Confessions of a Crop-Circle Maker: An Interview with John Lundberg

By Caryn Anscomb

John Lundberg is an artist and filmmaker. He graduated from the National Film & Television School in 2004, where he created four documentaries. 

His film The Mythologist was broadcast on BBC4 in March 2004. It won the 2004 Jerwood First Cuts Documentary Award at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival and was shortlisted for the 2004 Grierson Awards in the best newcomer category.

His subjects are usually drawn from the edges of contemporary culture, and underpinning all of his work is a deep interest in how myth and artifice can shape and alter reality.

 

“Of the myriad shapes found in the fields, some were assimilable into the framework of the plasma vortex theory; others, from the insectoid to the alchemical, implied a more intelligent authorship. As the latter increased in relative frequency, and accounts began to circulate of hoaxers seen here, heard there, my perception of this phenomenon began a dramatic shift. The occasional messiness of circles became due not to the dumb haste of spinning plasma, but to the inexpertise of humans. Nor, now, was the symbolism of the shapes accidental; indeed, it seemed as though the hoaxers were paying a great deal of attention to the predictions of the circles enthusiasts. Similarly, the enthusiasts' gatherings began to seem like convocations of the religious faithful, with the odd eaves-dropping hoaxer thrown in.

As I began to make circles myself, l noted that my own mistakes, or unconscious idiosyncracies, were transformed magically by cerealogists into special accomplishments that no human could possibly duplicate. A standing stalk in a circle of felled wheat, missed by my garden roller as a lawnmower might miss a blade of grass, was seen as a cerealogical miracle. A pictogram, fabricated with the aid of several pints of Guinness and a wood-and-rope stalk stomper, was later alleged, with the most sensitive instruments, to be buzzing with radioactivity.”

----  Jim Schnabel.

Caryn: Hi John. How did you first become interested in Crop Circles?

John: I first became aware of the circles like most of the UK population when there was an upsurge in media coverage here in the late 80s. It was difficult to pick up a paper or turn on the TV news without seeing a reference to the ‘mysterious crop circles’. It’s also when I discovered The Cerealogist magazine and started to read about the various theories put forward to explain the authorship of the circles. Around this time I also met up with a fellow artist called Rod Dickinson who also had an interest in the circles. We used to sit up long into the night talking about them and wondering how we could become involved in the crop circle phenomenon. Back then we were just as much in the dark as to their origin as everyone else - except whoever or whatever was making them of course. So eventually we decided that we wanted to contribute to the phenomenon and ventured out into the fields in the early 90s to create one, then many crop circles. It really was a revelation to me, seeing the disconnect between what we were doing – flattening cereal crop with planks of wood – and what our works audience was perceiving, which could be anything from physiological and psychological effects brought on by visiting the circles, to electronic equipment failures or malfunctions, alleged curative powers, or the inverse, reports of people feeling nauseous in our creations. I think this was the hook that pulled us deeper into the phenomenon, all of the narratives that were attached to our work, the mythology and folklore that was built up around it. It can be very intoxicating and exciting for an artist. We weren’t pushing paint around on a canvas that sat in a sterile gallery environment; we were quite literally forming and shaping the culture that surrounded us. The circles we created could be seen as virulent mind viruses or memes that traveled right around the world permeating both underground and popular culture. I have to say that when Rod and I were first creating circles, we didn’t have a clear idea of the origin of the other circles out there in fields, we were completely open about who or what were the authors. To give you an insight into our early thought processes, we had designed a series of formations that used sigils, (pictorial spells), after lots of discussion we actually decided not to create any of those designs, just in case the spells actually worked!

Caryn: You’ve mentioned your friendship with Doug Bower. When did you first meet with Doug?

John: I feel so lucky that I’ve been able to forge a close friendship with Doug, I really do consider him part of my family. It wasn’t actually until 1994 that I met up with him at an informal gathering of circlemakers at the Percy Hobbs pub in Winchester, Hampshire where Doug and Dave Chorley used to spend every Friday evening together. Doug is my greatest hero, and a true British eccentric in the best possible way. Meeting him was one of those rare occasions when I came face to face with one of my heroes and they didn't disappoint or undermine my expectations of them. I truly believe that Doug Bower is one of the greatest artists of the 20^{th Century.}

^{Caryn: You previously mentioned Doug’s personal motivation for crop-circle making. Can you repeat it for publication?}

^{John: The true history of Doug and Dave is yet to be made public, and it’s not a happy tale. I have it all on record and Doug has given me permission to make it public once he is no longer with us, which I hope will be for many years yet.}

^{Caryn: You now travel the globe crop-circle making, what countries have you visited?}

^{John: As an organization to date we’ve created circles across the USA, New Zealand, Japan, Mexico and across continental Europe. We have several projects in the pipeline that will take us to many more far-flung corners of the world.}

^{Caryn: Are you in constant contact with fellow cropcirclers internationally, and do you team up on projects?}

^{John: I launched circlemakers.org the website which documents our work back in 1995, and it’s given us a lot of visibility. As a consequence I’ve been contacted by circlemaking teams from all over the world, although the most talented and ambitious circlemakers are all based here in the UK - which is apparent from the complexity and scale of the formations that are created here. And yes, sometimes we team up with other circlemakers to swell our ranks and enable us to create more ambitious crop circles.}

^{Caryn: Can you give a few samples of the type of work commissioned?}

^{John: We’ve worked on numerous projects for TV shows, movies, music videos, adverts and PR stunts. Clients have included Greenpeace, Microsoft, Shredded Wheat, AMD, Hello Kitty, Nike, Pepsi, Weetabix, BBC, The Sun, Mitsubishi, O2, NBC-TV, Orange Mobile, History Channel and the Discovery Channel.}

^{I’ll give you a couple of examples of the types of projects we are asked to do. Last year we were asked by Nike to tour across Italy creating giant footprint shaped crop circles that were used in 4 TV adverts that featured both us and the circles we created. We did the same across the US for the launch of the Microsoft Xbox 360 games console, with a MTV crew documenting our creations. The footage was later used in a ‘making of’ documentary screened in the US on MTV about the Xbox 360 campaign.}

^{Caryn: The term hoax has been applied to crop-circles. This always amuses me, the circles themselves aren’t hoaxes. How do you feel about being labeled a hoaxer?}

^{John: Well I think it’s shorthand vernacular for who we are and what we do. It’s a term used by the crop circle research community to demonize and marginalize us, as it has negative associations. We were once unfavorably compared to Wearside Jack the Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer. But like you say it’s not an accurate description of us, or our work. We are artists and the circles we create are artworks.}

^{Caryn: You have a number of critics, how do you normally respond to them?}

^{John: I don’t. I think you learn very quickly as a circlemaker that entering into any discourse about your work with someone who has invested belief in it is an ultimately fruitless pursuit. The circlemakers and the crop circle researchers - or followers - have a very symbiotic relationship. We need each other - not that any crop circle researcher would ever admit that. They act as agents for our work, propagating the images across the globe, and more importantly weaving complex ever evolving and shifting narratives about the non-human origin of the circles. They come up with litmus tests that become an article of faith for them, terms such as ‘bent not broken stems’, ‘physiological changed to the plants’, etc are their ‘proof’ that the circles could not possibly be the work of mere human mortals. I think this attitude shows a complete lack of belief in human potential. Do these people not look around them and see what human civilization has achieved? The scientific, engineering and artistic marvels? We can get a man to the moon and back, but these people can’t believe that a few well organised artists can flatten cereal crops in a complex pattern. Of course within the same community there are those that don’t believe we ever sent men to moon.}

^{Caryn: You mentioned a while back that you have received death threats from folk in the past, can you elaborate?}

^{John: I think being a circlemakers is ultimately a masochistic pursuit. Traditionally when you think about art you think of it’s author, we refer to the work as a Picasso, a Warhol or a Leonardo, etc. But for the circles we create to function correctly, they must remain authorless, if we claim a formation we immediately drain it of all of it’s power, it’s taken out of the realm of the unknown and becomes just flattened crop. So it’s this gap in information about the authorship of the circles that enables them to function correctly. Although we have not - and never will - claim authorship of any individual crop circle, we do obviously talk about out work in general terms. So to the research community this immediately sets us up as a perceived threat and consequently a target. We are the heretics, calling their belief system into question by the mere fact that we exist and talk about our circlemaking activities. Sometimes this spills over into threatening behavior on the part of the believer. We’ve had potatoes stuck up our exhausts, wing mirrors ripped off of our cars, and threats of physical violence, in person, over the phone, via email and through our letterboxes. Only last week I had someone call me and threaten to attack me if I continued to talk about my work. I just accept it as an unpleasant but necessary part of what I do.}

^{Caryn: The main argument by the pro-circle researchers is that the designs are far too complicated to have been created by human hand. How do you respond to that argument?}

^{John: Look at the Sistine Chapel. I could never conceive of creating something like that, but just because I’m unable to create it, I don’t believe that no human could have created it. I think this is the flaw with a lot of the researchers, they look at a complex crop circle design and they could not possibly conceive how it would be possible for them to create it under cover of darkness in one night, so therefore they inaccurately conclude that it can’t conceivably be man made. But, I assure you it is entirely possible and we’ve demonstrated our craft on numerous occasions. We would obviously not be flown all over the world to create crop circles for commercial clients if we did not have the necessary skills to create them.}

^{Caryn: As the crop-circle makers come forward to tell their stories we are beginning to see a shift in consensus from ‘it can’t possibly be manmade’ to ‘A divine hand is at play, working through the circle-makers’. What would you say to that?}

^{John: Divine inspiration? I don’t know really, I’m just doing what every artist before me has done, sucking my pencil end and waiting for that flash of inspiration and it can come from all sorts of places. A mobile phone cover, a quote from a book, or something one of the researchers has said. Sometimes it’s just a matter of play and experimentation, lots of times I’ve been working on one type of design then I’ve gone off completely at a tangent and discovered new construction techniques or geometries. Sometimes a design can look fantastic on screen – I now use CAD software to design all of the circles, it’s the type of software an Architect would use to design a building and it’s perfect for circlemaking – but once it’s been created in the field it doesn’t live up to the diagram, and conversely, sometimes a design that looks ok on screen can look stunning once it’s been created in the field.}

^{Caryn: I noticed from your website that several folk mention observed anomalous occurrences whilst crop-circle making. Can you discuss your own experiences?}

^{John: The thing I’ve most commonly experienced is very bright localized flashes of light, like a flash gun being held up to my face. Twice we’ve had journalists along with us and they’ve experienced the same phenomena. I’ve also seen a silent structured craft in the sky above Alton Barnes. It was a elongated cigar shape and read as a dark shadow in the sky blocking out the stars behind it as it moved in a arc from left to right across my field of vision. It would have been easy to miss, it was only because we’d stopped working on the circle for a while as there were people nearby, so we were all crouched down in a tramline waiting for them to leave. That’s when I spotted it. To be honest it’s quite amusing to see something like that when you’re part way through creating a design. I don’t know what it was, aliens from out of space, inter-dimensional beings, military black project, or another group of artists showcasing their latest creation, who knows…}

^{Caryn: You have just released a new book The Field Guide: The Art, History & Philosophy of Crop Circle Making: co-authored with Rob Irving, what prompted you to come clean, as it were?}

^{John: The book has its genesis 12 years ago when myself and Rob Irving created a pamphlet called ‘A Beginners Guide to Crop Circle Making’ for an art show we were asked to participate in. Some of that text still survives intact in the current book, which is now 288 pages in length. We’re not really coming clean; the book is just an extension of the discourse we’ve built up around our work since we went public in 1994. Our website has over 250 pages of information about what we do and why we do, we see the book as a logical next step in that process of discussion and revelation.}

^{Caryn: Do you anticipate a decline in public interest in crop-circles when the facts become widely known, or do you believe folk will become more enthusiastic?}

^{John: The facts are widely known! We’ve been very open about our ‘covert’ pursuits for the past 12 years. If anything, I hope the book will inspire a new generation of artists to go out and roll their own circles, for future generations to wonder at.}

^{About Caryn Anscomb}

^{Caryn Anscomb is an independent researcher in the  field of cultural shamanism, world religions, anthropology, and phenomenology. She is the director of an accountancy firm based in the UK.}