Text by Freddy Silva.
Crop circles are not a 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 as far flung as British Columbia and
Australia 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.
Serious attention was given to the simple circles in 1980 in southern
England. The designs appeared primarily as simple circles, circles with
rings, and variations on the Celtic cross up into the mid-1980s. Then they
developed straight lines, creating pictograms, not unlike petroglyphs found
at sacred sites thoughout the world. After 1990 the designs developed exponentially
in complexity, and today it is not unusual to come across crop glyphs mimicking
computer fractals and elements that relate to fourth dimensional processes
in quantum physics. Their sizes have also increased, some occupying areas
as large as 200,000 sq ft. 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.
If you happen to buy the story that all crop circles were originated
by two sexagenarians armed with planks of wood, garden rollers and string,
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 (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, particularly when 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 as the work of general pranksters, even sexually
excited animals!
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 may have originated at 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 (the full story
appears in my book, Secrets In The Fields). When
confronted to provide evidence on certain claimed formations, Doug and Dave
changed their story, even reversing previous claims; or they simply could
not explain unusual 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- unpublished evidence confirmed crop
circles dating back into the 1890s. The public has never heard these retractions,
nor been given the opportunity to compare the mess created by D&D with
the mathematical elegance of the real phenomenon.
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 (with very interesting results, I
may add). 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/circlemakers was paid to go to conveniently
out-of-the-way New Zealand to make an elaborate formation for The Discovery
Channel. The deceptive tactics used to trick a viewing public into accepting
the hoax theory are dealt with here.
The real issue is that no man-made crop circle has satisfactorily replicated
the features associated with the real phenomenon, and this has baffled scientists
and researchers. Crop circles are created by a force seemingly at odds with
modern science. Central to the hoax argument is that a physical object is
required to flatten the crop to the ground, resulting in the breaking of
the plant stems. In genuine formations the stems are not broken but bent
(left), normally about an inch off the ground and near the plant's
first node. The plants appear to be subjected to a short and intense burst
of heat which softens the stems to drop just above the ground at 90ª,
where they reharden into their new and very permanent position without damage.
Plant biologists are baffled by this phenomenon, and farmers, who know
how the land ticks, have no explanation either. It is the singlemost method
of identifying the real phenomenon. Research and laboratory tests suggest
that microwaves or infrasound may be the only method capable of producing
such an effect.
Crop circles are sometimes accompanied by trilling sounds, since captured
on tape and analysed by NASA as being artificial in origin, with a harmonic
component of 5.2 kHz.
The detection of electromagnetism also differentiates genuine formations
from fakes. This naturally-occuring energy is known to exist at ancient
sites such as stone circles, long barrows, tumuli, dolmens and menhirs,
and in churches and cathedrals which were built upon these sites. Crop circles,
sacred sites and other places of worship are also found upon intersecting
points along the Earth's invisible energy grid, and the size and shape of
a crop circle is typically determined by the area of these 'node' points
on the Earth's surface. The frequencies of this energy are associated with
changes in brainwave patterns; they also affect the body's biophysical rhythm,
so it is not unusual to find reports of people experiencing heightened states
of awareness and healings in crop circlesa situation also common to
sacred sites. People may also experience dizziness, disorientation and nausea.
All these effects can be caused by prolonged exposure to both infrasound
or microwaves.
Biophysical evidence includes plants' expanded epidermal walls, and drastically
extended node bends in fresh formations (normalright, crop circle
far right); also observed are distortions of seed embryos, and the
creation of expulsion cavities in the plants as if they have been heated
from the inside. In genuine formations there is also a disruption of the
plant's crystalline structure, as these microscope photos demonstrate (left).
Yet in all cases, the plants are not damaged and will continue to grow
and ripen if left untouched. This would not be possible had they been trampled
by force.
Genuine crop circles are areas of gently laid and swirled plants which
create a floor in mathematical proportions similar to the Golden Mean, the
vortex used by nature to create precision organisms such as shells, sunflowers,
the spatial relationship of the bones in the human hand, even galaxies.
The floor of crop circles can have up to five layers of weaving, all in
counterflow to each other, with every seed head intact and placed beside
each other as if arranged in a museum case; the centres can contain nested,
woven, crested, or wreathed swatches of plants; sometimes the center will
consist of a single standing plant.
Genuine crop circles are not perfectly round but slightly elliptical
(a hoax, requiring a fixed central rope, cannot achieve this adequately).
Their edges are crisply defined from the flattened crop as if drawn with
a compass and incised with surgical precision. Hoaxes, by comparison, bear
a stylistic resemblance to tuffs of greasy, uncombed hair- and, of course,
all their plants have been trampled, bruised and crushed.
Other anomalies indicate an increase infrared output within and around
a new formation, indicating that both the heat content of the plants and
the underlying watershed have been affected. Evidence even exists of four
non-naturally occuring, short-life radioactive isotopes in the soil inside
genuine crop circles (these dissipate after three or four hours); the soil
in around them appears to have been baked.
Mathematically, genuine crop circles encode obscure theorems based on
Euclidian geometry as well as the unalterable principles of sacred geometry.
They have the capacity to alter the local electromagnetic field so that
compasses cannot locate north; cameras, cellular phones and batteries fail
to operate, and aircraft equipment fails whilst flying above them. Then
there are levels of background radiation up to 300% above normal, radio
frequencies falling dramatically or rising sharply within their perimeters,
animals in local farms avoiding that particular area or simply acting agitated
hours before one materializes, and car batteries in entire villages failling
to operate the morning after one is found nearby. In some of the major events,
entire towns have been left without power.
Since genuine crop circles materialize at crossing points along the Earth's
electromagnetic energy currents, they are influencing the energy pattern
of local phehistoric sites. They reference local Neolithic sites in size/shape/direction,
and are dowsable upon entry, with as many as 150 concentric rings of energy
outside their physical perimeter, like ripples in a pond. In fact, a year
after they have been harvested and the field ploughed and re-sown, the energy
imprint of the formations will still be dowsed, long after their physical
traces have vanished.
This area of research has allowed for the possibility of crop circles
as a healing force, and they are already being successfully employed in
radionics, flower essences and resonance therapy around the world, both
for people and environments in distress.
Crop circles are generally formed at night between the
hours of 2-4 AM, traditionally during the shortest evenings of the English
year when darkness lasts but four hours, in fields eagerly watched by farmers,
military, laser alarms, scientists or hundreds of enthusiasts in their sleeping
bags hoping to be the lucky ones to witness a crop circle forming. Some
of those lucky few have witnessed large balls of brilliant colour project
a beam of golden light into a field which next morning displays a new crop
circle.Yet despite many stakeouts and fields rigged with top surveylance
equipment, crop circles have appeared out of the mist right under the noses
of those looking for them.
At Stonehenge in 1996 (left), a pilot reported seeing nothing
unusual while flying above the monument, yet 15 minutes later this huge
900 ft formation resembling the Julia Set computer fractal, and comprising
149 meticulously layed circles, lay beside the well-patrolled monument.
It took a team of 11including myselfno less than five hours just
to survey the formation.
Still not convinced? This web site contains a sampling of the on-going
research dedicated to enlightening the public. Look at the pictures, study
the research or better still, visit a genuine crop circle. You'll get the
message pretty quickly.
And when you do, tell this story to a friend.
