Up-front debate transcript
Granada Television, 20/10/91
I have not viewed the original broadcast, and so this transcript is based on Paul Fuller’s, which he originally published in two parts in Crop Watcher magazine (volumes 8 and 9). In most cases, Fuller’s very helpful editorial insertions are maintained, and appear inside square brackets.
Participants:
In addition we hear from several members of the audience, who appear as “Audience 1”, “Audience 2” and so on.
I have not viewed the original broadcast, and so this transcript is based on Paul Fuller’s, which he originally published in two parts in Crop Watcher magazine (volumes 8 and 9). In most cases, Fuller’s very helpful editorial insertions are maintained, and appear inside square brackets.
Participants:
- Doug Bower
- Ilene Bower (Doug’s wife)
- Dave Chorley
- Colin Andrews
- Pat Delgado
- George Wingfield
- Martin Hempstead (part of the Wessex Skeptics group)
- Julie Varden (circles spotter/researcher)
- Julie Varden’s boyfriend (whose name is not recorded)
In addition we hear from several members of the audience, who appear as “Audience 1”, “Audience 2” and so on.
Presenter: [Turning to Bower and Chorley] What gave you the idea, that’s assuming we believe you of course, but we’ll find that out later…
Bower: I lived in Australia from 1958-66 and while there I read a newspaper report that they found a circular depression in some grass in Queensland. They called in the experts and they immediately said it was a UFO nest, and when I returned home in 1966 and made friends with David [Chorley] we were out looking at a cornfield near Winchester one evening and I reminded him of this newspaper report and I said ‘Why don’t we put a circle in this cornfield to baffle the UFO boys’, because the UFO business was at its height at that time, especially around Warminster.
Presenter: Well it’s a fairly normal thing to think really...
Bower: So this is what we did.
Presenter: So you thought it was fairly normal did you?
Chorley: Yes, sure we did.
Presenter: So off you went and what did you do?
Chorley: We just put one down, an ordinary circle in a field called, we called the Strawberry field. [at OSGR SU 5229 near Cheesefoot Head]
Presenter: What, just sort of stamping on it?
Chorley: No no no, we did it first with an iron bar on our hands and knees – the first one we ever did.
Presenter: What time of night was this?
Chorley: It would have been about midnight.
Presenter: Was your wife anywhere in sight?
Bower: No she was at home.
Presenter: What did you say you were doing to the wife?
Bower: I didn’t tell her anything for six years. [laughter from audience]
Presenter: She isn’t here by any chance is she?
Bower: Yes, she’s in the audience.
Presenter: Can you point her out to me ... Where are you luv? You’re Doug’s wife? I’m sorry to put you on the spot luv, you didn’t know what they were getting up to for 6 years?
Mrs Bower: No.
Presenter: What were you doing, were you on mogadons [a drug] or something?
Mrs Bower: No. [laugher] Friday night is boys’ night out so I didn’t question it.
Presenter: Boys’ night out?
Mrs Bower: Yes, they’re allowed their life and I’m allowed mine.
Presenter: But what time did they come home luv?
Mrs Bower: One, two o’clock
Presenter: It took them about an hour then?
Mrs Bower: Well, I suppose so, I found afterwards that it did, yes.
Presenter: And when they finally told you what did you think?
Mrs Bower: [pause] Well, they had to prove to me that It was them that was doing it…
Presenter: And you believe it do you?
Mrs Bower: Yes, but they had to make it [sic]… I do believe it, because I know my husband, I’ve known him for 45 years.
Presenter: Well, you obviously didn’t know much about what he was getting up to did you! We’ll not go into what you two do after midnight but it takes all sorts. [laughter] [returning to Bower and Chorley] So, you did it for fun?
Chorley: That’s right, in the beginning, because the UFO [phenomenon] down at Warminster was at its full height so we thought we’d have some fun in the beginning, but we did them for two years before ... and we were just going to give up when we thought that we’d put one down in a place where people from a prominent position could look down on it, and it worked!
Presenter: But you just did it for the pleasure! But what’s the pleasure going out into a cornfield with a fella after midnight? [laughter] [But] you did this for thirteen years didn’t you?
Chorley: That’s right.
Presenter: And now you’re claiming that you’ve done how many in thirteen years?
Chorley: We’d like to get this straight from the start that we’re not claiming that every one that’s been mentioned we’ve done. We did 25-30 every summer in the Winchester, Warminster and Westbury area, as far down into Sussex, but that’s all we did.
Presenter: That’s about [how many]?
Chorley: You’re a better mathematician than me.
Presenter: A couple of hundred?
Chorley: [Yes] a couple of hundred.
Presenter: Whereas I gather there’s been about 2,000?
Chorley: That’s right.
Presenter: Now, this has all come out, it’s all come out in that famous newspaper TODAY a few weeks ago. Suddenly you’ve been thrown into the public eye, What do you think of these experts [Delgado and Wingfield] here, who have spent a lot of years studying this?
Bower: I can’t really find words to describe them really, they brought it all on themselves, they’ve developed a language of their own – words that are not even in the English dictionary, and we just cannot … this is what made it such a big laugh over the years, we’re still laughing now. We’ve laughed 13 years, we’re laughing now … [laughter]
Chorley: I mean when we’d finished with the UFO business I’d like to just put here now we’re both artists, right, now if we were expecting at any time for the National Gallery or the New English Art Club… [sic] because I was sat at home one night, right, and I thought we’d make different designs…
Presenter: So basically you’re artists who were taking the mickey. Let’s move on... [Turning to Pat Delgado] They think you’re twits, really, don’t they, I mean they’ve made you look a bit dam silly haven’t they. [Holding up a copy of “Circular Evidence”] Pat Delgado, this is his, you’ve probably heard about this book – a very famous book – and you’ve sold how many copies of this book?
Delgado: I think on the last count it was something like 85,000.
Presenter: 85,000! It was no 3 in the Best Sellers wasn’t it?
Delgado: That’s right.
Presenter: So it’s a popular book, but they’ve left you with a lot of egg on your face Patrick haven’t they.
Delgado: In one instance I agree, when I was asked to go down by the TODAY newspaper to a site in Kent to examine a formation that had been flattened out into what we call a laddergram at the time and yes I walked through it and I thought it would look pretty good, I said ‘This looks quite pretty, it makes a pretty picture’. I could, I have to say, that I think it’s genuine and...
Presenter: And it wasn’t was it?
Delgado: Apparently wasn’t.
Presenter: [Turning to Bower and Chorley] It was one that you’d done wasn’t it?
Bower: Yes.
Delgado: I’d be the first one to say OK I made a mistake.
Bower: We were up the road behind you. [laughter]
Delgado: Everybody makes a mistake once a while, I think...
Presenter: You were up the road?
Bower: [Yes] up the hill.
Delgado: I think by saying right I made a mistake I qualify for being a human being...
Presenter: But Patrick you’ve set yourself up as an expert, you’ve spent eight years studying them with all this equipment, you’ve even got the BBC backing you!
Delgado: Other people say I’m an expert, I started off in 1981 but... there are a lot of questions to be asked yet...
Presenter: What do you think of these guys [Bower and Chorley], they’ve had their do at you, what do you think of them?
Delgado: Well I think that what they’ve done is totally irresponsible [loud laughter]
Chorley: You would say that Pat, wouldn’t you…
Presenter: Just a minute, let me just take up on this [apologises to Bower and Chorley, turns to audience] Why are you laughing? Why are you laughing? [picks out a member of the audience at random] Why did you laugh when he said that?
Audience 1: Absolutely incredible! Did he [Chorley] say they were UFOmists [sic]?
Presenter: UFOmists???
Audience 1: It sounded like UFOmists, its absolutely…
Presenter: [Interrupting] what do you mean? Why did you laugh?
Audience 1: These lads here [Bower and Chorley] are quite clearly running rings around them, they [Delgado and Wingfield] take the whole thing so seriously, it’s just beyond belief, BBC money, everything...
Presenter: Do people generally feel that? Anybody prepared to stick up for the experts?... Yes, the gentleman here...
Audience 2: Yes, these people [Bower and Chorley] just really don’t know what they’re talking about because I have been with this project for about three or four years now, going around on my summer holidays going down to these areas to look at these [circles] with Colin Andrews here, Pat Delgado, and I have in fact taken a great deal of interest in the very small circles which have appeared at the side of these massive Pictogram things and I have in fact analysed these circles apart from examine them very close up and I could ask you gentlemen [Bower and Chorley] do you know what mathematical relationship actually defines these little circles?
Chorley: Sorry, I can’t hear you properly what did you say?
Presenter: Do you know what mathematical relationships actually defines these little circles?
Chorley: Of COURSE we don’t! Of COURSE we don’t know... [laughter]
Presenter: [Turning to George Wingfield] OK, your turn... they’ve had their little bit of fun, they’re good actors aren’t they, they’re charmers, you’ve got to have your chance…
Wingfield: Let me have a word…
Presenter: Answer back. Most people think they’re running rings around you… let me introduce you George Wingfield, you’re an expert, this is what you spend your entire time studying isn’t it? Tell me what you think of them...
Wingfield: If you believe these clowns you’ll believe anything! Do you believe what you read in the tabloid newspapers?
Presenter: I certainly do not!
Wingfield: World War Two bomber found on the moon?
Bower: That was the Sunday Sport [news paper]!
Presenter: Well that’s not much different from TODAY is it!
Bower: I didn’t know you read that!!
Presenter: OK, come on, let’s get down to business.
Chorley: Can I ask your profession by the way?
Wingfield: It’s not relevant.
Chorley: I think it is.
Wingfield: No it isn’t.
Chorley: [I think it is] somehow...
Wingfield: I want to ask you some questions...
Chorley: Yes, sure...
Wingfield: You don’t mind if I do? I believe this is a fraudulent scam!
Chorley: Yes?
Wingfield: I believe there are particular motives behind this...
Chorley: Say them then...
Wingfield: Alright, first of all you’re probably not aware that there was a government meeting on the crop circles which was held a year ago. If you remember a year ago Margaret Thatcher was in power...
Presenter: How could we forget! Perhaps it was her, was she in on it?
Chorley: Yes she was! She appointed someone I believe at one time...
Wingfield: Can you shut the clown up. [audience gasps]
Presenter: Come on, let him ask you his question. Come on...
Wingfield: The government meeting concerned three ministries, it was at ministerial level, it concerned the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Defence…
Presenter: This happened a year ago?
Wingfield: [Agreeing] A year ago.
Presenter: At top level?
Wingfield: At top level – and they discussed the crop circles, they were very concerned about the crop circles and the outcome of the meeting was that the cause of the crop circles was totally unknown. They dismissed the idea that they were caused by atmospheric vortices, that was just brushed to one side as being absurd. They dismissed the idea that they were caused by hoaxers – obviously there are a few hoaxes, obviously there are a few jokers about – [but] the vast majority of the circles are not made by hoaxers. There are circles in all parts of Europe, it’s a world-wide phenomenon, there are thousands of crop circles so suggesting that they are all made by Doug and Dave is totally absurd...
Chorley: [interrupting] No, no, can I come in on that...
Presenter: Just let him finish, I want him to finish. What’s your point about... what happened at this meeting?
Wingfield: The point of the meeting was that they, the Ministry of Defence, was given a brief to keep a watch on what was happening and take appropriate action... and at this meeting they spoke of disinformation, several times the word disinformation was brought up, and here [pointing at Bower and Chorley] we have our disinformation.
Presenter: [Incredulously] So this is, these are government agents then! Just a minute, so let me just establish [what] you’re saying. These are part of a government disinformation plot!!!
Wingfield: This is a fraudulent scam. This whole thing is a fraudulent scam and I’d like to put some questions to these gentlemen...
Chorley: Go on then! [changing his mind] Can I put one back to you first?
Wingfield: No, let me have my say...
Presenter: Just a minute, you’ve made your point, let him answer that. You are government agents you two…
Chorley: We’re government agents? I tell you, is this a coincidence [that] when the Japanese [etc], Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews had their surveillance on fields then every surveillance you’ve had there haven’t been [circles] in those fields [but] behind you in other places they’ve taken place. If next year…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] There has been one in other fields, you don’t know what you’re talking about!
Presenter: Let him finish.
Chorley: Of course I know what I’m talking about... If next year you surveyed every one of those fields on Cheesefoot Head [and] got volunteers we can say that there won’t be a circle there because you can’t go in and do them when someone’s watching you [laughter from audience] and this is what [we’ve been doing].
Presenter: Do you want to answer it?
Wingfield: If I could just take that one up, there was a serious operation this year and the field was completely surrounded by intruder alarms, we have some of the people in the audience here who see that operation up, and a circle was formed under the tightest possible security...
Chorley: What was it then?
Wingfield: Don’t tell me that you and Mr Barr [sic] actually got into that field and did it?
Chorley: No, we’re not saying you’re... one thing I resent is your calling us clowns – I’m an intelligent guy, I’ve called you nothing.
Presenter: Oh just hold on a minute, it worries me a little bit you spending your nights with your friend out in a cornfield after 12 o’clock, I mean come on! [more audience laughter] But there is someone here who was in that field [at Cheesefoot Head] so let’s take an example. Now you are Julie Varden yes? You were in that very field?
Julie Varden: Well no, [but] we have been researching crop circles for a few years now and we met Doug and Dave on the 20th August...
Presenter: That’s you and your boyfriend?
Julie Varden: Yes, at Cheesefoot Head, and we spoke to them, we had a lengthy conversation with them [for] about 45 minutes, we told them everything we knew about the crop circles, information and intricacies about the crop circles that only we knew and everything that has been mentioned in that conversation has later been reproduced in the TODAY newspaper…
Presenter: So you were shocked when you saw the TODAY newspaper?
Julie Varden: We couldn’t believe it, we couldn’t believe it!
Presenter: [To Julie’s boyfriend] What did you have to say luv?
Julie’s Boyfriend: Well they weren’t asking any questions abut where we were going to be that night although we did tell them that were the only ones who were [there] that night and that we’d be in the circle … near where we were talking to them... They could have gone to anywhere in Cheesefoot Head, done a circle that night knowing full well there was no one else there, the only questions they actually asked us were questions about circles that had happened this year – as though they wanted to make sure they knew about every one that had happened around Cheesefoot Head ... and I’ve been there!
Presenter: [To Bower and Chorley] So they caught you red-handed then, really you just nicked [stole] their information?
Chorley: I seem to remember you, you’re the lad that came down that night…
Julie’s Boyfriend: Yeah!
Chorley: ... and mentioned that when we’d done one there was a fella sleeping in one.
Julie’s Boyfriend: Yeah, that’s right.
Chorley: We did EVERY ONE on Cheesefoot Head last summer [1990].
Julie’s Boyfriend: Well I was also there [and didn’t see anything].
Chorley: Well, just a moment, may I just say this... We wouldn’t know, there was a lot – about 90 per cent of them were done out of sight of the general public last summer – now we’d be prepared to show diagrams of every one of them without knowing, we’ve not been in helicopters against you people bringing them in and we’ve even signed them ‘‘D&D’’ and they STILL bought it [D&D = Doug and Dave]!
Julie’s Boyfriend: Well just a minute, you were asleep, you’re saying.
Wingfield: [Interrupting] let me ask these men some questions.
Chorley: Yeah, go on then.
Wingfield: Tell me about the MBF news agency.
Presenter: Just a minute luv, this his going to need some explaining. This is ... at the very bottom of [the TODAY exclusive] it says “TODAY has paid no money” and then it says “Copyright MBF Services”. Now I noticed that and I thought what the heck that meant so that’s what you’re talking about.
Wingfield: Right Mr Chorley, who are MBF Services?.
Chorley: I don’t know and I haven’t got a clue.
Wingfield: You don’ t know! Who pays you the money? Who pays you the money?
Chorley: No one’s paid us any money.
Wingfield: Who pays you to go to America next week or whenever you’re going to America?
Chorley: No one’s paid us any money [to go to America].
Wingfield: So you’ve not been given any money whatsoever!
Chorley: No money whatsoever. No money whatsoever at this moment. [Changing his mind] Yes they did, they gave us a couple of quid down for our bus fares [laughter].
Wingfield: Nobody will say what MBF Services are?
Chorley: I don’t know, ring the paper.
Presenter: Isn’t the story though your copyright?
Wingfield: [Interrupting] I’ve rung the paper, I know what MBF Services are and YOU know what MBF Services are.
Chorley: We do NOT!
Wingfield: Since you’re lying you’re not gonna tell us! What are they? You tell us!
Chorley: [Makes to get up, thinks better of it and sits down again] I think you’re...
Wingfield: [Interrupting] MBF Services is a bogus news agency which has been set up to disseminate this story and this story is disinformation.
Presenter: From the government?
Wingfield: [Agreeing] There is a big big rat here, anyone can smell a big rat, and I think the government had better look at this one.
Presenter: Yes sir, the gentleman over here at the back there, what do you think of all this?
Audience 3: Well, these gentlemen on the right [Bower & Chorley] have said they did about 250 in their calculations [well] they must have stayed up a lot longer in the night to do 2,000 so I mean its always funny when you hear experts sort of showed up and you can have a good giggle but there are an awful lot of other [circles] that have to be explained away and I can’t imagine that there are lots of couples going in cornfields up and down the country.
Chorley: Of course there are.
Presenter: So you believe that there’s probably some hoaxers but some that aren’t explained. [Turning to another member of the audience]
Audience 4: Just two points, one a clarification. The gentleman on the right’s very keen about asking questions [but] he didn’t clarify his point about an expert [??] and I’d just like to say I was very disappointed he [Wingfield] reduced the discussion to personal insults.
Presenter: OK, let’s get back to the facts then. I think it’s... we’re not being fair yet, because we’re talking about 200 [circles] here and as the gentleman pointed out 2,000 have been found.
Chorley: Can I just say...
Presenter: [Turning to Delgado] Can you give me – put your notes away luv – tell me from your heart...
Delgado: I always speak straight from my heart.
Presenter: Well put your notes away...
Delgado: OK.
Presenter: Tell me, I want to know why... what about these other corn circles, what are we to believe about them? Are we to think that they are something extraordinary...
Delgado: Well first of all I’d like to make it absolutely clear that I have never said that all the crop circles are hoaxes, I would like to get that out of the way.
Presenter: Right.
Delgado: And the second thing is that there are many circles created in fields, they might be small ones but they are [still] circles, and there is absolutely no track to them at all. There’s a lot of these – there was, I think, 32 in one field and 25 in another, last year; they were in Wiltshire, and they… there have been some in Hampshire as well; that there is no way... from the air you can see... you can see even where a rabbit has run...
Presenter: And you’ve had some pretty complicated, expensive machinery and computers and everything, observations on these haven’t you?
Delgado: Oh yes, yes.
Presenter: And you’re convinced that they can’t all be the work of hoaxers like Doug and Dave?
Delgado: Well, there can’t be any counterfeit money around unless there was some real money in the first place, and the next thing is that to create all the circles that they say they have – and you tell me to put my notes away – I have a piece of paper here which I’ve written on:- “Statement. We, Douglas Bower and David Chorley, claim we constructed circular and other patterns by flattening the crop in fields at the following locations.” Doug and Dave I invite you to write on here all the places, the dates, if you can remember them...
Chorley: No, we won’t remember them [the dates], [but] we’ll write them down surely...
Presenter: [Surprised] Oh, so you haven’t got proof then?
Chorley: We’re not worried about dates, we’re not... I weren’t doing this under scientific investigation.
Delgado: Well, just a minute.
Presenter: But you can’t just say you hoaxed, anybody could say that!
Chorley: No they couldn’t! [Everyone talking]
Presenter: Are you prepared? Are you prepared, it does seem fair, you don’t have to do it now luv, we’ve only three minutes left. Before we come to you [turns to Martin Hempstead of the Wessex Skeptics] You’re a self-confessed skeptic, yes, is that right?
Hempstead: Absolutely, yes...
Presenter: You give these guys no truck at all?
Hempstead: These guys are talking...
Presenter: You don’t accept that somebody might be trying to communicate with us, that there’s any supernatural force?
Hempstead: There’s no reason to suppose that anybody but human beings have made these circles. There is absolutely nothing to distinguish hoax ones that these people claim to have made from what these people claim are real. They use DUBIOUS techniques like dowsing and Spagyrik, which have no substance.
Presenter: What?
Hempstead: Spagyrik, I won’t bore you with it, its basically a quack medical diagnosis technique.
Presenter: Sounds painful!
Hempstead: It has no basis in science at all, this is complete nonsense!
Wingfield: This is just getting off the mark!
Hempstead: No it’s not! You ask these people what evidence they have that ANY of these circles cannot have been made by human beings. They’ve spent years saying this!
Presenter: Let me hear from Colin Andrews, who’s another part of this very successful book. Colin…
Andrews: Certainly.
Presenter: Answer back to this.
Andrews: I certainly will.
Presenter: Give us some proof.
Andrews: Absolutely. There are a number of cases of very very … very very heavy factual
Hempstead: [Interrupting] For example? Give us an example.
Andrews: I’m going … Oh I’m going to give you plenty. I’ve spent 10 years [in fact only six or seven years at the most] looking at this as a senior officer in local government…
Hempstead: I don’t care, I’m a scientist, it doesn’t matter what you say...
Andrews: When you stop speaking I’ll give it to you...
Presenter: Come on you’ve two minutes left, we’re running out of time...
Andrews: Oilseed rape is a plant that cannot, WILL NOT, it will not bend beyond 45 degrees, it will not bend.
Hempstead: Is there some oilseed rape in the house? [laughter]
Andrews: This guy’s determined to run me down.
Presenter: Come on, will you just give him the chance to speak please luv.
Andrews: I’m the guy who’s conducted surveillance operations with the British army. I’ve conducted surveillance operations with the BBC, at great expense, [and with] Nippon Television, and on 27th June last year this [critic] is quite wrong, we had infra-red low-light cameras over an area of four and a half miles and a 6am in the morning there were four circles created with infra-red human detectors [looking for hoaxers], there were alarms there. No human being entered the field...
Presenter: Just a minute, are they [Bower and Chorley] claiming they did it?
Andrews: ...and if you can prove me wrong do so sir.
Presenter: [To Bower and Chorley] How do you answer that, how did you sneak into the field?
Chorley: [Puzzled?] You were saying that you had infra-red [cameras]... four circles formed in [the field], I’d say that as an ordinary layman of average intelligence and practical [sic], I’d say ABSOLUTE RUBBISH… and I can’t prove that but that’s what I say.
Andrews: I can, I can.
Presenter: Well how can you prove it?
Andrews: Dr Meaden, Professor Ohtsuki, were running that operation, this gentleman here from BBC television was running another one, there was about £3-4m worth of equipment [in fact only £100,000 according to Mike Carrie, technical head of the operation] and I tell you no human being entered that area.
Presenter: Listen, we’re running out of time, it’s very important, there’s 20 seconds left. I want to hear from somebody in the audience who has no knowledge. What do you think? Final comment...
Audience 5: With all the bickering going on in the audience I ‘d Just like to ask about the poor farmer
Presenter: What about the poor farmer!
Bower: I lived in Australia from 1958-66 and while there I read a newspaper report that they found a circular depression in some grass in Queensland. They called in the experts and they immediately said it was a UFO nest, and when I returned home in 1966 and made friends with David [Chorley] we were out looking at a cornfield near Winchester one evening and I reminded him of this newspaper report and I said ‘Why don’t we put a circle in this cornfield to baffle the UFO boys’, because the UFO business was at its height at that time, especially around Warminster.
Presenter: Well it’s a fairly normal thing to think really...
Bower: So this is what we did.
Presenter: So you thought it was fairly normal did you?
Chorley: Yes, sure we did.
Presenter: So off you went and what did you do?
Chorley: We just put one down, an ordinary circle in a field called, we called the Strawberry field. [at OSGR SU 5229 near Cheesefoot Head]
Presenter: What, just sort of stamping on it?
Chorley: No no no, we did it first with an iron bar on our hands and knees – the first one we ever did.
Presenter: What time of night was this?
Chorley: It would have been about midnight.
Presenter: Was your wife anywhere in sight?
Bower: No she was at home.
Presenter: What did you say you were doing to the wife?
Bower: I didn’t tell her anything for six years. [laughter from audience]
Presenter: She isn’t here by any chance is she?
Bower: Yes, she’s in the audience.
Presenter: Can you point her out to me ... Where are you luv? You’re Doug’s wife? I’m sorry to put you on the spot luv, you didn’t know what they were getting up to for 6 years?
Mrs Bower: No.
Presenter: What were you doing, were you on mogadons [a drug] or something?
Mrs Bower: No. [laugher] Friday night is boys’ night out so I didn’t question it.
Presenter: Boys’ night out?
Mrs Bower: Yes, they’re allowed their life and I’m allowed mine.
Presenter: But what time did they come home luv?
Mrs Bower: One, two o’clock
Presenter: It took them about an hour then?
Mrs Bower: Well, I suppose so, I found afterwards that it did, yes.
Presenter: And when they finally told you what did you think?
Mrs Bower: [pause] Well, they had to prove to me that It was them that was doing it…
Presenter: And you believe it do you?
Mrs Bower: Yes, but they had to make it [sic]… I do believe it, because I know my husband, I’ve known him for 45 years.
Presenter: Well, you obviously didn’t know much about what he was getting up to did you! We’ll not go into what you two do after midnight but it takes all sorts. [laughter] [returning to Bower and Chorley] So, you did it for fun?
Chorley: That’s right, in the beginning, because the UFO [phenomenon] down at Warminster was at its full height so we thought we’d have some fun in the beginning, but we did them for two years before ... and we were just going to give up when we thought that we’d put one down in a place where people from a prominent position could look down on it, and it worked!
Presenter: But you just did it for the pleasure! But what’s the pleasure going out into a cornfield with a fella after midnight? [laughter] [But] you did this for thirteen years didn’t you?
Chorley: That’s right.
Presenter: And now you’re claiming that you’ve done how many in thirteen years?
Chorley: We’d like to get this straight from the start that we’re not claiming that every one that’s been mentioned we’ve done. We did 25-30 every summer in the Winchester, Warminster and Westbury area, as far down into Sussex, but that’s all we did.
Presenter: That’s about [how many]?
Chorley: You’re a better mathematician than me.
Presenter: A couple of hundred?
Chorley: [Yes] a couple of hundred.
Presenter: Whereas I gather there’s been about 2,000?
Chorley: That’s right.
Presenter: Now, this has all come out, it’s all come out in that famous newspaper TODAY a few weeks ago. Suddenly you’ve been thrown into the public eye, What do you think of these experts [Delgado and Wingfield] here, who have spent a lot of years studying this?
Bower: I can’t really find words to describe them really, they brought it all on themselves, they’ve developed a language of their own – words that are not even in the English dictionary, and we just cannot … this is what made it such a big laugh over the years, we’re still laughing now. We’ve laughed 13 years, we’re laughing now … [laughter]
Chorley: I mean when we’d finished with the UFO business I’d like to just put here now we’re both artists, right, now if we were expecting at any time for the National Gallery or the New English Art Club… [sic] because I was sat at home one night, right, and I thought we’d make different designs…
Presenter: So basically you’re artists who were taking the mickey. Let’s move on... [Turning to Pat Delgado] They think you’re twits, really, don’t they, I mean they’ve made you look a bit dam silly haven’t they. [Holding up a copy of “Circular Evidence”] Pat Delgado, this is his, you’ve probably heard about this book – a very famous book – and you’ve sold how many copies of this book?
Delgado: I think on the last count it was something like 85,000.
Presenter: 85,000! It was no 3 in the Best Sellers wasn’t it?
Delgado: That’s right.
Presenter: So it’s a popular book, but they’ve left you with a lot of egg on your face Patrick haven’t they.
Delgado: In one instance I agree, when I was asked to go down by the TODAY newspaper to a site in Kent to examine a formation that had been flattened out into what we call a laddergram at the time and yes I walked through it and I thought it would look pretty good, I said ‘This looks quite pretty, it makes a pretty picture’. I could, I have to say, that I think it’s genuine and...
Presenter: And it wasn’t was it?
Delgado: Apparently wasn’t.
Presenter: [Turning to Bower and Chorley] It was one that you’d done wasn’t it?
Bower: Yes.
Delgado: I’d be the first one to say OK I made a mistake.
Bower: We were up the road behind you. [laughter]
Delgado: Everybody makes a mistake once a while, I think...
Presenter: You were up the road?
Bower: [Yes] up the hill.
Delgado: I think by saying right I made a mistake I qualify for being a human being...
Presenter: But Patrick you’ve set yourself up as an expert, you’ve spent eight years studying them with all this equipment, you’ve even got the BBC backing you!
Delgado: Other people say I’m an expert, I started off in 1981 but... there are a lot of questions to be asked yet...
Presenter: What do you think of these guys [Bower and Chorley], they’ve had their do at you, what do you think of them?
Delgado: Well I think that what they’ve done is totally irresponsible [loud laughter]
Chorley: You would say that Pat, wouldn’t you…
Presenter: Just a minute, let me just take up on this [apologises to Bower and Chorley, turns to audience] Why are you laughing? Why are you laughing? [picks out a member of the audience at random] Why did you laugh when he said that?
Audience 1: Absolutely incredible! Did he [Chorley] say they were UFOmists [sic]?
Presenter: UFOmists???
Audience 1: It sounded like UFOmists, its absolutely…
Presenter: [Interrupting] what do you mean? Why did you laugh?
Audience 1: These lads here [Bower and Chorley] are quite clearly running rings around them, they [Delgado and Wingfield] take the whole thing so seriously, it’s just beyond belief, BBC money, everything...
Presenter: Do people generally feel that? Anybody prepared to stick up for the experts?... Yes, the gentleman here...
Audience 2: Yes, these people [Bower and Chorley] just really don’t know what they’re talking about because I have been with this project for about three or four years now, going around on my summer holidays going down to these areas to look at these [circles] with Colin Andrews here, Pat Delgado, and I have in fact taken a great deal of interest in the very small circles which have appeared at the side of these massive Pictogram things and I have in fact analysed these circles apart from examine them very close up and I could ask you gentlemen [Bower and Chorley] do you know what mathematical relationship actually defines these little circles?
Chorley: Sorry, I can’t hear you properly what did you say?
Presenter: Do you know what mathematical relationships actually defines these little circles?
Chorley: Of COURSE we don’t! Of COURSE we don’t know... [laughter]
Presenter: [Turning to George Wingfield] OK, your turn... they’ve had their little bit of fun, they’re good actors aren’t they, they’re charmers, you’ve got to have your chance…
Wingfield: Let me have a word…
Presenter: Answer back. Most people think they’re running rings around you… let me introduce you George Wingfield, you’re an expert, this is what you spend your entire time studying isn’t it? Tell me what you think of them...
Wingfield: If you believe these clowns you’ll believe anything! Do you believe what you read in the tabloid newspapers?
Presenter: I certainly do not!
Wingfield: World War Two bomber found on the moon?
Bower: That was the Sunday Sport [news paper]!
Presenter: Well that’s not much different from TODAY is it!
Bower: I didn’t know you read that!!
Presenter: OK, come on, let’s get down to business.
Chorley: Can I ask your profession by the way?
Wingfield: It’s not relevant.
Chorley: I think it is.
Wingfield: No it isn’t.
Chorley: [I think it is] somehow...
Wingfield: I want to ask you some questions...
Chorley: Yes, sure...
Wingfield: You don’t mind if I do? I believe this is a fraudulent scam!
Chorley: Yes?
Wingfield: I believe there are particular motives behind this...
Chorley: Say them then...
Wingfield: Alright, first of all you’re probably not aware that there was a government meeting on the crop circles which was held a year ago. If you remember a year ago Margaret Thatcher was in power...
Presenter: How could we forget! Perhaps it was her, was she in on it?
Chorley: Yes she was! She appointed someone I believe at one time...
Wingfield: Can you shut the clown up. [audience gasps]
Presenter: Come on, let him ask you his question. Come on...
Wingfield: The government meeting concerned three ministries, it was at ministerial level, it concerned the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Defence…
Presenter: This happened a year ago?
Wingfield: [Agreeing] A year ago.
Presenter: At top level?
Wingfield: At top level – and they discussed the crop circles, they were very concerned about the crop circles and the outcome of the meeting was that the cause of the crop circles was totally unknown. They dismissed the idea that they were caused by atmospheric vortices, that was just brushed to one side as being absurd. They dismissed the idea that they were caused by hoaxers – obviously there are a few hoaxes, obviously there are a few jokers about – [but] the vast majority of the circles are not made by hoaxers. There are circles in all parts of Europe, it’s a world-wide phenomenon, there are thousands of crop circles so suggesting that they are all made by Doug and Dave is totally absurd...
Chorley: [interrupting] No, no, can I come in on that...
Presenter: Just let him finish, I want him to finish. What’s your point about... what happened at this meeting?
Wingfield: The point of the meeting was that they, the Ministry of Defence, was given a brief to keep a watch on what was happening and take appropriate action... and at this meeting they spoke of disinformation, several times the word disinformation was brought up, and here [pointing at Bower and Chorley] we have our disinformation.
Presenter: [Incredulously] So this is, these are government agents then! Just a minute, so let me just establish [what] you’re saying. These are part of a government disinformation plot!!!
Wingfield: This is a fraudulent scam. This whole thing is a fraudulent scam and I’d like to put some questions to these gentlemen...
Chorley: Go on then! [changing his mind] Can I put one back to you first?
Wingfield: No, let me have my say...
Presenter: Just a minute, you’ve made your point, let him answer that. You are government agents you two…
Chorley: We’re government agents? I tell you, is this a coincidence [that] when the Japanese [etc], Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews had their surveillance on fields then every surveillance you’ve had there haven’t been [circles] in those fields [but] behind you in other places they’ve taken place. If next year…
Wingfield: [Interrupting] There has been one in other fields, you don’t know what you’re talking about!
Presenter: Let him finish.
Chorley: Of course I know what I’m talking about... If next year you surveyed every one of those fields on Cheesefoot Head [and] got volunteers we can say that there won’t be a circle there because you can’t go in and do them when someone’s watching you [laughter from audience] and this is what [we’ve been doing].
Presenter: Do you want to answer it?
Wingfield: If I could just take that one up, there was a serious operation this year and the field was completely surrounded by intruder alarms, we have some of the people in the audience here who see that operation up, and a circle was formed under the tightest possible security...
Chorley: What was it then?
Wingfield: Don’t tell me that you and Mr Barr [sic] actually got into that field and did it?
Chorley: No, we’re not saying you’re... one thing I resent is your calling us clowns – I’m an intelligent guy, I’ve called you nothing.
Presenter: Oh just hold on a minute, it worries me a little bit you spending your nights with your friend out in a cornfield after 12 o’clock, I mean come on! [more audience laughter] But there is someone here who was in that field [at Cheesefoot Head] so let’s take an example. Now you are Julie Varden yes? You were in that very field?
Julie Varden: Well no, [but] we have been researching crop circles for a few years now and we met Doug and Dave on the 20th August...
Presenter: That’s you and your boyfriend?
Julie Varden: Yes, at Cheesefoot Head, and we spoke to them, we had a lengthy conversation with them [for] about 45 minutes, we told them everything we knew about the crop circles, information and intricacies about the crop circles that only we knew and everything that has been mentioned in that conversation has later been reproduced in the TODAY newspaper…
Presenter: So you were shocked when you saw the TODAY newspaper?
Julie Varden: We couldn’t believe it, we couldn’t believe it!
Presenter: [To Julie’s boyfriend] What did you have to say luv?
Julie’s Boyfriend: Well they weren’t asking any questions abut where we were going to be that night although we did tell them that were the only ones who were [there] that night and that we’d be in the circle … near where we were talking to them... They could have gone to anywhere in Cheesefoot Head, done a circle that night knowing full well there was no one else there, the only questions they actually asked us were questions about circles that had happened this year – as though they wanted to make sure they knew about every one that had happened around Cheesefoot Head ... and I’ve been there!
Presenter: [To Bower and Chorley] So they caught you red-handed then, really you just nicked [stole] their information?
Chorley: I seem to remember you, you’re the lad that came down that night…
Julie’s Boyfriend: Yeah!
Chorley: ... and mentioned that when we’d done one there was a fella sleeping in one.
Julie’s Boyfriend: Yeah, that’s right.
Chorley: We did EVERY ONE on Cheesefoot Head last summer [1990].
Julie’s Boyfriend: Well I was also there [and didn’t see anything].
Chorley: Well, just a moment, may I just say this... We wouldn’t know, there was a lot – about 90 per cent of them were done out of sight of the general public last summer – now we’d be prepared to show diagrams of every one of them without knowing, we’ve not been in helicopters against you people bringing them in and we’ve even signed them ‘‘D&D’’ and they STILL bought it [D&D = Doug and Dave]!
Julie’s Boyfriend: Well just a minute, you were asleep, you’re saying.
Wingfield: [Interrupting] let me ask these men some questions.
Chorley: Yeah, go on then.
Wingfield: Tell me about the MBF news agency.
Presenter: Just a minute luv, this his going to need some explaining. This is ... at the very bottom of [the TODAY exclusive] it says “TODAY has paid no money” and then it says “Copyright MBF Services”. Now I noticed that and I thought what the heck that meant so that’s what you’re talking about.
Wingfield: Right Mr Chorley, who are MBF Services?.
Chorley: I don’t know and I haven’t got a clue.
Wingfield: You don’ t know! Who pays you the money? Who pays you the money?
Chorley: No one’s paid us any money.
Wingfield: Who pays you to go to America next week or whenever you’re going to America?
Chorley: No one’s paid us any money [to go to America].
Wingfield: So you’ve not been given any money whatsoever!
Chorley: No money whatsoever. No money whatsoever at this moment. [Changing his mind] Yes they did, they gave us a couple of quid down for our bus fares [laughter].
Wingfield: Nobody will say what MBF Services are?
Chorley: I don’t know, ring the paper.
Presenter: Isn’t the story though your copyright?
Wingfield: [Interrupting] I’ve rung the paper, I know what MBF Services are and YOU know what MBF Services are.
Chorley: We do NOT!
Wingfield: Since you’re lying you’re not gonna tell us! What are they? You tell us!
Chorley: [Makes to get up, thinks better of it and sits down again] I think you’re...
Wingfield: [Interrupting] MBF Services is a bogus news agency which has been set up to disseminate this story and this story is disinformation.
Presenter: From the government?
Wingfield: [Agreeing] There is a big big rat here, anyone can smell a big rat, and I think the government had better look at this one.
Presenter: Yes sir, the gentleman over here at the back there, what do you think of all this?
Audience 3: Well, these gentlemen on the right [Bower & Chorley] have said they did about 250 in their calculations [well] they must have stayed up a lot longer in the night to do 2,000 so I mean its always funny when you hear experts sort of showed up and you can have a good giggle but there are an awful lot of other [circles] that have to be explained away and I can’t imagine that there are lots of couples going in cornfields up and down the country.
Chorley: Of course there are.
Presenter: So you believe that there’s probably some hoaxers but some that aren’t explained. [Turning to another member of the audience]
Audience 4: Just two points, one a clarification. The gentleman on the right’s very keen about asking questions [but] he didn’t clarify his point about an expert [??] and I’d just like to say I was very disappointed he [Wingfield] reduced the discussion to personal insults.
Presenter: OK, let’s get back to the facts then. I think it’s... we’re not being fair yet, because we’re talking about 200 [circles] here and as the gentleman pointed out 2,000 have been found.
Chorley: Can I just say...
Presenter: [Turning to Delgado] Can you give me – put your notes away luv – tell me from your heart...
Delgado: I always speak straight from my heart.
Presenter: Well put your notes away...
Delgado: OK.
Presenter: Tell me, I want to know why... what about these other corn circles, what are we to believe about them? Are we to think that they are something extraordinary...
Delgado: Well first of all I’d like to make it absolutely clear that I have never said that all the crop circles are hoaxes, I would like to get that out of the way.
Presenter: Right.
Delgado: And the second thing is that there are many circles created in fields, they might be small ones but they are [still] circles, and there is absolutely no track to them at all. There’s a lot of these – there was, I think, 32 in one field and 25 in another, last year; they were in Wiltshire, and they… there have been some in Hampshire as well; that there is no way... from the air you can see... you can see even where a rabbit has run...
Presenter: And you’ve had some pretty complicated, expensive machinery and computers and everything, observations on these haven’t you?
Delgado: Oh yes, yes.
Presenter: And you’re convinced that they can’t all be the work of hoaxers like Doug and Dave?
Delgado: Well, there can’t be any counterfeit money around unless there was some real money in the first place, and the next thing is that to create all the circles that they say they have – and you tell me to put my notes away – I have a piece of paper here which I’ve written on:- “Statement. We, Douglas Bower and David Chorley, claim we constructed circular and other patterns by flattening the crop in fields at the following locations.” Doug and Dave I invite you to write on here all the places, the dates, if you can remember them...
Chorley: No, we won’t remember them [the dates], [but] we’ll write them down surely...
Presenter: [Surprised] Oh, so you haven’t got proof then?
Chorley: We’re not worried about dates, we’re not... I weren’t doing this under scientific investigation.
Delgado: Well, just a minute.
Presenter: But you can’t just say you hoaxed, anybody could say that!
Chorley: No they couldn’t! [Everyone talking]
Presenter: Are you prepared? Are you prepared, it does seem fair, you don’t have to do it now luv, we’ve only three minutes left. Before we come to you [turns to Martin Hempstead of the Wessex Skeptics] You’re a self-confessed skeptic, yes, is that right?
Hempstead: Absolutely, yes...
Presenter: You give these guys no truck at all?
Hempstead: These guys are talking...
Presenter: You don’t accept that somebody might be trying to communicate with us, that there’s any supernatural force?
Hempstead: There’s no reason to suppose that anybody but human beings have made these circles. There is absolutely nothing to distinguish hoax ones that these people claim to have made from what these people claim are real. They use DUBIOUS techniques like dowsing and Spagyrik, which have no substance.
Presenter: What?
Hempstead: Spagyrik, I won’t bore you with it, its basically a quack medical diagnosis technique.
Presenter: Sounds painful!
Hempstead: It has no basis in science at all, this is complete nonsense!
Wingfield: This is just getting off the mark!
Hempstead: No it’s not! You ask these people what evidence they have that ANY of these circles cannot have been made by human beings. They’ve spent years saying this!
Presenter: Let me hear from Colin Andrews, who’s another part of this very successful book. Colin…
Andrews: Certainly.
Presenter: Answer back to this.
Andrews: I certainly will.
Presenter: Give us some proof.
Andrews: Absolutely. There are a number of cases of very very … very very heavy factual
Hempstead: [Interrupting] For example? Give us an example.
Andrews: I’m going … Oh I’m going to give you plenty. I’ve spent 10 years [in fact only six or seven years at the most] looking at this as a senior officer in local government…
Hempstead: I don’t care, I’m a scientist, it doesn’t matter what you say...
Andrews: When you stop speaking I’ll give it to you...
Presenter: Come on you’ve two minutes left, we’re running out of time...
Andrews: Oilseed rape is a plant that cannot, WILL NOT, it will not bend beyond 45 degrees, it will not bend.
Hempstead: Is there some oilseed rape in the house? [laughter]
Andrews: This guy’s determined to run me down.
Presenter: Come on, will you just give him the chance to speak please luv.
Andrews: I’m the guy who’s conducted surveillance operations with the British army. I’ve conducted surveillance operations with the BBC, at great expense, [and with] Nippon Television, and on 27th June last year this [critic] is quite wrong, we had infra-red low-light cameras over an area of four and a half miles and a 6am in the morning there were four circles created with infra-red human detectors [looking for hoaxers], there were alarms there. No human being entered the field...
Presenter: Just a minute, are they [Bower and Chorley] claiming they did it?
Andrews: ...and if you can prove me wrong do so sir.
Presenter: [To Bower and Chorley] How do you answer that, how did you sneak into the field?
Chorley: [Puzzled?] You were saying that you had infra-red [cameras]... four circles formed in [the field], I’d say that as an ordinary layman of average intelligence and practical [sic], I’d say ABSOLUTE RUBBISH… and I can’t prove that but that’s what I say.
Andrews: I can, I can.
Presenter: Well how can you prove it?
Andrews: Dr Meaden, Professor Ohtsuki, were running that operation, this gentleman here from BBC television was running another one, there was about £3-4m worth of equipment [in fact only £100,000 according to Mike Carrie, technical head of the operation] and I tell you no human being entered that area.
Presenter: Listen, we’re running out of time, it’s very important, there’s 20 seconds left. I want to hear from somebody in the audience who has no knowledge. What do you think? Final comment...
Audience 5: With all the bickering going on in the audience I ‘d Just like to ask about the poor farmer
Presenter: What about the poor farmer!