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Vice Blog

LONDON - FIRST CROP CIRCLE OF THE YEAR

My ma is something of a crop circle "enthusiast." So with the

first crop circle of the year

, uh, cropping up in Wiltshire--and on Earth Day, how appropriate/unimaginative--I thought I'd ask her what they're all about and check in on her level of excitement.

Vice: Hi mum.

Mom:

Hello, dear.

So I'm ringing because the first crop circle of the year was found last night and I know you're a big fan…

What?! Where?! I go on ol' the site now and again, but I've lost touch a little.

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Er, I don't know where it was, but it was the first of the year.

Ah yeah, they always come out around this time of year, usually in rapeseed [FACT: it was in rapeseed, good guess, Mom] at this time of year. What did it look like?

Kinda like a Crash Test Dummy logo.

Hmmm, it's probably a fake. Some of them are… [she went into some dribble about the future and stuff but the sounds from the kitchen drowns it out.]

I can't really hear you, Mom. So what, you don't think aliens did it?

No! I never thought it had anything to do with aliens or anything like that. Not that I don't think there's anything out there other than us, though. I'm sure there are other life-forms, like bacteria and stuff, just not other human beings y'know? I'll have a look on the website and I'll know immediately if it's a hoax. I'll let you know.

Are you going to the crop circle convention again this year?

I'd like to, yeah, if I can get a cheap flight.

What did you mean when you said, it might be a hoax? Surely if they're not made by aliens, they're all hoaxes?

Oh, well, you see, in the "fraternity" they say, "That one was a fake," but you know because some of them are so intricate and precise, geometrically and everything, it's like, "How could somebody do that over the space of half an hour?"

I don't really understand.

Well, you wonder what sort of technology has advanced that they can do that. It's interesting, for that reason alone. I mean, there's nothing else really going on around here to be interested in, is there?

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Nothing better than crop circles, no.

I've got to go dear, speak soon.

Thanks Mom, I'll call you soon.

Now, I understand that that wasn't exactly clear, but I've know my mom for a while and I think what she was trying to say was this: She and her crop circle community don't believe the circles are made by aliens. So, in order for one of these to be considered as authentic, they don't need to be made by Martians, but by a certain group of people with mad-ass technology.

So.

Students with a piece of rope trampling down rapeseed = fake crop circles.

Astronauts in space planes built from lightweight moon materials etching laser doodles onto England's green and pleasant land = authentic crop circles.

ROCKY