This is what David Chorley told to host Michael Enright, of CBC Radio, Canada, in a telephone interview of September 9, 1991.
Host Barbara Budd introduces the topic:
"This just in: Surprise! British crop circles are a hoax. You know those mysterious circles of flattened grain that appear in farmer's field every year about this time, the one that defy logical explanation?"
"Scientists have come out with lots of theories about the origins of crop circles. Highly intelligent extraterrestrials. Freak winds. Even hoaxers."
"Now, two highly intelligent beings have come forward, claiming responsibility for the crop circles. And guess what? They aren't extraterrestrials."
"David Chorley is one of the beings, we reached him in Winchester, England."
Left, Dave Chorley, right, Doug Bower, 1991. |
Michael Enright: "Mr. Chorley, you and your partner have confused and confounded the word for the last... how many years?"
David Chorley: "13 years."
M.E.: "13 years! It's when you made your first crop circle."
David Chorley: "That's right."
M.E.: "Why are you now spilling the beans?"
David Chorley: "Why we now spill the beans. Because the time has come to do so. For many reasons. The main reason being, that name ["crop circles"] has become a multi-million pounds business, and also, on our television, back at the beginning of the seasons, no, sorry back two weeks ago, they [crop circle experts] tried to decide our government for a fair amount of money. We thought that's it has gone completely too far."
[Note: Dave Chorley had troubles remembering dates. Crop circle "experts" took advantage of that and later claimed he "contradicts himself" every time he hesitated on some date just like here. Later on, Dave Chorley and Doug Bower decided together that it was best if Doug answered questions about dates of events. What Dave tells here is that a number of crop circle "experts" were harassing the Ministry of Defense in U-K to have them start an investigation on the crop circle mystery, and this would probably have happened. Doug and Dave realized it would be a waste of taxpayers' money and it was one of the reasons that decided them to come clear. the other being that the "experts" such as Pat Delgado, Colin Andrews and others were making quite an amount of money selling books, videos, having conferences tours and so on. They felt these "experts" were making that money out of the gullibility of people and did not find this very fair.]
M.E.: "When you say it has become a million pound industry, you're not talking about the money you've made?"
David Chorley: "The money we've made?!? We made not a penny out of it!"
[Note: Doug Bower and Dave Chorley had made crop circles 13 years long. Nobody knew it was them. Of course, they could not have made a penny out of it, it was impossible! After they came clear, they did not ask for any money either.]
M.E.: "Who is it that made money?"
David Chorley: "People writing books! And also, Japanese are spending millions coming over here and surveying fields, in England in the West country."
M.E.: "How did you and your partner come up with the idea?"
David Chorley: "Well, at the beginning?"
M.E.: "Yeah."
David Chorley: "Well my friend [Doug Bower] was in Australia for a few years, and he heard a report on the radio in Quensland that there was a crop circle. When he came back to England, he came back after 26 years, and we formed a friendship, because we're both artists, painters."
[Doug Bower, in Australia, heard the famous reports about the UFO that had landed in Tully, Queensland, and made a circular mark in the vegetation there. That UFO landing has become a classic of ufology and has never found a commonplace explanation. That UFO landing gave Doug this idea of hoaxing UFO landings by making circles in the vegetation.]
M.E.: "Right."
David Chorley: "So we were out one night and we discussed, whatever, about watercolor painting, and having a beer together. One evening he said, well, at this time, I guess it was 1978, and the UFO phenomenon was right in there in Wiltshire. So we thought, ah, we'll try one in the fields so we put one down. We did this for two years... and nothing came of it. So we decided than, that what we'll be doing, is putting them down in sites right under the view of the general public. so, near Winchester, in Hampshire in England, there is a hill called Cheesefoot head, with a great view, from a height down into a down. So we put one down there, and it was taken up by Mr. Pat Delgado, and from then on it took off!"
[Note: two seasons long, they did the circles in the middle of the fields in flat terrain and nobody noticed it, except for the farmers who with their feet on the ground saw nothing extraordinary in it. At the third season in 1981, Chorley said to his friend Bower that it's useless to continue since nobody has said a UFO landed. That is when Bower came with the idea of doing one at Cheesefoot Head, because it would be seen by everyone due to the slope of the terrain. It worked! It was in the newspaper and the TV the next day, with Pat Delgado saying a UFO did it.]
M.E.: "Over that 13 years, how many circles did you put down?"
David Chorley: "Average 25... Anything from 20 to 25 to 30 a year."
M.E.: "Technically, how did you do it, because we've had theories all over the place, somebody, in fact I talked to somebody on this program who said it was caused by little tiny tornadoes."
David Chorley: "Yes, that's right, that's Dr. Terence Meaden."
[Dr. Terence Meaden is a scientist in the field of meteorology. When the circles were in the news, he said they are caused by particular tornadoes, because they are always swirling clockwise. After this argument appeared in the newspapers, Bower and Chorley immediately made an anticlockwise circle, called the newspaper so that people go see it, and next, the entire Britain had a good laugh at the expense of poor Dr. Meaden. But when later Bower and Chorley said they did the circles, he nevertheless continued to say that there are "real circles" caused by weird tornadoes...]
M.E.: "He was on our show in the spring. How did you make the circles?"
David Chorley: "We made the circles using the most primitive equipment, using two stick, four foot long, two by one, and two pieces of strings as... with the demonstration we did today we used the same things. Cross-faces, a baseball cap with an eye-piece on - a sight - and that's about all - and pieces of strings and that's our equipment."
M.E.: "Ha! ha! ha! How do you physically make the circles? Someone stands in the middle and...?"
David Chorley: "No no, what you, do, you hold the four foot long piece of wood, piece of string attached to each end, with I suppose a [?]... you hold that, you put one foot on the end of one [?], you thread that down you've got your first circle. You just keep going. To whatever distance you like."
M.E.: "What do you do with the baseball cap?"
David Chorley: "The base-ball cap has a piece of wire on the end... This is for when you want to get long straight runways. And you pick up on the distance on a cottage window that's alight or a tree in the distance and therefore, when you follow that walking you get your straight line."
Doug Bower, explaining the baseball cap with the sight, used to trace straight lines. |
M.E.: "How do we know, Mr. Chorley, that you are not hoaxing us know about the hoax?"
David Chorley: "You don't know, do you?"
M.E.: "No I don't."
David Chorley: "You don't know."
M.E.: "Ha! ha! ha! ?"
David Chorley: "You don't know!"
M.E.: "How did you export the technology, because we've had circles here in Canada?"
David Chorley: "Of course you have!"
M.E.: "In Saskatchevan."
David Chorley: "How long have you had them in Canada?"
M.E.: "Certainly within the last 13 years?"
David Chorley: "Yeah right, and do you know why? Because my friend and I don't know, we're the instigator with the story I told you coming over in Canada, we used to sit up on Cheesefoot Head, a lovely social gathering where Americans, Canadians, Japanese, Germans, so on a Friday night up there was quite a party. Therefore, going back home, what would they do? What would you do? Have a go in the fields in your country! And that's when they started coming."
[Note: crop circle "experts" and believers insist that the two "old chaps" could not have done all the circles all around the world. They claim that this is what the two hoaxers said. But it is a lie. The two hoaxers said from the start and ever since that the circles in other countries were made by people that came to see the U-K. crop circles and then made their own in the fields of their own countries.]
M.E.: "But you didn't share the technique with anybody, how would they know how you make the circle?"
David Chorley: "We did not share the technique. Funny enough, with the ones we've done we always had an [?] laid, there were certain ones, they were always sharper cut. That used to give us quite a good feeling when that happened."
[Note: What Dave Chorley tries to tell is that even in the U-K, there were circles that were not of their style and were made by other prankster that they inspired after the Cheesefoot Head formation was in the news.]
M.E.: "Ha! ha! ha!"
David Chorley: "Er, so, there you go. That's when they appeared in Canada, United states and whatever."
M.E.: "Are you and your partner planning to cook up anything else in the next few years?"
David Chorley: "Well, we would, er, I'm 62 and he's 67, but there's a little twinkle left in our eyes."
M.E.: "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"
David Chorley: "Huh! huh! huh!"
M.E.: "Well you fooled everybody for a long time."
David Chorley: "Yeah!"
M.E.: "Thank you for talking to us! Goodnight!"
David Chorley: "Goodnight!"
