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Is it possible that Stonehenge, Avebury, and other ancient monuments might be representations of a crop circle? There are many of these sites in Wiltshire, and there have also been many crop circles in the county.
The author Colin Wilson, in his book Alien Dawn, while talking about the books by F.W. Holiday, writes in Chapter 5:
"Goblins from Hyperspace (on page 149): And it now struck Ted that Anglo-Saxon barrows (burial mounds) were disc shaped, while others were cigar-shaped – like UFOs and their ‘mother ships’. And in his book The Dragon and the Disc (1973) he speculated whether Bronze Age culture in Britain might, in fact, be a ‘disc culture’".
Wilson also makes the point that: Crop figures had always shown a tendency to appear near ancient sites.
As anyone who lives in the UK can hardly have failed to notice over the years Wiltshire is the county that can probably lay claim to the highest number of crop circles. Many of these have appeared in the vicinity of ancient monuments, such as Avebury and Silbury Hill. And, since they first came into the public consciousness, their designs have become ever more complex. Although, as has been noted from other countries, they can appear in various mediums such as ice, or snow, in the UK they tend to be in cornfields during the summer months. Throughout 2000 it is thought that there were approximately 175 seen in the whole of England, and about 70 of those were observed within 15 miles of Avebury.
In my email correspondence with Nick Redfern (http://www.nickredfern.com) he was kind enough to tell me some more information about crop circles. One of his friends, Marcus Matthews, a Big Cat researcher, had told him that a Big Cat had been seen in a Wiltshire crop circle, but unfortunately he didn’t have any more details about it.
However, Matthew Williams, (whose name should be familiar to all those interested in the subject), told him that while making one of his crop circles he was aware of something rushing at him. But the creatures, whatever they were, stayed hidden amongst the approximately three feet high corn that hadn’t yet been crushed. It appeared that they were being very careful not to be seen, and what Matthew found bizarre was that normally wild animals would flee when humans are around, whereas here it seemed that they were taking advantage of the camouflage in order to charge at him. And, although he didn’t manage to see them, he said that he felt that they were trying to intimidate him.
Nick went on to tell me that Matthew thinks crop circles are truly the modern day counterparts of stone circles as they generate, or are a magnate for, paranormal phenomena. He continued that, when Matthew makes a circle he protects himself by saying an incantation intended to draw positive paranormal phenomena to the area he’s working in, and he feels that this may cause some of these happenings to manifest and materialize.
Another report in relation to crop circles comes from 11th August 1996. At Oliver’s Castle, near Devizes, a video was filmed that showed small balls of light flying over a field in which a crop circle was then seen. However, it is not known if the film was genuine or a hoax.
If you’d like to know more the following web links are devoted to crop circles:
Wiltshire Crop Circle Study Group:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/wccsg/
As its name suggests, this is a site that is devoted to the research of those seen mainly in Wiltshire. It states that: The Group's aim is to study the phenomenon in all its aspects: physical (scientific evidence), metaphysical (the meaning encoded in their symbolic designs) and spiritual, (their transformative effect) and to disseminate the information to the greater public.
Crop Circle Research:
http://ccdb.cropcircleresearch.com/index.cgi
It advertises itself as: The World's first, interactive, fully searchable online database of international crop formations. This catalogue hopefully forms the 'definitive' database of crop formations available on the internet. Access is completely free of charge and open to anyone ……. Our archives go back to the 1940's and even earlier. With over 2500 formations logged, our database contains the most comprehensive online database of crop circles in the world.
There is also the Crop Circle Connector:
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/interface2005.htm
Which can be accessed in: different languages and crop circles from around the world as well as the UK. Reports circles worldwide, and has interesting FAQs page.
A couple of the links from the site include crop circles from the last few years that have appeared in some of the places I’m discussing in this article:
http://cropcircleconnector.com/Sorensen/2002/aveburymanor2002a.html
And:
http://cropcircleconnector.com/Sorensen/2002/ScrewballTriangle.html
Some people maintain that there is a link between crop circles and ley lines. Although the archaeologists would disagree, many of the sacred sites in Wiltshire do seem to be sited along ley lines. A noteworthy one runs through Stonehenge, Old Sarum, Salisbury Cathedral, and Clearbury Ring. You can read far more detail about it here, and the article includes the details of some very strange paranormal phenomena, plus a strange UFO report:
http://www.leyhunter.com/archives/tlh12.htm
There is also an Avebury Ley Line, the details of which can be found here – again with mention of paranormal happenings:
http://www.leyhunter.com/archives/tlh14.htm
Apart from the world-famous Stonehenge, and Avebury stone circle, there are many other ancient monuments in Wiltshire, and some of the lesser-known circles are: The Coate Stone Circle at Chiseldon is one that was just a plain ring, measuring over 200 feet. Unfortunately this has now become almost unrecognisable.
Falkner’s Circle is yet another that has been almost destroyed. It, too, is thought to have just been a plain ring. It is said to have had a diameter of about 110 feet, and is sited close to the stone avenue that leads from Avebury.
Langdean, or Langdean Bottom, Circle, has fallen into such disrepair that it’s hardly visible. It might have been part of an avenue and it is said to have measured about 30 feet in diameter.
Yet another ruined circle is the one at Tisbury. It is not known how large this was but it is believed to have been a circle henge with a stone in the centre.
The Stone Circle at Winterbourne Bassett has also now partly disappeared, although its diameter is thought to have measured approximately 215 feet. This again was a circle henge with a centre stone, as well as outlying stones. Near to this is Winterbourne Stoke Crossroads where a barrow cemetery can be found. It contains a line of ten barrows plus another two groups of barrows. The circle at this site is considered to date from between 2200 and 1400 B.C.
And, finally, one of the best known is Woodhenge, at Durrington. It is thought to pre-date Stonehenge and, obviously, was made from wood rather than stone. Archaeological investigations have dated this site at around 2000 B.C., and it is one of the very few such sites to have been uncovered in Britain.
In fact Wiltshire is home to more than half the 260 long barrows that can be found in Britain. Probably one the most famous of these is the West Kennet Long Barrow, built as a Neolithic grave in approximately 3500 B.C. It is one of the largest Stone Age burial sites. A list of Wiltshire’s ancient monuments can be found at:
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/7991/wiltshire.html
There are 73 sites in the Avebury and Marlborough Downs Region; and 31 sites in the area of Stonehenge. The rest are:
Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork
Cow Down
Figsbury Ring
Mount Scylla Settlement
Robin Hood's Bower
Barrow Cemetery
Aldbourne Four Barrows
Cow Down
Everleigh Barrows
Pheasant Hotel
Silk Hill
Snail Down
Cairn
Jug's Grave
Dyke
Morgan's Hill
Enclosure
Codford Circle
Great Bradford Wood
Henge
Long Ivor Farm
Weather Hill
Hillfort
Battlesbury Camp
Bincknoll Castle
Bratton Castle & Westbury White Horse
Bury Wood Camp
Casterley Camp
Castle Combe
Castle Ditches
Castle Hill (Broad Blunsdon)
Castle Rings
Chiselbury
Clearbury Ring
Cley Hill
Old Sarum
Oliver's Castle
Park Hill Camp
Ringsbury
Scratchbury
White Sheet Hill
Winkelbury
Yarnbury Castle
Long Barrow
Boles Barrow
Boyton Down Long Barrow
Corton Long Barrow
Fussell's Lodge
Giant's Cave
Giant's Grave (Fyfield Down)
Green Barrow Farm
King Barrow
Kington Down Farm
Kitt's Grave
Lanhill
Lugbury
Pertwood Down Long Barrow
Sherrington Long Barrow
Tidcombe Long Barrow
White Sheet Hill
Natural Rock Feature
Aldbourne Blowing Stone
Round Barrow
Arn Hill Down
Boyton Down Round Barrow
Cobhill Barrow
Colerne Park Barrows
Cop Heap
Enford
Golden Barrow (destroyed)
Gunschurch
Hangman's Copse
Marleycombe Hill
Sutton Veny Barrows
Three Kings Barrows
Upton Great Barrow
Standing Stones
Egbert's Stones
Stone Circle
Coate Stone Circle
Grotto
Old Wardour Castle Grotto
The list also includes what they have called: Sites of disputed antiquity, these sites are:
Carving
Kenward Stone
Menhir
The Bloodstone
Natural Rock Feature
East Knoyle
Many of these sites also lay claim to paranormal activity. On regular occasions at the West Kennet Long Barrow a white dog is said to appear at sunrise on 20th June. And some reports say that a ghostly druid escorts it. It would seem that this is a Shuck report.
There are also two more Shuck reports from Wiltshire. One is said to happen at Collingbourne Kingston. Apparently, during the 18th century, two men were trying to escape after having committed a murder. But a Black Dog appeared and chased them back to the village, only to vanish once they had been apprehended.
And the other event takes place at Chapmanslade, in the aptly named Black Dog Woods. The story with this one is that a Black Dog with glowing red eyes haunts the area, and anyone who sees it will die within the year.
We not only have reports of Black Dogs, but also of Big Cats. According to the Fortean Times, Alien Big Cats have been seen as follows:
Wiltshire
Alien Big Cat Survey 2003-2006: England
2003: Compton Bassett; nr Devizes; Lacock.
2004: nr Lockeridge.
2005: Salisbury Plain (“cat/kangaroo creature”).
2006: Salisbury.
In July 2003, at Wernham Farm, located on the Wansdyke, a witness claimed to have seen a large black cat nearby. The cat looked at her before slowing walking away.
Around the area of Biddlestone many witnesses claim to have met a large black cat. One sighting was made in 2007 by a group of off duty policemen who, together with some of their family members, saw a creature that they described as looking like a cat, but being the size of a large dog, except that its body was lower to the ground than that of a dog. Back in 1993 there was a report of a ghost along the A361 Frome Road. Whether true or not can’t be proved, but the location has been host to quite a few Big Cat sightings.
And, in the hamlet of Eastcourt, around dusk, it is claimed that a mysterious ball of blue light floats down the street and lights up all the houses that it passes.
Finally, in woodland near Salisbury there was a report of a wild man who lived in the woods back in 1877. He was shot at when he attacked a local farmer’s wife during a suspected kidnap attempt. After that the wild man was never seen again. But whether that really is a story about some strange creature, or some local unkempt tramp, it is now too hard to tell.
There are also, of course, the famous White Horses scattered throughout Wiltshire. Originally there were about twice as many as there are today, with only eight of them now remaining. These figures were cut into the chalk on the hillsides, and may have derived from an ancient horse worship culture. In prehistoric times horses were sacred to the British, especially to the Celts, as well as to those who invaded us, such as the Romans, Saxons, and Danes. And many of these symbols are situated beneath Iron Age Hill Forts. Interestingly, having been constructed high up on the hills their best view is that seen from the sky!
I can hardly write about Wiltshire’s prehistoric monuments in relation to the strange phenomena that happens around them without mentioning Warminster. The town itself dates from Saxon times, and the downs surrounding it were inhabited by Iron Age people who, naturally, left many monuments behind them, including one of the major Iron Age Hill Forts in the UK.
As many readers will know, Warminster became famous, or perhaps infamous, for the UFO sightings that plagued it during the 1960s and 1970s. Back in those days whatever it was that was plaguing the town became known as The Thing. It was a reporter on the local newspaper, Arthur Shuttlewood, who brought the events to worldwide attention. The story is too long and complicated than I have space for here, but if you Google for it then you’ll get all the information you could possibly want to read. But for some information about it I have mentioned the case in my article entitled "Christmas UFOs" that you can read by clicking here.
More recently reports of UFOs have still been recorded in the area. But, given the proximity of the military training area on Salisbury Plain, this is hardly surprising.
The district around Warminster is also known for sightings of Black Dogs, and there is a forest near the town that is known as Black Dog Woods. Another strange report comes from the Cley Hill part of Warminster – one of the sites where many of those UFOs were supposedly seen. Apparently, these events take place on a fairly regular basis on the dates of 31st October and 2nd November. The story states that numerous witnesses have seen fires burning on the hill, with figures dancing around them. The figures can also be heard loudly singing, and talking in an unrecognised language. But, when explored no evidence for either the fires or the figures are ever found. Those dates, of course, are too near Halloween to know if it's a true story or a hoax.
However, let us return to the three major, most world renowned, ancient monument sites in Wiltshire.
The Avebury stone circle is thought to date from approximately between 4000 and 2600 B.C., and originally it had about 400 stones, but only 27 are left today. It is made from three stone circles, with the circumference covering almost a mile, and is probably the largest such stone circle in the world. Its diameter is 1,400 feet, and it covers an area of around 28 to 30 acres. The site is thought to have been used for approximately 700 years, and shortly before the end of this time some of the huge stones started to be used to erect Stonehenge.
Avebury was created from a circular bank, a huge ditch, and a large ring that surrounded two smaller circles. It also had two avenues, comprised of standing stones, which connected it to another small stone circle called The Sanctuary that was sited on Overton Hill.
When it was partially destroyed a few centuries ago many of the stones were used to build the village that is actually sited within the earthwork. Many of the villagers say that it is a place of intense spiritual energy, and paranormal activity takes place within and around it.
The Michael/Mary Ley Line runs close to its southern edge, and one myth has it that the massive sarsen stone at the northern end of the village actually crosses the road at midnight! This particular stone weighs about forty tonnes and is often called either the Swindon Stone or the Diamond Stone.
There have also been stories of people seeing faeries amongst the stones at night. Some even say they’ve seen ghostly figures moving around the stones, and ghostly singing has been heard coming from the circles.
One lady, while driving through the village one night in 1916, reported that she saw lights among the stones, together with people, and booths and shows, and she thought it was a fair going on. However, a fair had not been held there since 1850.
Other strange tales include the legend that the houses that were built from the stones are considered to be unlucky. It seems that they have poltergeist activity from an entity known locally as The Haunt. In fact, from the 14th Century onwards the locals have maintained that the stones bring bad luck, and several strange accidents have happened.
During 1991, a UFO was seen above the town, although many say that UFOs have been seen there for over 300 years. In more recent times, of course, crop circles and glowing balls of light have also been seen in the area.
Paul Devereux believes that the whole Avebury area, and the structures within it, are orientated in a special relationship to Silbury Hill. As well as having been editor of the Ley Hunter Journal, Paul Devereux was fundamental in establishing what was called The Dragon Project. This was set up to investigate the strange energies at these sites. What the project essentially found were areas that had heightened natural background radiation, and that this could cause vivid waking dreams and hallucinations. It built up a consensus view of certain types of anomaly, and Paul Devereux states that:
"what we found were that apart from subtle magnetic changes, some rocks in stone circles have gross magnetic anomalies within them. There's nothing mysterious about it, it's sort of iron content in the stones, and so forth, but they are really strong and they'll spin a compass. They are usually very specific spots on a stone circle or in an alignment."
In the end Devereux wasn’t convinced, stating that at the end of the project:
"I came away with two distinct impressions. One is that a lot of the talk about energies at sites is just...crap, quite honestly. It's just belief systems that is regenerated by people who don't actually do research. The other aspect was that there are possible specific energy effects that may possibly have had use in a ritual context, such as magnetic field changes and so on. We now know that early peoples and traditional peoples, people in the rainforests and wherever, were very, very well informed about their botanical environment. Exactly what every leaf, bark, blade of grass, whatever it could do in a medicinal sense, in a ritual sense, how it could change consciousness and so on. My guess is that they were equally acutely aware of their...what we would call their geophysical environment. They would know about fault lines, for example, by the energy changes that occurred there. And also by phenomena that occur such as balls of light, anomalous light, earthlights, whatever you want to call them."
You can read more about it here:
http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/aburnham/book/devereux1trans.htm
The author Nick Redfern, in his book Three Men Seeking Monsters writes about a meeting that he, and a couple of friends, had with a man called Malcolm Lees who worked at Rudloe Manor. It is the story of a lady who saw a giant worm at Avebury and, with kind permission of the author, I’m going to reproduce the extract. In Chapter 11 Blowing the Whistle Nick writes as follows:
"………….. The story that he was about to tell us, he explained, was secondhand, and there was no point in us asking for the name of his informant since under no circumstances would he ever reveal it. Lees told us that he joined the Royal Air Force in the early 1950s and retired in the late 1960s. In 1962 he received a posting to an RAF station in Wiltshire, which he declined to name, and worked in the prestigious and secretive world of intelligence gathering. Most of the work, Lees explained, was routine and even mundane and he laughed heartily at the idea, spouted by many, that intelligence work was a glamorous one full of James Bond-style escapades. Nevertheless, Less said, there was one aspect of his career that really was stranger than fiction.
Early one September morning in 1962, a call had come into the base from someone who had seen a UFO hovering in the vicinity of the ancient standing stones at Avebury. UFO reports would reach the base from time to time, said Lees. They were always handled by the RAF’s Provost and Security Services and were for the most part mind-numbingly mundane and related to little more than sightings of unidentified lights in the sky that could in reality have been anything or nothing. Invariably, he said, the reports were a week old by the time they were received and so were simply filed and passed up the chain of command – that was then at Government Buildings, Acton, and relocated to Rudloe Manor in 1977. But this one case was a little different, said Lees.
The witness was a middle-aged lady who had lived in Avebury all of her adult life and who was fascinated by archaeological history. A spinster, she would often stroll among the stones at night, marvelling at their creation and musing upon their history. It was on the night in question that she had been out walking at around 10:30, when she was both startled and amazed to see a small ball of light, perhaps two feet in diameter, come gliding slowly through the stones. Transfixed and rooted to the spot, she watched as it closed in on her at a height of about twelve feet. The ball then stopped fifteen feet from her and small amounts of what looked like liquid metal slowly and silently dripped from it to the ground. Then, in an instant, the ball exploded in a bright, white flash. For a moment she was blinded by its intensity and instinctively fell to her knees. When her eyes cleared, however, she was faced with a horrific sight. The ball of light had gone, but on the ground in front of her was what she could only describe as a monstrous, writhing worm. The creature, she said, was about five feet long, perhaps eight or nine inches thick and its skin was milk-white. As she slowly rose to her feet, the creature’s head turned suddenly in her direction and two bulging eyes opened. When it began to move unsteadily toward her in a caterpillar-like fashion, she emitted a hysterical scream and fled the scene.Rushing back home, she slammed the door shut and frantically called the airbase, after having been directed to them by the less-than-impressed local police. The Provost and Security Services were used to dealing with UFO reports, said Lees, and a friend of his in the P&SS was dispatched early the next day to interview the woman – amid much hilarity on the part of his colleagues, all of whom thought that the case was a practical joke. On returning, however, Lees’s friend and colleague had a very serious and grim look on his face, and informed him guardedly that what had taken place was no hoax.
The woman, he said, had practically barricaded herself in her home was almost incoherent with fear, and agreed to return to the scene only after lengthy coaxing. Lees’s colleague said that he found no evidence of the UFO, and the worm, or whatever it was, had gone. On the ground near the standing stone, however, there was a three-foot long trail of slime-like substance, not unlike that left by a snail. Lees’s colleague quickly improvised and after racing back to the woman’s house, scooped some of the material onto a spoon and into a drinking glass.
After assuring the woman that her case would be taken very seriously and requesting that she discuss the events with no one, he headed back to the base, the slimy substance in hand. A report was duly prepared and dispatched up the chain of command – along with the unidentified slime. For more than a week, said Lees, plainclothes military personnel would wander casually among the stones seeking out evidence of anything unusual. Nothing else was found.
Lees said that he was fascinated by this incident because it was one of the few UFO-related cases he had heard about that was taken very seriously at an official level and that had some form of material evidence in support of it. He did not know the outcome of the investigation but was told in confidence by another colleague two years later of a similar story that involved Rudloe Manor.
According to Lees ’s friend, a bizarre tale was circulating among informed personnel at Rudloe. Supposedly, one of the tunnels had been the subject of additional digging – with a view to creating a shaft that, in turn, would extend to a very deep level and would be completely hollowed out. This self-contained area of about seventy feet by fifty feet would act as an emergency command post for the intelligence service MI5. But after the digging was complete, said Lees, structural problems developed; the whole project was deemed unsafe and was subsequently abandoned. The digging had apparently disturbed something, however.
The area of the underground complex where the digging had taken place was out of bounds to most employees, asserted Lees, but several of those who did have access to the area reported hearing strange echoes throughout the tunnels and what sounded like something large and heavy dragging itself along the ground. No one could determine exactly where the sounds were coming from until late one night when two guards witnessed what they too described as a large worm, perhaps twelve feet long and thicker than a man ’s arm, moving with astonishing speed down one of the tunnels and vanishing into the darkness.
Despite their best efforts to keep the story under wraps, it inevitably began to circulate among the base employees. Whether it was simply a modern-day fairly tale, or if something really had been seen, Lees did not know. But from his friend, he did hear of others who had seen the mighty worm. Sporadic sightings occurred until the late 1960s, said Lees. Oddly, he had also heard tales of a seven-foot-long creature that resembled a giant lizard seen in the tunnels and caverns and of identical giant worms seen on two occasions at Stonehenge nearby.
The details of the lizard sighting were scant but the Stonehenge accounts were more substantial. On both occasions, Lees said, the incidents occurred late at night in June 1966, one having been reported by a husband and wife, the other by an off-duty policeman. In both cases, the witnesses had seen from a distance a giant worm some ten feet long and nearly a foot thick moving clumsily across the road and toward the ancient structure. No one stopped to take a closer look.
Lees told us that he was aware of other UFO encounters investigated by the P &SS that also involved sightings of strange-looking beasts such as apelike creatures and animals that appeared to be a curious blend of giant cat and dog. We smiled knowingly. Lees stressed that, as far as he was aware, no official “project” existed to investigate these events, but stated that the P&SS would look at each case on its own merit and would carry out an investigation if it were deemed necessary.
'I ’ve always thought it strange,” he concluded, “that the P&SS should have investigated this giant seen at Avebury in 1962; then there should have been the worm sightings under Rudloe; and then where does the P&SS move to in 1977? Rudloe.'
As Lees continued to talk his tone changed slightly and he admitted that he had misled us. The tunnel in question where the worm had allegedly been seen was in reality a short distance from Rudloe and was not directly below the base itself, as he had previously told us. We wondered if this was really true. Was Malcolm Lees now regretting speaking with us, and trying to put us off the scent of our quarry, or was the change in his story an indicator of his dishonesty? Was he perhaps concerned that we would travel to the base and demand the answers for ourselves? And, if so, was this his way of steering us away from Rudloe Manor? It was difficult to know the answers to any of those questions. As far as he was concerned, the deception was for our own good and was, as he put it, “necessary before I decided whether or not I should reveal the real location to you.”
(You can read more about the tunnels beneath Rudloe Manor in one of my previous articles here)
Nick also told me that another of his friends, Matthew Williams, had told him, back in possibly 1999, that he had seen a weird reptilian creature in the woods near RAF Rudloe Manor. Unfortunately, Nick wasn’t able to recall the details of the sighting.
And one other strange report from close to Rudloe Manor was a sighting said to have happened in Corhsam Churchyard. Some ladies saw a strange, ugly, little creature just over 3 feet tall, that was sitting on a gravestone. Thereupon one of the ladies fainted, the other was traumatised, but the third one saw absolutely nothing at all. It might be worth mentioning here that Corsham is only about 10 miles from Avebury.
Very close to Avebury stands Silbury Hill, and close by that lies the West Kennet Long Barrow. Silbury Hill is a man-made mound erected some 4500 to 5000 years ago, although nobody really knows why it was built. It is, however, the tallest prehistoric man-made mound in Europe and, in fact, one of the biggest in the world. The base of the mound covers 5 acres of ground, and its height is around 130 feet. The volume of material that it contains rivals that of the Great Pyramid of Egypt.
According to the experts who have just finished a dig at Silbury Hill they think it might have been a tomb for the souls of the dead, rather than for any human. Originally it was thought that it might be the grave of a Neolithic chieftain, King Sil, but no grave has been found, no human remains, and no treasure. However, one mysterious find was that it contained sarsen stones in each of its three separate building stages. These are the very same stones that were used to build Avebury and Stonehenge. Local geologists think that during the Stone Age the landscape around Silbury Hill contained hundreds of thousands of sarsen stones. It is possible that they held a symbolic importance, hence the reason they were included in the building of the hill.
Radiocarbon dating shows that the first stage of the hill was built at the same time that Avebury, and the first phase of Stonehenge, were being constructed. The dig also showed that the top of the hill was originally rounded in shape, and higher than it is today.
The original site was left totally clean with no man-made finds of any kind, including detritus, except for those from much later millennia. It appears that Silbury Hill might have been a very sacred place of pilgrimage.
As a young teenager I was taken to both Silbury Hill, and then on to Avebury, during a school trip. I still have a clear memory of climbing the hill, and then wandering around the old stone circles at Avebury. I was also taken to Stonehenge by my school and can recall very closely looking at all the stones making up the henge. They were massive, somewhat rough to the touch, and inspired in me many thoughts as to how they could have been raised.
The building of Stonehenge was begun by Neolithic people, around 3200 B.C., and finished in the Bronze Age by the Beaker People. It was built in several different stages, with the first being a circular earthwork that surrounded a wooden building.
The second stage, around 2200 or 2550 B.C., was when two concentric stone circles were erected, and the third, about 2000 B.C., was when the blue stones were removed and replaced by large sarsen stones locked together with lintels. Finally, the fourth stage, in about 1600 B.C., was when the blue stones were put up again in the horseshoe and circle that is visible today. The tallest of the upright stones is 22 feet high, with a further 8 feet of its height below the ground. And when it was completed the outermost stone circle contained 30 upright sarsens, but only 17 of those remain today.
It is almost certainly the most important prehistoric monument that we have in Britain. And modern carbon dating now shows that when the megalithic structures of Stonehenge and Avebury were built they were interrelated. Both had avenues leading into their circles, which may suggest that they were built for ceremonial functions.
As with some of the other places I’ve mentioned, there is at least one paranormal story about Stonehenge. Again it is of a Shuck type. The legend says that a dog that hides beneath the hill haunts Doghill Barrow, near to Stonehenge.
With the estimate that Stonehenge was built around 3200 B.C. it would have an approximate age of around 5000 years, give or take a few hundred years. And the history books generally point to 3200 B.C. as the approximate date when the pyramid of Khufu was under construction.
In recent years a settlement was found close to Stonehenge that is believed to be where the builders lived. And, in January this year the ruins of a 7,000 year old Neolithic city was found in Egypt.
With such a plethora of circular ancient monuments in Wiltshire, could they actually be representations of crop circles? Were their prehistoric builders trying to recreate sightings of both crop circles, and UFO phenomena, without any understanding of what they were seeing? Did they build these monuments in the hope of enticing the return of those who had laid such strange signs all over their land? And, knowing that stone would withstand the ravages of time, were they also trying to leave a message for the generations that would follow them?
Of course, the archaeologists will tell us that many of these sites were places of ritual, and of worship, full of symbolism; or that they were astrological observatories. But I’ve always found that to be an easy “catch-all” explanation. They may be right, but they might also be wrong, and it strikes me as just too easy to use that argument as a justification for such buildings. In fact they use the same “excuse” for anything they find whose use is unknown. And they get away with it because most of us are not archaeologists, or scientists!