Description

The "Hampshire pattern" or "Chilbolton Code formation" or "Arecibo answer" was a crop circle that appeared in 2001 near the Chilbolton radio telescope in Hampshire, UK, which matched the visual representation and most of the information inside the original Arecibo message with minor differences. SETI rebutted the idea this was a genuine extraterrestrial response with the words "This is highly improbable. There is no evidence to suggest an other-than-earthly origin for these graphics.” The crop circle is a near replica of the Arecibo message, with the same 23 × 73 grid. Most of the chemical data remains the same, with the exception that in the section detailing important chemical elements, silicon has been added, and the diagram of DNA has been rewritten. At the bottom, the pictogram of a human is replaced with a figure with a large, bulbous head. A solar system with 9 planets is also depicted, with emphasis placed on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th planets of the system. The Arecibo telescope is replaced by a replica of a crop circle that appeared in the same field one year before, and the binary representation of the transmitter's diameter is altered.