10 Amazing Crop Circles on Google Maps

MakeUseOf

By Tina Sieber

Published Nov 22, 2012

Crop circles were described as early as the 17th century. One of the first known records speculates they were caused by 'airflows from the sky.' In the 1970s and 80s, crop circles suddenly started appearing en masse throughout the English countryside. This caught the media's attention and caused many speculations regarding their origin. At one point, the most plausible theory involved whirlwinds and other extraordinary meteorological phenomena.

At one point, the most plausible theory involved whirlwinds and other extraordinary meteorological phenomena. With patterns eventually becoming far too complex to be created naturally, many enthusiasts proposed paranormal causes, including UFO landings or messages from extraterrestrial beings.

In the early 90s, two men, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, confessed they were responsible for the majority of crop circles that had been discovered in the UK. Their confession muted the meteorological theory and confirmed earlier suspicions that it was a hoax. The idea of aliens being responsible for crop circles, however, had fired people's imagination and with the media reliably causing a stir when new formations are sighted, many people have been inspired to bring crop circles to their hometown. Subsequently, thousands of crop circles have been reported from around the world over the past 20+ years.

Here is a small selection of crop circles documented by and still visible on Google Maps.

Giant Jelly Fish

The jelly fish is one of the more unique patterns. It was documented in a field near Ashbury, Oxfordshire, UK in 2010.

Firefox

This crop circle was created by the Oregon State University Linux Users group in 2006. It marked the browser's 50 millionth download. Note the letters FX below the icon. They are formed by a plane, a few cars, and a bunch of people is standing next to them.

Interestingly, Google has updated the image material of the area in 2012, but kept the 2006 image of the crop circle, as can be seen when zooming out of the image.

Circular Star

The star circle with the two ball shaped satellites was sighted near Aalst in Belgium.

Asterix and Obelix

During summer, many towns across Germany carve labyrinths and mazes into corn and other crop fields. The first such maze was created by the Lebanon Valley Collage in Pennsylvania in 1993. The example below is from Utting, Germany. Their 10 year field labyrinth jubilee coincided with Asterix' and Obelix' 50 year anniversary in 2009.