The Day After The Accosting.
Welp, Tim sure felt pretty sorry for me, because he acted as a super guide to the area on Thursday. First we went downtown and he showed me a nifty coffee shop with a great view of Devizes’ central marketplace, which was a bustling hub on this market day. Then after returning to his apt. with market food in tow, we then hopped in his car and he drove me over to Woodborough and the Silent Circle hq, *the* physical and tangible source for crop circle information operated by Charles Mallet, long time circle investigator dating back to the 1990s. Charles was there in person when we visited, and it was an exciting 30 minute or so talk with him. We gabbed about famous past glyphs including the 2001’s huge Milk Hill formation already mentioned a number of times in this here blog. Charles believes that maybe 80 percent of the circles reported these days are hoaxed, or made by very terrestrial and very human crop circle artists. But he also admits a paranormal aspect to the phenomenon still, and said, for example, he has a hard time seeing how the 2001 Milk Hill formation could have been hoaxed, given such facts as the many circles involved appear only as circles from the air and not the very unlevel ground of the remote spot — they’re actually ellipses. And Charles is friends with Barbara Lamb whose book I had just read before arriving in England. He said she *was* a lamb (of a person), and also Barbara told Charles at some point that he could be an alien himself, which I took to mean she thought he could be a hybrid. Charles also spoke of a clear disinformation program attempting to mask and obfuscate the authenticity of the crop circle phenomenon, and appeared guarded when I mentioned Michael Glickman and his book “Bones of the Gods”. Michael is in the camp that believe the great majority of crop circles appearing in England and elsewhere each spring *are* legitimate or have paranormal origins, in contrast to the 20/80 split of same by Mallet. But depsite their differences, Charles admits Glickman is a good writer. Meanwhile, Tim was taking it all in, and I knew that other crop circle enthusiasts would be visiting him later in the year. I knew he would be returning here with new guests soon. Tim stated to Charles that he has visited 1 or 2 crop circles in person each year since coming to Devizes from Cornwall. I found it sad that he also stated to me that he doesn’t like Devizes as much as Cornwall… “at all”, he then added as punctuation to the thought. He’s given up his plant transmutation business since coming to Devizes. I don’t see him staying a long time there, and he even mentioned moving to Indiana in our fair US of A. Indiana! I’m pretty positive that would be a step or two or three down from Devizes, even, so I’m kind of hoping he doesn’t go through with the idea.
So this morning we also visited the Alton Priors church, my second time going inside and my 3rd trip overall, I believe. This is the site of my Lis 07 collage featuring the very same Tim, at least sans head, and I noted that he didn’t seem as excited about the visit as I did. Maybe I should have told him about this collage in addition to the diptych I told him about the previous night, and involving the Devizes train tunnel (Lis 03 04), the scene of the accosting. But I think it was fate we both went together to this church. The joint experience was another future event seemingly prophesized in the Lis series, following up on the similarly predicted accosting (to me). Again, the Devizes leg of my trip, especially, seems to be a real life expansion of the more contract and abstracted “remote viewing” visit in the Lis series.
After the Alton Priors, we went to the nearby Barge for some food and drink. I got the vegetarian lasagna, which I shared with Tim. I believe we both also got a Croppie beer… ummm.
When returning to Devizes, Tim and I parted ways again as I decided to head up to Morgan Hill for more crop circle country hiking. Parked at a small picnic area just beyond the North Wilts Golf Course, at the intersection of The Wansdyke and the C50 road. Walked old Roman roads most of the way, and also a section of the Wansdyke heading back to the car. Was reminded that this particular run of ancient ditch acts as a strong unifying element for the whole Devizes-Marlborough region, starting, east to west, near Savernake and ending about where I parked my car actually, on Morgan Hill. My walking route took me past the sites of what I now perceive as Spongebob Squarepants related crop circle formations of the past several years, including Morgan Hill’s 2007 star formation and the nearby 2009 square formation. These, along with the seemingly related 3d effect crop circle coming at the southern base of the hill in 2011, are seen in pictures 3-5 of The Hole: Other Considerations post from June.
Thursday night I decided to return to The Lamb pub first visited the night before, but was understandably quite leery of going *anywhere* near the St. John’s Church, not to mention the graveyard in back of it where the accosting occurred only the night before.
Then in the middle of the night, about 3 o’clock or a bit before dawn, Tim got me up and we headed to *Stonehenge* for the Summer Soltice festivities there. Amazing. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures, but some from another visitor can be found here. We departed about 6 o’clock, I believe, and beat a chunk of the crowd out. When we returned, Tim prepared for a weekend visit to Cornwall, his old home as mentioned before, and I decided to drive to Silbury Hill and ended up taking a 2-3 hour nap in the parking lot there. This was the last I saw of Tim, as he didn’t return to Devizes until Sunday, by which time I was in Pewsey picking up Beth and Kim. How glad was I to see them!
But back to Friday. So after my car nap I returned to Avebury, getting at least a small hike west of town in what’s called Avebury Truesloe, a separate village actually. Saw the Adam and Eve standing sarsen stones from across an oilseed rape field, which might have been the terminal rocks of a second Avebury Avenue (Beckhampton Avenue) to compliment the more famous one coming from the west (Kennet Avenue). But, once again, I felt kind of drained at Avebury, for no real reason.
Now the excitement starts again: On the way back to Devizes that night, decided to stop at The Barge. No real suprise there, since I ended up at this restaurant almost every day of my Wilsthire visit at some point. But this day I decided not to immediately go into the pub, but just park and hike up to Adam’s Grave, one of the nifty landmarks in the Altons area that I hadn’t had a chance to visit yet. Adam’s Grave has its own wikipedia site here , described as a neolithic long barrow, which means it is an ancient, earthen burial mound. It was quite a climb to get to the top, but, what a view! Several other people were there with me, including a photographer who was hiking close to me all the way up. Here’s the story, and it involves him. We were just doing some loose chatting since we were walking so close together (seemed rude just to ignore him in such close proximity) and he stated he was up here to look for crop circles. Well I told him that there was one in the field below (the famous East Field) that formed about 2 weeks prior. Until that moment I’d forgotten that it was there, or that I could possibly see it from this vantage point. I was just walking to get to Adam’s Grave itself, a prominent landmark. But then I looked to the other side of Honeystreet from the crop circle I knew about to find what appeared to be a *second* formation, a little more distant from me than the first. The odd thing about this is that I had *just* checked the Crop Circle Connector about 4:40 at the Devizes public library, before coming to Honeystreet and The Barge, and the formation hadn’t been reported. I asked another person present at Adam’s Grave when spotting this formation and asked if that looked like a crop circle to her. She responded that it had just been posted to the Crop Circle Connector *a little before 5*, so that means I just missed the report. She also said that it seemed more impressive that the other formations of the young season in that it had a complicated braiding effect in an outer ring. And I had to be one of the first dozen or so people to actually see the formation. Excitement plus!! Here was a fresh crop circle. I didn’t know yet that the farmer who owned the field had not allowed access, and even threatened to mow the circle if anyone entered. That’s a key component of this story to keep in mind as well.
So I was excited. I decided to cancel a potential trip to the top of nearby Milk Hill for a better vantage point. I wanted to get back to The Barge and see if anyone had any news *there*. Turned out they did not — the pub was not abuzz with excitement about a new formation or anything approaching that. Then I went out to my car to leave, perhaps to enter the fresh crop circle myself to see it with my own eyes, and it turns out an Audi station wagon had *blocked my Ford Fuckup in*. It took me over an hour to get it out, a story just by itself that I’ll have to wait till another day to tell. But the main point here is that I was blocked at The Barge long enough to make a visit to the crop circle unlikely. I’m bolding that, because, especially looking back on it, “forces” were keeping me from entering the formation. Maybe it was my higher self who knew better and was protecting me. Maybe it was something else. But dusk was quickly approaching as I left The Barge’s parking lot and driving past the location of the crop circle, only tens of yards from the road I had to take to get back to Devizes. *Yards* — and you could see some of it from the road as well. So tempting to enter, and I think I would have if it weren’t for the new time constraints. I *had* to get back to Devizes before dark, see, because I could barely drive on those *fucking roads* during the day. There was no choice for me but to skip the circle visit. And it was only when I returned to Devizes did I learn about the farmer’s ban and the threat of destruction. I was very lucky. What would I have found in the circle?
Oh, by the way, here’s the formation I *didn’t* visit. Red Collie would soon write glowingly about it, and from his text I determined that I was staring at a legitimate (non-hoaxed) crop circle from Adam’s Grave and also the C8 that day. And another unusual thing: it turned out to be one of those rare two-parter, consisting of a phase one (the phase I witnessed) which then developed into a phase 2 the next day. Red Collie states phase 2 appeared to be a hoaxed addendum to a legitmate circle, but I’m uncertain after reading other reports. Also for the record, I mention this same crop circle in the Diamond Too 02 post from early July.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 