Decoding the Mystery of Crop Circles: A Look at the Skeptics and Real Phenomenon

[quddusaliquddus]

The Mowing Devil:
http://www.rense.com/general39/mow.htmQUOTE]

I think this is giving them too much leeway. There are hundreds of crazy reports of supernatural natural folk lore and I don't think it's right to correlate this with crop circles. You could come up with any type of crazy pseudo scientific idea and would' find some folk story that has some reference to it. Angels are nowadays UFOs, gods are aliens, atlantis was a modern scientifc and industrial society, etc... etc... I think this happens too much and it's due to us interpreting those stories from our persepectives. If you start using these stories as some sort of evidence - on what criteria do you reject the other stories ... or atleast explain them? Matter of pick-n-mix.

 

[Overdose]

Who thinks this? I haven't read anyone make this assertion, or express such a belief.

There is, in fact, no evidence pointing toward the military, and a huge amount of evidence pointing at hoaxers.
It strikes me as very backward that you entertain the notion that the military has the technology to create these patterns by manipulating gravity while denying that hoaxers have the technology to copy patterns out of a book with a board and rope, and a measuring tape. Think about it.

I thought we were all working on the asumption that that hoaxers only account for a small no. of crop circles, or at the very least can't count for them all.
Isnt that what we're talking about here? the no. of circles that we find impossible to re-create via any methods that we know of... never mind bits of wood with rope attached to them.

As for the military you'll notice i said circumstancial, they're always
seen in and around crop circle areas and take a very keen interest.
Although i accept that just because someone's seen at the scene of
a 'crime' doesn't necessarily make them the perpatrator.
But it certainly leads me too believe there's something far more serious going on that bored students arsing around in fields.

 

[quddusaliquddus]

I think crop-circle believers simply jump to conclusion too quickly. Do they also believe in every other unexplained phenemonon that has some strange explanation to them? ... like millions of 'miracles' that occur in every part of the world everyday? ... how many religions do you guys hold to then? ...

 

[zoobyshoe]

I thought we were all working on the asumption that that hoaxers only account for a small no. of crop circles, or at the very least can't count for them all.
Isnt that what we're talking about here? the no. of circles that we find impossible to re-create via any methods that we know of... never mind bits of wood with rope attached to them.

No, we are not all working on that assumption. Everyone in the thread had a different take on it. There is no general agreement on the subject across the board.

The notion of any circle being "impossible to recreate" doesn't hold water because you have to take into consideration who is trying to recreate them. Do the people testing the "recreatability" really want them to be recreatable? Or do they hope to prove it can't be done?

I, personally, was really quite surprised when I first found out how simple it as to make one of the very neat, plain circles with a board and a rope. Before the hoaxers came forward and demonstrated this, to was common to hear believers claim these plain circles were too neat and perfect to have been created by humans.

As for the military you'll notice i said circumstancial, they're always
seen in and around crop circle areas and take a very keen interest.

Who says they're "always" seen in and around crop circles? I've never heard any reports of a military presence near crop circles. If it has ever happened it is not common and it is erroneous to say they're "always" seen around crop circles.

 

[Overdose]

No, we are not all working on that assumption. Everyone in the thread had a different take on it. There is no general agreement on the subject across the board.

The notion of any circle being "impossible to recreate" doesn't hold water because you have to take into consideration who is trying to recreate them. Do the people testing the "recreatability" really want them to be recreatable? Or do they hope to prove it can't be done?

I, personally, was really quite surprised when I first found out how simple it as to make one of the very neat, plain circles with a board and a rope. Before the hoaxers came forward and demonstrated this, to was common to hear believers claim these plain circles were too neat and perfect to have been created by humans..

How can stalks of crops exploded from the inside be recreated? as far as I am aware no one has any idea how this is and could be achieved. Its common knowledge to anyone whos looked into crop circles even in passing that pretty much every researcher out there is baffled as to how crop stalks could be distorted in this way. It is these circles that have been impossible to recreate. If you know otherwise please tell me... :tongue2:

Who says they're "always" seen in and around crop circles? I've never heard any reports of a military presence near crop circles. If it has ever happened it is not common and it is erroneous to say they're "always" seen around crop circles.

Youve never heard any reports of a military presence near crop circle? try actually reading some of the links that are being posted in this thread in that case... The military are occasionally seen in and around crop circles in the US. And in the UK (where i live) they are frequency seen in and around crop circles, that's why i said 'always' because from a local prespective they are. Although i was probably a bit hasty in saying that as it implys that the same is true for every country in which they appear.

 

[zoobyshoe]

How can stalks of crops exploded from the inside be recreated? as far as I am aware no one has any idea how this is and could be achieved. Its common knowledge to anyone whos looked into crop circles even in passing that pretty much every researcher out there is baffled as to how crop stalks could be distorted in this way. It is these circles that have been impossible to recreate. If you know otherwise please tell me... :tongue2:

What is probably happening is that when the hoaxers bend the stalks over at night the stems are pinched shut, trapping whatever gasses and moisture are inside so they can't flow as they normally would. Then when the sun hits the crops next morning they are laying broadside to its hot rays and the gasses heat up and explode the stalks.

Youve never heard any reports of a military presence near crop circle? try actually reading some of the links that are being posted in this thread in that case...

If you had read this thread you'd see that I've been posting in it from the start and would have known everyone isn't in agreement that some circles are inexplicable.

The military are occasionally seen in and around crop circles in the US. And in the UK (where i live) they are frequency seen in and around crop circles, that's why i said 'always' because from a local prespective they are. Although i was probably a bit hasty in saying that as it implys that the same is true for every country in which they appear.

Link me to some of these reports or tell me what number post such links are in. I really haven't run across this information before. I have read many crop circle reports posted by Ivan and don't recall any mention of military in any of them.

 

[Overdose]

What is probably happening is that when the hoaxers bend the stalks over at night the stems are pinched shut, trapping whatever gasses and moisture are inside so they can't flow as they normally would. Then when the sun hits the crops next morning they are laying broadside to its hot rays and the gasses heat up and explode the stalks.
If you had read this thread you'd see that I've been posting in it from the start and would have known everyone isn't in agreement that some circles are inexplicable.

I'll admit I am not an expert on this subject, but my common sense tells me that if the answer to the exploded nodes problem was something as simple as 'trapped gas' then there wouldn't be researchers out there still stuggling to work out the cause.

Link me to some of these reports or tell me what number post such links are in. I really haven't run across this information before. I have read many crop circle reports posted by Ivan and don't recall any mention of military in any of them.

http://www.cropcirclenews.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=128
http://www.dolomite.ndirect.co.uk/weirdwilts/mod/mod.htm
http://www.cropcircleresearch.com/enigma/issue10/military.html
(there's a much better article on this last link with more pics on the earthfiles site although sadly you need to register in order to view this story now)

 

[zoobyshoe]

I'll admit I am not an expert on this subject, but my common sense tells me that if the answer to the exploded nodes problem was something as simple as 'trapped gas' then there wouldn't be researchers out there still stuggling to work out the cause.

Without trapped gas, or steam, there would be no explosion under any circumstances. All explosions boil down to expanding gasses. If you contain the gas in a container you can heat it as slowly as you want until the pressure build up finally exceeds the strength of the container and it suddenly breaks apart. The only question, in the matter of exploding grain stalks in a crop circle, is what heated the gas or moisture up? The assertion by "investigators" has been that the only possible way to create analagous exploding nodes is to heat the grains in a microwave. All that means, really, is that that is the only way they have been able to produce something similar. It doesn't mean this is the only possible way grain nodes can be made to explode. Any potential source of heat should be suspect.

If you go out and mow your lawn and put the clippings in a bag they will start to heat up by themselves pretty quickly just due to fermentation, I believe. This naturally occurring effect is part and parcel of the practise of "composting" by gardeners. Check this out and you will be quite surprised at how warm the bag gets. This effect, coupled with heating by the sun, may be all that is responsible for a percentage of the stalks exploding.

People who dedicate a lot of time to field work in investigating crop circles all fall into the category of those who are looking for evidence of extrordinary things that can't be explained by conventional means. In other words, I haven't read about any teams who do this who aren't at heart "believers". They adjusted to the confessions of hoaxers by adopting the stance that just because some circles are hoaxed doesn't mean all are hoaxed. Strictly speaking, that's true, but I get the impression that in looking for things that "can't possibly have been hoaxed" they miss the fact that some of these effects may be occurring naturally to the unintended benefit of the hoaxers.
In other words: when the hoaxers crush the crops down with their boards it may just be setting off other effects they never anticipated. like exploding nodes, that accidently serve to make their hoaxes harder to explain.

Thanks for the links. I spent some time looking the first one over and find that it is very long and covers a lot of ground. I will have to read it a few more times to be able to respond.

-Zooby

 

[Overdose]

Without trapped gas, or steam, there would be no explosion under any circumstances. All explosions boil down to expanding gasses. If you contain the gas in a container you can heat it as slowly as you want until the pressure build up finally exceeds the strength of the container and it suddenly breaks apart. The only question, in the matter of exploding grain stalks in a crop circle, is what heated the gas or moisture up? The assertion by "investigators" has been that the only possible way to create analagous exploding nodes is to heat the grains in a microwave. All that means, really, is that that is the only way they have been able to produce something similar. It doesn't mean this is the only possible way grain nodes can be made to explode. Any potential source of heat should be suspect.

If you go out and mow your lawn and put the clippings in a bag they will start to heat up by themselves pretty quickly just due to fermentation, I believe. This naturally occurring effect is part and parcel of the practise of "composting" by gardeners. Check this out and you will be quite surprised at how warm the bag gets. This effect, coupled with heating by the sun, may be all that is responsible for a percentage of the stalks exploding.

People who dedicate a lot of time to field work in investigating crop circles all fall into the category of those who are looking for evidence of extrordinary things that can't be explained by conventional means. In other words, I haven't read about any teams who do this who aren't at heart "believers". They adjusted to the confessions of hoaxers by adopting the stance that just because some circles are hoaxed doesn't mean all are hoaxed. Strictly speaking, that's true, but I get the impression that in looking for things that "can't possibly have been hoaxed" they miss the fact that some of these effects may be occurring naturally to the unintended benefit of the hoaxers.
In other words: when the hoaxers crush the crops down with their boards it may just be setting off other effects they never anticipated. like exploding nodes, that accidently serve to make their hoaxes harder to explain.

Thanks for the links. I spent some time looking the first one over and find that it is very long and covers a lot of ground. I will have to read it a few more times to be able to respond.

-Zooby

good post, i might post some more stuff myself if i get time :tongue2:

 

[(Q)]

Suzzane Taylor claims:

I've just put together a booklet, showing why crop circles can't be hoaxed… The genuineness of the phenomenon just can't be denied!

I saw your website. It’s quite funny that you would show pictures of crop circles that have been confirmed hoaxed and claim humans couldn’t possibly make them. You also showed a crop circle based on a photography method and then stated human hands could never have made such a design. Contradict much? Living in a cave?

 

[zoobyshoe]

http://www.cropcirclenews.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=128
http://www.dolomite.ndirect.co.uk/weirdwilts/mod/mod.htm
http://www.cropcircleresearch.com/enigma/issue10/military.html
(there's a much better article on this last link with more pics on the earthfiles site although sadly you need to register in order to view this story now)

Well, Overdose, by itself the American incident strikes me as anomalous. I really think that this was a crop circle enthusiast who happened to also be in the military, and who used the fact he was in uniform to mess with the heads of the crop circle researchers who were there. He claimed to be part of a military crop circle investigation organization, yet the military later denied there was such an organization. If the organizaion exist, but is too secret to admit to, then why would the guy in uniform have mentioned it? To keep this organization secret, all he would have had to tell the crop circle investigators is that he and his buddies were flying medivac training and happened to notice the circle, whereupon he told them to drop him off at his car so he could have a closer look. This is probably what actually happened. Instead, he claimed the military crop circle investigation organization was at work. Sounds like he was just pulling their legs to me.

The British military interest in the crop circles there certainly seems more deliberate and repeated, and official. My thinking is that every report of a crop circle is suspected of being somewhere a helicopter may have landed and flattened down the grain. The military there may just be very anxious to investiate any unauthorized helicopter landings, which could be for anyone of a number of reasons, National Security being the foremost. You are much closer to Europe than we are, and they may want to be completely sure no one is making any unauthorized visits via helicopter from the continent. That is my most reasonable guess for why your government would show an interest. Aside from the one, anomalous incident, our government doesn't seem to have any interest in the circles.

Ivan and I had a lot of discussions about the fact that there was a point where the FBI was, in fact, investigating UFO sightings. I think I persuaded him that, if you understand the times during which this was occurring, it was much more from fear that UFOs were some kind of Soviet weapons or spy devices, than any suspicion that they were actually from outer space.

Eventually they gave up all these investigations when so many of the reports turned out to be the result of hoaxes. After Sputnik there seems to have been a renewed interest in any reports of things in the sky on the part of our government. We were eager both to recover any of their satellites that might fall on US soil by accident, and also to intercept any spy devices they might send over.

I think that if the government were investigating crop circles here on a continuing basis, no one would ever find out about it. They would go in quietly under the guise of free-lanz, civilian, crop circle investigators, not with attention-grabbing helicopters etc.


Zooby

 

[Overdose]

To speculate that the guy was just an off duty soldier whos into crop
circles as a hobby seems extremely far fetched. Especially as there was a millitary
helicopter in the area at the same time, were these just his fellow
enthusiast buddies that asked to borrow a helicopter for the day?

As for the military latter dening their involvement, who knows? the military
as with any large organisation is bound to send out mixed messages as
a result of orders getting misinterpreted and distorted thorugh
the chain of command. And if in doubt 'deny' seems to have always been a favourite tactic of the military.
And seriously if your on millitary training you can't just pop off to have a look
at something that catches your eye, that much i do know.

As for the idea that crop circles are suspected landing sites of foriegn
helicopters. That just doest hold up, to start with a helicopter
landing in a field just could not make a crop circle even of the large
and basic circlular kind. Second of all any unauthorised helicoters comming in from europe (and you really would have to be insane to fly a hellicopter across the british channel) would be buzzed/intercepted before even getting a chance to land in a field somewhere and fly off again.
Im all for level headed assesments but but it sounds like your straining and tying yourself in knots to see what you want to see

 

[zoobyshoe]

To speculate that the guy was just an off duty soldier whos into crop
circles as a hobby seems extremely far fetched. Especially as there was a millitary
helicopter in the area at the same time, were these just his fellow
enthusiast buddies that asked to borrow a helicopter for the day?

This isn't as far fetched as you think. The crop circle guy got the helicopter identified as a medivac copter. These, apparently, don't have to be so closely monitored during training excercizes, according to what the military told him.

My specuation is that the guy took time off during one of these training excercizes because he was interested in the circle. He would certainly not be allowed to do this, and would be reprimanded if he were caught. Conversly, he may have seen it while he was on duty flying, and came back right away in his car as soon as he got off duty.

If the military actually formed a crop circle investigation organization, I am really quite sure they would decide right awayif they were going to keep it secret or not. That is why this soldiers forthright announcement that he was with such an organization strikes me as leg-pulling.

As for the military latter dening their involvement, who knows? the military
as with any large organisation is bound to send out mixed messages as
a result of orders getting misinterpreted and distorted thorugh
the chain of command. And if in doubt 'deny' seems to have always been a favourite tactic of the military.

This is true, what you say about the military, but it doesn't add up to mean that some of their denials are not authentic. Denial doesn't automatically = lie.

And seriously if your on millitary training you can't just pop off to have a look
at something that catches your eye, that much i do know.

You certainly aren't supposed to. Breaking the rules would involve some confidence that he could get away with it.

As for the idea that crop circles are suspected landing sites of foriegn
helicopters. That just doest hold up, to start with a helicopter
landing in a field just could not make a crop circle even of the large
and basic circlular kind.

True. My thinking is that they would be alert to any report of "flattened down crops", whatever the shape.

Second of all any unauthorised helicoters comming in from europe (and you really would have to be insane to fly a hellicopter across the british channel) would be buzzed/intercepted before even getting a chance to land in a field somewhere and fly off again.

One would hope, but there is stealth technology. The point would be to closely monitor any possible technological obviation of normal defense monitoring of British airspace.

Im all for level headed assesments but but it sounds like your straining and tying yourself in knots to see what you want to see

No, I'm applying Occam's Razor. I am speculating along realistic lines, using known phenomena, to suggest an explanation. Your notion of scalar weapons and gravity control is what is strained and knotty. It's off the wall.
My speculation may not be proven correct if the actual facts ever emerge, but it has the great advantage over yours of being realistic.

 

[Overdose]

No, I'm applying Occam's Razor. I am speculating along realistic lines, using known phenomena, to suggest an explanation. Your notion of scalar weapons and gravity control is what is strained and knotty. It's off the wall.
My speculation may not be proven correct if the actual facts ever emerge, but it has the great advantage over yours of being realistic.[/QUOTE]

you can use occam's razor to justifiy just about anything as the
the simplest explanation is really nothing but a subjective opinion. What sounds simple to you sounds strained to me and relys apon a lot of anomalys, and vice versa no doubt.
Im not saying the military IS conducting scalaar tests, i only mentioned that it was one of the many theories out there, I am not even sure if i believe it myself. All i am saying is that there's more going on here than people mucking about in fields with bits of wood...you can quote me on that.

However i do believe that our goverments have access to anit-grav technolagy and i have a nagging feeling that this may play a part in the crop circles phenomanon.

 

[zoobyshoe]

you can use occam's razor to justifiy just about anything as the the simplest explanation is really nothing but a subjective opinion.

Some people characterize Occam's Razor as "the simplest explanation is the best." In fact, that isn't quite what Occam's Razor is about. What Occam's Razor guides you to do is to look for explanations of mysteries in terms of known quantities first. If the mystery cannot be first explained by any known quantity, then you are permitted to suggest the existence of something unknown.

All i am saying is that there's more going on here than people mucking about in fields with bits of wood...you can quote me on that.

I don't think so. When the "investigators" claim they have found things like elevated background radiation inside crop circles, believers go "OOOOOO and AHHHHHH" and no one bothers to look for the cause. People jump to the conclusion that there is something inexplicable going on. A person expert in background radiation might be able to look at the situation and say something like "Of course it's elevated. Background radiation is in direct proportion to the temperature of the soil. When you smash crops down, the soil beneath them gets hotter and releases more background radiation." Or something along those lines. It could be that simple, or it could be more complex, but still a normal consequence of smashing crops down. It could be something really stupid: inside the circle the "investigators" hold the geiger counter sensor within two inches of the soil, because they can: the crops are smashed down. Outside the circle where the crops are still standing, they never hold the sensor closer than a foot away from the ground. Sounds silly, but sillier things have happened. My point is that there could well be a completely ordinary explanation for any of these alleged "unhoaxable" effects.

However i do believe that our goverments have access to anit-grav technolagy and i have a nagging feeling that this may play a part in the crop circles phenomanon.

The question becomes, "Why on Earth would you come to have such a belief?" There is nothing in physics that suggests there is the slightest possibility of turning gravity on and off. It isn't a matter of not having the technology yet, or anything like that, it is because of the way gravity works.

There may be ways to fly or travel through the air that aren't conventionally used that the government has secretly developed, but they just couldn't be based on "anti-gravity".

If your belief that the government may be responsible for crop circles is only based on the fact that they have been seen several times in England buzzing around crop circles in helicopters, you have jumped to a conclusion. It is safe to say the military is interested in them, but impossible to say why. The notion they are concerned that someone has breached the Island's security network is much more realistic than anti-gravity testing.