Solar panel installations per year

Crop circles in British wheat fields are declining as solar panels rise in British backyards, which sounds like the universe rearranging its priorities. Aliens, apparently, prefer photovoltaics. Or perhaps they always did, and we just never asked.

Both trends are entirely terrestrial. Crop circle reports peaked in the late 1990s as a hoaxer subculture and have steadily faded since, while UK solar installations have grown sharply on falling panel prices and government feed-in tariffs. Two unrelated curves in opposite directions, both shaped by the slow march of British rural land use.

So the correlation is fields finding new uses and old myths losing their audience. The wheat is still there. The artists, less so.