. As can be seen from the diagram, this had additional features which I found to be difficult to explain.

This series of possible astronomical formations continued into July, when more complex patterns were produced, after the relatively simple one on July 5th had seemed to depict the opposition in the sky of the Sun and Uranus.

On July 11th, we were presented with something quite different. As the diagram shows, this pictogram consisted of a large ring with three straight line attachments, in the middle of which two filled-in circles, of equal size, were partially merged. Now it so happened that there was total eclipse of the Sun expected over Mexico later that day. So, it seemed to me to be a logical first step to regard the merging of the two circles as a possible representation of that forthcoming major eclipse. As in all solar eclipses, the Moon was New at that time. Astronomically, a New Moon is depicted as a simple ring and such a ring was obviously being featured, as if to confirm the nature of the event being represented. Two of the three straight lines projecting from the ring I considered might have been an attempt to represent the individual paths of the Sun and the Moon during the eclipse.

On later reflection it seemed, with hindsight, that perhaps our attention had been brought, in advance, to the importance of that ensuing event. As became very much publicised after it, Mexicans who had set up their camcorders to capture the eclipse had found themselves recording unexpected SAC (craft-likeUFOs) flitting about in the partially darkened sky. Of course, all this quickly became headline news in some parts of the world, but I don’t remember such headlines being immediately seen in Britain.

The pictogram just considered was found to have a companion placed in a field some distance away. Perhaps this could have been intended to refer to the same astronomical event, depicted in a different way (see diagram), but I found it difficult to interpret.

The pictogram discovered on the 17th had a three-pronged ‘key’ feature and an adjacent skewed arrangement of two small circles looking as though they might represent the Earth and the Full Moon. Assuming that the rest of the pictogram referred to a date three days before or after the Full Moon, I viewed the astronomical data for the 14th and 20th July. The most notable alignments were those of conjunctions between the Moon and Mars and the Moon and Venus on the 14th. However, the pictogram did not seem to depict that situation. I encountered similar problems with the pictograms of the 23rd.

With my examination of the pictogram of July 30th, my ability to recognise meanings changed dramatically for the better. As will be seen from the diagram, this large formation on a hillside at Lockeridge, Wiltshire, resembled a stylised fish. As I was able to examine this at close quarters for myself, I can vouch for its apparent authenticity. It was beautifully laid down and featured a large swirled circle at its centre. As I considered whether the layout might have astronomical significance, it occurred to me that it might represent the constellation Pisces (the Fish). If so, could those open rings at each end represent the Moon? The astronomical data told me that the Moon was about to enter Pisces on July 31st and to leave it on August 2nd. I was pleased with that solution, especially so in view of my next success.

On August 3rd 1991, a much more compact formation was found. To me it resembled a stylised ram. Aries (the Ram) is an adjacent constellation to Pisces in the zodiac. Assuming that the circular ‘horns’ of the ‘ram’ in this picture might represent the Moon, I was overjoyed to find that the Moon had moved into Aries on August 3rd and left that constellation on August 4th.

My final attempt to interpret the pictograms of 1991 concentrated on a complicated formation discovered on August 14th. Four circles of three different sizes were aligned and linked by a bar of flattened crop. A strange zigzag of flattened crop also sprouted from the largest circle and linked it to two small circles, one larger than the other. The search for astronomical meaning seemed, at first, to be progressing well. On the 14th. Venus and Mercury were in conjunction and it was thought that these might be represented by the little circles on the end of that zigzag. Also, the Sun and Jupiter were close to conjunction and became fully aligned on the 17th. The two linked circles on the right of the diagram, however, did not seem to have any explanation, because they seemed to be placed in opposition to Jupiter –- but there were no planets in that region of the sky, only a comet called Encke.

I don’t wish to unduly extend this section. The results of my research into the crop circles phenomenon have been published over the years, mostly in
‘The Circular’
, the magazine produced by the
British CCCS (Centre for Crop Circle Studies)
. I was in membership of that organisation throughout the 1990s, but my scientific approach to the phenomenon, and the proofs I produced to demonstrate that the genuine items were almost certainly being created by extraterrestrial agencies, were not shared by many members by the end of that decade. Instead, all manner of paranormal and mystical explanations were being preferred. To add further confusion, hoaxing had become developed into a fine art by teams of (I suspect, professional) jokers, probably financed by elements of the Press and officialdom, who delighted in creating ever more complicated patterns to beguile the gullible. I decided enough was enough! Even so, several friends and ex-colleagues have tried to keep me updated each year since then, and I very much appreciate their efforts.