Great mystery - the debate on crop circles rages on

Watch the crop circles film

Crop circles

They used to be one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time.

Explanations of who or what made them range from aliens to freak weather.

But when it was admitted they were hoaxes 15 years ago, there was dogged disbelief among those who looked for paranormal answers.

And today there is a growing number of people who still think that not all circles are man-made.

Mysterious circles

Crop circle researcher Hugh Newman accepts that crop circles can be man-made, and he is scathing about those who cheapen the mythology.

Hugh is unshaken in his belief that human consciousness and earth mysteries account for a great number of formations.

He cites an amateur video called ‘the Oliver’s Castle footage’ as proof of a supernatural involvement.

In 1991 a unique crop formation appeared in a Cambridgeshire field.

Called the Mandelbrot Set, it turned the whole enigma on its head.

Based on a set of geometrical patterns discovered by mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, it was so complex it reinforced the belief it couldn’t have been made by human hand.

So Inside Out decided to put it to the test.

Is it possible to recreate the Mandelbrot Set in a field in Norfolk at night with no lights?... and with the farmer’s permission, of course.

Circlemakers John Lundberg and Rob Irving took up the challenge.

In just over four hours and in the pouring rain, John and Rob achieved the impossible.

And before slipping away into the night, one more revelation about the infamous "Oliver's Castle" footage.

All is revealed on Inside Out Monday September 25th.

Links relating to this story:

• Inside Out South - Crop circles
• Circle makers
• Crop circle research

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Lottery

Playing the game but will your numbers come up?

It’s said you’re more likely to be struck by a bolt of lightning or eaten by a shark than hit the jackpot on the Lottery.

Yet 30 million of us buy a ticket every week with the vaguest of hopes that our six numbers will come in... and hope to change our lives forever.

That’s exactly what happened with the Collier brothers of Milton Keynes.

Ian won a tenner on the Lottery and instead of keeping it, he bought 10 lucky dips.

They won £8.5 million.

Inside Out sees how much the former sheet metal workers' lives have changed.

And we look at the luckiest place in our region - Northamptonshire.

David Whiteley also visits Wicken Fen, near Ely, one of our oldest and most beautiful nature reserves to see how it has spent a third of a million pound grant on preserving the landscape for the future.

Links relating to this story:

• BBC - National Lottery
• National Lottery
• Lottery - Good Causes
• National Lottery Commission
• Camelot

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites

Mobile homes

Home sweet home? Inside Out revisits Hardwick Narrows

Inside Out East returns to a story we first carried in our last series.

It was a film about people at the bottom of the housing market - people whose lives have been devastated after a campaign of harassment and intimidation by a new landlord.

But when a new landlord took over and started redeveloping the site at Hardwick Narrows in King's Lynn, Norfolk, residents say they were subjected to a campaign of intimidation.

Many of the residents left, but some held out.

The story, first transmitted in January 2006, prompted such a response from viewers, that we've taken a second look at the story.

And as we discover, the practices at King's Lynn are far from being an isolated case.

We talk to residents at another park leased by the same landlord Colin Crickmore.

He refutes allegations that he tried to force residents to give up their pitches and told us the site at Fordham needed redevelopment.

Links relating to this story:

• Inside Out East - Mobile homes
• Blewbury News

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites