Above: Crop Circle at Milk Hill [larger pic] in Wiltshire above the White Horse, Britain on 17-Aug-2001. There are 409 circles incorporated into the design, which is almost 900ft/300m across (the average crop-circle is ~200ft wide).
Controversy and media spin: In 1991, two retired gentlemen came forward: Doug Bauer and David Chorley, who are residents of Wilshire, England, where more crop circles appeared than anywhere else in the world. And took credit for creating some 300 crop circles over the previous 20 years.
What is suspicious about the two older men "confession" is that it appeared simultaneously on the front pages of international papers and on CNN the same day. Any published author familiar with the difficulty of getting media attention will know that it takes a very powerful public relations firm to get a story to the front page of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, Le Figaro, and many other papers the same day. Where did the two pensioners get the kind of clout that would spin their claim around the planet? The result was instantaneous: The press and, more importantly, most scientists lost all interest in the story for 10 years. -- Vallee
Below: Sticks and ropes do you think this is how the above crop-formation was created ?
Summary: This page covers "crop circles", a term which nowadays is used to describe the large-scale "graffitti" agroglyphs / crop formations, i.e. landscape artwork of geometric patterns, often very intricate and complex (e.g. fractals), appearing in fields, usually corn and wheat fields (the design is viewable from the air). Frequency of appearance has increased dramatically since mid-1970s, databases list over 5.000 cases.
Researchers have uncovered enough anomalous characteristics of crop inside crop-formations (see XRD X-ray diffraction study below), to rule out the idea that all of them are "mechanically flattened crops" (a/k/a "pranks with planks") as some Media mockumentaries would lead the public to believe.
Work by laboratories on circle-affected crop has shown biological changes taking place at a cellular level, which could be attributable to some kind of microwaves, but other physical tests have shown anomalies not yet replicated by man-made experiments.
But, there still is no good evidence to link UFOs with the modern deluge of agroglyphs. It seems that agroglyph complexity -like drawing fractals on crops- parallels human technological development (computers etc). Some suggest cropcircles could be the product of black-project military microwave (HPM) devices.
Note: The "crop-circle" / agro-glyph term as used today refers to something DIFFERENT than UFO landing traces i.e. "UFO burn rings" of scorched soil and flora (soil dehydration / burn evidence and often depressions, weight related evidence or landing pad marks) and "saucer nests" of flattened and swirled crops where UFO hovered low over ground. The subject of UFO physical trace cases, where UFOs are seen to hover or land (over 3300 cases documented by Ted Phillips of CPTR - Center for Physical Trace Research), is covered in our "resources" and "technical overview" pages. Unlike with graffitti agro-glyphs / crop-circles, plants won't grow for years in spots where UFOs have actually landed (chemical analysis of trace cases, by research chemist Phyllis Budinger, found fulvic acid and oxalic acid which made the soil hydrophobic).
Some crop circles have evidently been created by men on the ground with "wooden boards and ropes" (or garden-rollers) a.k.a. "mechanical" crop-circles. Such was claimed by the well-known "Doug and Dave" duo (the two retired English gentlemen) and demonstrated by commercial groups doing such "artwork" under contract.
But, there is a variety of agroglyphs where the combination of design sophistication, time constraints involved and effects to the crop suggest something beyond "wooden boards and ropes" (a/k/a "pranks with planks").
Still crop-circles are not necessarily "otherworldly", i.e. made by non-human intelligence: some theorize that crop-circles may be some sort of testing of airborne military Directed Energy Weapon (DEW)wiki (microwave / maser / laser / particle-beam / HAARP apparatus etc). Some note that the progress in sophistication (e.g. intrincate fractal designs etc) of the crop-circles since the 1970s parallels the development of human technology (computers, High Power Microwave HPM etc) and in particular the SDI "Star Wars" programme by Reagan/Bush Sr/Thatcher (there is speculation that projects had started in the 1970s). This theory is put forth at ufos: the military unmasked page (note: the rest of the site is wrong IMO).
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To seek information on these topics they established a protocol to gather vegetation samples and sent them to a number of laboratories for microscopic studies. The results, which have been discussed at meetings of the Society for Scientific Exploration and other public events, have never seemed of sufficient interest for the media (or, indeed, the ufological mainstream) to take notice, perhaps because they conflicted with the sensational nature of other hypotheses.
The answers are as follows:
The early formations were simple circles, then circles with satellites. In later years more and more sophisticated and precisely-drawn geometric figures appeared.
Vegetation is bent because the nodes are exploded. The stalks are not broken and indeed the plants are often reported to start growing again.
All the significant formations were observed in an area in close proximity to major research facilities of the British defense establishment, often in controlled airspace.
Crop circles have been reported in mostly in wheat and corn. But, they also appear in barley, oats, oilseed rape (canola), grass, ricefields, trees, sand, and even snow and trees. Where do they appear? They have appeared on almost every continent and in over 30 countries worldwide: Britain (where most crop-circles appear), US, Canada, Australia, Brasil, Russia, India, Germany, and South Africa.
FWIW there is a video of orbs "creating" a crop circle, filmed in 1996, which is of questionable authenticity. Supposedly taped by Mr John Wabe at Oliver's Castle, Wiltshire, UK, Sunday 11th August 5.15 am, 1996. Later he reportedly confessed it was a hoax, made at "First Cut Studios":
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