Is this how a corn circle is formed? The picture, taken near the village
of Walkington in Humberside, shows a whirlwind crossing a field of corn
stubble and throwing up clouds of straw. Nancy Headley and her husband Les,
who took the photograph, say the whirlwind swept across the field for two
to three minutes, tossing straw 20 metres into the air. But they did not
check whether the whirlwind left any pattern.
Terence Meaden of the Circles Effect Research Unit at Bradford-on-Avon,
Wiltshire, says whirlwinds are caused by warm air rising from the hot earth:
‘You get a column of rising air and an inflow at the base.’ Sometimes the
air rushing in begins to twist, creating a vortex.
Meaden says a circular pattern is only formed when a whirlwind comes
to a halt. The whirlwind in this picture, he says, probably did not leave
a circular pattern. Most corn circles sighted in Britain are probably hoaxes,
says Meaden, but he insists that some are genuine. ‘The event pictured could
be part of the story,’ he says.