Circle in Oil Seed Rape (Canola) near Borchen/Paderborn 1999Short notice by Markus Schröder(Last Update Thursday, 22-Apr-2004 09:48:25 CEST ) |
On May 6, the FGK office received an "anonymous fax", which was nearly illegible. It seemed that someone - who didnt want to give us his name or fax number reported a crop circle between the villages of Borchen and Alfen near Paderborn, directly situated at the autobahn A 33 (Bielefeld Wünnenberg / Haaren).
A search team started two days later looking for the circle. There are many opportunities in the hilly country the foothills of the Sauerland to find crop circles. From the autobahn near the exit Borchen / Alfen, two irregularities in oil seed rape could be seen. They had to be approached from a field-path and turned out to be badly fertilised spots in the field. The oil seed rape in these almost circular spots didnt grow as fast as in the surrounding area and the blossoms were smaller. From a distance, it looked like a crop circle but only from a distance.
So we continued our search. From the autobahn we spotted another field which looked quite promising. Near the Paderborner suburb Wewer we saw a circle with two rings. The A 33 passes here on a bridge the Alme valley, so the fields on the slopes were easy to survey. The crop formation was directly beneath the bridge on the right side at the distance mark km 11.0, driving south (towards Wünnenberg and the A 44).
We reached the field over a field path which led uphill from the country road between Borchen and Wewer. A first inspection of the formation was disillusioning. First of all, the formation was rather old. Most of the stalks had grown about 40 cm (more than a foot) since the circle was laid down. So we concluded, the formation appeared around May 1. During the night before we inspected the field, it had been raining constantly, so the soil was very wet and not many traces, marks, prints, and so on were found. We didnt notice any anomalies like a rotating compass, defects of the cameras or growth anomalies in the oil seed rape. Workers nearby disturbed our measuring, so that a few irregularities were noticed only in the second inspection on May 13. I did the first inspection in the formation alone, which complicated the measuring. The second inspection was done together with another FGK-member, Klaus Listmann.
The circle with two large rings was clearly man-made. The edges were irregular, so that the measuring showed a tolerance of about 20 cm from the average. The stalks were broken, nearly half of them were almost torn into two pieces. Very remarkable was a complete footprint Size 44 (9). The noticed tolerances are a sign for a fast, sloppy work with the wrong tools.
In the centre, we found a hole which was about 2.5 cm (one inch) wide, like many metallic poles, e. g. tent poles. The centre could be reached directly from the only tramline in the field which led onto the field-path. In all parts of the formation, the oil seed rape was laid clockwise, was at no place interwoven, and was never laid down in different directions. Many stalks stood still or again upright. The inner circle had a radius of six metres (1 m = 1.1 yards), at least in the beginning, which was of course directly in the before mentioned tramline. Seemingly, the rope was elastic because the radius grew more and more until it reached about seven metres. Five metres before the circle was completed, the crew noticed their fault and the radius was abruptly reduced to six metres again.
The oil seed rape stood upright in a width of about four metres. An exact measuring is impossible because of the irregular shape. In this ring laid a grapeshot, directly north of the centre. The makers stepped from the circle into the grapeshot. The downmost stalks were broken in this direction. The other stalks laid clockwise in a width and a manner that are caused by a person with normal heights (and footprints size 44 / 9 J ) when s/he turns around with spread legs: a grapeshot, about two metres in diameter with a small bushel of upright stalks in the centre.
The first ring was six metres wide. The beginning of the formation was clearly visible. "Reading" the direction of the downmost stalks, it seems that the makers again didnt think about the problem with the elastic rope. Directly in the north (viewed from the centre) the makers began the circle, about twelve metres away from the centre. Nearly at the end, the makers saw that they again didnt meet the starting point and had to reduce the circle from now 16 metres to twelve metres. To cover up their failure they made a ring in four tracks of about 1.5 metres width, so that the ring is about six metres wide. The inner edge is about ten metres away from the centre. The edges of the four tracks are visible throughout the whole ring. The distance of ten metres could have been followed by orientation marks. We found them in all directions ten metres away from the centre, because the ring was not very regularly shaped. At the "seam" where the 16 metre circle had to be reduced to twelve metres, a negative grapeshot was found. The oil seed rape stood upright in a circle of 1.5 metres, exactly in the second track of the ring.
Ten metres away a second ring was laid down. It was begun in a tramline in the Northeast and was about a metre wide (First ring ten metres, second ring ten metres. Prize question: How long is a common unfortunately elastic - supermarket clothes-line?). After they had finished half of the periphery, the makers noticed a distraction to the interior. The ring becomes smaller and smaller and ends in the west in a tramline. The second try, starting in the Southwest, didnt turn out successfully and ends in a grapeshot. Inside and outside of the second large ring are small rings of about 30 cm (a foot) width visible. They couldnt be traced around the whole formation but end at the starting point of the outer ring. Maybe we get to know more when FGK-member Wolfgang Schöppe has developed his aerial photos, taken from a model plane that circled over the formation.
In the Northwest was a spiral at the outer ring which turns of course counter-clockwise and ends in a small grapeshot. The spiral is irregular and is all in all less than three metres in diameter.
Conclusion: The whole formation is badly man-made. Irregular edges, differing widths, orientation in tramlines, new beginnings at the periphery, broken stalks, the whole in the centre and orientation marks at the edges of the rings are distinct signs, which can be avoided.
We can only speculate about makers and their background and intentions. A possibility: This is the first try of the notorious Kasseler makers Burghasungen / Zierenberg / Kassel is less than 75 km [45 miles] away from Paderborn. Both formations were made (by whom or what ever) about the same time, the formation in Paderborn was only found later. After the clumsy work (a try out?) in Paderborn they went (back?) to the more famous crop circle area around Zierenberg to make a better formation. The manner and style of the two German formations in 1999 are very similar. But all this is just a wild guess.
Hey, just one more for those of you who dont believe in hoaxes: The distance between the formation in Wewer to the airport Paderborn/Lippstadt is nearly the same as the distance between the formation in Zierenberg and the airport Kassel-Calden. Coincidence?
Markus Schröder
The following map (by Frank Laumen) shows the location of the formation (red cross) and a good viewing position (black cross).
