Book excerpt: What is the mystery of the crop circles? Are they manmade or supernatural? Today the majestic crop formations grace the very same pastures of southern England that in the past were the haunts of fairies, hobgoblins, and mysterious lights. Here, too, are some of Britain's most spectacular prehistoric landscapes: Stonehenge, Avebury, and Silbury Hill all act as ominous backdrops to the crop circle phenomenon. Did our ancestors know something about this beguiling, enchanting landscape that we are only now waking up to for the first time? Is there a higher intelligence responsible for such creations, and if so, who are they and what are they trying to tell us? Bizarrely, the answer might lie not here on earth, but 37,000 light years away in the constellation of Cygnus, the Northern Cross, where lurks a star perhaps responsible not only for the foundation of the world's earliest stone monuments but for the emergence of humanity itself.