Listening Crop circles

Listening en inglés: Crop circles.

Crop circles first came to the attention of people in the mid 1970s, when they were photographed from a plane in fields in the county of Wiltshire, in Southern England. Made mainly in crops of wheat and barley, these early examples were fairly simple in design. Today it has become "a worldwide phenomenon" and has been recorded in 54 different countries. But Wiltshire is still the most active area for crop circles in the world, with over 80 appearing in its fields in 2011.

The early makers of the circles were unknown and of course it was not long before some people started suggesting an extraterrestrial origin. A whole range of really weird theories have grown up around crop circles.

The first ever reference to a crop circle was in 1678 in a pamphlet with a story suggesting that the Devil was responsible.  

But the reality of crop circles is much more mundane than all of that.

John Lundberg, from one group of crop circle creators explained that “we used to design the circles on paper, but because the formations have got so big and complex, it's now easier to use a computer.”

He says that the actual making of the crop circles is very low-tech once you get into the field. “We use a  surveyor's tape measure and a stalk stomper, which is basically a plank of wood.”

Crop circles are treated as legitimate tourist attractions in Wiltshire. One circle made in 1996 got more visitors than Stonehenge and the farmer earned about £30,000 in just four weeks by charging a pound a person to see the circle on his land.

But not all farmers are happy to have them on their land. Bob Wright, a farmer in south England, says “these vandals are messing about with a crop that we’ve been growing for 10 months and we’ve got a job to make a profit and we could do without people trashing the crop.”

John Lundberg has now set up an award-winning website where he talks about the practice of circle making, and in fact today a lot of his work is commercial. For instance, he flew to Mexico for Greenpeace to create a crop circle supporting their campaign against genetically modified maize. He has also worked on crop circles near Heathrow and Gatwick Airports, paid for by holiday companies, to promote tourism to passengers on planes.

Today crop circle making is business for some entrepreneurs.  

Vocabulario.

wheat and barley - trigo y cebada
fairly simple = quite simple - bastante fácil
weird = strange - extraño
grown up (grow up) = developed
stalk stomper - un tablón de madera utilizado para aplastar el trigo etc.
Stonehenge - es un monumento megalítico, tipo crómlech, de la Edad del Bronce situado en ell condado de Wiltshire, Inglaterra.
Devil - diablo
mundane - ordinary
used to - Es un pasado que hace hincapié en acciones, estados o condiciones contempladas como durativas en el pasado y lejanas. Equivale al pretérito imperfecto o solía, solías, solíamos etc.
Más información > Used to

vandals - vándalos
messing about (mess about) - aquí > estropear
we’ve got a job to make a profit = It is difficult to make a profit. - costar trabajo hacer algo.

• we’ve got a job to make a profit. - nos cuesta mucho trabajo tener beneficios.

• I’ve got a  job to get them to go.  - Me cuesta mucho (trabajo) conseguir que se fueran.

trashing the crop. - destrozando la cosecha.
set up - establecer, crear
entrepreneurs - emprendedores

The first ever recorded crop circle in a pamphlet of 1678.

The pamphlet is about a farmer who refused to pay a farm worker the price demanded to cut his field. The farmer said he would prefer the Devil to cut his field instead of the worker and the next morning the field was perfectly cut, in fact, unnaturally perfect.









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