Anyone over thirty has experienced how there seems to be less
and less time in a day as we grow older. Every year I resolve
to fight harder to keep up, and yet I keep slipping -- would
time go backwards if I stopped trying?

It doesn't help when major events happen on an almost daily
basis, and for the past few weeks that has been the case for me
here chasing the circles. For one thing, Ron Russell -- who
returned to the States a week ago -- was here for five weeks,
and nearly every day I accompanied him on various circle-related
adventures.

That's just one of the reasons I have not been able to process
hardly any of my crop circle images in so long. Rest assured I
have aerial shots of all but one formation in Wiltshire (that
appeared yesterday). And, while I would prefer to PhotoShop the
pictures and send them to you in sequential order, as I usually
do, a dramatic event three days ago has monopolized my time and
demands to be reported first:

At 4:30 AM on Saturday, August 4th, with stars still shining
between the clouds, I climbed Knapp hill with Nick Riley to get
a grandstand seat for watching the construction of a manmade
formation created in the East Field for a movie. (This is not
the Disney/Mel Gibson film, but a British production in which
crop circles play a role in a love story. The circles are shown
in a very positive light.)

Within ten minutes of getting settled, our eyes adjusted and we
could see that a replica of the famous "Earth is Missing"
formation was about halfway finished. As the very first hint of
dawn began to erase the stars -- and the full moon set looking
as red as Mars -- it was just barely possible to start shooting
video of the formation and six figures moving about below. They
were Matt Williams and several friends, determined to do a good
job of re-creating a famous formation -- something that has
never really been done before.

I was dismayed to see that, not only were they little more than
half finished, but they seemed to be doing very little work.
Then I realized that since the field was paid for, they needn't
fear being caught, and were enjoying the luxury of taking their
own sweet time! (I found out later that several of the crew
didn't arrive at Matt's house until after one AM, so they got
off to a very late start.)

While it was still very dark an intruder arrived (he had spied
the artists with a night vision scope) and took flash pictures
of the team -- much to their annoyance. Then several friends of
the intruder approached from the direction of the car park
shouting that they had caught hoaxers at work. At that point
Busty Taylor, who was standing duty as guard, interceded,
explained the situation, and the disappointed posse went back to
the car park.

As Nick & I watched and recorded the various stages, the team
proceeded to create one planet and orbit at a time -- first the
orbit of the missing Earth (Mars was already done), then
Mercury, the Sun, and finally Venus. By the time they were
finishing up the sun was grazing the formation in a dramatic
golden light. And a darn good job the lads did, too -- some
people are saying it is a genuine circle -- but if ETs made it,
they knew the script of the movie and lent a hand!

When the artists left the field I went inside it and documented
details of the construction. Then I went back up on the hill
with Nick & Busty, where we were joined shortly by Colin Andrews
-- who is a consultant on the film. We waited for the
helicopter carrying the movie cameraman to arrive, which was an
hour late. Meanwhile two actresses, a woman and child who are
major players in the film, went into the center of the formation
and also waited for the chopper.

When the aerial film crew finally flew over and began to orbit
the field, the two actresses danced round and round in the
center for the camera.

As soon as that finished I rushed to get a microlight flight
because I knew the formation was to be destroyed after the
ground cinematography was complete. (Because it rained in the
afternoon, the destruction didn't take place until the next
day.) I had a good, sunny flight, with the most terrific
"kamikaze"-like action I've ever experienced, when my pilot took
me at my word after I asked for a very dramatic dive down at the
formation!

I spent all the next day capturing over a hundred still frames
from the two hours of footage that I shot, and all day today
doing PhotoShop work on a few of them.

I am under obligation to Colin Andrews not to release any of the
shots showing the construction of the circle, but here are three
of the best of the finished formation.