The Crop Circle Competition

A £3,000 contest: twelve teams had a night, from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m., to lay a set and difficult design in a wheat field. Eleven succeeded.

Rupert Sheldrake and John Michell set it up with The Guardian and The Cerealogist as a fair test: if people could not match the formations in the dark, the case for an unknown cause would stand.

Three helicopter engineers won with a roller made of plastic pipe, a plank, string, a telescopic sight and two stepladders. Sheldrake's verdict: 'Humans could indeed make all the features of state-of-the-art crop formations at that time.'

Explained. Made by people: its makers are known, or have shown how it was done.

STATUS IS OUR CURRENT ASSESSMENT, NOT A VERDICT · REVIEWED 5 OCT 2026