On 27 July 1999 yet another interesting experiment took place. Japanese crop circle researcher Maki Massau took a group of 11 Japanese people to the formation oposite Silbury Hill at Avebury (Wiltshire, UK) to carry out a meditation experiment. Sitting in the beautiful formation at sunset, the group sent out a prayer, asking the Circle Makers to create a new formation with four clear features. The formation had to appear that night, close to Silbury Hill, slightly to the West, and containing a Japanese element. If such a crop circle was to appear the next morning, they would know for sure their prayer was heard...
After finishing this meditation, they decided to extend the request. They drove to a formation at Cherhill and sent out their prayer into the cosmos once again. As they did this, they saw a large ball of light suddenly descend from the skies to just above Cherhill. Then the light ascended once again and disappeared...
After this phase they went on to Oliver's Castle, from where the prayer was sent out once again. Then the experiment was finished and they went back to their hotel.
The next morning they drove off to the local airfield, in order to find out if any new formations had been reported yet. Their excitement rose when one of the pilots confirmed that indeed a new formation had been discovered that morning. He too had seen it at Beckhampton, slightly West of Silbury Hill. When Maki Massau asked the pilot if he could describe the formation, the pilot explained something about a piece of paper folded over another piece of paper. He was looking for the right word, when a collegue helped him: "Just like Japanse origami"...
Maki and his group were delighted when - only minutes later - they flew over the formation. This magnificent pattern was their formation all right, beyond a shadow of a doubt. It had all four features: it was located close to Silbury Hill, a bit to the West, it had appeared that night, and it clearly contained Japanse elements: origami, and it also represented a common Japanse family crest.
An interesting incident was that - as these Japanese researchers were carrying out their last meditation at Oliver's Castle - I was present there as well with a small group, performing our own experiment. We too had done a meditation, after which we made photographs using flash. (The flash triggers something in the balls of light, which makes them easier to photograph. How this works precisely we don't know yet). When I collected my photographs at the lab in Marlborough, I saw I had photographed a beautiful light anomaly at Oliver's Castle. For a second I thought I might have photographed the flash of one of the other photographers, but then I realised that was impossible since the light appeared at a height of about three meters above the ground.
This magnificent example of the interaction between the human psyche and the Circle Makers, is very nicely documented on the video "
