The Stonehenge formation of 1996 remains one of the classics. Its size and its beauty were extraordinary. Without a photograph the shape or design could not be understood from the ground. I visited it on the first day and was bewildered by its enormous scale and its incomprehensible form. The lay of the crop, for the first few days, was lovely.


Image No. 1 • The Stonehenge Formation • (click here for enlargement)

Circumstances of Arrival

The Stonehenge formation was additionally remarkable in that it arrived in daylight. The Stonehenge monument is a short distance away on the other side of the A 34 highway, one of the main routes to the West Country. Stonehenge is guarded throughout the day by uniformed guards with radios and the monument is on a noticably higher elevation than the crop circle field. The guards, who look down on the field, noticed nothing until the afternoon. Pilots using the airfield at Boscombe Down use Stonehenge as a prominent marker. Though the field in question had been overflown throughout the day, there was no report of a formation. The farmer who had people in the area had nothing reported until the afternoon. He was at first intractable in his belief that it must have been man-made and later, when aerial photos were available, he refused to look at them. He was eventually persuaded to open the formation to the public and put his son in charge of the enterprise. Something in the order of 15,000 people eventually visited it.

Geometry

There has been a great deal of speculation as to the precise geometric nature of this spiral. Many have said that it is in fact a component of the Mandelbrot fractal set, others have suggested that it might be a Golden Section spiral or a Theodorus spiral. As yet the question is unanswered.

However, I felt it might be useful to sum up some of the geometric information on this majestic crop formation that we have after two years. Dave Probert is a professional land surveyor and went into the field very early to produce his survey with electronic surveying equipment. I am satisfied that this is as accurate a survey as we could have and I base my work on his drawings.

The layout is so complex that I limited myself to the spine and did no work on the "legs". Any circle can be defined by three points on a flat surface and three points will define only one circle. It was therefore logical that, by locating the centres of three adjoining circles in the spine, it would be possible to locate the sequence of centres of the curvature of the spiral. To simplify the location of each center, I drew a square around each of the 35 spinal circles shown on the survey. The main square, number 1, and the twin largest squares, numbers 16 & 17, have their circles shown. (It should be noted that Dave's survey was carried out very promptly. An extra circle, number 36, appeared at the end of the tail after he was finished.)

I had two motives in doing this work. First, I assumed that the location of the centres of curvature of the spiral would follow a discernible pattern which would help to illuminate the nature of the spiral. Second, I wanted to lay to rest the transparent lie, which many people swallowed, that the formation was hoaxed and that the spiral was engineered totally from the central circle, Circle 1. The claim was that, having made the central circle, this flattened area was used as a working space from which the major spiral was constructed. As can be seen in the diagram supported by the chart, the centres of curvature follow no clear pattern. They seem in fact to be wilfully random. I could learn nothing from their positioning. The claim that Circle 1 was the location of manufacture of the spiral curvature is clearly demonstrated to be a lie.

Though I plotted all the centres, the point was clearly made half way through. I stopped here at "Q" which is the centroid of 18,19 and 20. It is intersting that the first centre, A, which is the centre of curvature for 2,3 and 4, lies well outside the main circle. Until "G" (8, 9 and10) they are within it and afterwards they remain outside. I have been unable to discern any order in the centres of curvature of the spine. M, N, O, P appear to be developing a trajectory but that, too, is short-lived. This was not a very productive exercise but it does end forever the transparent falsehood that the whole formation was constructed from Circle 1.


Image No. 2 • The Spiral Path • (click here for enlargement)

The Spiral Path

The spiral pathway is shown on the drawing. It does not conform to any geometric organisation that I know of and is less smooth a curvature that I had expected. This spiral was actually laid as part of the formation. It was an 8" underlaid path which went down before the individual circles were swirled. The debunkers claim that these are construction paths by hoaxers. They are in fact tracer paths which show the visitor the route through the formation. The tracer path has the function also of constructing gateways from circle to circle thus preventing (or at least minimising) the trampling of crop.

Alignments through Circle 1

Circle 1 has important alignment characteristics. A line drawn from the center of Circle 29 through Circle 1 points to true North. A line drawn from the center of Circle 22 through Circle 1 aligns precisely with the north-western corner of the field - the corner through which visitors entered the formation. If an angle is drawn from this corner of the field to enclose the extreme events of the formation (southwest and northeast) that enclosing angle is precisely 36°, the Golden Section angle. 22 is of course another master number of the 11 sequence, of which more later.

I was unable to find any substantial alignment relationship with the Stonehenge monument.

Thought Bubbles

The Thought Bubble formations of 1994 had small-to-large circles which always went uphill. That is, the small circles were low and the large circles were high. After visiting the formation several times, Patricia Murray had the idea that it incorporated the Thought Bubble rules. She assumed that both ends of the formation would rise to the largest circle which would also be highest. We hired a levelling transit and discovered that Circles 16 and 17 were not only equally the highest in the formation, they were exactly the same size. Thus the Stonehenge formation might be read as two back-to-back Thought Bubbles. Note that the sum of 16 and 17 is 33, yet another master number in the 11 sequence.

7, 11 and The Master Number Sequence

Copyright © 2010 Tim Stouse
Last modified: December 10, 2010

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