Ah yes: it's June, and here in sunny, gun-happy Dallas, summer has well and truly arrived. The sun is shining, the temperature is already enough to ensure I won't be leaving the house during daylight hours for the next few months, the birds are singing, and the cops are tasering.

Over on the other side of the world, however, something else is happening....something weird...something magical...something that for some is utterly life-changing...

That's right: Britain's annual Crop Circle season is amongst us. Every year since at least when I had a full head of spiky, black punk-rock hair, the fields of Wiltshire, England have been home to strange formations of varying quality and equally varying designs.

And every year until I moved to the US, I used to spend a week or two of every summer hanging out in Crop Circle land, quaffing a few pints at the Barge pub, and discussing all-things circular and "croppish" with locals, with tourists, and with fellow Forteans.

But, among all the talks of aliens, UFOs, and government conspiracies and their (possible!) relationship to the Circle mystery, nothing got people's backs up and blood-pressure raised more than a discussion of the human element: that's right, the dastardly hoaxers. Those vile people who many have placed on a par with Adolf Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, and Satan himself.

Well, not quite literally, but you get the picture, I'm sure.

Anyway, with Circle season in our midst again, I thought it was about time to try and deconstruct some of these myths - many of which are made by people who have never set foot in England, or in Wiltshire, and certainly never in a fucking Circle itself!

Let's take that word: hoaxers. Given some of the statements that have been made over the years, some might be inclined to replace "hoaxers" with "bastards!"

In reality, however, many, if not the vast majority, of those people (some of who I know as friends) are as far away from being "hoaxers" as one can possibly get.

The very mention of the word "hoaxers" inevitably conjures up imagery of evil folk spoiling everyone's alien fun, destroying belief systems, and being the all-round, collective "bad guy."

The reality is actually thousands of miles from that image - just in the same way that many of those who shout "Hoaxer!" are thousands of miles from Wiltshire, I might well add...

Indeed, what many of the people who cry "evil hoaxers!" don't like to talk about is that many of those engaged in making the formations have actually experienced weird phenomena in formations of their own making, including sightings of aerial balls of light, periods of missing time, and encounters with unidentified figures.

My good friend Matthew Williams (the only person ever arrested, charged and convicted for making a formation in a Wiltshire field), is convinced that there is a paranormal element to the Crop Circle puzzle, even though he disputes the notion that they are made by "aliens" or "UFOs."

Matthew takes a view that suggests the Circle-makers may well be guided by some external force that uses the makers, that may have ancient ritual magic at its heart, and that is very real - but that, equally, is unconnected to nuts-and-bolts ET craft. "Channeling" is a dirty word to many ufologists - but it may actually play a part in the Crop Circle puzzle.

Other Circle-makers see themselves as artists - but artists who use crop instead of paint and canvas.

So, next time you give thought to Crop Circles, and the so-called evil fiends who make them - try taking a deep breath, try actually speaking to the people and ask them why they do it, find out what really motivates them, and ask them to open up about their own bizarre experiences in man-made circles.

You may be surprised how your view of the "evil Crop Circle maker spoiling everyone's fun" imagery goes out of the window in an instant.

Something weird is going on, and the human element (ironically) may be the key to resolving it - albeit in a way that many can't yet get their heads around, and that might point us in a direction far stranger than anything that ET could ever conjure up from its big gray head.

Makers, they certainly are. Hoaxers, they certainly ain't.