Text © Freddy Silva.

During a third visit into the main Chiseldon formation in 1996 I encountered a couple who couldn't understand why their normally placid cat suddenly became agitated the moment he crossed the threshold of the formation. He protested and looked around frantically for a way out. Once outside he was back to his normal self.

While most visitors experienced balanced and harmonious energies here, Lucy Pringle also accounts how two children and their pet did not. "The children and their parents had never been into a formation before and when they met Paul Vigay in the nearby Caterpillar Fractal were having a wonderful time and besieged Paul with enthusiastic questions. They left before Paul to visit the other site. As Paul was making his way over a short time afterwards, he met the two children hurtling out of the formation both looking very nauseous. One had actually been sick. Had they eaten too much corn or were the energies too powerful?" Luke, the Burmese family cat, similarly appeared ill at ease and disturbed despite being an active outdoor cat.

In 1997 I was surveying the 'ant' crop circle at Henwood Down with my CPRI colleague Jane Ross, and farmer Will Butler who recalled how during the night the crop circle appeared, his sheep became intensely agitated and his normally comatose cat tried to bolt out of a window.

Erratic animal behaviour in or near crop circles is not new. In his extensive database Colin Andrews has collected a multitude of reports- many first-hand- that describe how animals will avoid a certain area of a field prior to a crop circle, and will continue to do so almost a year after the formation has been cut down. Not all reports are negative: there are also equally as many cases where animals become, well, animated inside formations. Several reports note how dogs will ferret the energy center of a crop circle and treat it as they would an innocent fire hydrant. A horse rider reported how her mount became nervous upon approaching a particular section of field at Alton Barnes, ironically at the spot where two German researchers had dowsed the area and laid down a man made design in the wheat wherever the magnetic energy appeared.

Animals, in general, possess sharper senses than ours and are not deceived by a fertile imagination. So it appears there is a pattern developing that points to animals being aware of and interacting with the energy present at a crop circle. Since we already know that they appear on geodetic lines, animals' reactions prior to an event tells us that the crop is pre-programmed in the ground. They are, in effect, the first eyewitnesses to the event. Interstingly, I have discovered that infrasonic and ultrasonic frequencies are present in crop circles, and such frequencies cause a myriad of effects, from heightened states of awareness and well-being, to nausea and fear- these effects are well reported by visitors to crop circles.

Animals react to these frequecies beyond the human range of hearing. Such frequencies are also known to occur prior to earthquakes, another time when animals behave erratically.

Another animal report concerns a dog who, with its owner, visited a crop circle near Silbury Hill: "My dog appeared to be affected by the atmosphere and acted strangely. He was pouncing around very excitedly and kept jumping up at me all the while. When I sat down he laid his head and paws across me - he has never done this before. Then he sat back to back with me. He didn't seem to want to leave me to explore by himself".

Lucy's cat Hero was also the subject of unusual interaction with crop circle energy. As Lucy explains, "during the summer of 1995 I collected several samples from formations I had visited. Amongst them were samples taken from the Avebury Trusloe spiral in which Keith Wakelam and I, together with many other people suffered such adverse effects. Before going to America in the autumn I placed these samples under my dining room table with the door to the room kept shut. When I returned home, I was busy looking through and sorting out my postcards when I noticed Hero sitting over the barley samples, sucking them avidly. I had to physically remove him. Each time I opened the dining room door he made a bee-line for the samples resuming his sucking. I then noticed that he regularly started to take up position outside the door as though he had some compulsion to enter."

"At the same time he became very vicious, actually savaging me on several occasions. This was alarming, quite contrary to his normal behaviour and totally out of character. I asked friends if they were having similar problems with their cats? "No", came the answer. I seriously considered asking the vet if the had had any recent reports of cats turning savage. By March 1996 I suddenly realised that Hero was back to his normal sweet self and that when I opened the dining room door he no longer hurtled in as though the hounds of hell were after him...The samples of barley were still there, slightly the worse for wear. He ignored them. This summer I gathered more samples for Hero; he has shown not the slightest interest in them, but then none of them were barley."

According to Lucy's investigations, cats are drawn to high energies, especially high negative energies. Was Hero affected by the Avebury Trusloe samples, and was he receiving a regular `fix` until the energy wore off?

The same effect has already been noted in humans- although the energies in crop circles have been documented to be overall beneficial, some people, like their animal counterparts, are prone to extreme fluctuations in behaviour and physical comfort. My friend Lori Sauer who regularly walks her two always-friendly and happy dogs around Alton Barnes, reported erratic behaviour in her canine companions within the 1996 Double Helix formation before she too had to leave, having been suddenly afflicted with extreme nausea. A short while away from the area and they all reverted back to normal.

Credits to Lucy Pringle, Colin Andrews, Jane Ross, Will Butler and many other farmers and individuals.