Television news broadcasts, September 9, 1991
A representative sample, including only statements made directly by D&D to camera. There are other sections of footage extant from the day's filming, but we have been unable to locate them as yet. The name of the programme carrying each section is given:
ITN News (early evening bulletin), September 9, 1991:
Bower: We wanted to make the UFO societies think that a UFO had landed, you see. And, erm, after a few years they didn’t know whether to believe it or not. And, erm, as the years rolled by we started doing certain patterns and as you see today, we got quite complicated [with] them.
[break]
Chorley: To be in an English cornfield, in the middle of summer, at midnight or two o’clock in the morning is some… the majority of people wouldn’t know we were talking [about], absolutely beautiful.
Bower: There’s no traffic, there’s no human beings, there’s no nothing. There’s a full moon in the sky, lovely starry night…
Chorley: With your cheese rolls and your beer, what’s better?
ITN News (late bulletin), September 9, 1991:
Bower: Well, how on earth intelligent people of that sort, professors etc, can just walk into a cornfield and see some flattened corn and make all this out of it over the years. I mean we’re [as] astounded as anyone else
Chorley: We’d laugh! We used to laugh! We used to talk to each other… when we were doing this… but all it is, is flattened corn. If you walk in [to a field] you’ve flattened it. The only difference was the shapes.
Bower: We loved the shapes because of its artistic value, but I mean, er, what these people have made of it…
Chorley: [Interrupting] Is their business!
Bower: I mean, it’s just become a big laugh as the years go by.
South Today, September 9, 1991:
Bower: I lived in Australia from 1958 to 66, and when I came home, I… during that time in Australia there was a report in the newspapers of a circular depression in a grass field in Queensland, and they immediately called it a UFO nest. In other words, it was where a UFO had landed. I’ve always been a bit interested in UFOs and sightings and that sort of thing. And when I came home in ’66 I met Dave, who was a fellow artist, and we used to venture out on Friday evenings and have a chat about water colours and things, and have a pint of beer. And then one evening, summer evening, we saw a cornfield where I remarked to him about this, and, erm, I said, ‘Why don’t we put a circular depression in this cornfield, the same as they had over in Australia’, I said. The UFO society [sic] here, which was at its height at the time, Warminster especially, I said they would probably think that it is a UFO that had landed.
Coast To Coast, September 9, 1991:
Bower: For the first three years, nothing happened at all and we realised that we were putting them in fields that the public couldn’t see. And, er, we then had to find a slope or a dip in the land that the motorists could see, you see, and we decided on the Punchbowl at Cheesefoot Head, on the Petersfield Road. And it was only a few hours before the first reports were coming through about the circle that was found in the Punchbowl, at Cheesefoot Head.
[break]
Chorley: I can’t understand anybody of that intelligence walking in and making something of flattened corn, and shapes in cornfields. Quite honestly, had it been us ordinary laymen had gone [in], I think we’d have sussed it out within a year.
[break]
Bower: We used to infiltrate their [researchers’] ranks, when they came up to look at the circles that we’ve done. We came up the next night and mixed in with them, and, er, listening in to all their conversations to what their next move was going to be, such as putting people on and spotting, and all this sort of thing, and, erm, we managed to glean a bit of information that way, but, erm, we could see that they were expecting something bigger all the time.
Chorley: And when you get out in one of these fields at midnight or two in the morning… I’d rather be out in one of these fields than have a week away in the south of France or something, because, anyone that’s not been in one at midnight, in an English countryside with the moon up, and you’re doing that – a few beers and a couple of cheese rolls, absolutely wonderful! Absolutely wonderful.
ITN News (early evening bulletin), September 9, 1991:
Bower: We wanted to make the UFO societies think that a UFO had landed, you see. And, erm, after a few years they didn’t know whether to believe it or not. And, erm, as the years rolled by we started doing certain patterns and as you see today, we got quite complicated [with] them.
[break]
Chorley: To be in an English cornfield, in the middle of summer, at midnight or two o’clock in the morning is some… the majority of people wouldn’t know we were talking [about], absolutely beautiful.
Bower: There’s no traffic, there’s no human beings, there’s no nothing. There’s a full moon in the sky, lovely starry night…
Chorley: With your cheese rolls and your beer, what’s better?
ITN News (late bulletin), September 9, 1991:
Bower: Well, how on earth intelligent people of that sort, professors etc, can just walk into a cornfield and see some flattened corn and make all this out of it over the years. I mean we’re [as] astounded as anyone else
Chorley: We’d laugh! We used to laugh! We used to talk to each other… when we were doing this… but all it is, is flattened corn. If you walk in [to a field] you’ve flattened it. The only difference was the shapes.
Bower: We loved the shapes because of its artistic value, but I mean, er, what these people have made of it…
Chorley: [Interrupting] Is their business!
Bower: I mean, it’s just become a big laugh as the years go by.
South Today, September 9, 1991:
Bower: I lived in Australia from 1958 to 66, and when I came home, I… during that time in Australia there was a report in the newspapers of a circular depression in a grass field in Queensland, and they immediately called it a UFO nest. In other words, it was where a UFO had landed. I’ve always been a bit interested in UFOs and sightings and that sort of thing. And when I came home in ’66 I met Dave, who was a fellow artist, and we used to venture out on Friday evenings and have a chat about water colours and things, and have a pint of beer. And then one evening, summer evening, we saw a cornfield where I remarked to him about this, and, erm, I said, ‘Why don’t we put a circular depression in this cornfield, the same as they had over in Australia’, I said. The UFO society [sic] here, which was at its height at the time, Warminster especially, I said they would probably think that it is a UFO that had landed.
Coast To Coast, September 9, 1991:
Bower: For the first three years, nothing happened at all and we realised that we were putting them in fields that the public couldn’t see. And, er, we then had to find a slope or a dip in the land that the motorists could see, you see, and we decided on the Punchbowl at Cheesefoot Head, on the Petersfield Road. And it was only a few hours before the first reports were coming through about the circle that was found in the Punchbowl, at Cheesefoot Head.
[break]
Chorley: I can’t understand anybody of that intelligence walking in and making something of flattened corn, and shapes in cornfields. Quite honestly, had it been us ordinary laymen had gone [in], I think we’d have sussed it out within a year.
[break]
Bower: We used to infiltrate their [researchers’] ranks, when they came up to look at the circles that we’ve done. We came up the next night and mixed in with them, and, er, listening in to all their conversations to what their next move was going to be, such as putting people on and spotting, and all this sort of thing, and, erm, we managed to glean a bit of information that way, but, erm, we could see that they were expecting something bigger all the time.
Chorley: And when you get out in one of these fields at midnight or two in the morning… I’d rather be out in one of these fields than have a week away in the south of France or something, because, anyone that’s not been in one at midnight, in an English countryside with the moon up, and you’re doing that – a few beers and a couple of cheese rolls, absolutely wonderful! Absolutely wonderful.