A World of Mystery Crop Circles Crop circles are areas in a field where the crops become flat, forming odd and mysterious shapes The first crop circles appeared in 1972 Two men called Arthur Shuttlewood and Bryce Bond were camping in a place called Star Hill in Warminster, England, trying to catch a glimpse of a UFO Instead, they saw something more extraordinary: first, many strange lights appeared in the sky and in 20 seconds, an area of plants became flat and formed a pattern of concentric circles Soon after this first phenomenon, crop circles started to appear all over England As time went by, the patterns became more intricate People were very surprised to see so many appear in such a short time, and even the NASA analysed these formations trying to explain their origin The only conclusion they could draw was that no person or technology from this planet is capable of making such complicated shapes so quickly In the early 1990s, two men called Doug and Dave claimed responsibility for them The reason? They wanted to have fun and fool everyone Soon, scientists realised that it was not really possible for the two men to be in so many different places at the same time These shapes generally appear in 20 or 30 seconds around the same time of the night, between eleven o’clock at night and three o’clock in the morning Nowadays, we can find 100 new crop circles in England each year and these unusual formations also appear in Australia, South Africa, China, Russia, and many other countries as well Crop circles remain an enigma, one of the unsolved mysteries of our time! Did you know? Inside a crop circle, cellular phones, batteries and compasses not work Even the equipment in airplanes that fly over them fails to operate! English Toolkit - Language & Culture Photocopiable © Ediciones Santillana S.A / Richmond 2011 Module 2B Module 2B Activities 1 Scan the text and answer the questions a When did the first crop circles appear? b What were the people who first saw them doing? c How long does a crop circle take to form? d What explanation did the NASA give? e What time crop circles generally appear? 2 Find in the text words that mean: a strange: d feasible: b flying saucer: e complex: Photocopiable © Ediciones Santillana S.A / Richmond 2011 c deceive: 3 Find at least irregular verbs in the text and complete the table Verb Past Tense see 4 Complete the sentences with the Simple Past or Past Continuous a Arthur and Brice b Strange lights c In 1990, two men (see) a UFO when they (appear) in the sky while the men (say) they (camp) (look) at it (be) responsible for the crop circles 5 Has anything like this ever happened in your country? Find information about crop circles or UFO sightings and write an article for a newspaper English Toolkit - Language & Culture