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THE WOODBOROUGH BRIDGE CROP FORMATION.
By Andrew J Buckley, with additional comments by Jim Lyons
On the morning of July 14th 2003, I witnessed the creation of a crop formation close to the Kennet & Avon canal, about half a mile due south of Woodborough Hill, near Pewsey, Wiltshire UK. The formation appeared within a period of a few minutes or less, coinciding with the close proximity of two unmarked, probably military helicopters. Some of this incident was captured on film and the following report details what I experienced over a period of three hours.
On the morning in question, I had decided to walk to woodborough Hill, after leaving my car parked in Woodborough village at 09.15 hrs. This walk normally takes about thirty minutes and the route is via the Kennet & Avon canal and Woodborough Barns along a public right of way.
On reaching the canal bridge [known as Woodborough Bridge], I stopped to take in the view and scanned the surrounding crop-fields to the north. This I repeated at regular intervals until I reached the summit of Woodborough Hill at 09.45 hrs.
I can confirm with absolute certainty that there were no unusual ground markings / crop formations present in any of the fields south of Woodborough Hill, which would have been easily visible either from the canal bridge, the farm track, or the summit of the hill. From this location, at about 10.00 hrs, I noticed two dark coloured helicopters manoeuvring at very low level near Woodborough canal bridge. Through binoculars they appeared to be Apache Longbow 'gunships' as deployed by the Army Air Corps. In order to obtain a closer look, I ran down the track towards the canal, but after a period of only several minutes both helicopters flew off in the direction of Warminster to the south-west.
I arrived at the canal bridge at about 10.30 hrs and almost immediately became aware of a very loud rumbling noise which seemed to be approaching from the west. Suddenly, two very large helicopters appeared, black in colour with no obvious markings or serial numbers, and fully armed. I was quickly spotted by the pilots and one of the aircraft flew towards me and took up a very low-level hovering position near the canal bridge. Feeling very vulnerable, I took cover behind some bushes adjoining the bridge. My attention was drawn to the other helicopter which had descended to ground level about several hundred yards over the field to my right. The crop below the helicopter was swirling violently as a result of the downbeat of the rotor blades and I noticed that an unusual apparatus was hanging beneath the fuselage which was about five feet in diameter, black in colour, spherical in shape with a short tube like protuberance beneath it and pointing at the ground.
After a few seconds, I was somewhat taken aback to see and hear what appeared to be an explosive updraft of colourless steam or water vapour from the surface of the crop directly underneath the fuselage of the helicopter, which covered an area of approximately one hundred feet. This was accompanied by a loud hissing or sizzling sound, similar to that of rapidly cooling steam under pressure. The effect of this rising 'vapour' was to forcefully hit the underside of the helicopter, causing it to pitch and sway. Perhaps for safety reasons, the pilot rapidly ascended to a slightly higher altitude. After a matter of several seconds, the 'vapour' dissipated leaving an indistinct mark in the crop. I barely had time to deploy my video recorder, which had been packed away in my rucksack. Glancing at my watch, it was apparent that about four minutes had elapsed since the appearance of the helicopters.
With my video camera now deployed, I ran down the track in order to obtain a clearer view of the incident. Almost immediately, the helicopter carrying the sphere-like apparatus swiftly gained altitude and moved off in the direction of Pewsey to the east. Meanwhile, the remaining helicopter, which had been making repeated low-level passes, perhaps in order to distract me from observing his colleague, also flew off in the direction of the military ranges over Salisbury Plain to the south. At this point I distinctly remember checking the the time-clock on my video camera which read 10.41 hrs.
What happened next is still not entirely clear because the last thing I remember is noticing a new crop formation [the Woodborough Bridge formation] precisely where the second helicopter had been hovering and beneath which the 'water vapour' had risen from the crop. The following forty-five minutes were completely lost to me, because at 11.30 hrs I again found myself standing on the summit of Woodborough Hill without any memory of having walked to the hill from the canal bridge. Interestingly, the time-clock on my video camera inexplicably 'jumps' from 10.41 hrs to 11.24 hrs in a single frame. This is definitely not an edit or as a result of having paused or stopping the camera. The time-clock had been accurately set and tested three weeks previously and I had installed a new lithium battery. Despite this confusion, what is certain is that between 10.30 hrs and 10.41 hrs on the morning of 14th July 2003, coinciding with the presence of two unmarked helicopters, one of which deployed what appeared to be some exotic form of technology over the surface of the crop, a new formation appeared in a matter of seconds, which definitely wasn't there before 10.30 hrs.
It is possible that the pilots, whether military or otherwise, were vectored to this location because they had prior knowledge of the imminent appearance of this formation, possibly in order to record or participate in its creation, for reasons we do not yet fully comprehend. Enquiries with the Ministry of Defence would no doubt prove fruitless, although there can be little doubt that the military are implicated in incidents involving the crop circle phenomenon, evidence of which has accumulated over the years through research and video recordings.
Later on the morning of 14th July, I was able to make a thorough ground survey of the formation which was fairly typical of other similar 'pictograms', with a neat and tidy ground or floor 'lay' with very little obvious damage or breakage of the crop stems and seed heads. There was no evidence of any mechanical pressure having been applied via the use of stomping boards or garden roller. I would be very interested in contacting other researchers should they have further information regarding this formation, particularly aerial photographs, detailed ground surveys and perhaps more importantly, any results of crop sampling and testing from this formation. I would be happy to exchange research material, and would be intrigued if anyone else has also witnessed the above incident or obtained video footage, or has experienced harassment from low level military helicopters in Wiltshire or Hampshire. I can be contacted at the following email address:
andrewjb68 (at) hotmail.com
Copyright 2006. AJ Buckley
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