SARUM U3A

Sarum U3A met on Wednesday December19 for a pre-Christmas meeting of socialising and listening to the morning’s speaker, John Bannister, who told us about his work researching Crop Formations (or Crop Circles).

He has been interested in these mysterious appearances since the 1950’s and has amassed an amazing collection of photographs, many of them taken from the air and which give a bird’s eye view of the many, intricate patterns which vary from geometric through, 3-D spirals to faces or even patterns which look like old-fashioned samplers.

  They also seem to be concentrated in specific areas, the Salisbury Plain (in 2007 there were 39 in Wiltshire out of a total of 200+ nationwide) and near ancient monuments such as longbarrows, white horses, Stonehenge, Avebury or Silbury Hill – even occurring in the same field on consecutive years where the shadow of the previous year’s formation can be clearly seen.  The size of the formations can also be surprising – anything up to 1033 feet across.

Similar formations have also been seen on beaches in Australia, in the Egyptian desert near Luxor and as an ice circle in a river in Norway.  Mr Bannister belongs to a group who have had expert analysis done to understand the electrical energy involved in the creation of the formations (in one case 35000 volts per square cm).  There are differing theories about crop formations but Mr Bannister’s evidence was most compelling and his talk and his illustrations held his packed audience absolutely fascinated.  The vote of thanks was made by Anna Taylor.

Our next meeting will be our New Year Party (with entertainment and refreshments).

Information on the activities of Sarum U3A can be found in the reference section of the Public Library.