Sacred Number

We would not normally consider the metrology of crop circles since they are either made by hoaxers or by some, to us, supernatural mechanism. However, and no matter their fleeting nature, they are monuments that embody elements of Sacred Number, especially the Traditional Art of sacred geometry.

A recent singular example occurred on 27th August 2002 near the small hamlet in Wiltshire called Crooked Soley. It was noticed by an aviator who notified Steve Alexander, the crop circle photographer [www.temporarytemples.co.uk], who arrived minutes before its destruction by combine harvesters - visible in some of his photos of the circle.

Allan Brown tells the story of how he applied the numerical arts in attempting to fathom the secrets of its design, later involving the influential John Michell in a work that became the book: Crooked Soley A Crop Circle Revelation, www.roundhillpress.com, Sussex, 2005.

Since the dimensions of the monument have been deduced for us, it is worthwhile seeing if there are additional metrological elements in the Crooked Soley monument. There is a looped DNA design within an annular ring that does not reach the circumference of a donut of 72 circles that define leaf-shaped areas that are either knocked down or standing to produce the design. The central disk is unchanged, standing crop.

 Immediately I recognised the 210 feet as being naturally related to the metre-like measure I found at Carnac, the inverse of the Iberian foot of 32/35 feet, in the form of its yard of three feet, 105/32 feet (see Sacred Number, p75-80). There are exactly 64 of these in the diameter of 210 feet. Multiplying by pi as 22/7 yields 660 feet.

This shows the utility of this foot, tentatively called  the Carnac foot of 35/32 feet, in that having seven in its numerator (i.e. on top of the fraction), this can be removed through 22/7 to give a rational, whole number circumference in feet. (Russian feet of 7/6 feet could have been employed to form a 180 Russian foot diameter to produce an identical circle.)

In his excellent article on the Metrology of the Scottish Brochs, John Neal demonstrates that these were built using different types of foot and with a diameter that divided by seven, exactly because then the perimeters could be whole numbers of the same foot.

In Crooked Soley this is again the case, but the circumference is a whole number in English feet. Therefore, the diameter can be made using English feet to divide by seven or other types of foot, with seven in the numerator, could be used. (We will sometime soon demonstrate (here) methods for deriving ancient measures using right angled triangles and the English foot as the base allowing the full toolkit to be reconstituted from one measure.)

Instead of fighting possible battles seeking a causal explanation for the monument, we should perhaps recognise that it embodies a lot of know-how, knowledge information, within a land where similar information was prevalent in megalithic times. There seem to be no winners in the fact that the regular activities of mankind seem little affected and they appear to little care beyind the occasional splash in a tabloid newspaper. Some one, or something, is communicating and this has led to you reading this - which is the significant fact.

Crop circles are largely a cult phenomenon and looking for metrology within them reveals at worst a "genuine fake"*, if fake at all. These are monuments built in a medium that is so transient yet drawing on techniques that were last employed, in the same locality, in the Megalithic; then using material so much more permanent. Perhaps it is these and other contadictions (vandalism versus artistry; a creation, like our world, with an absent creator) that blows fuses preventing any "serious" investigation of the matter.

*a term coined by Picasso to describe his own work, when asked about fakes circulating on the art market.