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The Ongoing Enigma of the Crop Circles: Part One

One, just one, of numerous bits of suggestive evidence I postulated and posted for the Simulation Hypothesis revolved around the phenomena we have come to know as crop ‘circles’. That has caused more reaction than any other point I raised, and so the time has come the walrus said to wax lyrical on the subject.

When it comes to the British crop circle phenomena, no explanation put forth makes any logical sense. The best of all the implausible explanations is the extraterrestrial intelligence one, but only on a scale of two out of ten because the rest don’t even rate that highly.

I’ll start this off with a controversial statement. I think the crop circle (or corn circle as it is sometimes referred to) phenomena is currently the greatest terrestrial scientific puzzle going – full stop.

I admit from square one that I haven’t the foggiest idea what they actually are, or represent, but I at least think I know what they’re not.

I’m sure the phrase ‘crop circles’ need little introduction. I can’t imagine too many people being ignorant of the general phenomena – there’s lots of books, media coverage, internet sites, TV specials, feature films, even calendars which have, and continue to cover the subject.

In general, by way of a probably unnecessary introduction, crop circles are geometric patterns, pictograms that are often generally circular but not always, that appear mysteriously in crop fields, usually overnight, perpetrated by person or persons, or by a non-person or non-persons, unknown. While these ‘circles’ have appeared in many countries they tend to be associated by the public mainly with England. They have been especially common over the past three or four decades, though some earlier reports are on record.

There’s no denying the picturesqueness of them, and often, in fact in more recent times, their geometric complexity.

There’s no doubt that crop circles exist – that’s undisputed. Crop circles are an ever on-going phenomenon, the pictograms growing in complexity year by year. So there’s an evolutionary pattern that needs explaining. And at least crop circles have the decency to sit still and not vanish without trace like UFOs, the Yeti and the lone mysterious interstellar ‘wow’ signal so suggestive, yet so illusive of proving the existence of, extraterrestrial intelligence!

So what the hell are crop circles? Are they a new form of human graffiti? Are they messages from extraterrestrials? Are they a cry for help from our own Mother Earth or Mother Nature? Are they a now and again mysterious, but ultimately natural, even if chaotic feature of Mother Nature – say weather or biological phenomena? Are they in fact none of the above?

A few data points to start with if you please.

Firstly, it’s now clearly an ongoing phenomenon, not a one or two year fad that college kids revel in doing (like goldfish swallowing or VW cramming) before something new grabs their attention for fun and games and mischief. Now I’ve likened crop circle ‘art’ to graffiti ‘art’, and of course graffiti is an ongoing fad, but there’s a vast world of difference between some spray paint on an alleyway brick wall that harms no one and crop circles which robs farmers of income – at least IMHO.

Secondly, let’s look at geographic distribution. Crop circles have appeared in many countries – that alone rules out just your lone rogue hoaxer or two. However, they do tend to be identified more with countries that have English as a native language, and in particular, by a relatively massive lot, the United Kingdom; Great Britain; England. This may be an artificial artefact as most of the relevant literature is in English. I mean there may be lots of crop circle activity in Asia, but Asian languages aren’t represented in the media in proportion to population. Still, I’d wager that there is a real concentration in select geographical areas (i.e. – England), and that too needs explaining.

Thirdly, crop circles tend to be concentrated in areas of reasonable population density, though that could also be an artificial artefact. If they happened in Antarctica or the Sahara Desert there would be relatively few witnesses and reports and evidence. As well, any evidence would tend to be erased or eroded fairly quickly. Still, I’ll take it as a given that crop circles do tend to be concentrated in more humanly populated areas.

And now for the non-explanations!

The Natural Phenomena Connection: Crop circles don’t look natural. They most certainly do look like artificial creations, the creations of intelligence. However, before pursuing that chain of thought, one, in all fairness, needs to consider a non-intelligent (natural) explanation.

Mother Nature is not widely known for producing complex structured geometric patterns in non-living materials – snowflakes and crystals aside. Nature tends to be more chaotic. Patterns – symmetry is another valid term - are usually one way, and a fairly foolproof way at that, of distinguishing something natural from something artificial – which is why the ‘canals of Mars’ or the ‘face on Mars’ attracted so much speculation. Now clouds, for example, can take on all sorts of weird shapes or a pattern if you like. Every now and a rare again you’ll see a pattern or a shape in a cloud which reminds you of something else – that’s just random probability. 99.9% of the time, when you look at a cloud, all you can identify or think of is ‘cloud’. But that other 0.1% of the time – well, it’s just a freak of nature.

Freaks of nature, very rare natural phenomena, certainly can and have happened, no more so than with all things meteorological, like clouds – weather phenomena. There’s documented cases of paper straws being driven into hardwood trees via the force of tornado winds. Ball lightning is another case in point. So, a freak of nature, weather-related in all probability, may account for some of the relatively simpler flattened crop circles.

In the beginning of the modern crop circle phenomena, the pictograms were fairly simple circular patterns in various crops. It was thought that perhaps swirling storm winds, whirlwinds, mild tornados, or other sorts of wind vortices might be responsible, though few newly created circles were created under those sorts of weather conditions – and why only at night? Say a whirlwind as cause for the effect. But, I defy anyone to examine the more complex geometrical (and often fractal) patterns and tell me how Mother Nature, meteorologically or otherwise, did it! Since crop circles exhibit patterns or symmetry, then that argues against them being natural or nature-made phenomena. Life forms certainly exhibit patterns or symmetry, but whatever crop circles are, they themselves aren’t alive, so again, we rule out a natural explanation.

Today, no thinking person in their right mind could look at these highly complex geometric patterns (not all are circles anymore) and think that Mother Nature could have produced them. If crop circles are natural, it nearly has to be weather related and no kind of weather can produce complex geometric patterns in crops. So, crop circles really have to be the product of intelligence; there’s no way Mother Nature can be held accountable for these complex geometric pictogram formations – that’s now undisputable. Scratch Mother Nature.

To be continued…

johnprytz 7 Oct 20
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9 comments

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@johnprytz
Ok John, seriously, you seem like a sensible, scientific guy. What do you think, with everything you know, is the most likely explanation?
Most scientists believe climate change is real, the odd few don't. Most scientists believe that IQ is not racially bound, the odd few don't (James Watson being one of them!), Most scientists believe in evolution but the odd few don't. I know overall, this doesn't mean much but during my first BSc, we were told that the most straightforward answer is usually correct.
As for it being British phenomena...well I can imagine a time before TV when at the end of a hot summer, mischievous rural workers sitting at a pub drinking cider, thinking of alsorts of pranks to play. Don't forget, they made shapes of men out of waste straw to burn at the end of harvest, corn dollies and love knots. This was just another secretive rural tradition. (The burning men, is where the US festival of the same name originated from). This is an old country, we have strange traditions going back millenia. There are entire books written on it.
Crop circles, however intricate, are made by men.

@johnprytz Well the first mention of crop circles was in the 17th century. You have challenged me now, so I will have a go. I only have my back garden and its only grass but I'll give it a go. Anyway lets talk about something interesting. Oh and by the way if we are just part of some massive SIMs game, please can you have a word with the controller and ask him or her (see not sexist!) To sort it out. When I played SIMS all I wanted was my little people to fall in love and have babies. If you are right, the gamer is a nasty spoilt 13 year old who enjoys watching his SIM people suffer!

@johnprytz Sounds a bit like god?

@johnprytz Right you are on!

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The most interesting thing about crop circles is that every single "unexplainable fact" about them - from their near-geometric perfection to the interwoven stalks - can be comprehensively explained and replicated by people who make crop circles.

About twenty years ago, when I was still an archaeologist, I spent several weeks one summer at Avebury in Wiltshire, which has an especially spectacular stone circle and, every year without fail, a lot of crop circles. One evening, whilst we were enjoying the sunset with a few beers and some beneficial herbal substances, we saw three hippies carrying planks of wood and rope into a field. Being as interested in modern folklore as I am, I asked them outright: "Are you going to make a crop circle and if so, can I watch?" They agreed. For the next few weeks, I had great fun listening to the various "experts" who insisted there was absolutely no way the beautiful, intricate pattern they created could possibly be man-made.

Jnei Level 8 Oct 20, 2018

@johnprytz I'm not arguing anything, merely stating that all the "mysterious" features can be replicated by crop circle makers and telling a story of something that once happened to me.

@johnprytz Once again, I didn't say that all crop circles are created by humans, merely that all the features of crop circles can be created by humans.

You state that "botanists can and have distinguished the damage caused by clearly human 'circle' makers and those that have no known human connection and such research has been published in the academic literature" - so now, the burden of proof is upon you. I'd be interested to read that literature if you have any links (ideally to properly peer-reviewed work)?

@johnprytz Ah yes, Professor Haselhoff. As I recall, his statistical analysis was shown to be so deeply flawed that even he back-pedaled and insisted his "BOL model" was pure hypothesis.

@johnprytz Good old Levengood! When researchers from the non-profit Italian educational organisation CICAP asked for permission to re-use Levengood's Physiologia Plantarum articles, the editor informed them that he had no wish to continue the conversation and that he regretted the publication of the articles (and others by both Talbott and Haselhoff). You can read the editor's response here: [cicap.org]

@johnprytz Indeed. It's not my wish here to try to "discredit the entire crop "circle" phenomena", but to show that a very great deal of pseudoscientific woo and bad science has been written on the subject.

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I want to read this an interact in this conversation but I have to say it aggravates me when people go on a social site like this and don't fing post there picture. What's up with that?

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That's a whole lot of words to say nuttin'.

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Those damned aliens ought to be made to pay for the damage they do.

@johnprytz Do the jokers even have their green cards?

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Crop circles are produced by extraterrestrial teens banished from their own planet for producing these things everywhere. It was the graffiti of the day and the practice got out of hand.

Do they have their green cards?

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It seems highly unlikely that they are natural events. I am hoping they turn out to be extraterrestrial.

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All current evidence points to human manufacture. Until evidence of any other means of agency comes to light I believe that they are all manmade and the fact that they usually appear overnight and can be easily reached by road confirms that in my mind, in the past some which were thought to be impossible for man to make have been exposed as hoaxes and several people have owned up to being the hoaxers. Those of us who are sceptics can never believe in anything paranormal without concrete evidence.....and here there is none.

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John, crop circles were debunked years ago. They produced by humans with a plank

Yeah but idiots keep proving thmselves to be real

Planks, a little wire or twine, and designs in mind.

@johnprytz England (my country) is a strange and ancient land. We have pictures of horses etched into the landscape, drawings in caves made by very ancient people, there are stones erected just because and even a picture of a rather jolly man with an erect penis!
The most likely explanation is that these are created by men. Always have been and always will.
For exactly the same reason you stated, the perpetrators like to continue the hoax so they can maintain the mystery, sell books, merchandise etc
Crop circles have been described as all falling "within the range of the sort of thing done in hoaxes" by Taner Edis, professor of physics at Truman State University. Although obscure natural causes or alien origins of crop circles are suggested by fringe theorists, there is no scientific evidence for such explanations, and all crop circles are consistent with human causation.
It is a nice idea that aliens are sending us secret messages but they just aren't.

@johnprytz British summer nights can last until about 11pm in high summer. We have electric lights in UK these days. Its the height of modernity 😉. I think you are missing the point. It is likely the farmers are aware and have given permission. It is also likely local police are complicit. Crop circles are big money for local community and the fruit loops who think little green men created them. What is the most likely explanation?

@johnprytz I live in NW England and in high summer it regularly stays light past 22:00hrs,there is residual light past this time. By the end of next month, it'll be dark by 15:00hrs...oh hum
When I was in clinical practice, working 12 hour shifts, you rarely saw sun in winter. I have never heard any farmers complain about crop circles. However I am I always open to being educated. On the odd proper text I have read, it appears that farmers are often complicit into the appearance
[fwi.co.uk]
Come on John, they are man made, like god and fairies. Its a nice story.v

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