Ackling Dyke, nr Sixpenny Handley, Dorset

Detail: This is the most complex crop circle (so far) of the 2018 crop circle season. The circle was reported on June 4th and is in a field of barley – it measures approximately 200ft in diameter.

We flew this circle just two days after it was reported on the 4th of June and we were heartbroken when we saw it. The circle had been utterly hammered by visitors, who had walked through the crop and made multiple lines into and out of the formation. In addition, crucial details of the design had been crushed, flattened and otherwise treated with contempt – certainly without respect for the farmer, the living crops and all those that would come after them. It made me truly ashamed to be human. We are so lucky to have these wonderful, miraculous designs to visit, yet when we do we treat them like a cheap tourist attraction.

Visiting: This formation is open to the public under the proviso that people walk in the tractor lines only and do not create any further damage on the field. People have also been asked to not park their cars in the nearby lay-by, but at the entrance to the field – behind the tumuli. It is wonderful to have a circle open, great thanks go to the farmer, but please, please respect his wishes and treat his field and this crop circle with respect.

Visiting Update: This circle has new been harvested.

Most of you know how we feel about the crop circles, it’s in the title of this website, to see one utterly abused is very upsetting. We have been able to digitally restore this formation in our pictures, but we have included in our gallery below an image of the formation as it looked on the day we flew.

Location: This formation sits close to the little town of Sixpenny Handley in Dorset by Ackling Dyke, which is an old Roman Road. The landscape here is awash with tumuli, one tumulus sits in the field next to this crop circle. There is also a small earthwork in the field too. Just to the north of this formation is Oakley Barrow Cemetery (a collection of bell and bowl barrows) and where we have had circles before, most notably on 2014 – see here.

Design & Symbolism: This crop circle has attracted a great deal of attention, its complex and beautiful design has quite rightly amazed many. This design contains a seven fold star around which the rest of the formation is constructed. It is not possible to divide the 360 degrees of a circle into 7 equal  whole number parts (trailing decimal places arise), so creating an accurate heptagram is quite difficult – even on paper! The ring around the formation is also divided into 7 sections, each containing two stylised rectangular spirals – the spirals are pairs (they don’t all go the same way round) they create seven pairs of facing and opposing spirals. As discussed on the Baunton page, seven is the number associated with Spirit, Revelation, the Eternal Feminine and what lies behind the Veil. It is the number associated with the notes in the musical sale and colours in the light spectrum – hence its traditional connection to the ephemeral and spiritual realms – it’s always rather special to see a seven formation. For more about the geometry of this formation, see the Geometry Gallery below.

Visiting the Circles? If you are thinking of visiting any crop circles this summer, please read our Visiting the Crop Circles section. It’s full of useful information and etiquette for visiting the countryside and the crop circles. Please remember that you should not enter any fields without the express permission of the farmer.

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Please Help to keep us Flying in 2018: If you have enjoyed looking at our pictures and information please consider making a small donation to keep us flying. There are so few of us left regularly recording the circles it’s really important that we continue. And while some now use drones to record the circles, it is important that there are still images taken from aircraft where the best quality camera equipment can be used and images that include the broad vista of the landscape can be taken. This kind of photography is expensive and it gets harder with each passing year to raise the funds we need to continue our work, but if everyone who regularly looked at this website made a small donation we would meet the funds we need. You can make a donation here.

NOTE: Some of the images below are beautiful landscape scenes. Click on each image to enlarge them and see the whole picture.

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Geometry Gallery

The symbolism of seven is discussed in the main text above. In the gallery below are a section of images showing the construction (on paper!) of this design. It took a whole day to painstakingly finish the pencil-line – but the images give you a good idea of what was involved. By far the most difficult part was recreating the rectangular spirals, which needed an elaborate grid to be prepared before drawing over the top. It’s a lovely, lovey design though and I think it looks almost as good on paper as it did in the field!