Geometry of the
Northdown, Wiltshire formation

There's more: If we take the triangle defined by the centers of E, F and G, we note that while E-G is the longest distance, E-F is 0,92 times that and F-G again 0,92 times E-F. Now 0,92 happens to be the square root of 0,84 - which was the square root of 0,7071! Is this all co-incidence or what?

Let's finally take a look at the centers of the circles. While the centers of A and C are conveniently positioned on the tramlines and D1 (same size as D) on a path apparently made by people (don't know if it was there when the formation was first found), the centers of B and D are not on tramlines or flattened areas. On the other hand the center of D is just slightly off the tramline.

Speculation on the possible human origin of this design is not really the point of this study. It is possible that circle B (the only one with the center on the untouched crop) was not used at all, because the lower left arc of the "ellipse" is not perfect - it could have been made "free-hand". However it's hard to imagine why someone should go through the trouble of including this kind of meaningful mathematical proportions, which are not visible without careful investigation.

As said before, circle G doesn't seem to fit the pattern. This is not necessarily so: If we multiply the diameter once more with 0,84, we get the green circle, exactly encompassing the smallest flattened circle! In other words, we just have to leave one more numberout from the sequence.

Martin Keitel
June 18, 2002