NEW calendar shows spectacular array of best crop formations

Some of the complex crop formations which have appeared across the Wiltshire countryside this year will be staring down from walls all over the world from January.

It is the fifth year that the Devizes- based Wiltshire Crop Circle Study Group led by Francine Blake has produced its own calendar featuring some of the spectacular shapes which have appeared in cornfields and other crops including oil seed rape this year.

Besides being on sale in local book stores and in tourist information offices copies of the calendar are being mailed to enthusiasts in more than 25 countries, including Hawaii, Alaska and India.

Mrs Blake said: "Although it started in Wiltshire it is now a worldwide phenomenon and we get orders for the calendar from all corners of the world.

"Crop circles are now being reported from all over the world but in England we are better organised to record them because it's a comparatively small country to other places, like Canada for instance, where they are found, and because they are more concentrated here.

"Certainly in Wiltshire they are spotted as soon as they appear because the enthusiasts here are very active in the air flying over in helicopters and microlights and also because we are very well organised in this county."

The £8.50 calendar (an extra £1.50 mail order from PO Box 939, Devizes, BN10 3TA) features 14 photographs of formations which appeared this year in Wiltshire with one exception, which was photographed by the Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire.

Mrs Blake said: "Every year the size and complexity of the patterns goes beyond what we expect."

Mrs Blake said about 55 circles have been officially logged so far this year in Wiltshire but she said there were probably some outstanding reports not yet collated which would bring the total to about 60 about the same as in 1999 with the total for the country being about 200.

Twenty years ago the phenomenon was confined to Wiltshire, but now formations have been seen in Scotland, the north, the Midlands and across the south.

As each season progressed it has been possible to detect a theme, and this year's is geometric with many patterns including triangles.

The Crop Circle Calendar 2001 makes a great Christmas present and can you buy one on-line in the Marketplace section on our website at www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk for £8.50 plus £1.50 delivery. Your calendar will be posted directly to you.