SUBJECT: A UPDATE ON CROP CIRCLES FILE: UFO1228
MUFONET-BBS Network - Mutual UFO Network
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FIELD OF DREAMS? - AN UPDATE ON THE CIRCLE PHENOMENA
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[Contributed by Georgia MUFON]
Not far from the mysterious ring of ancient megaliths at Stonehedge, a new
phenomenon is sculpting circles in the cornfields of Southern England. More
than 400 times last summer, an unseen agent blew across growing crops,
creating circular patterns in the fields. The phenomenon almost always
occurred at night, sometimes accompanied by a warbling sound and a moving
orange light.
Inside each perfectly drawn circumference, the corn lies bent but not broken,
with its still-growing stalks swept into a matted and sometimes woven pinwheel
--turning now clockwise, now counter-clockwise. When viewed form the air,
many of the circles form complex patterns, arrayed as rings within rings,
bull's-eye-style, for example, or of chains of giant beads connected by bars
and embellished with exterior arcs. If a circle is laid down early in the
season, when the crop is green, the rapidly growing stalks soon pick
themselves up and grow straight again, so that the circle fades from sight
until it appears only faintly etched into the vegetation. Once in a while, a
circle forms with such force that plants are apparently blasted out of the
center.
Researchers from all over the world are struggling to understand what causes
the phenomenon and have written at least half a dozen books about the circles-
but no one has arrived at the definitive explanation. The conflicting
theories, amassing almost as quickly as the circles themselves, cover
everything from extraterrestrial visitors and the testing of star-wars weapons
technology to tornado-like atmospheric conditions and plain old-fashioned
hoaxing.
The excitement over the fields is recent, but the phenomenon itself turns out
to have a long history in the English croplands. Indeed, many legends from
the Middle Ages refer to circles that formed in fields overnight. Back then,
pundits talked of fairies dancing through the corn, or of mowing devils who
came in the night and cut the crops in rings. Over the centuries, some
scientists say, circles have been laid down continually. But they have been
seen only occasionally and reported rarely. Today, with journalists,
researchers and tourists literally combing the countryside for crop circles,
more and more have been found.
Although circles have since been spotted in parts of the United States,
Canada, and Australia, most have cropped up in a area of England called the
Wessex Corridor or Wessex Triangle--a triangular tract of land about 40 miles
on each leg in the southern-central part of the country. Over the past ten
summers, the phenomenon has become increasingly widespread, with the circles
forming more and more frequently, in more numerous locations, and in even more
intriguing patterns.
Some of the patterns developed over time, as in the case of a large circle
found last May with three concentric rings around it. Days later, airborne
observers spotted a fourth ring a thousand feet wide and embracing the others
in its circumference, leading some people to speculate that a peculiar fungus
or virus was responsible. Others have attributed the patterns to hedge-hogs,
perhaps, or even hippies.
"It is a mystery," concedes Colin Andrews, an electrical engineer and local
government official in Hampshire, who describes himself as one of the three
foremost researchers on the circle phenomenon. Andrews brings a brisk,
British enthusiasm to bear on the problem, but his style of study has earned
him a lot of enemies in the global scientific establishment. Some claim that
his book on the subject, "Circular Evidence", co-authored with Pat Delgado, is
rife with circular reasoning. For the record, Andrews says, "There is no
question at all that the phenomenon is beyond physics and science as we know
it to be."
"There is now an extraordinary amount of data leaning heavily in the direction
of some form of intelligence," says Andrews. I'm not saying extraterrestrial
intelligence. But I don't rule out extraterrestrial intelligence." The
evidence for this equivocal comment is what Andrews calls the "precise
placement" of the circles. They never haphazardly lap over the edge of a
field, he points out, though some circles stretch hundreds of feet in
diameter. Instead, they array themselves to within a fraction of an inch of
roadways or hillsides as though they'd been placed there by an unseen hand.
Andrews tried to get the drop on the circle makers last July and August with
his Operation Blackbird--a surveillance effort he set up on the Salisbury
Plain, in the heart of circle country. His scientific equipment consisted of
thermal imaging cameras, infrared and low-light cameras, and tape recorders.
Andrews himself was home in bed when the excitement unfolded in the form of
flashing lights on one of the monitors, but a telephone call quickly summoned
him to the site at 4:00 am.
At sunrise the observers could see circles alright, in the fields where the
lights had been, but they turned out to be the handiwork of hoaxers. The
thermal imaging cameras had picked up the body heat of the pranksters.
"our location had been known," Andrews notes ruefully. (This is hardly
surprising, because the British press grants ample coverage to Colin Andrew's
ideas and activities.)
Shortly after the grounding of Operation Blackbird, Andrews notes, British
Army researchers got film footage of an orange light in the sky moving slowly
to the east, dipping down to ground level, and then picking up speed before
disappearing behind a dense forest. On the morrow, several circles appeared
in the path of the orange light. The film may air in a BBC special.
Other investigators disagree with Andrews and Delgado. Terence Meaden, an
atmospheric physicist and founder of the Tornado and Storm Research
Organization (TORRO) as well as the Circles Effect Research Group (CERES)
says, "Their belief in a paranormal presence not only attracts hoaxers but
makes it very hard for me to convince the scientists of the world that these
circles merit serious study." Meaden first laid eyes on two corn circles some
five miles from his Wiltshire home in August of 1980. He immediately fired
off a short scientific paper explaining them in meteorological terms and has
been refining his theory ever since: the circles are caused by whirlwinds,
Meaden believes, that break down, hit the ground, and weave the crops into the
tangled patterns of their spiraling winds.
Electrical forces are also involved, Meaden adds. As the vortex sucks in air,
it strips electrons off the molecules, turning them into ions that glow in the
dark. Airborne particles of pollen, dust and sea salt hovering over the
fields accelerate the buildup of electric charge inside the whirlwind, making
it hum and shimmer with orange, yellow or red light. From a distance, the
bulge in the whirlwind may look like ball lightning, and it's noise may sound
similar to humming, buzzing, or even a siren's wail.
Numerous other researchers embrace Meaden's theory, including Jenny Randles
and Paul Fuller of the British UFO Research Association, who are the authors
of "Controversy of the Circles" and, more recently, "Crop Circles: A Mystery
Solved". Fuller is also the editor and publisher of a new scientific journal
called "The Crop Watcher", which keep a weather eye on the circles phenomenon
and takes a staunchly meteorological stand.
As far as Fuller and Randles are concerned, Meaden's theory also accounts for
a good number of UFOs sighted in Wiltshire. This is because the strong
electrical effects that are thought to charge the circle-making whirlwinds can
set compass needles spinning, stall cars, stop watches, cause power failures,
and fill the air with cracking, buzzing noises.
These kinds of events are also the stuff of UFO reports. Indeed, Randles
points out, circles appear at sites of reported close encounters. But in
reality, it is the circle phenomenon that produces the illusion of the alien
spacecraft, Randles maintains, not some extraterrestrial beings whirling their
messages over the ground.
"We now have twenty-four eyewitnesses who all report an atmospheric vortex--
similar to a tornado or whirlwind," Randles says. This is an astounding
number of firsthand accounts, given that 90 to 95 percent of crop circles are
thought to be formed between three and five o'clock in the morning. (Other
more mystically oriented crop watchers holding vigils in the cornfields have
observed no such vortex but instead reported hundreds of "black rod-like
things, or thongs," according to one account, "that jumped up and down above
the top of the crop."
As for the fact that the circles seem to be increasing in quantity and
complexity, Randles offers a number of down-to-earth possibilities that could
affect circle-making conditions, from pesticide spraying to the removal of
hedgerows, to chlorofluorocarbon buildup in the atmosphere, to the depletion
of the ozone layer.
"We've been called the greatest party poopers in history," says Randles, who
finds the geometric regularity of the circles no more astounding then the
complex formations to be seen among snowflakes. "People would rather come up
with the daffiest solutions possible."
Some of the sober solutions were aired publicly last June 23, when Meaden
chaired the First International Conference of the Circles Effect, which drew
scientists from as far away as Japan and the United States to a one-day parley
at Oxford University. Animated exchanges between the presenters and the
audience, which included Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado, were the order of the
day. At the end, Meaden told the gathering that decades more research might
be required to pin down all the details of the full answer.
"Just listening to these people was such fun," commented American attendee
John T. Snow, professor of atmospheric science at Purdue University. "There
was lots of discussion, but very little real study reported." Most of the
"crop circle studies," he said, entailed visiting the sites and speculating on
the sights there. Snow's own conjecture is in line with meaden's--that most
of the circles are the artifacts of whirlwinds. Snow thinks many of the more
elaborate patterns in the cornfields are hoaxes, perpetrated to keep news
media interest in the crop circles alive. Says Snow, "There's probably an
interesting meteorological phenomenon behind them that should be studied, but
it's tough to do serious science in such an atmosphere of sensationalism."
Christopher Church, an expert in tornado-like flows at Miami University in
Oxford, Ohio, also attended the circles conference and also goes along with
the vortex idea--up to a point. "I think the very bizarre features, such as
the rectangular patterns and arcs that look like photographs or sand
paintings," Church says, "can't be explained by natural causes. You could
call it hoaxing, or you could call it an artistic challenge."
Church is sufficiently challenged by the problem to do some laboratory
testing. He plans to construct a model of two to three square miles of the
surface of the Hampshire countryside, where many circles appear. His tabletop
model will miniaturize the area's horseshoe-shaped depression surrounded by
hills. Then he'll put the model in a whirlwind tunnel, blow smoke at it from
half a dozen directions, and see whether vortices appear. The key question,
he says, is not whether vortices could create the circles in the corn, but
whether they actually form as frequently as the vortex model suggests.
The vortex theory, however, is not the only scientific explanation. Eying the
circles from across the English Channel, optical engineer Jean-Jacques Velasco
of the CNES (The French counterpart to NASA) declares that "no known
meteorological phenomenon will produce rings on the ground, much less double
rings, without touching the vegetation in the middle of the rings." Instead,
he suggests, the circles may be the result of military tests of advanced star-
wars weaponry.
Indeed, when Velasco observed vegetation from crop circles under a microscope,
he found that bent stalks plucked from crop circles looked as though they had
been twisted and subjected to some form of heating.
The heat source, he speculated, could be an infrared or microwave beam of high
intensity. Such a beam could be produced by the powerful lasers used in
experimental defensive weapons under development in the United States, the
Soviet Union, and possibly the United Kingdom as well. The proliferating
patterns in the cornfields, by this argument are the fallout from testing a
new defense strategy. Although Valesco's ideas are roundly rejected by
British and American researchers, Valesco will be testing the idea in his
laboratory on a small scale, by conducting experimental test shooting of
plants with microwave and infrared guns.
Other theories range from the mischievous (tracks left by helicopters flying
upside down) to the mysterious (warnings of ecological disaster chiseled in
the corn in ancient Sumerian script). Some modern observers cling to the
notion that the circles are the work of fairies or nature spirits.
"I've been studying these circles for five years now," notes Archie Roy,
honorary senior fellow in physics and astronomy at the University of Glasgow,
a researcher well-known for his interest in the paranormal, "and I don't
believe we have any real idea of what they are or what causes them."
Roy is president of the newly formed Centre for Crop Circle Studies, which is
charged with building up a national computer database of relevant facts about
all the crop circles they inhabit, their size, and the meteorological
conditions in the areas where they form. One of the center's first official
acts was to meet with the National Farmers Union and draw up a "Code of
Practice" for researchers wishing to inspect circles on private land.
(Investigators are expected, for example, to ask farmer's permission before
entering the fields, to keep the gates closed, and to refrain from littering.)
The first issue of the Centre's fledgling journal of crop circle studies,
called "The Cereologist", appeared late last summer and ran true to its
editorial policy of standing "receptive to the news, views, and theories of
any group or individual who is engaged in these studies, subject only to their
courteous expression." Beyond the usual suspects (atmospheric effects,
fairies, extraterrestrial, hoaxers), the journal gave reports from dowsers,
channelers, and mystics.
Novelist Patrick Harpur, a student of alchemy, offered this view of the crop
circles; "They are like dreams," he said, "To interrogate them is to force
them to lie, to interpret them is to diminish their richness; to explain them
is to misunderstand them...Crop circles are like mouths that speak to us of
the strangeness and depth of things--speak to the heart more than the head and
to the soul more than the heart."
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