A mysterious set of crop circles have popped up in a wheat field near Weilheim, Germany.
Farmer Christoph Huttner, who owns the land, insisted to the media that it wasn’t his doing.
As this is the first set of crop circles of the year, it is generating excitement not only locally, but internationally as well.
A number of curious individuals are said to have made their way to the site of the crop circles.
From the air, the image features a series of circles in the center and a curved checkerboard pattern, all in one larger circle.
It’s very complex and was created with expert precision. The sort of precision that strongly suggests that the crop circles were man-made.
There have been numerous crop circle hoaxes, going all the way back to the UFO-related crop circle craze of the 1970s.
This crazy crop circle showed up Germany last week http://t.co/VC7hoTOTEg pic.twitter.com/3H4J0qtOzF
— U.S. News (@usnews) July 30, 2014
However, it turns out that the crop circle did not begin with the Bowers and Chorleys of the world.
In fact, the earliest known reference to crop circles in Western civilization can be traced to a woodcut picture dated to 1647.
The image features a shadowy figure creating a series of crop circles. The being is called the “Mowing-Devil”.
The image was actually featured in a pamphlet created in 1678 in Hertfordshire, England. The story behind the “Mowing-Devil” image relates to bizarre crop circles that a farmer allegedly found in his field.
The urban legend-esque story goes that a farmer was asked by a laborer to pay a fee to mow his crops that the man found rather outrageous.
The English farmer is said to have exclaimed he’d prefer the Devil himself to mow his oats than to pay the laborer a single penny.
The next day, the man awoke to crop circles which were said to have been Satanic in origin.
As you can see, the narrative for unexplained events changes as society changes. Once upon a time, these crop circles would have been seen as miraculous or demonic.
Now they’re readily associated with aliens and UFOs.
It almost makes one wonder who or what the circular patterns will be blamed on in the future.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
