40 replies to this topic

[IrishStones]

All of us seem to be about half right, half the time! It has been demonstrated that small, or simple ones can be made by "hand". And they look distinctly hand-made. But the larger, complex circles, with woven stems and intricate detail with no evidence of  ground staking for symmetry, or walk-overs, clearly are not made by men from ground level. Whatever is making them must be a device, or "energy source" which can set down with no tracks, lift up, and make delicate 6 inch swaths separated by six inches of standing crop. There is no way on this planet the large, complex designs can be done with men on foot, some within minutes to hours. Men with computers, of course, is quite another thing.

[Arran and Emma]

Fireflite & IrishStones, as Nigel has mentioned before, look at this:  Circle Makers

[fireflite]

I never said they weren't made by humans. I just disagree with the method that's suppposedly used. Also the site mentioned above appears to be overly complicated, extremely cynical, and a huge load of ____. Once again 2 drunks with boards on the end of there feet didn't make that formation. It's too precise. And they certainly had nothing to do with the building of the passage mounds!(which is what this forum is about...) oh yea and how do you "explain"  this ???

[IrishStones]

Yes, please look at this site (circle makers ). It proves my point in pictures better than any words. The simplistic designs, with utterly no symbology and the crudeness of the planes speak volumes. The lack of perfect symmetry and the length of time it took to make them, complete with the destroyed condition of the crop could be no better proof that the large, intricate and symbolic crop circles cannot be made on foot. The difference between hand-made and computer-made is enormous to anyone seriously, and objectively, looking at these pictures.

[Pete G]

Hi Folks,
On the subject of Croppy circles.
I was travelling back home from Calne today (sat 24th Aug) and couldn't believe my eyes when I saw 3 people in Yatesbury field making a huge circle with stompers and tape measures etc.
Steve Alexander arrived and told me it was Rod Dickenson (?)
That's 2 I've seen being made this year! (The first was the sun symbol on Waden hill that was stomped out on solstice eve to the sound of the Kings drummers.)
I've posted a pano here http://www.hippy.com...ry/frameset.htm
PeteG

[IrishStones]

From what I have seen and read, making cirlces has become a new form of entertainment. This itself is an interesting social phenomenon!

[Nigel]

Fireflite, I think you’re a bit hard on the circle makers. Whilst they are part of what I would see as an industry I think they are to be preferred to some of the people running websites on the other side of the argument. They at least are up front in stating that they believe all circles are man made (which is what you believe, and what everyone on this forum appears to believe) This is better than promoting the opposite viewpoint by selectively presenting evidence which is what often happens on croppy sites. It has taken years to get them to admit that any, let alone most, are man-made. Such deliberate blindness hardly engenders confidence in any evidence they now present.  

Also, I would dispute your characterization of the circle makers as drunks with planks, incapable of producing complex designs. If you spend some time on their site you will conclude that they are quite clever people and have publicly demonstrated that they can produce very sophisticated designs in a few hours.

Of course, you are saying that there are still a residue of circles that couldn’t have been made by simple manual means, however skilful. Personally, I’m unconvinced about that but I’d like to hear exactly which formations you think must have been made by more high tech means, and what features of them are beyond low-tech methods. I’ve only been in one crop circle. That was very clever and complex, but there was nothing about the way the barley was lying that suggested non manual methods to me. I would have been more impressed if there were signs of “weaving” or bending of stalks at a higher level but there wasn’t any of that. I’m not sure where that sort of report comes from, and I’ve never seen clear photographs of it, but I know that the idea is rife amongst croppies as evidence of non-human or non-plank intervention.

Part of my doubts arise from a feeling that you are underestimating the power of a piece of string. What I mean by that is that if you have a fixed point and a set length you can produce near perfect designs incorporating circles, curves, arcs, bisections, tangents, straight lines and all the rest, just as we all did when we were kids with compasses and pencils, or with a stick and a rope on the beach. If you do the same thing in a corn field and you additionally you have a wide selection of planks and rollers and sticks I have no difficulty in believing you could make something stunning, and not a plasma generator in sight.

Actually, I have seen a clear photograph of evidence of non-human intervention in the making of crop circles, and it was from an authoritative source: a photo of a “grass ball” found in a crop circle, part of a newspaper article on the wall of the croppy pub in Alton Barnes. It was beautifully and delicately fashioned, definitely not man-made. For the enthusiasts gathered round it, none of them over 18, it was compelling and exciting evidence of a plasma force field. For me, old and cynical as I am, it was compelling and exciting evidence of a field mouse’s nest.  

You’ll note, neither side could prove it either way. And so, the industry rolls on.

Anyway, I’ve just been out in my back garden to make a little crop circle. I think we all ought to do that. It’s no good us arguing about whether this or that could be achieved manually unless we’ve tried it. In my own case it was pretty unscientific as it was just overgrown grass, the product of laziness and infirmity. And I haven’t proved much, although the neighbours now have proof of their suspicions about me.
Nevertheless, I think I’ve proved to myself that with time and practise I could make a tolerably good, but not brilliant one. More usefully, it’s given me some insight into some of the the “observations” about crop circles made by croppy sites such as
http://www.dreamscap...ana/belinda.htm

In particular:

Plasma Gravitational Theory observation:“The stalks are bent at 90 degrees at a consistent distance with respect to the topsoil (1 inch is typical)”.
Confirmed.
Whirlwind Vortex observation:”the gentle "groomed" appearance of the plant stalks after a formation has occurred. The stalks show no mechanical chafing or damage, which would be the case if struck by a sudden whirlwind or tornado”.
Confirmed
Microwave transient heating observation:”single standing stems of 22-inch height consistently in otherwise flattened circle areas”.
Confirmed.
(Because my tethered plank didn’t extend right to the central stake so a tuft was left in the middle. This is very common in crop circles)
"Eye-witnesses often claim to hear a "trilling" sound coming from the direction of the formations-in-the-make".
Blow me, yes, it happened to me. Honestly.The grasshoppers were furious.
“It was discovered not long ago that various sections of formations can be grouped together according to which node they bend at. Some bend at the knuckle closest to the ground. Yet in a neighboring section they all bend two knuckles up and so on. Yet one thing remains the same, they all still bent at 90%!”
Confirmed. If you raise the plank, that happens.
“Researchers have discovered layers within layers of information contained in the crop circles themselves. There are sacred ratios, such as the phi ratio that governs all organic life and diatonic ratios.
Can’t confirm that as I’m too stupid.
However, I can confirm that mine contained pi. Also everything ever mentioned by Pythagoras and Euclid (It’s the circles, you see).
“Strands woven together”
Yes, I can do that. All you need is 2 planks both tethered to the same point, and then you draw them towards each other, interweaving the grass from 2 different directions.. Mine were as good as any photos I’ve ever seen of the phenomenon. Better in fact.

The gent who I’m quoting from is Colin Andrews. He’s very big in crop circles (and books and merchandising). If you search on crop circles and his name you get nearly 2,000 hits. I think he even invented the phrase crop circle.
He’s a member of CCCS, “a collaborative effort between professional researchers, authors, gifted psychics and dowsers”. No mention of scientists for some reason. But they're looking for some. They say "a plasma physicist would be the most valued person to enter the fray at this point”. Yes, I bet they’d love that. Fireflight, you obviously are a scientist and know about plasma physics. Will you join them?

In case you’re undecided, let me quote a few more of Mr Andrew’s pronouncements, and perhaps you can make up your mind whether he has a rather unscientific and self-interested approach to evidence:

“Numerous accounts of crop circles appearing inside military installations that are fenced off (quite securely!) from the surrounding area. Most notably in Wiltshire along the Salisbury Plain”.
Yes, more than 50% of Salisbury Plain is army owned, and 99% allows public access.
One common denominator of the crop formations is that they occur over underground water supplies and land situated above chalk beds.
Yep. Wiltshire is a chalk area, 100% right.
“Often formations are imprinted on the earth in alignment with tram lines”.
Give me a break!

[Arran and Emma]

Nigel, we look forward to seeing the T-Shirts and postcards of the Stourport Circle (which should at least help pay for someone to cut your grass for you). Over the last six years there appears to be no new information put forward by the crop-circle researches. Searching online you just come up with the same stuff page after page. And most of that is as mentioned above, pretty weak at best.

But we think that whatever you say about this subject, people will always want to believe that there is something else behind it all. Gaia crying for help, aliens waking us up, even the weather having a joke, these are far more interresting solutions and give people who need it the hope of the world being something more than what they percieve it to be.

[fireflite]

I looked around the Circle Makers site and found NO photographic evidence of them making any circles. It could be hidden somewhere but I got bored reading all the narcissistic drivel. I did see the link above of three people standing in a field(?) well, that definately proved to me that I'm a moron and yes, a group of people who meet in a pub before going into a field to bend wheat are certainly not drunks... I did the pub bit, but I don't think I made any Circles afterwards.

I don't believe everything I read, I didn't "steal" my theory from any other website (check my email addy) but came upon it independently from info derived from many sources. I have seen proof that my theory could be valid. I could be totally wrong and 2 Rhodes scholars with sticks could produce the amazingly intricate designs found at   The Ridgeway, Windmill Hill or Nursteed But I still doubt it.  

[IrishStones]

Fireflite! how strange that you would give three URLs to designs that would be my evidence of plank and rope construction. The crudeness of the edges and the width of design elements, and the lack of abstract esoteric symbolism gives all three away as pedestrian efforts. There are sites that show better designs and close-ups at ground level. I have no wish to make any point about crop circles, I am but a casual observer of only two weeks, and am not as self-interested as I may be if I lived in Southern England. Maybe because I don't give a hoot one way or another,  it is clearer to me that more than one kind of deception is at work in all this. Our discussion here is but another manifestation of these deceits. I think the circles are an interesting phenomena, but worthy of no more time than that passing observation. In short, why do we care? If we all agree they are not ET messages, and that they ARE in one way or another man-made, what exactly is the fuss, and why do we all feel the need to "prove" anything? Are we so afraid of deception, which is, in fact, at work, we are willing to dispense with critical thinking and become a part of a mass hysteria in the process of defending our little burrough of acceptable Truth? Is it possible, in the process of not allowing anyone to pull the wool over our eyes, to be blinded more surely?

[BuckyE]

Dear Friends,
   Loie and I have spent several weeks visiting the pueblos and houses in our American Southwest, two weeks visiting rings and cairns all over Scotland, and two weeks visiting "sacred sites" in the Hawaiian Islands. We've also been to Chichen Itza and another Mayan site near Cancun, Mexico. We've spent a day at Mystery Hill, "America's Stonehenge."
   Our personal conclusion is that some few sites have great psychological impact, but most none. Among those with great impact, the "feelings" engendered were equally divided between good and bad.
   We both agreed that the Ring of Brogar, with a huge full moon hanging between the stones over the darkening eastern horizon, on a cloudless summer evening while a lone bagpiper faced the sun and piped it down into the glowing western sky was pretty darn awesome.
   When the rain cleared a bit as we stood in the small stone ring of Callanish II, we could see the complex avenues of Callanish on it's promontory in the near distance. When we realised that we could also see two ruined rings we had just been slogging through, and a cairn we had viewed from the road, the chills running up our backs were no longer just from the rain seeping through our windbreakers. We knew we were seeing a deliberately built landscape.
   The quirkily individual little Anasazi houses scattered along the tiny canyon of Hovenweep Mesa made us feel sure we had lived there in a previous life, weaving our Native American hippy dreamcatchers to sell to the soulless denizens of the great, creepy hives of Chaco Canyon.
   The petroglyph fields of Hawaii? Astounding, but mute.
   The cenotaph of Chichen Itza? Empty, save for its scummy water.
   A dozen rings and cairns in Scotland? Peacefully dead, without even an old ghost to liven them up.
   All the places we've visited have obviously been chosen by ancient people with great care: tucked away in valleys by pretty water; posted proudly on hills with views; spreading out for all to see and know who made them. And we're pretty well convinced that in some few instances, this care of placement, and the artistic skill that designed the structure can still speak to us over millenia.
   The message? That people once cared very much about who they were, where they lived, and how they lived there. Some of them just managed to say it a bit better than others. Neato!