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Crop circles have fascinated us for ages... what are they and where do they come from? Are they Alien invention or the work of extremely clever artists... or even alien artists? Read on to see if the mysteries of these fabulous fairy designs in the fields can be unveiled...
Imagine these formations. Imagine where they came from and how they got there. Are they Extra Terrestrial road maps? Directions to (or even names of) the 'points of origin'? Dial-up codes for the stars at the Inter Stellar Exchange? Bugs having a beef with us and doing their best to annoy the farmers? Who can say? But think, even if it was very clever people making these things when others weren't looking, WHAT drove them to it? What inspired the designs? WHO made them do it, and WHY??? Makes you think, doesn't it!
"I don't know what they are but not people, clever or otherwise. Possibly
some of the basic ones are but isn't it funny that no-one has ever caught
them at it?
The mathematics behind some of them is so complex that it would be difficult
if not impossible to work out beforehand with our level of skills. I read a
mathematical analysis of one once and the mathematician said he could work
out the maths given the design but could not have created the design from
scratch.
And what about that face in the square grid some years ago? Men with planks?
I think not.
Or the one that seemed to respond to messages sent out by radio signal? Or
DNA representations?
Intrigue.
And even if we don't know how - we know even less why?"
The term 'crop circle' was first coined by researcher Colin Andrews in the early 80s and entered the Oxford Dictionary in 1997. It was derived from the fact that many of the earlier sightings of this phenomenon were actually circles, or simple circular patterns... The term has stuck since and it has even given rise to a new term 'cerealogy' which is indeed the study of crop circles.... However crop circles go back a lot further than most people think, as rather than just being a modern thing, there have been much older recordings of similar circular symbols.
The earliest recorded sighting of anything remotely like todays crop circles was something etched for a woodcut (circa 1700s) print of the Devil scything a field of oats, which happened to be done in a circular pattern (shown right)... it was (not surprisingly) called 'The Mowing Devil'. This 'phenomenon' apparently came about as the farmer whose field it was was getting somewhat irate over the fees this Mower was charging to cut/harvest his crop and he was supposed to have insisted that he would rather have "the devil himself" perform the task... Its interesting to note that the 'Devil' in the picture is cutting the crop in a clockwise direction....
Moving on to more modern times, there are those who feel that the crop circle formations are due more to the weather and weather anomalies, like ball lightning and freak tornado style winds (or even 'dust devils' - if this country were not no soggy that is...), than devils and other oddball entities... Quite often crop circle appearences have been linked to these storms and such like with the winds and the rain rushing around like devils themsleves, creating these peculiar circular patterns as a result.... who's to say..?
In the formation at Cherhill Down, Wiltshire 2008
One such Crop circle was said to have formed after a storm where the lightning reached out and... well lo and behold, there be crop circles! But that's not the only Paranormal 'Fringe' theory on the formation of these works... there is of couse the hypothesis that they are in fact communications from extra terrestrials... where UFO sightings have 'coincided' with their appearence, being manifested by the storms that also seem to accompany them...
Often crops have been flattened and burnt to form these designs which many feel are 'too perfect' to have been man-made and so enforcing the ET's invitations to his mates and the ensuing UFO theory. Where there have been 'witnesses' who have claimed to have seen balls of light (orbs?) flying over the circles, one such witness in Australia was to have said that said he observed a saucer-shaped craft rise 30 or 40 feet up from a swamp and then fly away. When he went to investigate the location where he thought the saucer had landed, he found the reeds intricately weaved in a clockwise fashion on top of the water. The woven reeds could hold the weight of 10 men.... Curiouser and curiouser....
The film 'Signs' (directed by M. Knight Shayamalan and starring Mel Gibson and Joachim Phoenix) touches on this and infers that they are maps and guidance notes or directions for an alien invasion). You have to admit that some of these designs would certainly be able to suspend disbelief just enough for that idea to be acceptable to the majority...
UFO's and Extra Terrestrials aside, there have been many crop circles forming near ancient and sacred sites, giving rise to a more spiritual aspect to their design... They have become places where people have gone to meditate, pray and commune with the spirits and spiritrual presences that they feel are around, manifesting themsleves in the fields... or, maybe they are 'feeling' the background radiation that's said to accompany the formation of a crop circle (c/o ET?)?
Having said that it is worth remembering that there is a fair amount of natural back ground radiation around and about from the Earth itself...
Cherhill Downs, Wiltshire
There have been many pranksters and hoaxers creating crop circles using all sorts of things to help make the perfect pattern from ropes and stakes, boards or planks (to flatten the crops), PVC piping, trestles, ladders etc... even a garden roller! However, these always seem to leave tell-tale signs for human activity - like stake holes (covered up or not) for instance. Some of these circles can be so cleverly made that they can even fool the 'experts' into thinking that they were created by some other hand rather than a human one. Methods to create a crop circle are now well-documented on the Internet
Iin 1999 - 2000, a survey was commissioned to ascertain which crop circles were man made and which were 'otherwise' created... Andrew Collins was the man for the job here and he concluded that around 80% of the 1000s of crop circles he had investigated were indeed made by human hand...
So what of the other 20%? Here he was unable to find signs of human interaction... After the findings of this survey had been made known, there appeared, however, the usual critics on the findings... This was mainly because, in spite of the expert inquries, they said that there were as yet no set standards to determine or distinguish between man-made crop circles and 'non man-made' circles...
It was therefore concluded by these 'experts' that there were insufficient grounds for the Collins 20% conclusion!
So Inspite of the 'Cerealogists', NO official standard exists for determining the nature of a crop circle!
Isn't RED TAPE wonderful!!! (not!)
All in all, whatever you feel or believe in, crop circles are a pretty spectaculr occurrance...being both mysterious and marvellous!
Be they man-made by clever crafty people, insect initiated, ET's phone book dial-up or weathered wonders, crop circles are undoubtedly hard to ignore.... They have a different meaning and effect on each of us -as if individually tailored even to one's specific needs or desires...
In short, it seems that they are whatever you want them to be, or what you want to believe them to be...
And may be this is the plan the Aliens had for us all along! The truth is out there... It's WA-A-AY out there!
And now for something 'completely different...'
A 'crop circle' for the light of heart...
Or is it a message from 'beyond' (i.e. beyond the boardroom and bonus packet) to British Rail Bosses to remember to put trains on the tracks and not to keep cancelling them???
