Circles on the field and other formations. Brazil

In 1969 there were two markings discovered on the ground in the area around Ibiuna, a small town not far from Sao Paulo in south-east Brazil. According to eye-witness reports, both of them were flattened, swirled circles, as detailed below.

The first has far less documentation than the second, although the reports are unambiguous. To the right is an extract from Flying Saucer Review vol 16, no 1 (1970), which includes the following details:

"[Locals] found a circle of flattened vegetation, recalled as being approximately 8 metres in diameter... inside the circle of the 'nest' the grass had been swirled flat in an anticlockwise direction, with small secondary vortices here and there."

This is quite clear - the grass ("capim" in Portuguese) was swirled in a specific rotational sense, flat to the ground. There can be no real doubt that this is a typical crop circle type effect, albeit not in a cultivated field.

The associated UFO sighting dates to June 17, 1969, and this circle was found "on the following day", so it may have formed on the night of 17/18 June.

The report above was written by investigator, Hans Bemelmans, who was able to inspect the site in late June.

Bemelmans discovered six holes in the ground, underneath the flattened capim, and located where the "secondary vortices" were, by which he means secondary swirls evident in the circle floor. These are clearly evident in his sketch of the circle (left) but are of less interest to us than the rest of the drawing which shows an unmistakable anti-clockwise swirl of perhaps a quarter of a rotation between the centre and edge of the circle. It also shows definite circularity to the marking, and an abrupt boundary between flattened and standing stems. 

Although there is no photograph, this sketch, published in 1970, is robust evidence of the first of the "crop circle" events here.