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Crop Circles

I always knew it... somewhere up there there is a race of super-advanced farmer aliens.

It explains Alan Titchmarch.
 
I don't see anything indicating that the farmers must actually cut the cleared patches as crop circles. Without that, they'll just leave rectangles! I feel it would be an important addition to the rules that they were cut into such shapes - just to make it more interesting for the skylarks, of course.
 
Mal Function said:
how else would somewhere called "Loose Bottom" get any publicity?
Click to expand...
By being called "Loose Bottom."
 
There's a report of (what we would call crop circles) in a 17th c. English pamphlet. Reported to be the work of the devil, of course. :) (surprised they didn't blame Catholics)
 
If that's the 'report' I'm thnking of, it doesn't (as I may have mentioned elsewhere in this thread) say that the crop was flattened in a circle. It says instead that the crop was flattened over a large area - the image on the pamphlet is a little bit of artistic licence by the illustrator ;) So, no circle.
 
Didn't we discuss that here too? Sounds familiar...
 
JerryB - Yea we did. I just wanted to keep it alive as a conversation piece. Kinda like when you move from one house to the next and you put that stuffed platapus on the fireplace mantle so visitors can take note and enjoy the fascination of it.
 
Full circle -- One year later, alien mystique still hovers over Rockville

By Warren Lutz



ROCKVILLE -- Where Rockville and Suisun Valley roads meet outside Fairfield, it's just another day. Nothing paranormal about it.

Nobody is wandering around, for example, wearing an aluminum foil hat, armed with a tuning fork and chanting toward the heavens. And nobody from Fox News or CNN is following them around with beefy news cameras, beaming their images around the globe.

"Everything's back to normal," said Sally Estudillo, owner of La Barista. "But it was fun while it lasted."

It was exactly one year ago when a huge crop circle formation mysteriously appeared in a wheat field only yards away from Rockville Corners, turning this sleepy farming community into ground zero for the largest paranormal event in Solano County's history.

For a while, the discovery brought national attention and lured thousands of psychics, researchers and curiosity seekers to the area. Some took measurements and meditated over broken chaffs of wheat. Some claim they felt waves of healing energy pour through their bodies. Some sold wheat and commemorative T-shirts. A little girl sold "alien lemonade."

At the center of the circus stood Larry Balestra, owner of the wheat field. Everyone wanted an interview with the soft-spoken farmer, who remembers feeling uncomfortable with all the attention. At least initially.

"I'm not the kind of guy who likes to be that public," Balestra said. "But it got easier. They were lining up."

Among those pulled to Rockville was Carolyn Skrzydlewski, a graphic designer at the Berkeley Psychic Institute. She remembers the intense energy she felt from the crushed stalks.

"It was a sort of unsettled feeling as I was standing there, a bit uncomfortable," Skrzydlewski recalled. "The energy changed as we sat in the center of the circle."

What was it? A year later, she still isn't sure.

"Better people than me have formed hypotheses," she said. "I'm open to it being whatever it is, or isn't. But I think it was absolutely fascinating. It was quite obviously something no person could have made."

Or could they?

Two weeks after the discovery, four teenage boys came forward to confess they had made the crop circles out of boredom. The hoax theory satisfied skeptics, but holes emerged in the boy's story. They claim they worked by moonlight, for example, although it was two nights before a new moon.

Meanwhile, a Fairfield based paranormal research firm that studied local crop circle formations found the circles were subjected to microwave energy and were likely created by someone with extremely advanced knowledge of Euclidean geometry.

Steve Moreno, founder of the firm, PsiApplications, still doubts the teens' tale.

"If they did do it, they wouldn't be aware of any of those things, and they wouldn't be able to duplicate those effects," he said.

In the weeks after the crop circles were discovered, two other formations turned up - a small one in a nearby wheat field, and another in a corn field 15 miles away, near Vacaville's Nut Tree Airport. Proof of who or what created them remains unknown.

Despite the debate - or maybe because of it - the Rockville formation proved fortuitous for an area that has been hard-hit by decades of dropping crop prices and the pressures of encroaching development.

Business at La Barista shop hummed along for several weeks, as city dwellers who eventually grew tired of standing in a hot wheat field ordered smoothie after smoothie.

"It lasted a lot longer than I thought," Estudillo said. "At first I thought it would last just a week, but they kept coming. . . I thought, 'This is big stuff.' "

Balestra, too, rode the wave. Business picked up at Larry's Produce, his fruit and vegetable stand down the road from the crop circles. And the farmer made extra cash by selling crop circle T-shirts.

Eventually, the bubble burst and the crowds went home. In the end, Balestra figures he broke even between destroyed wheat crops and modest T-shirt sales. (He has plenty of shirts left, for anyone who's interested.)

While the Rockville crop circles stand as the single largest crop circle formation in North America, they're gone now.

And if the circle-makers - whoever they are - return to Balestra's field this year, they won't find wheat. They'll find black-eyed peas.

Green leafy sprouts will soon cover the area where thousands of human beings stood last summer and felt . . . something. But what?

A mystery, still unsolved.

Despite a front row seat, Balestra isn't any closer to the truth.

"Everybody who has their opinion has a good argument," he said.

But if his black-eyed peas one day grow feet and walk away, we'll know.
Click to expand...

http://www.dailyrepublic.com/articles/2004/06/28/news/news1.txt
 
Cereal entrepreneurs

Crop circles used to be the work of amateur pranksters. Now, flattening wheat fields is a lucrative commercial enterprise. Kate Burt meets the Circlemakers

06 July 2004

Rod Dickinson clearly remembers the night he made his first crop circle. It was the summer of 1991, just months before the famous crop-circle hoaxing duo, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, came out about their nocturnal wheat-flattening activities; a time when the nation was still gripped by the idea that aliens might feasibly have been parking up in fields at night, all over the southern English countryside.

"No one had really mooted the idea these things might have been man-made," says Dickinson, an artist, "as far as people were concerned, me included, there were definitely other possibilities; at least some unexplained natural phenomena. I was fascinated." So when a friend challenged Dickinson to join him in an illicit attempt to create their own crop circle, the pair found themselves on their knees in the middle of the night, with a not very elegant, not very round mess on their hands.

Thirteen years later, Dickinson has just completed what he estimates to be his 500th foray into the art of what's come to be known as "circle-making". This time, things were a little different. The medium was sand, not crops, and the ambitious formation replicated a photographic image that Dickinson and his circle-making partner, John Lundberg, 35, had spent several weeks translating into a series of co-ordinates on a computer-design programme. From this, they'd created complex numerical spreadsheets, filled with measurements, from which his team of 13 assistants worked. He'd also secured advance permission from the landowner; there was a four-strong BBC film crew to capture the work in progress; a helicopter booked so a photographer could capture the end result, and a PR. Oh yes and, this time, he and Lundberg got paid several thousand pounds for their efforts by the satellite channel UK TV Gold, who commissioned the piece to launch their new comedy season.

Last year, Dickinson and Lundberg completed their most lucrative commission to date, for the American computer-chip company AMD. It involved making two "eco-paint" designs on grass in England and three across the States - one in sand, two in grass, all photographed by satellites. Thanks to the pair's slick, award-winning website (circlemakers.org), the business has snowballed since it was launched 10 years ago. They've also been booked by clients including Weetabix, O2, Big Brother, Mitsubishi, and Thompson Holidays, and have just taken on a commission for the Japanese company, Hello Kitty. The budget for the Big Brother campaign was rumoured to have been a quarter of a million.

It all seems a long way from Dickinson's renegade circle-making debut. Whatever happened?

On that 1991 night, Dickinson left the mess, convinced that man-made crop circles were not a feasible option. Then, a few days later, he picked up a newspaper to discover that a crop-circle researcher was claiming that his clumsy creation was some kind of supernatural miracle. "After reading that," he explains, "I realised there was another dimension to crop circles, that they could be a catalyst for people's already established beliefs, beliefs they were projecting on to the fields. Interesting territory for an artist." Hence, he and fellow artist Lundberg, 35, a documentary-maker, collaboratively explored what was possible.

It's not just Circlemakers who are cashing in. Crop-circle researchers and believers are still doing a roaring trade in tours, talks and books - fakers like Circlemakers, they insist, are responsible for only a percentage of formations. In particular, the summer tourist trade in Wiltshire, particularly Avebury, which has the highest proliferation of formations, also benefits. "Around 85 to 90 per cent of our custom during the summer months is connected to crop circles," says Jo Smith, an information assistant at Avebury Tourist Centre, where there are maps, calendars, tours, books and other circle merchandise on offer.

Farmers are also well remunerated by the commercial turn the phenomenon has taken. "We did a formation for the Daily Mail in a wheat field in Avebury," recalls Dickinson, "and the paper paid the farmer £6,000 for the equivalent of around £100 worth of crops". Unsurprisingly, circlemaker-landowner relations are improving. Even illicit circles can prove lucrative for the landowner. One farmer in the Stonehenge area is said to have made around £30,000 in four weeks after charging a couple of quid to tourists to visit circles that appeared on his farm.

But how does it feel to have a huge corporate logo slapped in the middle of your land? Very good, says a farmer paid £500 apiece for two fields to be used for Circlemakers' jobs. "If they'd been put in by an alien and I hadn't been paid, I'd have been hopping mad."

Rob Irving, 47, also an artist and a satellite member of Circlemakers was one of the first fakers to see the commercial potential in crop circles. "Well before Circlemakers existed," he explains, "a friend and I called ourselves Circumcereal Ltd and put an ad in the paper announcing that we were available for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. A bunch of hippies paid us £250 for a formation in a field of thistles for their friend's birthday."

With all marketing trends, particularly those that exploit a cultural phenomenon, there is a risk of burning out the original medium. Sam Conniff, director of Livity, a creative-communications agency, assesses the risk: "If a company like Circlemakers is to survive, they will need to diversify - the less cool the brands commissioning them become, the more they'll need to offer. It's about turning your fad into an industry. Next they may start doing stone carvings, topiary, hillside formations; they could easily settle into a company known for shaping ambient brand messages into natural environments. If Cunning Stunts, the firm who projected Gail Porter's backside on to the Houses of Parliament, had stuck solely with projections they'd have been stuffed. Instead they branched out and began to think of alternative stunts, like floating icebergs down the Thames for Smirnoff."

It's hard to see the connection between all this corporate speak and the mavericks who once spawned front pages claiming that aliens had landed. Don't Dickinson and Lundberg feel they're selling out?

"Is that possible with circle-making?" says Lundberg. "Part of the point for me is to try to keep the crop-circle phenomenon in the public awareness. Plus, I used to run my own design company, so I have no qualms about working for corporations. If someone offers you loads of money to do something you enjoy what are you going to say?"

Lundberg argues that he and Dickinson are simply putting the skills they developed to commercial use. They are "second generation" circlemakers, he explains - the first generation being Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, the two Hampshire watercolour artists who spent 14 years perpetrating one of the most effective, elaborate and brilliant hoaxes of the 20th century. "We're more an art collective," continues Lundberg. Indeed, around 10 years ago Dickinson's old flatmate Gavin Turk, a one-time dabbler in circle-making himself, put the pair together for an exhibition focussing on mythologies, satanic cults and folklore. "There's always been a very strong artistic tradition in the circle-making fraternity." Bower and Chorley, he says, took inspiration for their crop circles from abstract and surrealist artists.

Absolute rubbish, says Bower, now 80, and slightly irritable about still being asked about crop circles. "The artistic side didn't appeal at all," he says, "it was purely about making it look as if a UFO had landed. Simple as that. When we went public [in September 1991] we thought that'd be the end of it. And it should have been. Trouble is, everyone else wanted to get in on the act, people wanted the publicity."

Bower is unimpressed by the technological developments of which Lundberg and Dickinson are so proud. The simplicity was part of the mystery: "The ones we created were nothing like the ones you see today. We just used planks and bits of rope."

He had no idea crop circles were being used for advertising purposes: "First I've heard of it," he says, "but it doesn't surprise me. It all goes to show the way people think these days - they're not satisfied with just having a laugh like we were."
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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=538392
 
Crop circles used to be the work of amateur pranksters. Now, flattening wheat fields is a lucrative commercial enterprise.
Click to expand...

Here in America, farmers just build corn ma(i)zes. We don't try to pass them off as being created by Aliens or the spirit of Gaia. (Actually, I have nothing constructive to say here, I just wanted to subject you all to that awful pun.)
 
There was an interesting report on radio 4 about Polish crop circles near Warsaw that have been appearing for the last 3 or 4 years along with balls of light. They have set up a CCTV camera to watch the filed and since the camera went up no circles have appeared although the farmer seems to be doing a good trade in novelty items ;)

However, I can't find any recent information online - I could only find this from Jan 2004:

Close Encounters

14 January 2004

Wylatowo, a small village halfway between Pozna? and Toru?, was virtually unknown until a few years ago. Recently there have been crowds of curious tourists and UFO enthusiasts flocking there to see the crop circles.

Researchers from the Nautilus Foundation, along with Chairman Robert Bernatowicz, also visited the spot. They wanted to document the Wylatowo circles in the form of a book and a film.

First, there's a great silence. No trees whispering, no birds singing, even the air seems still while a thick fog forms above the ground. It is pitch dark. It all lasts a few minutes, during which the crops all of the sudden start "lying down" in the form of characteristic circles; then, everything comes back to life-this is how witnesses describe what could be seen this summer in the fields of Wylatowo, including the land of Tadeusz Zarywski and the Filipczak and Sucholas families.
Mysterious patterns in the Wylatowo
crops have been appearing for the last three years. They look like artistic figures, stalks of which are laid with great precision bearing no traces of human creation. Apart from pictograms, circles of light and strips of energy were spotted in the area as well, giving rise to talk of the Wylatowo Triangle and "the Polish Roswell."

"We believe that these pictograms were created by some supernatural force-we do not know whether physical or spiritual in nature and maybe we will never find out; but we can say for sure that these are not human beings," said Wojciech Bobilewicz of the Nautilus Foundation. A description of the pictograms can be found on the websites of the Wylatowo community, the Nautilus Foundation and the Polish UFO Center.

The Nautilus Foundation was founded in 2001. It became widely known after a series of programs on supernatural phenomena on Radio Zet. One of them presented the first ever crop circles spotted in Poland, which appeared in Pig?a in 1999. From the very beginning, the foundation caused commotion, although as its members write on their website, they just want to "bring man closer to discovering the truth about himself and the surrounding world." The foundation has been investigating signs in Wylatowo from the beginning, but the scope of its activities is not limited to supernatural phenomena. It also organizes many events on the topic, such as the visit to Poland by science fiction writer Erich von Däniken and a series of meetings inspired by the UFO Festival in Roswell, New Mexico.

Theories concerning the origin of crop circles cover both natural phenomena and extraterrestrial ones. They range from ideas about traces following a visit by a UFO to the effects of a mysterious geophysical energy. Crop circles have been appearing for centuries and can be found in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Canada and other countries
Many theories have also arisen on the origin of the Wylatowo pictograms. Some say that Wylatowo was the place of a cult even during pagan times and that the first Christian temples were later created there. Others see it simply as a form of clever marketing by local farmers who wanted to make money selling pictures on their fields. Bobilewicz addresses these accusations, saying that specialists from the Nautilus Foundation have been working in Wylatowo nonstop for the past few months and have seen no signs of mysticism. The pictograms are too big and appear too irregularly to be formed by a human hand, he says.

There are also those who see these pictograms as signs from God. And those who claim that the pictograms are closely connected to the mystery of Roswell, a small American town which allegedly witnessed alien landings years ago. In the meantime, hundreds of tourists and scientists have been flocking to Wylatowo to see it with their own eyes. Among them was a group of Japanese experts who wanted to find out whether the area had been irradiated; their reports were inconclusive.

In July, a team of experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also visited the spot. The BLT Research Team headed by Nancy Talbott conducted experiments using the latest technology, including motion-sensitive infrared cameras. Talbott is a famous expert in investigating crop circles worldwide. After her two-week stay in Wylatowo, she concluded that the pictograms that appeared there in June and July were authentic, although she stressed that additional expertise was necessary.

Apart from the scientific aspect of this phenomenon, there is also a commercial side. There are those seeking to profit from the Wylatowo pictograms. For one, there are the farmers selling pictures of pictograms in their fields that have been appearing in the media throughout the past summer.

But the real driving force behind the commotion is the Nautilus Foundation, which has been monitoring the area, taking pictures and recording eye-witness testimonies. Bernatowicz is preparing a book on the Wylatowo pictograms, Bobilewicz said. "We would also like to publish it in the United States, Western Europe and Japan so that word about Wylatowo can spread all over the world," he added. Meanwhile, one can read on the foundation's website that the story of the small village of Wylatowo will be the basis for a screenplay and that the foundation has already contacted.
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http://www.warsawvoice.pl/view/4517

I couldn't find much on the nautilus Foundation - apart from from the comfy bed perspective:

http://www.instantcomfort.com/why/YFoundation.asp?Domain=www.instantcomfort.com&
 
Ahhhhhhhh I post and then find:

CROP CIRCLE EYE-WITNESS IN POLAND - 06/06/2004



A new report of an eye-witness to a crop circle forming has come to light courtesy of investigations carried out in Poland by the BLT Research group. Meanwhile, fish have started turning up with crop circle designs embedded into their scales…


A new press release from Nancy Talbott of BLT Research reads:

*

“In 2003 Nancy Talbott (BLT Research Team Inc.) had the opportunity to visit Wylatowo, Poland and carry out fieldwork there in conjunction with people from the Nautilus Foundation and with the help of a British team-mate, Dan Lobb. Among other interesting events recorded there was a spectacular eyewitness account of a crop circle forming in 2000, involving a complex aerial object settling down in a field in which, the following morning, a crop circle was found - the design of which closely resembled the visually-perceived object of the night before.

This is the first time, to our knowledge, that the action of a complex aerial object has resulted in the production of a crop circle whose design mimicked the object itself.

Additionally, the design produced (I have been told by several Poles that it is called a "Polish Cross") was both replicated and/or elaborated upon in the years following... and not only in fields. A fisherman, in another area of Poland altogether, caught a carp with the same design embedded into both sides of its body in a totally inexplicable manner.

To read the full report, with excellent photos, go to:

http://www.bltresearch.com

and click on either "Updates" or "Eyewitness Reports."


Another BLT report of an eyewitness to a UFO landing in Golabki, Poland, with recovered physical evidence and analyses which prove the presence of intense heat having been present has also been issued and is available at:

http://www.rense.com/general49/blt.htm


Two more reports on the Poland trip will be forthcoming soon, one of which suggests the source for the recovered physical evidence at Golabki may have been fields nearby, the other of which will provide photos of the Polish crop circles along with sample plants/controls, as well as multiple photographic anomalies recorded during the trip.”

*

Congratulations to BLT for continuing their diligent and dedicated investigations around the world.
Click to expand...

http://www.swirlednews.com/article.asp?artID=720

A fish?? Yes indeed:

http://www.bltresearch.com/eyewitness2.html

Sorry if this has come up earlier.
 
Close encounter: Crop circles forge fellowship of the rings

By Judy Minear | Special to the Sentinel
Posted August 1, 2004



After the movie Signs did such a poor job of explaining crop circles, I became interested in these phenomena in the fields. A reasonable summer fare to London and a growing curiosity gave me the experience of walking three crop circles last summer.

The book Secrets in the Fields by Freddy Silva provided excellent research, and an e-mail from the author pointed the way to the Crop Circle Cafe outside Avebury, Wiltshire. Turning onto the M4, I spotted my first crop circle in a wheat field. The unexpected emotional response was a mixture of excitement, expectation, fear of the unknown and destiny. All welled up in me, and tears ran down my cheeks.

Waiting at the cafe was an international assortment of seekers with the same interest. They were huddled around a computer under a map where dots marked the locations of the year's crop of circles. A German man fresh from an aerial tour confirmed that no new circles had appeared overnight.

When I explored the circle spotted earlier, I discovered a sign and a coin box for a 1-pound donation. It's common for farmers to collect a tariff from the foot traffic on their property. This handiwork smacked of hoax. The evidence for a man-made circle is the bending of the stalks too close to the ground, imprecision of the design and all the crop bending in the same direction. Later, having a hoax as comparison came in handy.

The second design was five concentric circles with no doubt about authenticity. A couple from the Netherlands were sketching and measuring this one.

The best was saved for last. Intricate, enormous and genuine, this complex design was situated below one of the many horse designs carved into the terrain of clay. A friendly Swiss family in this circle was on its annual trek to study the delightful designs.

The mystery still surrounds these phenomena. Their attraction is a combination of deep symbolic significance and international intrigue.
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http://www.orlandosentinel.com/trav...2185957.story?coll=orl-travel-headlines-print
 
Mid 1990s, Rob Irving was the invited guest for two
conferences on CompuServe and discussed his well known
involvement in the art of making 'crop circles'.

At that time and with Rob's approval, I encapsulated
those essential online dialogues, with his permission to
publish.

It should be appreciated that there's very little time
during an online debate to provide detailed answers on
complex subjects - swollen nodes, for example. Rob asked
if I would also point out that in the spirit of a
conference, what may read rather flippantly later on, was
actually well-intentioned at the time.

With that in mind, Rob provides an interesting and
informative insight into the subject...


[BEGIN]
Q: How long have you been interested in the paranormal
and why did you become interested?

RI: I used to love taking detours through Wiltshire, and
was particularly intrigued by Silbury Hill. When I lived
in LA, I used to hang around at the Bodhi Tree bookshop,
looking at pics of stone circles and pining. When I
arrived back in the UK, in 1989, the circles phenomena
was breaking. I dived in... back to making those same
detours, but for other reasons.


Q: You have admitted hoaxing crop circles. How did you
get started doing that?

RI: I went to a circles meeting in Glastonbury where Erik
Bekjord was speaking... or shouting! He was playing
double-bill with George Wingfield - quite an
introduction.

I went with open arms, hoping to embrace something
unusual, but it didn't take me, and one or two others,
long to realise that something was wrong.

Soon enough, it was decided that the only way to really
test this was to know exactly how some formations
arrived, by making them. Well, in the space of a few
weeks, we'd gone from stumbling hoaxers to superhuman
intelligences; our formations dowsed, people got healed
in them, and the rest is history.


Q: You said you realized something was wrong, what was
that realization?

RI: That people were making extraordinary claims, while
giving the impression that they were the only ones who
could solve the enigma. While, deep down, they knew the
truth and went out of their way to conceal it. Just like
now, really.


Q: What is about faking crop circles, etc. that you
enjoy?

RI: Enjoyed, past tense. I gave up circle making. At the
time I felt that it was entirely justified if you were
really concerned about finding the truth of many of the
claims that are made. If you got rid of people like me,
you'd perhaps be left with more fantastic stories to hang
your belief on which weren't actually true.

The circles scene is a fine example of that. Perhaps, in
that sense, it's a microcosm of the scene surrounding
other phenomena, like ufology.


Q: Can you give us some examples of famous (or infamous)
crop circles that you HAVE hoaxed?

RI: Cherhill '93, loads in 94.


Q: Care to tell us why Cherhill is infamous?

RI: The two Cherhill sites were connected. One of them
was the source of Dr Levengood's H-Glaze findings, the
other showed higher counts of radiation and was heavily
featured in books - the likes of Linda Moulton-Howe's,
for instance.


Q: And you faked them?

RI: Well, made them would be more accurate.


Q: What percentage of supposedly "genuine" crop circles
in the U.K. have you made and what approx. percentage of
the rest do you *know* to be fraudulent?

RI: A lot depends on how you count them... but, since
1989, excluding Doug and Dave (whom I believe have been
entirely truthful), the vast majority can be accounted
for by circle makers who know each other, compare notes,
etc. I'm leaving some free because, again, there are
circles being made, especially now, by others,
copycats... which is simply a natural progression of what
happened in '89. I was a copycat once, too.


Q: What do you think about the latest crop formations,
from this summer? Like the 'double helix' and the
'spiral'?

RI: I think they're intimidatingly brilliant... if you're
asking me if I think they're man-made, the answer is yes,
or some of my friends are psychic, as they told me about
them in January.


Q: How did they make them?

RI: Tools, planks and a considerable amount of skill,
experience, and expertise.


Q: Do you know of any others whom also create crop
circles in their spare time, and why?

RI: Many others, most of which are some quite well-known
circles "researchers". The current circle makers are
London artists who share a slightly different view of
"art" than others. Rather than seeing art as objects,
paintings, sculptures, etc., they see it as "experience".
There's no doubt that the circles create experiences,
some of which are seen as being "paranormal". I've been
saying for years that the circles should be looked at as
modern day devotional art and I still believe that.


Q: Wasn't there cultivated soil in New Mexico, in the
form of spiders, prairie animals, etc., formed to be seen
aerially?

RI: With regard to the pre-indian designs (if that's what
they are), I'm satisfied that they could also be
described as devotional art, of some form or another. One
of the problems I have with the attitude that things like
that MUST be made by someone or something other than
human - apart from there being no evidence of that - is
that it falls in line with a general tendency to
underestimate human capabilities.


Q: Beyond the elegance, beauty and simplicity of your
designs, you have succeeded in stirring people to think
beyond themselves. Art has many subliminal purposes. A
single act creates results far beyond the obvious results
sometimes. Do you believe that your results match your
purpose?

RI: Very much so, I'd have thought that was obvious.


Q: Colin Andrews talks about a formation that had the
crop bent a couple of inches from the ground. IOW, it
could not have been faked. He also talks about a circle
that some researchers documented the direction of the
crop, etc. and several hours later the direction was
changed. Also there are some formations that have crop
layered in different directions. In these formations I am
referring to, the crop is not broken, it ripens more
quickly than the crop outside the formation.

The people hoaxing formations cannot do these things. IMO
the fakers are just making things more difficult for us
to find out the truth.

Do you have any opinions on this?

RI: Firstly...as Colin knows... crop continues to grow
after it's been flattened, hence, in a day or so, it's
raising up. Colin knows better than to keep foisting that
one on his fans. Layering has been shown on many
occasions to be a natural artefact of flattening crop
with traditional methods. The story about the changing
direction of crop is false, as are many stories coming
out of the crop circles field.

Colin took many photographs over the years. If he had
documented evidence of changes in the direction of lay,
I'd be very interested to see it.


Q: What do you mean when you say layering is a pure
natural artefact?

RI: If someone walks a roller through wheat, it spills
out, like water from a tyre. Multiply that by the amount
of times that person goes over the same patch, or,
imagine combing hair in layers, it's a very similar
process, just the size is different. The thing is, that's
what was discovered in making them, it's really the only
way to settle the arguments.


Q: Are you familiar with Dr. Gerald Hawkings research and
results of crop circle analysis? Diatonic scale of circle
ratio relationships etc? He is convinced many are not
man-made and has published volumes of test results to
verify that. Have you reviewed his work?

RI: Yes, I'm familiar with his papers, etc - I would
politely say that he's fallen into a bit of a trap marked
"pathological science". I'm sure he's sincere, however -
it's just that his findings could easily be shown to be
misguided if anyone really wanted to know.


Q: If they are hoaxed, then how do you explain away the
small amounts of radiation that are found at the centre
of some of them?

RI: Firstly, I never actually use the word "hoax",
because it implies things other than what's really going
on. None of the people I know who make good circles
regard themselves as "hoaxers", because they're not
trying to fool anyone.

As for the radiation, etc., first check out the person
making the claims, then compare those claims with other,
more likely possibilities, like "is there detectable
Radon?". There's many reasons, in any field in the
country, that you might get fluctuating geiger-counter
readings. In the case of Cherhill, the 3x level of
radiation, as reported, was rather misleading. As Jenny
Randles noted: three times miniscule is still miniscule.


Q: How do the hoaxers generate the swollen and bent nodes
seen in the wheat stems of many crop circles? In some
cases the nodes appear to have even "exploded", leaving
cavities.

RI: There are many surprising artefacts of the mechanism
of making circles - layering for instance, is a purely
natural artefact. What cerealogists continually fail to
address is the way crops react to flattening. That's
often dependent on how old the crop is and in what
condition etc. For instance, swollen nodes. What are the
nodes for? The plants are very phototropic.

As for the work and claims of Dr Levengood, and his
acolytes, I'm afraid I have no confidence in it, or them.
Many formations that he's pronounced "genuine" can be
proven man-made. He's even proclaimed simple wind damage
as "genuine".


Q: What are your ideas on "what" causes the "circles",
apart for "hoaxers", and why have the designs gone from
"circular" to "key" shaped designs?

RI: I believe the intelligence responsible for complex
circles (and keys) is human. The UBI, who made the keys,
felt like it, probably. The UBI were a group of lads from
Trowbridge, Wiltshire.


Q: Why has no-one ever considered the possibility of
staking out the area to catch the hoaxer, or at least try
to see what's really going on?

RI: There are many attempts to catch hoaxers. There's
currently a large reward for a conviction. But the
circles scene in England is very corrupt, a lot of the
people who purport to want to catch hoaxers are actually
making formations themselves.


Q: If they are not trying to fool anyone, then why aren't
they putting a sign up in the middle saying, "We did
this", signing their names. A hoax is anything that is
faked.

RI: Only fake if there's a genuine article, and there's
no substantial evidence for that. Also, going back to the
notion of art as experience, mystery is a crucial
element. To turn the question around: why get hung-up
over authorship? Who cares how they get there?


Q: What is it you believe about UFOs, etc.

RI: I believe there's phenomena that deserves
investigation, but I wouldn't describe myself as a
"believer" per se, most of my interest is in the people
surrounding and involved in ufology. Again, the research
procedures and attempts to sell stories.


Q: Have you ever seen a UFO?

RI: I tried to tell people but they wouldn't believe me.
The irony is that I saw it (them, actually - my two
sightings occurred in the same place, in the same week)
over the east field, Alton Barnes, the site of that Led
Zeppelin cover. One was at night, a pinky peachy light
which seemed to move just after I thought it might (I
think)... kinda did what I thought it might do, usual
thing - it moved to one side, shrunk in size, then popped
out.

The other one was in daylight a white, star-like thing,
that came down a field as I, and three others, watched
from about half a mile away.

Do you know? A large pictogram appeared in the same field
a week later.

But I have my suspicions that I told the wrong people
about Irving's famous UFO sightings.

If you know what I mean...
[END]


Perhaps disappointing that 'crop circles' are still, 'Ten
Years After', being highlighted as anything other than a
patently ludicrous 'Fortean phenomena';

I Was A Teenage Plasma Vortex...
 
We've had crop circles for years and we didn't need EU money for them. :hmph:

At:http://www.radio.com.pl/polonia/article.asp?tId=13526

EU Money For Polish Crop Circles
11.08.2004

A Polish town plans to ask the European Union for the equivalent of 6 million to help it build facilities for hundreds of visitors lured by its mysterious crop circles, a local official informed. Crop circles areas in farmers' fields where grain has been flattened, often in complex interlocking patterns have been appearing in Wylatowo, western Poland, for four years. The circles have drawn interest from UFO enthusiasts who believe they are made by alien spacecraft, while others dismiss them as hoaxes. "We are drawing up a formal request we'd like to fix the sewer system and put up a campsite for visitors, both from Poland and from elsewhere in Europe," Wylatowo town councillor Tadeusz Filipczak told news agency Reuters. "I've got an exhibit for tourists set up in my place where they can come and ask questions I mean, you can't just send people out in the fields," he said.
Click to expand...
 
Friday, August 20, 2004




Deciphering crop circles

A former social worker hooked on the odd designs found in fields of grain will explain how to interpret them.

CHUCK GRAHAM
Tucson Citizen



There is no denying the mystery of authentic crop circle designs. Their geometric and mathematical perfection do not occur naturally in nature. Science-fiction/fantasy filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan's movie "Signs" cuts straight to the chase. Crop circles are made by aliens who are warning us about ... something.

"The look of crop circles - their strangeness, their sense of mystery and the bizarreness of the designs - is the first thing that attracts people to crop circles. Always," said Steve Canada, who is described as the most prolific book writer on crop circles in the world.

Not bad, when you consider he didn't even think much about crop circles until 1990. A few years later, Canada, who lives in California, took an early retirement from his career in social work to devote his life full time to the study and interpretation of crop circles.

"Everybody has a different idea of what crop circles mean. And people always believe what they need to believe," said Canada, who will be in Tucson tomorrow to discuss his research.

Well, OK then ... exactly what is it that creates these elaborate, completely self-contained and ultimately religious symbols in the grain fields of total strangers?

The short answer is nobody knows.

The long answer is lots more interesting.

First of all, legitimate scientists are applying laboratory technology to stalks taken from crop circle sites, the stalks' chemical makeup, how much distortion there is in each stalk's cellular structure, the level of radioactivity and all that. So far, the results of those studies have produced zilch.

Canada isn't discouraged. He just brings up the scientific method.

"In every field, the main work of scientists is to systematically eliminate possibilities. That's how science works," he said, sounding like Thomas Edison reminding his laboratory assistants that the thousands of failed experiments while trying to invent the electric light bulb weren't failures. They were successful experiments that proved a certain kind of wire (or whatever) would never make a good light-bulb filament.

"We also know the crops that are knocked down don't die," said Canada during a phone interview from his desert home. "They can be replanted and will thrive."

But methodically eliminating possible explanations for the creation of crop circles doesn't interest Canada all that much. He needs more intellectual action, such as breaking the crop circle code. He looks at the photos of new crop circles "coming in faster and faster now" and sees messages from extraplanetary beings.

All the designs have always been built on mathematical principles. Just about everybody can agree on that. They are mathematical pictographs - messages in the "language" of mathematics.

Once again Canada calls up names of respected scientists. Albert Einstein often said discovering the world of numbers freed him from the more confining world of words. But for many folks, the language of math might as well be the language of Mars, no matter how simply the most basic communications in algebra and calculus are explained.

But Canada is convinced crop circles are pictorial representations of a more abstract mathematical language that makes our languages of written words (using the same small collection of letters) seem as primitive as the cave drawings from our own ancient history.

"For the talk in Tucson, I'm getting a whole new set of crop circle slides," Canada said. "Instead of giving a lecture full of details, I'll be talking about how to interpret these different crop circle designs.

"When I lecture, people usually start falling to sleep," he said with a laugh.

--------------

Not that Canada is reluctant to talk about his crop circle theories, which ultimately do begin to sound like mathematical equations. He is working on the theory there is a connection between the exact longitude and latitude of a new crop circle and the exact longitude and latitude of the controversial face on Mars, as well as the exact location of several additional astronomical bodies.

Since all these celestial points, including the crop circle, are always spinning through space at incredible speeds across vast distances, it proves . . . well, it's hard for the lay person to figure out what it proves.

But what is known for sure is that crop circles do exist. And it's known that the crop circles in England make the British government nervous. At least those particular crop circles, which are astonishingly elaborate with their three-dimensional designs of crops bent over at several different heights. They could not possibly have been made by cynical lads with ropes and boards working in the dark of the night.

"Whatever is making the crop circles, the British government considers that to be a foreign force invading their country. And the British army can't stop them," Canada said. "Several years ago the British army was ordered to figure out how to make a crop circle.

"So far they haven't able to do it."

Whatever is making the crop circles doesn't have any trouble making more. There are no numbers - but they are out there. While most of us spend our working days earning a living, Steve Canada is out there on our behalf with his computer software that pinpoints all manner of exact locations on Earth and in space, juggling the numbers, looking for patterns that will reveal the truth.

______________
IF YOU GO:

What: Steve Canada talks about his crop circle research; meeting is sponsored by the Tucson chapter of the international Mutual UFO Network.

When: 1-4 p.m. Aug. 21.

Where: Wilmot branch library meeting room, 530 N. Wilmot Road.

Tickets: Free.

Details: Call the Wilmot branch, 791-4627, or Tucson MUFON director George Parks, 742-6651.
Click to expand...

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=living&story_id=082004e1_cropcircles
 
I thought I had found a crop circle yesterday:

:cool:
 
Then I looked in the next field and saw the non-human intellegence that produced it.:eek:

(Think chain and steak in the ground). :( :D
 
Speaker explores mystery of crop circles

The audience at the Community Center on Feb. 23 couldn't believe their eyes. Some of the images of "crop circles" and other designs shown by lecturer George Albright drew audible gasps of amazement.

The circles, which have fascinated Albright for two decades, range from simple swirled rings to elaborate mathematical patterns larger than nine football fields to faces, human and non-human. They occur all over the northern hemisphere but are most often found in fields of wheat or "rape," another name for canola, in Wiltshire County, England, during July and August.

One of the circles, actually a rectangle, which appeared in 2001 appears to be a reply to a coded message, which scientists searching for extraterrestrial life beamed into space from a large radiotelescope in 1974. Others are even stranger.

Albright, a NASA engineer who was a program manager for the Hubble Space Telescope, described how he read about the circles in a science magazine, shortly after they were first noticed in the early 1980s.

That's not when they began, however. Albright showed a slide of a 17th-century pamphlet which illustrated the circles being made by "the mowing devil of Hartfordshire," complete with horns and tail.

Many modern explanations for the circles aren't much better.

Albright divides the circles into two categories, "human construction" and "mysterious construction." While some have admittedly been the work of human hoaxers and artists, not all can be dismissed so easily.

The "mysterious" circles have several unique features no one has yet been able to duplicate. They produce strange psychological and physical effects on humans and animals who enter them.

The plants in the circles are bent, not broken, and often have their seed heads intact. They are woven, and appear to have been subjected to controlled heating.

Genuine circles possess electromagnetic fields strong enough to damage a computer or a digital camera. These fields persist after the crops have been mown, and may actually precede the circle's formation, Albright said.

Then there are the microscopic spheres of iron, which appear to have been refined from the soil itself by the circle formation process.

One of the most compelling arguments against human creation of all crop circles is the size and complexity of those that have appeared since 1990, Albright said. Some of them, which have appeared overnight, contain over 400 individual circles laid out in a precise fractal pattern called a "Julian set."

Just to survey the land to create such a complicated design would take days, Albright said. Human constructions appear crude in comparison.

On July 8, 1996, a huge, complicated design appeared in moments in broad daylight near Stonehenge. Its formation was observed by small plane pilots.

"That was a turning point in my thinking," Albright said.

In a question-and-answer period afterward, audience members said they couldn't believe that no government or scientific agency isn't studying this phenomenon. Albright attributes their ignorance to denial. "It's outside their specialty," he said. "They're not paid to investigate this. A 'crackpot' mentality is applied to it."

The only things Albright couldn't explain were who, or what, is making the circles, and how, and why.

"I can't be blind to this," he said. "These things are real, and I can't explain it, but they are one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen."
Click to expand...

Source
 
Timble said:
We've had crop circles for years and we didn't need EU money for them. :hmph:

At:http://www.radio.com.pl/polonia/article.asp?tId=13526

EU Money For Polish Crop Circles
11.08.2004

A Polish town plans to ask the European Union for the equivalent of 6 million to help it build facilities for hundreds of visitors lured by its mysterious crop circles, a local official informed. Crop circles areas in farmers' fields where grain has been flattened, often in complex interlocking patterns have been appearing in Wylatowo, western Poland, for four years. The circles have drawn interest from UFO enthusiasts who believe they are made by alien spacecraft, while others dismiss them as hoaxes. "We are drawing up a formal request we'd like to fix the sewer system and put up a campsite for visitors, both from Poland and from elsewhere in Europe," Wylatowo town councillor Tadeusz Filipczak told news agency Reuters. "I've got an exhibit for tourists set up in my place where they can come and ask questions I mean, you can't just send people out in the fields," he said.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

For One millions Euros, plus 1'st class airfares and Six star accomodation I could come over and make one. Even bring a scale model made out of wheat grass with me, if needed. So who do I call?
 
*Inaugural post*

Good evening from Adelaide, South Australia. Crop Cirlce research brought me to FT, so I may as well start posting here, but I'll be adding my particular brand of BS to many other threads in future. This is a fascinating board. Thanks for having me.

Last year I bought a DVD called "Crop Circles: Quest for Truth" by documentary film maker William Gazecki. It was Oscar nominated in 2002 (I think). In it, there is footage of the balls of light moving through crop fields in a fashion that describes purpose. Other footage on the extras shows the lights toying with military helicopters, disappearing from in front of them and re-appearing behind them as they hover. I was amazed, as I hadn't seen anything like them before. I have found no plausible answers as to what they are. Just that they appear to have some relation to the formations, though whether they simply occupy the same space as co-incidence or they are part of the creation process is difficult to say.


Of crop circles, I reckon they are created by people. I've researched the plasma vortex theories and the 'alien message' ideas, but these glyphs / pictograms seem certainly to me to be the most modern form of sacred art.



3 things;

1. The 'Circlemakers' ('Team Satan' they call themselves) claim authorship of these incredible geometric patterns, so I'd like to see them make an 'exact' copy of the Milk Hill (2001)
bigcircle.jpeg
formation within the time frame that it was supposed to have hit the deck in (approximately 7 hours according to the farmer, though similarly complex patterns appeared within 45 minutes of bystanders witnessing an empty area in other cases, and yet others claim that they've seen formations appear in fields where minutes before there was nothing).

2. If they were created by a group of people, why has nobody thought to examine the footprints left in the 'tram lines' which is the only place they could step to avoid damaging standing crop. Perhaps they tromp out on their boards to avoid any impact on soil beds in tram lines???

3. How do the 'Circlemakers' account for the appearance of 'grapeshot' - small formations of as small as two feet across which appear isolated often far from main circles and tram lines? I can't figure that one out at all, unless the buggers have learned how to levitate :? :?:

I am sceptical of 'supernatural' explanations in most things fortean, yet with this phenomenon, I'm even more sceptical of the claims of authorship by the 'Circlemakers' (Irving, et al). There's a lot more unexplained than explained in this, which is why I'm so fascinated by it. Yes, it's last century's news, but I'm still waiting for answers. I think a lot of people are.

I would love to experience being in, at or above a formation some time. Has anyone experienced it firsthand or personally know anyone who has? I don't think the OP has yet been satisfied. I haven't, anyway.

Cheers, skinny
 
Welcome to the board, Skinny!

I was thinking it was early in the season for crop circles, but as you're 'down under' I guess it's prime time for you!

Looking forward to more of your 'particular brand of BS' in future. 8)
 
Thanks, mate. I'll try to keep the BS to a minimum. However, I am prone to fits of over-enthusiasm from time to time. Fair warning given. Chill pills are on hand. ;)

Yes, the last reported CC I heard about in Oz was up in Queensland about a year ago. The pics were uninspiring; looked more like the result of an amorous liaison between a couple of teenage banana-benders to me.

The northern summer isn't too far off. Do we have anything to look forward to this year? The number of CCs each year is dwindling dramatically. There certainly seems to be a correlation between the public interest shown and the number of circles appearing. As more and more people are convinced that these things are man-made, whoever is creating the circles are losing their audience.

There is the issue of disinformation. Colin Andrews has a pretty rubbery tale to tell in the extras of my DVD involving CIA and explicit threats and warnings that if he doesn't start reporting to the public that CCs are man-made, he will be 'removed' from the research.


Correction on my previous post; the crop circles film was not Oscar-nominated. Gazecki was nominated for a previous effort, 'Waco: Rules of Engagement'.

I'd like to hear from anyone who's seen this documentary. In particular, what do you think of the footage of the lights? Do check this film out if you have any interest at all in the phenomenon.

Links: http://www.cropcirclesthemovie.com/
Some short reviews: http://www.homestead.com/rhinoxsis/zmcropcircles.html
http://www.empiremovies.com/dvd/reviews/phil/crop_circles.shtml
 
Look west across the city, sunsplash. There where the sun is splashing into the gulf - I'm waving to you from just south of Glenelg. Hiii.
 
Whether the 'balls of light' are real or not is anyone's guess. There may be a mundane explanation. But so far there doesn't seem to be anyone/thing at work making the circles other than humans. Stories about harrassment by shadowy organisations are part and parcel of various other Fortean areas, and thus should be taken with a pinch of salt.
 
I hate to throw a spanner in the works, but even if ALL the crop circles are fake, what about the ice circles, done on the surface of frozen lakes with ice too thin to support a human? And one article pasted into a message in this thread mentioned that circles are also found in sand:

"Crop circles are named after complex and beautiful geometric patterns found to have been carved in a wide variety of crops and other vegetation across the globe.

They have also been found on earth, sand, ice and snow." from a message by Emperor on page 14 of this thread.

For more about ice circles in particular see:

http://www.rense.com/general6/ice.htm

http://www.cropcircleanswers.com/icering.htm

http://www.cropcircleanswers.com/Icecircle_2003.htm

http://www.cropcirclenews.com/modules/n ... toryid=306


This one includes a report of a hovering triangle shape above the pond:

http://www.cropcirclenews.com/modules/n ... toryid=304


I got all these from a Google search on ice circles; there were lots more links.


This one gets you a nice pdf document about an ice circle found in Utah, USA.

http://www.nidsci.org/pdf/icecirclereport.pdf


I wonder about the ones found in sand, I have never heard of that. Perhaps a google on 'sand circles'.....

Granted, the ice circles are not as elaborate as the crop circles, but there isn't any way of faking them when the ice is too thin to support a human.

Hmmm.....ice skating squirrels???
 
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