Crop markings are still a puzzle in scientific circles

Sandro Campardo / Keystone / AP Photo

You have to hand it to those extra-terrestrials: they aren’t just smart, they’re artistic and witty. Every summer since the 1970s, they have parked their UFOs in fields around the world, and set about creating beautiful patterns somewhat prosaically named “crop circles”. And this summer they’ve outdone themselves, having just created a 90-metre wide design in a field in Wiltshire, England, which contains a secret message and a mathematical joke.

At first glance, the circle looks like a half-finished maze. But its broken arcs apparently contain a code which, when deciphered, reveals a formula from higher mathematics. Known as Euler’s Identity, it links together five of the most important numbers in maths: zero, one, pi, “e” and the square-root of negative one, usually denoted by the letter “i”. But in what we must presume is an example of alien humour, they’ve tweaked the last letter, turning it from “i” into a cheery “Hi”.

Some spoilsports may well presume something else, namely that the whole thing is simply a hoax. That’s doubtless the view of most scientists, who have long dismissed crop circles as symbolic only of the wide-eyed credulity of the public. After years of tiresome questions about the circles, mainstream scientists were delighted by the confession in 1991 of two British pranksters that they had been making crop circles since the late 1970s.

In the process, however, they also put an end to any concerted effort to understand what may be a genuine meteorological phenomenon. For while the vast majority of crop circles are certainly no more “inexplicable” than an outdoor sculpture, a handful hint at something rather more enigmatic.

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