early documented accounts
Often still regarded by most of the public and media as a "new" phenomenon (since the 1970s), findings by a number of researchers, including with CCCRN, continue to find cases which pre-date this time period, by decades or even possibly centuries, in various countries. In Canada, one such report is of typical small flattened circles in wheat at Leeshore, Alberta in 1925, a firsthand account from a still-surviving great-grandfather who used to farm in that area, as well as many others from the 1940s to 1970s.
One well-documented account of earlier formations, from the highly respected science magazine Nature, describes flattened circles with standing centres of stalks in wheat, a characteristic still often seen today, in Surrey, England in 1880, a good century before crop circles became the publicly-known phenomenon they are today. In the July 29, 1880 issue, a short letter to the editor was published, written by a respected scientist of the time, spectroscopist J. Rand Capron, describing circular flattenings in a wheat field in Surrey, England.
The description given is very similar to many other cases of crop circles of the simpler variety, both current and older, with circular flattened areas, standing centres of stalks and untouched walls of standing crop around the outside perimeters of the circles. This case was first discovered by Peter Van Doorn as a reprint in the January 2000 issue of the Journal of Meteorology. (For anyone who may not have seen this report yet or is interested in a copy, CCCRN has obtained a print copy from the microfilm archives in the Vancouver library. This is the original letter in Nature, not the 2000 reprint. The copy also includes the volume cover page, Volume XXII, May 1880 - October 1880, as there is not a separate copy of the cover available for that specific issue of July 29, 1880. The mentioned sketch was not published with the letter unfortunately).
native indian legends
In Canada, another early possible report is from a native Indian legend, "The Daughters of the Star," in the book Thirty Indian Legends of Canada (first published in 1912), of a hunter finding a flattened ring in prairie grass. The symbolism surrounding the account may of course indicate the entire story to be fanciful, but as is often the case, such stories are often based on actual events or observations, and the description of a "flattened ring" in the prairies from such an old source is interesting given it's similarity to the same kind of simpler circles and rings which continue to be found in the prairies and across the country until today. It is also similar to other old accounts in legends and folklore from the US and Europe, a further piece of evidence that crop circles, at least simple ones, may have been around for a long time...
The July 29, 1880 issue of Nature magazine contains a letter from a respected scientist
of the time, J. Rand Capron, describing circles with standing centres of stalks
in a wheat field in Surrey, England; one of the earliest documented accounts on record
© Nature
A native Indian legend, "The Daughters of the Star," from the book
Thirty Indian Legends of Canada (first published in 1912) includes the mention of a hunter
finding a flattened ring in prairie grass - a very early crop circle account?
© Douglas & McIntyre
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the historical evidence