The earliest recorded account of a crop circle was in the 17th century. A woodcut image portrays a devil cutting circles in a field with a scythe. The accompanying pamphlet explained that the farmer was furious with the price the mower was charging for his work and said he would rather have “the devil himself” do the mowing. As the story goes, that night the crop lit up as if it were on fire. In the morning there was a crop circle, courtesy of Satan.