The standard narrative places the crop circle phenomenon as a 1970s creation. It does not. A 1678 pamphlet from Hertfordshire describes what can only be read as a crop circle — a field mowed overnight in a circular pattern, with no explanation. Titled “The Mowing-Devil: Or, Strange News out of Hartford-shire,” it includes a woodcut showing a devil mowing a circular formation in a field. The Bower and Chorley hoax confession covers formations from 1978. It says nothing about 1678.
What the Pamphlet Says
The 1678 pamphlet, printed in London, describes a dispute between a farmer and his labourer over the price of mowing a field of oats. The farmer refused to pay the labourer’s price and declared, in anger, that he would rather the Devil himself mow the field. That night, according to the pamphlet, the field appeared to be “all of a Flame” — witnesses reportedly saw a glow over the field. The next morning, a portion of the field had been mowed in a circular pattern — the oats laid down in a perfect, even circle “as if it had been all of a flame” and with a precision “that no Mortal Man was able to do the like.”
The woodcut accompanying the pamphlet shows a devil-like figure holding a scythe, standing in the centre of a circular mowed pattern in a field. The pattern is immediately recognisable as a crop circle — a flattened circular area in cereal crop.
Why This Matters
Doug Bower and Dave Chorley claimed to have started making crop circles in 1978. Even if their claim were accepted in full — which the physical evidence contradicts — it covers less than 50 years. The Mowing Devil predates their claimed activity by exactly 300 years. It is not an isolated document: it is a printed pamphlet, distributed publicly, describing an event specific enough to include the farmer’s name, the county, the nature of the dispute, and a woodcut illustration.
The pamphlet is held in the British Museum. It is not a forgery. It is a primary historical document from 1678 describing a circular mowed pattern in an English field that appeared overnight with a luminous phenomenon observed by witnesses. That is a crop circle. It predates the hoax narrative by three centuries.
Other Historical Records
The Mowing Devil is the best-documented pre-modern crop circle record, but it is not the only one. Researchers have identified references in local folklore and parish records across southern England to circular features in fields appearing overnight — particularly in the Wiltshire, Dorset, and Hampshire corridor that remains the primary formation zone today. The phenomenon has a geographic consistency across centuries that is not explained by human cultural transmission.
The witness account of a glowing or flaming appearance — “all of a Flame” — is consistent with the ball-of-light phenomena documented by BLT Research and other investigators in modern formation events. What witnesses in 1678 interpreted as the Devil, witnesses today describe as plasma orbs or UAP. The phenomenon is the same. The interpretive framework has changed. The circles have not.
Sources: “The Mowing-Devil: Or, Strange News out of Hartford-shire” (London pamphlet, 1678) — held in the British Museum. Facsimile editions widely available.