Crop circles are on their way back in Wiltshire, with farmers, pubs and tourist spots being the winners.

After two consecutive miserable summers the county’s crop circle ‘industry’ has taken a battering but a spate of good weather (this weekend excepted) has seen a flurry of circles, which has been good news for tourism.

Adrian Potts, landlord of the Barge Inn at Honeystreet, can see a busy summer ahead.

He said: "In the late 1990s and through to 2002, [the crop circle trade] was massive. On a sunny day we'd have people here by 10am. But it dropped off and the last few years have been dreadful. The last two summers have been terrible - both in terms of weather and of circles.

"The crops are not true enough yet. Weather permitting, I'd say the best ones will start now. In the next two weeks there should be a burst of activity."

The 2009 season began in April with six spectacular formations. The first was a series of simple circles in a field of rape; then came a 350ft yin-yang symbol in a barley field near Devizes.

Three ambitious formations were reported over the last bank holiday and last Tuesday this week a giant 600ft jellyfish was found in a barley field on Bill and Sally Ann Spence's farm near Kingston Coombes in Oxfordshire.

Francine Blake, who founded the Wiltshire crop circle study group in 1995, is excited by the jellyfish: "It's fantastic. When we look at it, it's got seven small circles, or moon shapes. It's describing the magnetic field of Earth," she said.

She is relishing a summer of new designs. "This year started much earlier. There's one every day now. It is very intense already. I have never seen such complex designs in rape in all my years of studying this subject.

"Usually, the season starts with a nice little pattern, a tri-petal flower or such like, one or maybe two in rape if we are lucky. But this year they are big, complex and numerous right from the start."

Crop circle investigators are preparing for their annual conference in Marlborough as 2009 shapes up for a bumper season of formations.

Speakers from all over the world will be attending the conference at Marlborough College on August 8 and 9 to share their theories on how and why the designs appear.

Clare Oatley of the Wiltshire Crop Circle Study Group, which is organising the conference, said: “The conference has been running for 14 years and each year new and popular speakers are found to delight their audience.

“This year is no exception. There are crop circle researchers coming from Holland, France and of course the UK, fascinating speakers talking about local lay lines and the discovery of ancient pyramids in Bosnia.”

Conference tickets are available from the Wiltshire Crop Circle Study Group’s website at www.wccsg.com or by phoning (01380) 739966.