Gunman chased visitors from crop circle
..
Cross Cannings Farm, Allington, Wiltshire
13th of July 2009

While flying in the morning on the 10th of July 2009, I discovered a new crop circle at Cannings Cross
Farm near Allington in the Vale of Pewsey in Wiltshire. It was sad to see that the farmer had partly
destroyed the crop circle by running his combined harvester around the periphery of the formation:

A reconstruction showing what the formation probably looked like before it was destroyed:

RECONSTRUCTION of the probable pattern before the destruction.

About 13.30 on the 13th of July 2009 Guro Parvanova and myself entered the field at Cannings Cross Farm
to take a closer look at the formation. As soon as we had entered the pattern, we saw that it had been "repaired"
and added to:




We barely had the chance to ascertain this before we heard a gun shot, shortly afterwards another one,
and finally a voice shouting: "Get out the field! This is private property!" We realized that the shouting
came from a "thing" with a military green colour, partly hidden in the wheat one tramline away from the
crop circle. And we could see a head and a gun protruding from it.

Slightly shocked by the shooting, we felt the urge to follow the order and started leaving the formation
and the field. Having reached the boundary of the field and having had the chance to slightly recover from the
chock, curiosity gained the upper hand on me, and I decided to go over and take a closer look at the gunman.

His hideout turned out to be a military camouflage tent. He was dressed in full camouflage garments, had a
black mask over his face and a held a gun in his hands. When I asked him if he was the farmer, he said that
he was engaged by the farmer to prevent anyone from visiting the crop circle. I told him that I tought it was
an unnecessarily dramatic way to do it, and that an unarmed guard or a signpost at the side of the road would
have been more than sufficient. Before we left the field, I told the gunman that we would do our best to help
preventing visits to crop circle. I then called the Silent Circle Crop Circle Information Centre and asked
them to announce the farmer's dramatic actions and advice anyone against entering the field.

The Information Centre immidiately contacted the police. After only ten minutes a police helicopter hovered over the field
and two minutes later several police cars arrived. Four fully armed policemen entered the field, apprehended the
gunman, confiscated the gun and the camouflage tent before they handcuffed him and brought him to the police
car.

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One of the police officers informed us that, even though the farmers have the right to protect their land,
they have no legal right to threaten people. They also acsertained that threatening anyone with a gun is
a serious crime. The police took our statement and informed us that the farmer who had hired the
gunman was also being held responsible.

The police then invited us to enter the crop circle and to take all the photographs we wanted.
The new parts of the formation had a fluffy, dynamic and very beautiful lay:

Visiting crop circles for a decade, we have in various ways been told that we are not welcome in all fields.
We have politely been asked to leave formations, we have repeatedly been yelled at as well as being chased
farmers on foot and in tractors and jeeps. This is, however, the very first time we havve been threatened with
a gun. We are content that the police takes such behaviour seriuosly and hope that the incident will make hostile
farmers think twice before they take aggressive action in the future.

13th of July 2009

See more photos of the Cannings Cross crop circle on the Crop Circle Connector

Media articles about the story: Gazette & Herald, Mail Online and Telegraph online