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HOW ITALIAN CROP CIRCLES HAVE EVOLVED: A VISUAL ACCOUNT
(to see the images click on the blue titles)
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The first official Italian crop circle, in maize.
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During the summer of 1998, fields throughout Italy were bombarded with thousands of irregular patches of lodging. These areas were found to have some characteristics in common with crop circles.
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Cusago. 1998. Detail.
Well defined "combed" areas and "pathways" similar to those in crop circles
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The field underwent transformations almost every night, becoming almost totally flattened well before harvest. Neighbouring fields were untouched.
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Above: Bar-shaped non geometrical formations
Below: This small area was bent in 3 layers. Underlying this top layer are 2 others. each of the 3 is laid in a different direction.
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Non geometrical formation in a harvested rice field. The bent rice adhered so tightly to the ground that the farmer was unable to harvest it.
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Some of the many areas in Lombardy hit by the wave of non-geometrical formations in 1998.
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A typical case of frame-shaped lodging which enclosed the entire field.
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Observers on the ground mistook this non geometrical formation for a crop circle. Air photos revealed a typical lake-shaped formation surrounding islands of standing crop. This type of lodging was common in 2000-2001.
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This very large bar-shaped irregular formation appeared after a perfectly calm night. Like many other non geometrical formations of the same year, it contains some novelties..
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Lodi Vecchio. 2000. Detail.
The islands of standing crop are beginning to be positioned more centrally with respect to the edges of the formation, which are slightly less ragged than in the past few years.
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Lodi Vecchio. 2000. Detail.
A "parting-line" separating crop laid in two opposite directions, within the Lodi Vecchio formation.
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Lodi Vecchio. 2000. Detail.
Wavy multidirectionally lay surrounding a standing tuft.
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Lodi Vecchio. 2000. Detail.
The flow of the lodging divides it in two, isolating a tuft.
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Lodi Vecchio. 2000 Detail.
A new feature: a tuft consisting of few stalks stands untouched in the middle of numerous path-like lays.
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Lodi Vecchio, 2000. Detail.
A new feature: a very wide "parting-line" with both sides flattened.
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Lodi Vecchio. 2000. Detail.
Multidirectional, well-defined bending of growth nodes.
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Lodi Vecchio. 2000. Detail.
A new feature: a half spiral.
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A group of non geometrical, near-perfect circles.
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The first perfect spiral found by Centro Studi Cerchi Nel Grano. It was found inside a very large lodged area.
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Nearly the entire field has been downed by multidirectional lays.
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This field is representative of some of the changes taking place in Italian lodging during the summer of 2002. Immediately noticeable are the more compact, regular laid areas, accompanied by a reduction in the number of isolated tufts.
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Bisnate. 2002. Detail.
A new feature: the borders are much neater, straighter and more parallel than in preceding years. Note the absence of "island tufts".
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Bisnate. 2002. Detail.
A new feature: the plants are beginning to be bent all at the same height of the stalk and in the same direction, forming a smooth homogeneous surface.
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Bisnate. 2002. Detail.
A perfect spiral. More than 30 people observed a multitude of miniscule golden spheres swirling in the air above it. However the presence of these lights was not registered by any of the photos taken: a typical example of what we have termed "selectivity", which seems to characterize crop circles, in which a single event is recorded/seen/heard by some instruments/observers present in a field and not by the others.
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Bisnate. 2002. Detail.
A new feature: a pile of seeds that have been severed from plants in the laid area by an unknown process with extreme precision and piled up in an area of standing crop several metres away from the plants they were severed from.
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Monzoro, Cusago. 2002. Detail field A.
A situation similar to that at Bisnate in the previous photo. Green seeds of wheat have been cleanly severed from plants and piled in the middle of a laid area.
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Monzoro, Cusago. 2002. Detail field A.
Wheat laid in 4 different directions..
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Monzoro, Cusago. 2002. Field B.
A new feature; a bar-shaped non geometrical formation created both by laid crop and by the excavation of chunks of soil,.
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Monzoro, Cusago. 2002. Detail field B.
On the right: this large clod of soil with the wheat still attached has been dug out of the hole on the left next to the bag and flung on top of other downed plants.
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Monzoro, Cusago. 2002. Detail field B.
One of the clods which has fallen on its side after being ejected from the ground during the lodging process.
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Monzoro, Cusago. 2002. Detail field B.
The pathway the lodging took through the field, bending the wheat and ejecting clods (grey spots).
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Novara. Ottobre 2002. Rice field.
The turning point for Italy: in autumn 2002 two perfect rectangles appeared in thi field, which was almost entirely lodged with imperfect rectangular forms. From this date perfectly geometrical crop circles begin to make their appearance in Italy in ever increasing numbers.
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Non geometrical formations invade the city (via Missaglia area).
One out of many examples of the abnormal vitality of the lodged plants: taken from one of the nongeometrical formations in Milano, these ears of wheat (plant on the left) were laid on top of the soil in the pot without being watered. Three days later they had already germinated and grown into this small clump of plants which had already developed small ears.
Before the ears of wheat had been put in the pot, the small plant on the right, a rootless branch of lavandula that had been stuck into the soil months before, had apparently been dead for several months. At the same time the wheat ears germinated, the lavandula branch developed roots and began to grow.
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One of the first recognized and publicized Italian pictograms. The night after it appeared, the entire figure was observed by the farmers to be shrouded in a phosphorescent azure gaseous substance for the duration of the night.
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Another of the first Italian pictograms.
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Abbiategrasso. 2003. Detail.
In Italy 2003 was the year for neongeometrical formations in maize.
An example of "currents" created by lodging in a maize field. The maize stalks have been bent so that they are lying on the ground, where they continue to grow horizontally.
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Abbiategrasso. 2003. Detail.
Swelling of a growth node of lodged maize.
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Abbiategrasso. 2003. Detail.
This maize stalk has been bent 5 times, first, almost to the ground, and then upwards.
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Abbiategrasso. 2003. Detail.
The maize stalk has been folded in on itself and is continuing to grow towards the ground. Only the leaf has been left erect.
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Abbiategrasso. 2003. Detail.
This maize plant has its two lowest leaves very cleanly incised by an unknown process. Many other plants in the same field had the same incisions in the same leaves.
About 20 of the incised plants had had the tip of each leaf inserted into the slit of the other, pulled so tightly that they adhered perfectly to the surface of the stalk and wound upwards around leaves, cobs and stalk to the top of the plant, where the still green and growing leaves were knotted tightly, creating a "maize bundle".
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Abbiategrasso. 2003. Dettail.
A closeup of the extremely clean cut slit incised in a maize leaf.
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Abbiategrasso. 2003. Detail.
The low maize plant on the right was one of the plants that was "packaged" in its own leaves. The pressure exerted by the growth of the stalk has just burst open the knotted leaves at the top (note the torn tips) and freed the plant from its package.
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An Italian crop circle of 2004, formed in 3 stages in a way reminiscent of some English crop circles. The picture shows the first stage, followed by the addition of a cross-like structure in the second stage, to which was added a rougher butterfly in the third stage. With the arrival of the butterfly came some very large nongeometrical formations in the adjoining fields, as often happens in England with completed crop circles.
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Panocchia, Parma. 2004. Detail.
The crop was laid very tight to the ground. Underneath the very regular lay, small holes and irregularities in the terrain were found to have an underlying layer of crop laid in small curves and spirals which adapted to the shape of each individual hole.
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Panocchia, Parma. 2004. Detail.
In spite of the very tight lay, individual stalks were left standing at intervals around the crop circle.
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The same night as the third phase of the design appeared, these surf-like non geometrical formations arrived in the adjoining field.
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One of the first cases of an Italian crop circle where a witness was nearby while it was being made. A neighbour of the farmer who had the crop circle appear on his land was awoken in the middle of the night by her terrified animals. She observed "two iridescent flames similar to huge flames from a blowtorch" low over the field. The "flames" were then "sucked back up" by a black object in the sky over them.
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Interaction of the crop circle (in the background) and a nongeometrical formation leading into it. (foreground). The lodging is clearly separate from the crop circle (note its sloppy borders) but functions as an entrance, as it leads from a side road directly into the centre of the pictogram.
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As in England and other countries, there seems to exist an interaction between crop circles and ancient monuments. The Sanctuary of Madonna delle Grazie is very close to and aligned with the pictogram of Pontecurone. This Sanctuary was once a Roman temple dedicated to the cult of Pomona/Cerere.
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The summer after the pictogram of 2003, Sabaudia is revisited by another crop circle. As in England and other countries, certain localities in Italy attract a succession of both crop circles and nongeometrical formations.
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Italy, unlike England, has two separate crop circle seasons: April-June and late August-September.
Like the first perfect rectangles to appear in 2002, this more complete design arrived in a rice field during the second crop circle season of 2004.
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