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Plate 02 of 11 · cca-1991-barbury-castle-tetrahedron

Barbury Castle tetrahedron

An equilateral triangle whose sides cross the hub's broad outer ring at six points, with spokes to a ringed centre and three deliberately different corner devices: a simple ring, a broken ratchet spiral, and a disc cut by six curved vanes. Widely read at the time as a two-dimensional projection of a tetrahedron.

Barbury Castle tetrahedron — 1991-07-17 (cca-1991-barbury-castle-tetrahedron) An equilateral triangle whose sides cross the hub's broad outer ring at six points, with spokes to a ringed centre and three deliberately different corner devices: a simple ring, a broken ratchet spiral, and a disc cut by six curved vanes. Widely read at the time as a two-dimensional projection of a tetrahedron. Location: Barbury Castle, Wroughton, Wiltshire, GB (51.488, -1.777). Reported 1991-07-17. Original imagery: https://thecroppie.com/2025/11/01/three-circles-1991/ (photo © its photographer, not covered by this file's license). Reconstruction data and rendered images (c) Crop Circle Atlas / Leslie, released under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse and adapt freely, but you must credit the Atlas and share alike. Referenced aerial photographs are NOT part of this work and remain (c) their photographers. Barbury Castle tetrahedron cca-1991-barbury-castle-tetrahedron Leslie / Crop Circle Atlas © 2026 Leslie / Crop Circle Atlas · CC-BY-SA-4.0 2026-08-19 An equilateral triangle whose sides cross the hub's broad outer ring at six points, with spokes to a ringed centre and three deliberately different corner devices: a simple ring, a broken ratchet spiral, and a disc cut by six curved vanes. Widely read at the time as a two-dimensional projection of a tetrahedron. Barbury Castle, Wroughton, Wiltshire, GB (51.488, -1.777) — formation reported 1991-07-17 https://thecroppie.com/2025/11/01/three-circles-1991/ https://github.com/crop-circle-atlas Barbury Castle tetrahedron · 1991-07-17 · Barbury Castle, Wroughton, Wiltshire, GB cca-1991-barbury-castle-tetrahedron · © 2026 Leslie / Crop Circle Atlas · CC-BY-SA-4.0

Survey record

Reported
1991-07-17
Location
Barbury Castle, Wroughton, Wiltshire · map
Coordinates
51.488, -1.777 (±800 m)
Crop
wheat
Span
80 m
Symmetry
1-fold
Elements
24 rendered from 24 declared
Fidelity
level 3 · confidence medium
Digitized
claude-fable-5, 2026-08-20
tetrahedronratchetwiltshirefamous1990s

Construction

Hub circle + thin ring + broad outer ring that the triangle's sides cross at six points; triangle circumradius 27 m with sides and centre spokes as 1.1 m bands. Corners: simple ring (standing centre, spoke line running to its centre); six-step broken ratchet spiral with a small offset dot; flattened disc cut by six curved standing vanes, each an arc of the disc's own radius centred on its rim. Read at the time as a 2-D projection of a tetrahedron.

Sources