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| Crop Circles |
| [ Part One ] | [ Part Two ] | [ Part Three ] |
 [ Modern Phenomenon? ] |
They are mentioned in academic texts of the late 17th Century, and almost
200 cases- some with eyewitness accounts- have been reported prior to 1970.
Since then some eighty eyewitnesses from as far away as British Columbia
have reported crop circles forming in under twenty seconds; cases are often
accompanied by sightings of incandescent or brightly-coloured balls of light,
shafts of light or structured flying craft.
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| [ Design and Documentation ] |
Serious attention was given to the simple circles in 1980 in southern
England. The designs appeared primarily as simple circles, circle with rings,
and variations on the Celtic cross up into the mid-1980s. Then they developed
straight lines and created pictograms, not unlike petroglyphs. After 1990
the designs developed exponentially in complexity, and today it is not unusual
to come across designs mimicking computer fractals and elements that relate
to fourth dimensional quantum physics. Their sizes have also increased,
some occupying areas as large as 200,000 sq feet. To date there have been
over 10,000 reported and documented crop circles throughout the world, with
some 90% emerging from southern England. While many still go unreported
each year, the emegence of the phenomenon in the world media and the internet
has allowed more information to be lodged.
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| [ 'Debunking' - Control the Masses ] |
If you happen to buy the story that all crop circles were originated
by two sexagenarians with planks of wood, string and a weegie board, you
are not in the minority. Once in a while, governments like to control public
interest in unexplained phenomena by generating a disinformation method
called 'debunking', a technique invented during the Cold War for the sad
purpose of controlling mass opinion in the face of unexplainable phenomena
(this was the prime motive of the 1953 Robertson Panel, details of which
are obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act). The method is very
effective because the media provides little or no scientific or factual
data with which the public can form an educated opinion on the subject.
This absence of evidence is then replaced by ridiculing the subject through
association with other 'fringe' topics; so-called experts are brought-in
to explain away all the events as freak weather conditions or the work,
general pranksters, even sexually excited animals!
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| [ Who dunnit? ] |
According to TV documentaries, all crop circles up to 1992 were made
by two simple, elderly men called Doug and Dave. It has since been discovered
by researchers such as George Wingfield and Armen Victorian that the D&D
story was tied to the British Ministry of Defense- in collusion with the
CIA, among others. Evidence supplied by a high-ranking informant in the
British Ministry of Defence suggested that the government had every intent
to discredit the phenomenon by putting forward two hoaxers in an effort
to quell growing public interest in crop circles. When
confronted to provide evidence on certain claimed formations, Doug and Dave
changed their story, even reversing previous claims; or they simply remained
silent when asked to explain the list of features found in the genuine phenomenon.
When they claimed making all the formations around the English county of
Hampshire, for example, it was pointed out that half the known formations
had actually occured in another county- "Er, no, we didn't do those
either," they replied. In the end, not even Doug and Dave knew which
ones they had made. And although they claim to have made hoaxes since 1978-
at the time the published date of the first design- evidence witheld confirmed
crop circles dating back into the 1930s. The public has never heard these
retractions, nor been given the opportunity to compare the mess created
by D&D with the mathematical symmetry of the real phenomenon.
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| [ Copycats ] |
In 1998, however, the surviving member of the deceptive
duo did make an incredible admission to British newspapers that he'd been
guided by an unknown force.
Since Doug and Dave's inauguration, many copycat hoaxers have appeared
on the scene. Some do it to disprove or derail researchers, some for profit,
some because they are sociopaths, some because they genuinely believe they
can communicate back to the phenomenon. Prior to 1989 the hoaxing problem was virtually unheard of. After
1990 designs of man-made origin vary by year- in 1992 and 1998 it was as
high as 90%, in 1996 as low as 20%.
That people with a good amount of training can go into a field and eventually
create a coherent pattern has never been the issue- recently, a group of
known hoaxers called TEam Satan/the circlemakers was paid to go to conveniently
out-of-the-way New Zealand to make an elaborate formation for The Discovery
Channel.
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| [ Part One ] | [ Part Two ] | [ Part Three ] |
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