A little while back I blogged about Australian archaeologist, Greg Jeffereys, who claimed to have discovered evidence of crop circles from aerial photographs circa 1945. The photographs were part of an overlay for google earth. Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, these were pictures of earthworks rather than crop circles. I have uncovered a number of photographs that show how prevalent these earthworks are.
In the UK, there are routine aerial surveys which tend to uncover ancient sites. The National Heritage website has a lot of information about these surveys. Below is a very early aerial photograph of Woodhenge, the predecessor to Stonehenge. Not only can we see the large circle of Woodhenge itself, but we can also see several circles in the foreground of the image which are smaller earthworks. The look identical to the ‘ancient crop circles’ claimed by Greg.
Early aerial survey of Woodhenge
These ancient earthworks are very evident in the landscape today. Below is an more modern aerial survey photograph which again not only shows circular earthworks but square earthworks and interconnecting lines.
Ancient earthworks in the landscape
Recently in the Amazon, due to the removal of some trees Ranchers discovered a circular earthwork from an ancient culture, as seen below.
Amazon earthworks
The following picture shows earthworks uncovered in Colorado, USA.
Earthworks, Colorado
This highlights the danger of internet-based research, it also highlights the danger of ‘it looks like a circle, so therefore it must be a crop circle’ frame of mind. Sadly, this doesn’t stop many croppies and some researchers thinking Greg is onto something.
