Crop Cirlcles: Natural Phenomena?
I attended a lecture on Crop Circles with my mum at my local library today. It was rather amusing. The lecture was run by two ladies, both of which my mum used to work with, hehehe! Small world.
I had watched a minimal amount of documentaries on Crop circles before so I knew what they were and looked like. I am assuming everyone here will know about this phenomena and I am sure most of you give it as much thought and credibility as I have. Which is to say very little. Yet I didn't walk into this lecture with any scepticism, which is always good. One must keep an open mind. So as you read the following recount of, and my own interpretations of it I implore you to do the same and free that mind.
The lecture started off with a brief introduction of where crop circles have been found. And startlingly enough there have been accounts of crop circles in 29 different countries all over the globe. Here is also where I'd like to say that I took no notes so all facts and statistics relating to numbers are sketchy and may vary from the actual truth.
We were shown photos of some circles and there have even been circles made on ice and out of ice, as well as in deserts. These circles don't just pop up where there is crop or grass. There was a huge phenomena down here in South Australia on an enormouse plateu, etched into the dirt, a figure of an aboriginal man. This was just to show how widespread this really is.
The next main issue to address is the explination of how these things are created. This leads to a giant can of worms, and I am sure you can all guess what that one is.
But let us first step away and look at this phenomenon in a historical and linear sense. Crop Circles have only been in the publics eye on this grand scale since the 1970's. The circles were simple to start off with. People thought the wind had formed some sort of vortex to form these circular patterns. In the 1980's, particularly 1988 the patterns changed, becoming more complex. It was hard to believe wind caused this. It was easy to put these things down to nature before. Everything in nature has geometry and there are no straight lines. Yet all of a sudden these circles were being connected by lines in 1990. Gigantic pictograms started emerging.
What is even more fascinating is that military institutes like NASA were becoming interested. They studied the circles and found that they emitted a strange frequency and sound, which they determined to be something un-natural. Equipment would fail in freshly made crop circles and people could feel the effects as well through light headedness, dizziness and other symptoms. This is when scientists discovered that the circles had insanely high elecro-magnetic readings. 200 is the normal background reading, but in crop circled the number abruptly rose to 600. Another astonishing feature about crop circles is that the crop doesn't break. The stalks bend at a 90 degree angel. Nodules on the stems expand and blow out showing that astonishing heat is present and even the properties of the soil change.
People started taking real notice, but also in 1990 something which would change the way crop circles have been percieved would occure. Researched were observing a site, had all their equipment set up. The next morning scientists were excited to find a new cropcircle, called up the media before they even investigated it and when everyone was there they found a cruedly made circle. A hoax. Media lapped it up and faith in this phenomena was forever marred. Up until that point such a thing had never occured but after that face crop circles started popping up everywhere.
Here's an excerpt from a website about this event
With a heavy media presence at hand, excited researchers entered the formation only to be faced with a mess- the typical vortices were missing, the wheat appeared trampled and broken, and right in the centre lay a ball of wire, and a horoscope game with a wooden cross. The formation was obviously a well-orchestrated hoax, a crude attempt at deception to humiliate and discredit researchers thoroughly. Later, information was leaked from a high- ranking official in the Army that the crop circle had been constructed by a well trained top military unit with special clearance from the Ministry of Defense. Whatever the motive, the damage had been done and the public was turned off the phenomenon.
Evidently the military don't want people getting too excited about this. I find it very amusing. As a seeming rebellion against this action one night in 1991 in a high security area, namely the British Prime Ministers summer home, guarded my all sorts of military personel, fences and security cameras a celtic cross appeared the in back fields, with one of the ends transformed into an arrow to point directly at the house. People who wnated to take a look at it were immediately apprehended, while no one managed to see or catch the people who supposedly make crop circles.
Another famous incident was that one night in 1991 all the power went out in a own near Salisbury Plains. Even the Military complex lost all power. Strange sounds were heard like thunder but far more drawn out. In the morning the site where a newly formed crop circle had been established was closed off by military for a 'training session', which never happens in time of peace. Eventually the site was released and what was found was a truely beautiful and complex image. This crop circle has been identified to hold multiple meanings such as very important alchemical and religious symbolism.
it's the image in the middle
I think a few months later this image appeared.
it's the one on the right
Sorry that I couldn't find a better image. But if you can see it, it's clearly a fractal. We all know what a fractal is, right? It is like gazing into infinity. This crop fractal is perfect in every way. It appeared a year and one day exactly after New Scientist Magazine had released an article that said it was impossible for anyone to create a fractal without the use of a computer. Something has one hell of a weird sense of humour and irony, ne?
Shortly after the media found a couple of scape goats. Doug and Dave had admitted to making all the crop circled in England. They showed the world their plank and string. Here's another excerpt about this media frenzy.
Doug and Dave were challenged to a TV debate with several researchers, including an authority on the subject, Colin Andrews. "Had they hoaxed the first formations in 1978 ?" "Yes," said Dave. Then Colin pulled out photos of patterns going back to 1971. "Who then had made these?" "No," they answered, sheepishly, "we didn't make those." And if they had faked 200 circles, as they claimed, by whom were the remaining 2300 or so circles created? They had also claimed never to have been active in the Avebury area, but this had in fact been the prime circle-making area since 1988. Who made the the Barbury Castle tetrahedron? And the Mandelbrot Set? Who made those in other parts of the country? And since the countryside was swarming with people on the lookout for hoaxers, how come they had never been caught? No answer. How had they created the anomalies, the mathematical precision? The more questions were asked the more they backed down their claims. In the end, even Doug and Dave were not sure which ones they had done. But something in their soundbite-style replies gave the impression that their whole scheme had been orchestrated.
A newspaper article credited the Doug and Dave story to MBF Services. After much reluctance from the newspaper staff, it was explained that a freelance press agency had passed on the story to the newspaper. When asked for the phone number of MBF, the phone was hung up. Investigations eventually led to a 'research and development' lab in Somerset where work is conducted on classified government defense projects.
Just before the Doug and Dave incident, a French government scientist had warned researchers not to risk their reputations on the crop circles, for shortly the British Government would engage two artists and would present them to the press as the crop circles creators, to "put an end to all the wearisome fuss."
But in the end the damage was done. The event demonstrated how quickly public interest in crop circles- or any unexplained phenomenon- could be deflated simply by presenting a pair of alleged hoaxers. Once again the public was given a logical reason to believe the whole thing was a joke.
So while the public moved on from this phenomenon the things still kept coming.
In 1996, I think someone discovered this...
Not the best image but it was a perfectly 2D rendered replica of the human DNA sequence.
Later that year this Julia appeared in broad daylight. It is a fundemental shape in explaining Chaos theory, or some such.
Note how close it is to Stonehenge in the top photograph. What's so amazing about this, another perfectly rendered fractal shape, is that it apeared within the space of about 25 minutes. A pilot who was flying tourists to Stonehenge said that there was nothing there when he flew back to the base to drop off passangers and refuel. On the next trip, 25 minutes or so later this crop circle lay in the field to everyones surprise. It took 11 people five hours to survey that site. For someone to come in and create this in 25 minutes is impossible. Plus no one saw anyone in the area, and it is a tourist hub.
Another very beautiful crop circle is this one...
Someone calculated that to have created this over night whoever made it would have to make every circle in three seconds. Please also note that in high summer England only gets night for about four or so hours.
People have managed to achieve detailed and geometrically precice crop circles but it usually takes something up to five days... in like day time to create these things.
DOn't believe me.. here's an excerpt..
An engineering company was asked to create this design. They replied that just to survey the area to place the stakes required for mapping the design would take up to eleven days, at a cost of over $5000. No holes were evident at Windmill Hill, nor damage to the plants. What's more, given the four hours of darkness required to achieve such an endeavour would have required a circle to be referenced, mapped, laid and then constructed with the anomalous central features every 56 seconds.
Why would anyone in their right mind bother? That much effort and planning just to destroy the credibility of crop circles. It's insane. However in recent years crop circles featuring advertisements have been created by their respective companies.
Crop circles also have appeared in canola fields. Canola can be likened to celery. It snaps when you bend it. Yet the crops of canold used in crop circles are all bent at that trademark 90 degree angel. Bent, not broken. Also usually all crops stand back on up their own accord after a few days and weeks. If this happens to mature crop the crop tends to grow taller, if the crop is too young it will be stunted.
Have a look at many more crop circle photos under the cut.
If nothing else these crop circles are wonderful to gaze upon. But I think part of the wonder and admiration comes from the fact that it is so difficult to create these things.
I'm just going to leap ahead and say that I believe in the mystery of the circles. I believe that humans didn't make these things. I am also not going to declair that aliens have a hand in it. Crop circles portray certain energy properties. They use symbols, and symbols are so very important and date back to ancient times. Ancients had a far better spiritual understanding of the world. You can see this when you look as traditional medicines and eastern religions. They had a great understanding of the Earth and its energy lines. I don't know what energy lines are but I could guess. Crop Circles are usually created in correspondance to where these energy lines lay. The stone circles around Silbury Hill resonate with these crop circles and the circles usually appear close to them. It's not a very far leap to think that in ancient times people errected these stone circles because they saw the crop circles and understood.. sort of, their significance. There is also something suss about that man made hill. It's in a pyramid shape and we know how civilisations of yor loved their pyramids for very good and complex reasons.
I think there is hidden meaning. I do believe that there is some form of communication trying to be opened up. People have had the idea that the earier, simpler crop circles might be part of some alphabet. A way to communicate. Who knows though.
The only stanch evidence of communication is that i 1996 some person put up a crop circle featuring the words 'Talk To Us'. A few days later as if in response appeared this crop circle
I'm going to quote the website now...
A reply came back a few days later when a most bizarre-looking formation resembling Hebrew script appeared at Milk Hill. Thought to be a hoax at first but since confirmed to be genuine, it was deciphered as a form of post-Augustan Latin and etched in Freemasonic script, creating two words: OPPONO ASTOS "I oppose acts of craft and cunning." How appropriate given the circumstances.
There is also something else though. In 1974 a message was transmitted out into space aimed at the star cluster M13. Its about 20,000 lightyears away. The message was in binary code, as mathematics is the universal language.
Here's a diagram of the message, as decoded
I kind of think sending something like that out is a bit silly. It has all our genetic information on it.
Anyway, in 2001, at a secured military area this popped up
A close up
It's like a reply. But then again, it's probably a hoax.
Yet still very fascinating.
What clearly cannot be denied is the military's determination to undermine the publics interest and fascination with crop circles. There are numerous reports of unclassified military helicopters congregating around crop circles, seemingly searching for something. There are also reports of anonymous balls of light which flit about in an 'intelligent' way, especially when faced with one of these helicopters coming towards them.
There is so much mystery here. Crop Circles are a true phenomena. Of course you have to be careful and examin the evidence for yourself before getting to excited about something maybe being real.
I think the website I've been quoting from sums it up beautifully.
I have no problem admitting that a subtantial percentage of crop circles are now hoaxed. Some of them are obvious. But a hoax is a forgery, and a forgery requires an original from which to copy. After all the ground evidence has been collected, after all the biophysical proof has been gathered, after all the science and logic has been strung together to clearly prove we do have a real phenomenon on our hands, we are left with something far more powerful: what do you believe? Where do you feel a crop circle? The answer, of course, can only lie in the beholder, and so I encourage you not to follow what I've learnt, what I've experienced, but what this phenomenon means to you.
And perhaps this is what has been shown this season: don't get too caught up looking at the details, look instead at what lies inside the heart.
Crop Circles have touched me. I accept the fact that science can't prove everything but it can help in establishing certain things and is good for measuring stuff. I'm really blown away with this notion of a living world. With the idea of something out there that is communicating to us something fundemental to our being. It is beautiful to think that there is something more marvellous out there than can be explained right now. The world needs mysteries to explore. You don't need answeres all the time. Sometimes logic and technology gets in the way of our emotions and heart. I know, I'm getting all sappy here. But these patterns do strike a cord with that core being in all of us.
So much more to talk about, but so much I don't know.
Anyway, I hope this has helped some of you appreciate crop circles a bit more. I know it's done me wonders.
Check this site out. It is fantastic. The Crop Circular
Ja Ne!
I had watched a minimal amount of documentaries on Crop circles before so I knew what they were and looked like. I am assuming everyone here will know about this phenomena and I am sure most of you give it as much thought and credibility as I have. Which is to say very little. Yet I didn't walk into this lecture with any scepticism, which is always good. One must keep an open mind. So as you read the following recount of, and my own interpretations of it I implore you to do the same and free that mind.
The lecture started off with a brief introduction of where crop circles have been found. And startlingly enough there have been accounts of crop circles in 29 different countries all over the globe. Here is also where I'd like to say that I took no notes so all facts and statistics relating to numbers are sketchy and may vary from the actual truth.
We were shown photos of some circles and there have even been circles made on ice and out of ice, as well as in deserts. These circles don't just pop up where there is crop or grass. There was a huge phenomena down here in South Australia on an enormouse plateu, etched into the dirt, a figure of an aboriginal man. This was just to show how widespread this really is.
The next main issue to address is the explination of how these things are created. This leads to a giant can of worms, and I am sure you can all guess what that one is.
But let us first step away and look at this phenomenon in a historical and linear sense. Crop Circles have only been in the publics eye on this grand scale since the 1970's. The circles were simple to start off with. People thought the wind had formed some sort of vortex to form these circular patterns. In the 1980's, particularly 1988 the patterns changed, becoming more complex. It was hard to believe wind caused this. It was easy to put these things down to nature before. Everything in nature has geometry and there are no straight lines. Yet all of a sudden these circles were being connected by lines in 1990. Gigantic pictograms started emerging.
What is even more fascinating is that military institutes like NASA were becoming interested. They studied the circles and found that they emitted a strange frequency and sound, which they determined to be something un-natural. Equipment would fail in freshly made crop circles and people could feel the effects as well through light headedness, dizziness and other symptoms. This is when scientists discovered that the circles had insanely high elecro-magnetic readings. 200 is the normal background reading, but in crop circled the number abruptly rose to 600. Another astonishing feature about crop circles is that the crop doesn't break. The stalks bend at a 90 degree angel. Nodules on the stems expand and blow out showing that astonishing heat is present and even the properties of the soil change.
People started taking real notice, but also in 1990 something which would change the way crop circles have been percieved would occure. Researched were observing a site, had all their equipment set up. The next morning scientists were excited to find a new cropcircle, called up the media before they even investigated it and when everyone was there they found a cruedly made circle. A hoax. Media lapped it up and faith in this phenomena was forever marred. Up until that point such a thing had never occured but after that face crop circles started popping up everywhere.
Here's an excerpt from a website about this event
With a heavy media presence at hand, excited researchers entered the formation only to be faced with a mess- the typical vortices were missing, the wheat appeared trampled and broken, and right in the centre lay a ball of wire, and a horoscope game with a wooden cross. The formation was obviously a well-orchestrated hoax, a crude attempt at deception to humiliate and discredit researchers thoroughly. Later, information was leaked from a high- ranking official in the Army that the crop circle had been constructed by a well trained top military unit with special clearance from the Ministry of Defense. Whatever the motive, the damage had been done and the public was turned off the phenomenon.
Evidently the military don't want people getting too excited about this. I find it very amusing. As a seeming rebellion against this action one night in 1991 in a high security area, namely the British Prime Ministers summer home, guarded my all sorts of military personel, fences and security cameras a celtic cross appeared the in back fields, with one of the ends transformed into an arrow to point directly at the house. People who wnated to take a look at it were immediately apprehended, while no one managed to see or catch the people who supposedly make crop circles.
Another famous incident was that one night in 1991 all the power went out in a own near Salisbury Plains. Even the Military complex lost all power. Strange sounds were heard like thunder but far more drawn out. In the morning the site where a newly formed crop circle had been established was closed off by military for a 'training session', which never happens in time of peace. Eventually the site was released and what was found was a truely beautiful and complex image. This crop circle has been identified to hold multiple meanings such as very important alchemical and religious symbolism.
it's the image in the middle
I think a few months later this image appeared.
it's the one on the right
Sorry that I couldn't find a better image. But if you can see it, it's clearly a fractal. We all know what a fractal is, right? It is like gazing into infinity. This crop fractal is perfect in every way. It appeared a year and one day exactly after New Scientist Magazine had released an article that said it was impossible for anyone to create a fractal without the use of a computer. Something has one hell of a weird sense of humour and irony, ne?
Shortly after the media found a couple of scape goats. Doug and Dave had admitted to making all the crop circled in England. They showed the world their plank and string. Here's another excerpt about this media frenzy.
Doug and Dave were challenged to a TV debate with several researchers, including an authority on the subject, Colin Andrews. "Had they hoaxed the first formations in 1978 ?" "Yes," said Dave. Then Colin pulled out photos of patterns going back to 1971. "Who then had made these?" "No," they answered, sheepishly, "we didn't make those." And if they had faked 200 circles, as they claimed, by whom were the remaining 2300 or so circles created? They had also claimed never to have been active in the Avebury area, but this had in fact been the prime circle-making area since 1988. Who made the the Barbury Castle tetrahedron? And the Mandelbrot Set? Who made those in other parts of the country? And since the countryside was swarming with people on the lookout for hoaxers, how come they had never been caught? No answer. How had they created the anomalies, the mathematical precision? The more questions were asked the more they backed down their claims. In the end, even Doug and Dave were not sure which ones they had done. But something in their soundbite-style replies gave the impression that their whole scheme had been orchestrated.
A newspaper article credited the Doug and Dave story to MBF Services. After much reluctance from the newspaper staff, it was explained that a freelance press agency had passed on the story to the newspaper. When asked for the phone number of MBF, the phone was hung up. Investigations eventually led to a 'research and development' lab in Somerset where work is conducted on classified government defense projects.
Just before the Doug and Dave incident, a French government scientist had warned researchers not to risk their reputations on the crop circles, for shortly the British Government would engage two artists and would present them to the press as the crop circles creators, to "put an end to all the wearisome fuss."
But in the end the damage was done. The event demonstrated how quickly public interest in crop circles- or any unexplained phenomenon- could be deflated simply by presenting a pair of alleged hoaxers. Once again the public was given a logical reason to believe the whole thing was a joke.
So while the public moved on from this phenomenon the things still kept coming.
In 1996, I think someone discovered this...
Not the best image but it was a perfectly 2D rendered replica of the human DNA sequence.
Later that year this Julia appeared in broad daylight. It is a fundemental shape in explaining Chaos theory, or some such.
Note how close it is to Stonehenge in the top photograph. What's so amazing about this, another perfectly rendered fractal shape, is that it apeared within the space of about 25 minutes. A pilot who was flying tourists to Stonehenge said that there was nothing there when he flew back to the base to drop off passangers and refuel. On the next trip, 25 minutes or so later this crop circle lay in the field to everyones surprise. It took 11 people five hours to survey that site. For someone to come in and create this in 25 minutes is impossible. Plus no one saw anyone in the area, and it is a tourist hub.
Another very beautiful crop circle is this one...
Someone calculated that to have created this over night whoever made it would have to make every circle in three seconds. Please also note that in high summer England only gets night for about four or so hours.
People have managed to achieve detailed and geometrically precice crop circles but it usually takes something up to five days... in like day time to create these things.
DOn't believe me.. here's an excerpt..
An engineering company was asked to create this design. They replied that just to survey the area to place the stakes required for mapping the design would take up to eleven days, at a cost of over $5000. No holes were evident at Windmill Hill, nor damage to the plants. What's more, given the four hours of darkness required to achieve such an endeavour would have required a circle to be referenced, mapped, laid and then constructed with the anomalous central features every 56 seconds.
Why would anyone in their right mind bother? That much effort and planning just to destroy the credibility of crop circles. It's insane. However in recent years crop circles featuring advertisements have been created by their respective companies.
Crop circles also have appeared in canola fields. Canola can be likened to celery. It snaps when you bend it. Yet the crops of canold used in crop circles are all bent at that trademark 90 degree angel. Bent, not broken. Also usually all crops stand back on up their own accord after a few days and weeks. If this happens to mature crop the crop tends to grow taller, if the crop is too young it will be stunted.
Have a look at many more crop circle photos under the cut.
If nothing else these crop circles are wonderful to gaze upon. But I think part of the wonder and admiration comes from the fact that it is so difficult to create these things.
I'm just going to leap ahead and say that I believe in the mystery of the circles. I believe that humans didn't make these things. I am also not going to declair that aliens have a hand in it. Crop circles portray certain energy properties. They use symbols, and symbols are so very important and date back to ancient times. Ancients had a far better spiritual understanding of the world. You can see this when you look as traditional medicines and eastern religions. They had a great understanding of the Earth and its energy lines. I don't know what energy lines are but I could guess. Crop Circles are usually created in correspondance to where these energy lines lay. The stone circles around Silbury Hill resonate with these crop circles and the circles usually appear close to them. It's not a very far leap to think that in ancient times people errected these stone circles because they saw the crop circles and understood.. sort of, their significance. There is also something suss about that man made hill. It's in a pyramid shape and we know how civilisations of yor loved their pyramids for very good and complex reasons.
I think there is hidden meaning. I do believe that there is some form of communication trying to be opened up. People have had the idea that the earier, simpler crop circles might be part of some alphabet. A way to communicate. Who knows though.
The only stanch evidence of communication is that i 1996 some person put up a crop circle featuring the words 'Talk To Us'. A few days later as if in response appeared this crop circle
I'm going to quote the website now...
A reply came back a few days later when a most bizarre-looking formation resembling Hebrew script appeared at Milk Hill. Thought to be a hoax at first but since confirmed to be genuine, it was deciphered as a form of post-Augustan Latin and etched in Freemasonic script, creating two words: OPPONO ASTOS "I oppose acts of craft and cunning." How appropriate given the circumstances.
There is also something else though. In 1974 a message was transmitted out into space aimed at the star cluster M13. Its about 20,000 lightyears away. The message was in binary code, as mathematics is the universal language.
Here's a diagram of the message, as decoded
I kind of think sending something like that out is a bit silly. It has all our genetic information on it.
Anyway, in 2001, at a secured military area this popped up
A close up
It's like a reply. But then again, it's probably a hoax.
Yet still very fascinating.
What clearly cannot be denied is the military's determination to undermine the publics interest and fascination with crop circles. There are numerous reports of unclassified military helicopters congregating around crop circles, seemingly searching for something. There are also reports of anonymous balls of light which flit about in an 'intelligent' way, especially when faced with one of these helicopters coming towards them.
There is so much mystery here. Crop Circles are a true phenomena. Of course you have to be careful and examin the evidence for yourself before getting to excited about something maybe being real.
I think the website I've been quoting from sums it up beautifully.
I have no problem admitting that a subtantial percentage of crop circles are now hoaxed. Some of them are obvious. But a hoax is a forgery, and a forgery requires an original from which to copy. After all the ground evidence has been collected, after all the biophysical proof has been gathered, after all the science and logic has been strung together to clearly prove we do have a real phenomenon on our hands, we are left with something far more powerful: what do you believe? Where do you feel a crop circle? The answer, of course, can only lie in the beholder, and so I encourage you not to follow what I've learnt, what I've experienced, but what this phenomenon means to you.
And perhaps this is what has been shown this season: don't get too caught up looking at the details, look instead at what lies inside the heart.
Crop Circles have touched me. I accept the fact that science can't prove everything but it can help in establishing certain things and is good for measuring stuff. I'm really blown away with this notion of a living world. With the idea of something out there that is communicating to us something fundemental to our being. It is beautiful to think that there is something more marvellous out there than can be explained right now. The world needs mysteries to explore. You don't need answeres all the time. Sometimes logic and technology gets in the way of our emotions and heart. I know, I'm getting all sappy here. But these patterns do strike a cord with that core being in all of us.
So much more to talk about, but so much I don't know.
Anyway, I hope this has helped some of you appreciate crop circles a bit more. I know it's done me wonders.
Check this site out. It is fantastic. The Crop Circular
Ja Ne!