For over three decades the southern English countryside has been the site of a strange phenomenon that has baffled observers and spawned countless news stories and more than a few books. In the middle of the night, flattened circular depressions have appeared in fields of wheat, rye and other cereal crops. They range in diameter from ten feet to several hundred feet wide and vary from simple circles to complex spirals with rings and spurs. All have sharply defined edges.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the circles is the frequency with which they occur. In 1990, over 700 crop circles appeared in Britain.