The First Incident..

The first crop circle ever to have been documented in history was found to be dated to about 1647 and was depicted in this woodcut shown below..

This image depicts a strange creature creating a circular design in a field of corn. The legend suggests that the farmer, disgusted at the wage his mower was demanding for his work, insisted that he would rather have the devil himself perform the task. Proponents of the belief that crop circles are either naturally caused, or are formed by as yet unknown entities, often support their viewpoint with this old tale. It is worth noting, however, that this is little more than a tale - the circular formation supposedly caused by the creature may be coincidental, or may have been caused by any number of natural or human processes.

An apparently more convincing historical report of crop circles was published in the journal Nature in 1880 (reproduced in 2000). An amateur scientist named Brandon Meland appears to describe a field containing a number of crop circles, along with his suggestion that they might have been caused by "some cyclonic wind action".

Not long after WWII, the aerial surveys that were being made over large areas of Britain revealed some unexpected phenomena, undetectable from the ground. When the surveys photographed ripening crops or drought-stressed terrain they revealed what were soon termed "crop marks", the differential ripening of the crop that revealed differences in the subsoil. These patterns were found to be caused by the buried remnants of ancient buildings. Archaeological investigations were soon instigated, but, though many previously unsuspected archaeological sites were found, no crop circles were ever recorded. Skeptics argue that this would have pointed to circles as a modern phenomenon, even if the initial pranksters had not revealed themselves; believers reply different agendas may simply be at work in the modern day.

Crop Circles shot into prominence in the late 1970s as many circles began appearing throughout the English countryside. To date, thousands of circles have appeared at sites across the world, from disparate locations such as the former Soviet Union, the UK and Japan, as well as the U.S. and Canada.