Land Art

The exhibition will be split into 3 different sections. 1 section for display of unexplained crop circles, another for the display of crop circles that have been used for advertising purpose and the 3rd will be on Doug Bower and Dave Chorley.

Crop Circles: Doug Bower and Dave Chorley.

Publicity Seekers or Genius’?

In September 1991 two Englishmen, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, stepped forward to take credit for the entire crop circle phenomenon.

Doug Bower had been on a trip to Australia where he had seen media reports of the ‘Tully UFO’ incident, in which a circular inprint had been left in the reedy swamp land from which a flying saucer had been seen taking off.

One night on the way home from the pub Doug told Dave about the UFO, which put the idea into their heads. According to the pair their activities begun as a bit of fun back in the late 1970s. They wanted to trick people into thinking UFOs had landed. Their hobby soon turned into an obsession

The tools the pair used were disarmingly simple, being nothing more than wooden planks and string. Armed with the equipment the pair were able to demonstrate the ability to fashion crop circles similar to many that had been found.

To the great disappointment of the friends there was no reaction what so ever after their first circle. Nobody could see the crop circles, apart from the workers in the fields, who weren’t to pleased. This went on for 2 years until the pair decided they needed somewhere with a better public eye view. In 1981 they found the perect spot, Cheesefoot head, a hill in Hampshire, where because of slopping ground the crop circle would be clearly visable. They waited until Spring, but the reaction was immediate. The local paper reported it and then the story was reported nation wide.

A whole industry began to develop around the crop circles. People wrote books on them, delivered lectures, and pontificate in every form of every media known to man about what they believed behind the phenomenon. This was all to the great amusement of Doug and Dave, who collected every report and laughed about them over their pints of beer.

The pair took great pleasure in discomforting the so-called experts. When one expert stated that the crop circles may had been formed by miniature tornadoes as the circles were always made in a clockwise direction, Doug and Dave went out and made one
anti-clockwise. Another brought to attention that the crop circles always appeared on a Saturday morning, this was because Dave and Doug would make them after their Friday night drinking session. One year Dougs wife became suspicious with the amount of miles their car was racking up. Faced with the accusation of an affair Doug had to come clean. With his wife in on the secret and willing to help, they were know free to complete crop circles any day of the week.

The phenomenon became huge, best-selling books were written about it. There was talk of the government commissioning some kind of inquiry into the whole thing. Doug and Dave decided it was time to come clean, they didn’t want tax payers money wasted on their fun. By the time the pair came clean Doug was 67 and Dave was 62.

Cerealogists noted that it strained credibility to think that the pair had created all the hundreds of circles that had been found in the past decade, and they certainly could not have been responsible for the circles outside of England.

Some people believe that the Doug and Dave story was a deliberate disinformation campaign being orchestrated by MI5 to conceal the reality of the British governments contact with aliens.