Crop circles are sizeable patterns created by the flattening of crops such as wheat, barley, rye, or maize. The term crop circle entered the Oxford Dictionary in 1990.
Self-described pranksters Doug Bower and Dave Chorley claimed to have started the crop circle phenomenon in 1978.[1] Their work is continued by other groups of crop circle makers such as the circlemakers arts collective founded by John Lundberg in the early 1990s.
Some assert that photographs of bent or warped crop growth nodes support non-human origins of crop circles.