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The Bishops Cannings Formation
Sunday, July 13, 1997 - Bourton
Nr Bishops Cannings, Wiltshire, England
An aerial shot by Steve Alexander © 1997
The formation is near to Devizes on a flat piece of land. The star shaped formation is in wheat and is 150 feet in diameter.
Crop formations are often based on an implicit fivefold geometry but it is rare for this to be manifested clearly in the design. Bishops Cannings is the fourth Crop Circle to embody fivefold geometry and only the second precise pentagram, the first being the Bythorn Mandala of 1993. The outline of the star has been simply and directly drawn here, unlike Bythorn where the outline was continuous and formed a central pentagon. The elegant three-barred features which sit between the points of the star precisely indicate a second ghost pentagram rotated 36 degrees.
Bishops Cannings is an ancient village, previously called Bishops Cannynges, which was in ancient times the most important settlement in the area. It now sits, a typical small English village, below the A361, which links Beckhampton (the location of Silbury Hill) to Devizes, a market town to the south west. This area was in 1994 the site of the astonishing dragonfly formation which many called the King Scorpion.
On the morning of July 13th the 198 foot star appeared about 1/4 mile to the east of the road. It was positioned on the top of a slight rise in the valley which meant that, from inside the formation, you had a comprehensive view of the surrounding landscape.
In the early '90s it was discovered that the five-pointed star, or pentagram, played a very important role in the design of the circles. Though the star itself was rarely visible (Bishops Cannings is only the second pentagram to appear) it was often apparent as the proportion-giving skeleton of the formation. A pentagram drawn over scale drawings of crop circle events often clicked into place with the precision of a component of a Swiss watch.
It should be noted that the pentagram contains the Phi ratio also known as the Golden Section. This ratio, 1 - 1.618, has been a basis of art and architecture for millennia. It is a ratio which occurs in biological life and which can be found in our own skeletal structure. The Fibonacci series is another Phi-based system.
Five-fold geometry is associated with Life and the ancients associated it also with magic, which is why the pentagram plays such an important part in many rituals. In our day, it has been appropriated by several countries, many armies and one gas company.
The formation itself was exquisitely laid in wheat. The lay was entirely clockwise. The five arms of the star terminated in the outer ring before they reached a point and therefore fivengs, each about three feet wide, were left for people to enter.
This was the second pentagram star, the first being the Bythorn Mandala of September 1993. Interestingly, both of these formations were placed "upside down". In our use of the star, one of the arms always point upwards. The Circlemakers know the importance of north and are aware that, to position the start conventionally, one arm should point north or up. In the case of both Bishops Cannings, Bythorn and Bishops Cannings, an arm pointed directly south.
What might the meaning of this be? If the pentagram is the symbol of life and, more particularly man (Leonardo's man in a pentagram) might these formations be stating, symbolically but clearly, that Mankind is upside down? This interpretation is supported by the discovery that the Bythorn Mandala incorporated five precise location points for a north-pointing star. It suggested the way the pentagram, and by implication man, could be correctly realigned.
Remarkably, Bishops Cannings contains exactly the same clues. At Bythorn, the implicit positions were indicated by "slots" showing a housing of 36 degrees which would contain the arms. At Bishops Cannings the sets of three bars indicate the corrected location. If a second - ghostly - pentagram is drawn in the right position, the bars will indicate the 36 degrees of the new arm position.
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Michael Glickman and Patricia Murray
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