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- Event Date/Time: August 8, 2005, 4:23
pm
- Location: Boreham Down/Lockeridge, Wiltshire,
England
- Photographer: Pierre Beake (Col de Vence,
France Group)
- Additional Witnesses: Madame Beake
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- The story starts on June 21, 2005 when
British bicyclist Mike Booth was pedaling along a road toward Alton Barnes
(Wiltshire, England) in the early evening. He was startled to suddenly
notice 3-4 odd-looking white, dome-shaped objects gliding through a field
to his left, at a place called Boreham Down near Lockeridge. As Booth stopped
his bike to watch the metallic-looking objects he saw that irregular flattened
tracks of wheat were appearing behind them, although his impression was
that the very solid-looking objects were not touching the ground--instead
just gliding through the tops of the young wheat.
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- As Booth stopped to watch the odd procession
up on the hillside he became aware that the objects had stopped moving
and he was unable to escape the impression that they had done so because
they were now "aware" of his presence. And as is often reported
by people after encounters with strange events, Mr. Booth realized that
he then, quite uncharacteristically, simply accepted the idea that he should
"leave it alone" and go on his way-which he then did.
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- Drawing of dome-shaped object,
based on
witness description. Drawing: T. Borms
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- When Mr. Booth returned to the field
the next day (June 22nd) he photogrphed the tracks of partially-flattened
crop left behind by the strange objects, The photo (below) shows one of
the somewhat irregtular pathways left in the young wheat. The cars (upper
left of photo) are parked on the road in the approximate position from
which Booth observed the dome-shaped objects the evening before.
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- Photo on 22 June 2005, showing
one of the tracks
left by the objects the evening before.
Photo: Mike Booth
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- On the morning of June 22nd a geometric
crop formation was discovered in this same field by passengers in an airplane,
but in another section of the field not fully visible from the road due
to undulations in the land. It is not known if this geometric formation
was present the evening before, but it is likely that it was not--since
this area is well-known to crop circle enthusiasts and is flown over many
times each day. A geometric formation of this size would almost certainly
have been seen and already reported.
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- Boreham Down crop formation,
reported 22 June, 2005.
Photo: Steve Alexander
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- This geometric formation was of particular
interest due to one very unusual feature: the crop in the entire outer
perimeter of the design had been cut-actually shredded into small pieces--instead
of being laid over, and clumps of the shredded plant stems were found scattered
around the edges of the design. The pathways inside the design were all
created in the normal manner, by flattened crop. The farmer is reported
to have denied any involvement (such as taking an old-fashioned lawnmower
into the outer edge of the formation to have created this effect). In the
few cases where plants have been found cut inside formations the farmers
involved have either cut out standing crop only inside a geometric event
(in the hope of making the formation less interesting to researchers) or
simply run a harvester right through the whole pattern in order to destroy
it altogether. Why/how anyone would cut only an already-flattened outer
edge (leaving the internal standing areas alone) is a real mystery.
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- One of the outer edges of the
geometric formation, in
which the flattened plants had also been shredded
into small pieces. Photo: Michael Murray
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- On August 1, 2005 (nearly six weeks later)
Belgian crop circle investigator Tommy Borms visited the Boreham Down site.
His diagram (below) indicates the relationship of the tracks to the formation,
but does not include the undulation of the field which may have obscured
the formation from bicyclist Mike Borms on June 21st.
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- Diagram of Boreham Down field
showing 4 tracks made by
domed-shaped objects & their relationship to geometric crop formation.
Diagram: T.Borms
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- Mr. Borms' photographs of the tracks
show that the plants within them were
- also laid in an unusual manner, with
the wheat stalks flattened from each edge of the track in toward the middle,
then clumped up more or less in the center of each pathway. It was also
clear that these plants were now lying flat to the ground.
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- 1 August, 2005: plants flattened
in toward the center of one of
the tracks and now pressed close to the ground.
Photo: T. Borms.
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- But Borms' most interesting observation
was his discovery that there were markedly lengthened (elongated) plant
stem nodes in the tracks made by the domed-shaped objects, but not in the
geometric formation in the same field. Elongated apical (top node beneath
seed-head) and 2nd nodes in the plant stems are the most thoroughly documented
change in crop circle plants examined from "real" (non-mechanically-flattened)
events all over the world--indicating that the moisture inside the plant
stems has been heated to steam, which has then stretched the upper nodes
(where the external fibers are more elastic than farther down the plant
stem) as it escapes.
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- Elongated plant stem nodes (August
1st) in one of the flattened
tracks left behind the dome-shaped objects.
Photo: T. Borms.
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- Mr. Borms reports that he observed marked
node elongation in most of the apical nodes in the tracks, and to a lesser
extent in the 2nd nodes beneath the seed-heads. He found bending of these
nodes also which, 6 weeks after the plants were flattened, could have occurred
when the tracks were flattened-or, could also have occurred during the
plants' natural recovery processes (phototropism and gravitropism) as they
attemped to reorient themselves to sunlight and gravity. Regardless of
when the node bending occurred, the degree of node lengthening in this
case is considerably greater than that caused by bending due to natural
recovery processes in flattened plants.
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- Why were the plant stem nodes in the
tracks elongated, while those in the more typical geometric formation were
not? Since both events occurred (at the outside) within 24 hours of each
other and in the same crop and in the same field, it appears that the causative
mechanisms were not the same. Was the geometric formation actually mechanically-flattened?
Man-made? If the dome-shaped objects caused the plant stem node-elongation
in the tracks, have these same objects made the hundreds of crop circles
world-wide in which we have documented elongated nodes? Or did they simply
produce one of the plant changes also regularly documented in authentic
crop circles?
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- The unusual domed shape of the objects
which created the four flattened tracks at Boreham Down has been seen,
and photographed, at least once before, in 1956. During a fishing trip
at a lake on the island of Marskdr, Sweden, local artist Kare Karevell
observed a "luminous" object" which "rose up into the
air and dissolved." The object rose so quickly that he was only able
to get one shot.
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- Dome-shaped, "luminous"
UFO photographed
in Sweden in 1956 by Kare Karevell.
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- [To see this account, in Swedish, see:
www.ufo.se/fakta/rapporter/bilder/; original source: UFO-Aktuelt (the magazine of
UFO Sweden), No. 2 (1993). Also, the Norwegian Crop Circle Group: . ]
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- The final anomaly (to-date) in this Boreham
Down case was about to be documented by two members of a French group of
crop circle enthusiasts from France who were visiting Wiltshire that summer.
Members of this group have, for several years, regularly visited Col de
Vence in southern France, a remote area which has a history of UFO incidents.
Over the years one member of the group in particular, Pierre Beake, has
regularly obtained peculiar photographs of highly unusual light phenomena,
as well as more "typical" UFO photos, at the Col de Vence site.
In the majority of these photos neither he, nor any other members of the
group, have seen anything visually-the light phenomena and/or more solid-looking
UFOs appearing only on camera.
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- When Pierre and his wife arrived at the
Boreham Down field on August 8, 2005, it was mid-afternoon, and they were
alone. While standing in the geometric crop formation at 4:23 pm Pierre
began to photograph the surrounding area and sky, as he regularly does
at Col de Vence. Neither he nor his wife saw anything unusual visually,
but when the images were checked on the camera a silvery, very metallic-looking
UFO was observed on one of the photos, the object appearing to be perhaps
_ mile away, in the direction of Milk Hill and Alton Barnes, in the Vale
of Pewsey. This solid-looking object is similar in shape to others he has
photographed at the Col de Vence site where, so far as we know, no crop
circles have ever been reported.
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- This is the first, clear, daytime photograph
of what looks like a relatively close UFO in the middle of the world's
most active crop circle environment. Whether it has anything at all to
do with the circles is unknown and why it was not visible to the eye, but
only to the camera, is another enigma.
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- Silvery disc photographed by
Pierre Beake on August 8, 2005
from field where, 6+ weeks earlier, strange tracks
& geometric crop circle were found.
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- [For additional details of the Boreham
Down, 2005 case please see the BLT web-site: www.bltresearch.com, and click on "Updates" or "Eyewitness Reports."]
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