Crop Circles
"I wanted to do the lesson on weird weather tonight, but my wife was out of town," I said. "So we can't interview her. I'll bring her back next month. Tonight, though, we'll do crop circles."
I looked around the room at Mikey, Alyssa, Emma, Skylar, Jayden, and Holly. Holly said,"Yes! I've wanted to learn crop circles."
"As you guys all know, crop circles are flattened patterns in a field," I said. "Now, when I mentioned to Mikey earlier that we were doing crop circles, he asked if those aren't basically hoaxes done by people. And the answer is, yeah, more or less. Two guys from England confessed to doing a lot of the early ones. But, as I mentioned last time we talked about hoazes, just because some are a hoax doesn't mean they all are. You find a fake photo of a human, it doesn't prove there's no such thing as human beings."
Holly squinted at the handout I'd given them. "Is this the Firefox symbol?"
"Yep, it is. Some sompanies have begun making crop circles as advertising. You can find that one on Google Maps."
Immediately, Holly pulled out her phone to check. Mikey asked,"So how are crop circles made?"
"I wanted to take you guys out and make one with chalk, but it's raining. What they do is to have at least two people. You need a board and some rope. One person stands at the center, and holds the end of the rope. The other end is tied to the board, and then you stretch it out. If the person in the middle holds on, the other person can shove the board around with their foot, and crunch down the corn. As long as the rope stays tight, it'll make a circle. And you can also use a GPS or a laser measure---I brought mine. Pass it around and see how you can measure."
"Mikey," said Holly. "That field that my cousin owns. We could---"
"Yeah!" said Mikey. "Let's ask if we can make a crop circle!"
"Please get permission on that," I said. "Do not trespass."
"So to investigate," said Emma.
I nodded. "To investigate, you start the way you usually do, by interviewing witnesses. Go to the site, and make observations---Time, weather, wind....you never know what might turn out to be important, so write down everything. Check EMFs, too, and radiation. And that brings me to this---This is why we have the microwave in the room tonight."
"I wondered about that," admitted Alyssa.
I stood up---I had a small table with the library's microwave standing by one wall. I said,"I've brought along one of my radiation detectors. What you do is to move this thing around the area in a smooth motion---Like when we test EMFs. If you see the needle wobble a little, that's okay. If you see it go up to red and stay there, it's a problem. Also, get a new microwave. Can I have a volunteer? Who wants to try this?"
"I will," said Jayden, and came over.
I had my mug that said BIGFOOT SAW ME BUT NOBODY BELIEVES HIM. I filled it with water and microwaved it for one minute. I said,"Go ahead, move it around a little---Yeah, along the seam of the door."
"I saw the needle jump," said Jayden. "But it's back to green."
"That's okay; that's normal. I mean, it'd be cool to get a reading, but it would kill us all. So I'm glad you're not."
Holly brightened. "Is that why microwaves have those gaskets on the doors?"
"It is." I love it when the kids learn stuff. "Also why, if you look, there's kind of a metal mesh in the door."
The microwave beeped. Jayden sat down. I said,"Just about out of time, guys, but take home the handout and take a look."
"Is it a hoax if we make a crop circle?" Holly asked.
"Not if you take credit for it," I said. "if you tell people you made it, it's not a hoax. It's just art."
The kids filed out the front door. I locked the door and went up to the main desk.
"How did it go?" asked Zach.
"Pretty good," I said. "You want some hot water?"