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Experimental |
One dilemma in crop circle research is that after almost 20 years of intense analyzing there still is no absolutely conclusive test to divide authentic circles from fake ones. One reason for this is that every new apparition at once attracts circle tourists. Many visitors trample straight up to the formation without thought and do not follow the tractor tracks. The damage done to the corn not only maddens the farmers but also the researchers who feel the anger of the farmers. Also important details can be destroyed and thus possible proofs for the authenticity of the circle. Some researchers claim even highly complex crop circle formations to be fake as soon as there are traces of human intrusion in the formation. As many formations are visible from roads or hillsides it is only logical that careless circle enthousiasts already walk into the fields while researchers still ask for permission to analyze the formation or before they even know of it. Only a few apparitions were univocally and without doubt declared as either authentic or fake. Among them count a number of apparitions which appeared according to eye witnesses just like that, out of the blue sky. Also a couple of circles made in front of the camera to demonstrate the techniques of forgers. But if numerous researchers have declared one or the other circle as forgery there must be an authentic phenomenon, too. Und indeed even confessing counterfeiter groups speak of a true phenome-non behind the whole affair and which they imitate. But what exactly is a fake? It's quite hard to prove it. Experimental circle settings which try to establish contact with the real circle makers do not count as forgery. Two german researchers, Joachim Koch and Hans-Juergen Kyborg, create formations in corn fields - with the approval of the farmer. They try to imitate existing circle apparitions deliberately and in public as an answer to the circle makers. And yet there are many who call such formations forgery. Others claim there could be a connection between these formations and the new ones following which are then ascribed to the real phenomenon. Seen this way experimental man-made formations are not forgery in the true sense of the meaning but rather support and extension of the real phenomenon and as such play a fund-amental part in the whole context. But so far nobody knows for sure and, like many other aspects, this is only theory. Researchers are divided on the question how to separate fake from original. Taking a closer look it becomes obvious that many formations have nothing in common with the intricately worked out patterns the phenomenon is able to create. The outer form already is not precise, let alone the inner ground pattern, and it is quite clear who is responsible for such formations. On the other hand there are chaotic formations where a classification of the geometric layout is hardly possible but in which the design on the ground is astonishingly well worked out. The researchers are divided in this question, too: Some only believe in the authenticity of circles where mysterious attendent circumstances were reported -like light apparitions, UFO-sightings, failure of technical gear and such - or where strange vibrations of energy were noted. These vibrations are recorded with the help of divining rods or pendulums but - as mentioned before - this art is not for everyone and therefore doesn't count as scientific proof. Some statistics The statistic truth is that in every season only an average of about 3% of all sightings are unanimously regarded as obvious forgery. This doesn't imply, however, that indeed only 3 % are fakes but it leaves a great amount of formations which have not been explained or cannot be explained until today. All formations declared as forgeries by different researchers in sum only make up about 10% of each year's apparitions. All events in the past 20 years in England alone sum up to an average of 300 sightings a year. This means: Every year there are more than 250 formations unexplained. And again the question: Who made them? This question gains the more weight because - after the circle competition of 1992 - several other attempts were made to lay crop circles. The outcome was that apt forgers were able to reconstruct even more complex formations - but only their geometric basic form. The inner structures were chaotic and badly worked out and couldn't stand comparison with the circles classified as authentic. Apart from that most of these attempts were made under hardly comparable circumstances, in broad daylight and with permission of the landowners. No reason there to make haste to remain unnoticed, and still the forgers needed almost 3 minutes for each single circle. A formation like the Wind Mill of 1996 remains unexplained and not reconstructable, taking into consideration the short period of darkness in a midsummer night. Apart from that most of the circles, build with the help of a rope working as compasses, were round. As it is a characteristic, however, that most of the cropcircles are not perfectly circular but rather elliptic and that the beginning of the windings is not (!) within the geometric center of the formation, those theories that declare the whole phenomenon as man-made nonsense cannot nearly explain it's manifold aspects.  top |
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humans non physical |
THINK! Whoever works on crop circles cannot neglect the possible interactive aspect between human thoughts and the circles themselves. There are many circle apparitions that seem to be reactions to those thoughts. When in the middle of the 80s the circles developed rings, Busty Tailor said when flying with a fellow researcher over a quincunx-formation: All that's missing now is a mixture of both, quincunx and ring. Shortly afterwards they flew over a formation near Charity Downs which had not been reported before: the first Celtic Cross. The german crop circle researcher and UFO-supporter Michael Hesemann claims that one day in the sommer of 1991 he had wished for a six-ended star in the corn. The next day exactly this design was found in a field near Cheesefoot Head. In late July 1992 a group of researchers meditated on a equilateral triange consisting of circles and beams. On July 24 such a pattern appeared for the first time near Oliver's Castle. These reports can hardly be checked for their content of truth, too much depends on the statements of the persons in question. But they do have their fascinating aspects, and to put aside all those formations as forgery to many seems too easy. Two other formations not far from Stratford-upon-Avon fall into this category. Each year an open-air festival with different rock and pop groups takes places there. In 1995 the logo of a participating band appeared. The manager of the band as well as the group members swear the hadn't launched a PR gag. The same scenario happened again in 1997 when on July 16 again the logo of a band playing the festival appeared in the corn. The way the ears were pressed to the ground was declared as authentic by researchers. And again no one claimed responsibility for this PR gimmick and many take it as an example for the interactive synchronicity of the phenomenon. Some of the crop circles - according to some researchers - have been prophecied by mediumistically gifted seers. And not only concerning the form but the location as well. If this might be a skilled and effective confirmation for their own theories of origin may be left open. One the one hand this could be a calculated game with the supporters and fans of the circles to strengthen their belief in supernatural messages. On the other hand there are quite a few that think these confirmations are absolutely credible. As well as there is a fraction of supporters of the circle scene who are convinced the circles are man-made but nevertheless no fakes, because the researchers act under duress to lay exactly these patterns into the fields. But why? The supporters of these theories remain silent about that. But possibly it is indeed a supernatural power that via telepathy tells human circle makers what designs to make and that provides them with the talent and motivation needed for such an activity. This might sound bizarre but there are some researchers who play with such ideas. top |
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land art |
Not yet top |
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hoaxers |
Of dougs and daves Ever since 1991 when Doug and Dave first claimed to be the creators of the circles more and more selfmade forger teams crawled out of the bush, like the Wessex Sceptics or Jim Schnabel, a one-man-show. Today Team Satan around Rod Dickinson is the best known. Dickinson and his comrade John Lundberg claim for years to be the originators of numerous circles and pictograms in the fields around Wiltshire. Naturally they did not give proof of their work, they play with the supporters- belief and the researchers-results and profit by their controverse discussions. Many of the biggest and most astonishing apparitions are claimed by Team Satan, e. g. the snow flakes of 1997 and also the formations of Stonehenge and Windmill Hill from the year before. The theory of selfmade forgers who attribute all the crop circles to a man made joke,however, suffers from a couple of important inconsistencies. Dickinson himself agrees to certain paranormal phenomena. He speaks of time lags, light apparitions and even cases of spontaneous healing in his circles. Where these could come from, however, he cannot tell. It remains questionable whether this is part of his art in which he states he just wanted to depict the UFO-belief and push the mysticism which he himself sees as the original phenomenon: Mankind's tendency to believe in supernatural forces and, in our century, even in extraterres-trials. He emphasizes not to play with the hopes and wishes of the supporters or even to make fun of them but that - on the contrary - he wants to give people what they are longing for. For him, too, the paranormal attendent circumstances are an effect he cannot explain. This messianic nonsense is carried even farther by the assertion that Team Satan sometimes experienced inspiration to lay out this or that design. The circlemakers as Dickinson and Cie sometimes call themselves claim to have gotten to the circles by sheer chance, unwittingly and driven only by the motivation to do any-thing. Over the years circle researchers have found out that many pictograms follow a holy or euclidic geometry, an age-old mathematical system that Dickinson hadn't known before. He claimed to be astonished himself of the content of his circles. He'd just begun to lay circles without knowing the system they based on. Even today he hears an inner voice that tells him to make certain forms. Whose voice is it? He doesn't know, he just listens and follows ... Yet Team Satan made enormous attempts to lay circles and to demystify them. In New Zealand the circlemakers created an extensive fractal in a field to prove that they indeed are the originators of many circles. But why in New Zealand, far from the researchers who had been able to analyze the ground pattern. Seen from an arial view the pictogram is quite well done but why there are neither ground nor zoom photos? The field in question was harvested immediately afterwards. On the other hand in 1998 Dickinson and his team laid another extensive design in a field near Milk Hill to convince the public of the human component of the phenomenon and then to trap the researchers hoping they would declare this new circle as authentic and impossible to be of human origin. But again: When the circle was made secretely with the support of a big TV company nearly all of the researchers were at a congress in Glastonbury, about 80 km away. None could convince himself of the condition on the ground. When in the afternoon the researchers came, the corn was heavily trampled by the many curious visitors to the new formation in the morning. When some researchers said that surely this had been quite a piece of work but the position of the ears had nothing in common with the precision of the real phenomenon, Dickinson's answer was not that it had been destroyed by many onlookers but that it had been conceived as a fake from the beginning. In 1998 Mitsubishi hired Team Satan to lay the new Mitsubishi Space Star in the renowned East Field of Alton Barnes as a publicity gimmick, an order they were happy to fulfill. At first Mitsubishi wanted only a tire to be laid in the field, the rest of the car should be constructed on PC. Team Satan, convinced of their talent, insisted to design the whole car in the field. They got the OK and the circlemakers set to work. And it took them 12 hours to do the job. In broad daylight! In their homepage they give reason why they took so long. Of course it would be fatal if you want to start an advertising campaign for Mitsubishi and what comes out has the contours of a BMW. But do the circlemakers really want to make us believe that the contours of a car should be far more complicated than the 7-edge snow flake of Tawesmead Copse from 1998 which could have been made in deep sleep and at darkest night. Surely teams of talented forgers have created a lot of crop circles during the last years. But there is no indication of a general forger phenomenon. Paranormal light apparitions and eye witness reports of the development of a crop circle - and there are not only those of single circles but also those of pictograms - remain unexplained. And also the events of previous years, of the pre-Doug-and-Dave-phase and their said beginning around 1978 are not explained until today. The same is true for the independent results of biologist Dr. Levengood who found molecular mutations within the cellular structure of many stems in the crop circles. These changes could not be simulated by flattening the corn but are more likely caused by some sort of micro wave radiation. Anyway: Dickinson and consorts were unable to reproduce them. top |
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IT's ONLY HUMAN |
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simply hoaxers |
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it's not yet translated into italian. sorry.