FIELD REPORT                WILTON WINDMILL visited 13th June 2024

The location for this year's first crop formation is the field immediately to the east of Wilton Windmill, a popular choice which has hosted formations many times in the past, including 2020, 2016, 2011, 2010 and 2004 that I'm aware of. It's a beautiful and peaceful spot.

There is a large lay-by opposite the field entrance which is perhaps intended for visitors to the historic windmill, which is however rarely used. The farmer here takes good care of the land, allowing a headland where wildflowers are in bloom now, and there is easy access via a wooden gate with a lifting latch into a wide strip of mown grass alongside the field. However the way into the tramlines is not obvious from the top corner. I walked the full length of the meadow to the bottom where a sign warns of private property and the ground starts to slope away. I continued about 50m down the track there to the corner where the tractors have driven into the tramline system and from there walked back uphill within the outer tramline until I could take the 2nd tramline eastwards (the 3rd also takes you there) towards the crop formation. Unfortunately other visitors while I was there decided not to bother and took a direct line through the growing crop. I hope this is not a precedent which will get enlarged over the coming days. Please take the small detour - I'm sure the farmer will be more annoyed by people trampling down his crops than by people walking along his track.

The formation is about 100m into the field and is not visible until you are right on it, thanks to the strongly growing winter barley which is about 120cm tall and in excellent condition. It is much larger than I expected from the aerials because I am still thinking in terms of tramlines spaced at 22m and 24m, however all the big farms in this area seem to have gone over to 36m booms on their sprayers now, so the lines are much further apart and the whole formation must be over 50m wide and 100m long. The slightly sloping ground on this flattened hilltop and the height of the crop means you can't see the whole of its extent from on the ground.

As always I am curious how and by whom this formation was discovered, as it's not visible from anywhere around and there is a clearly signposted ban on drone flying near the windmill. I regret that reporting sources are typically kept secret in the English crop circle world (unlike elsewhere in Europe) as this makes verifiable research nearly impossible. My sense though was that the formation was freshly made and very little trodden or weather-damaged.

The lay is typical for this time of the year in that the crop is only softly or partly laid, in that 'messy' style which from above can reveal interesting textural effects. Chunks of stalks are bent here one way and here another, but not as randomly as appears at first glance. Unfortunately we have only the usual 'postcard sunset' type photos from the drone operators which show neither the correct proportions nor any of the details. There is a single overhead shot on CCC which despite being out of focus and low contrast, does hint at a stippled or chequered effect, so let's hope we get an actual photographer overhead before the lay is damaged. On the ground, none of that was discernible to me. The swirled circles included some rough 'nests' at their origins, which are all off-centre. None of the geometry is aligned to the tramlines or has any centres on them.

 A conspicuous feature of the formation is the number of clearly bent nodes throughout. As far as I could see, every laid stalk, which means most of the crop in the circles, is bent about 150° at the first node, and irrespective of the direction the whole stalks have fallen. In other words this is not regrowth. I think the entire semi-laid effect derives from the bent nodes in this formation, and that the bending from the base may be just from the weight of the ears pushing the plants down. But I do admit that my visit was short (it was raining and cold!) and I took no measurements.

The very late start to this season had me wondering if the circlemakers had got fed up of the lack of interest in their work and had given up on us! So it was a great relief and an extra thrill to be blessed with yet another mysterious miracle in our fields this year. A reminder not to take the phenomenon for granted. I suspect that there is some interesting geometry in this formation and look forward to reading what the mathematicians can find out.

Thanks for reading!

Gramail