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Cerealogy, the study or creation of the phenomenon widely known as 'CROP CIRCLES' was not heretofore known before it's widespread emergence during the late 1970's.
While the origins of Crop Circles can be traced back with some degree of dubious relativety to at least 1678 by linking the phenomenon to the publication of "The Mowing Devil", a pamphlet featuring a short story describing a dispute over crops and an invocation of the devil, the link is tenuous at best. While crops are shown to be cut down in an ostensibly circular pattern, the intricate geometric designs that are predominantly associated with the modern practice of crop circles are nowhere to be found in that volume.
It wan't until approximately 300 years later, in 1978 when these unusual and mysterious crop circle formations began appearing in the fields and the countrysides of England and surrounding locales.The causes and the creators of these crop circles are still widely debated to this day, but is a safe statement to affirm that prior to 1978 the anomalous spectacle of geometric crop circles was virtually non-existant.
That is what makes this particular comic book story so intriguing. Today's story comes from Atlas comics' WORLD OF FANTASY #7, published by Stan Lee and company in May, 1957, a full 20 years before the bizarre circumstances of crop circles would catch the attention of the entire world.
In "THE HIDDEN HEX", written by Carl Wessler and illustrated by Sam Kweskin, the implication is presented that there may be a correlation between crop circles and 'Hex Signs' which were prevalent among Pennsylvanian Dutch farmers of the mid 19th century, and can still be found in rural areas throughout the United States today. At the time when Wessler wrote the story we must remind ourselves that the curiousity of geometric circular crop patterns did not yet exist, insofar as historians can tell. That creates in the reader's mind the question, "If in fact crop circles are indeed man-made occurences, did the original creators of the first crop circle hoaxes read this particular comic book with this particular story, and did this story therefore influence them either consciously or subconciously?"
This is a question that needs to be addressed, and asked of the two men who claim to have started the practice of hoaxing crop circles in 1978, self-claimed originators Doug Bower and Dave Chorley. If there is any connection between them reading the comic book (and who is to say that if they in fact did see the story from 1957 whether they would even recall, if it possibly was in fact a subconscious influence), then we can ascribe ultimate creation of the modern crop circle phenomenon to Carl Wessler and Sam Kweskin.
In any regard, one certainly must admit an uncanny similarity between Kweskin and Wessler's 1957 vision of the crop circle and the post-1978 modern geometric crop circles that exist up until this very day.
Strange and perplexing.
Puzzling and fascinating, at the very least.
Wouldn't you agree?
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Scanned from my own comic
(and cleaned up extensively by me in order to present to you)
for your enjoyment.
(and cleaned up extensively by me in order to present to you)
for your enjoyment.
PS -
(Still to come, ROBOT WEEK...)
