Re: Crop Circles Man-Made NOT!

In Article  <[email protected]> Daivd Knisely wrote:
> You might want to read the book ROUND IN CIRCLES by
> Jim Schnabel (Prometheus Books), as it documents the
> phenomenon pretty well (and is a funny read as well).  As
> for crop circles, they are probably off-topic on sci.astro.amateur,
> since that group deals with amateur astronomy and not the
> products of some pranksters.

A page from the Troubled Times TOPIC on Crop Circles
(http://www.zetatalk.com/theword/tword022.htm)

    Why I Still Believe that Aliens Created Crop Circles

    The mystery of crop circles is now solved according to
    Colin Andrews, the electrical engineer whose investigations
    first made the British public aware of this bizarre phenomenon.
    In 1989, his book Circular Evidence (co-authored with Pat
    Delgano) became an enexpected bestseller, partly because if
    contained dozens of beautiful photographs of crop circles
    taken from the air. In conclusion, the authors admitted that
    there was a strong possiblity that crop circles were connected
    with flying saucers, which had often been seen in fields where
    circles had appeared. Now, it seems, Andrews has changed
    his mind. After 11 years of research, funded by the Rockefeller
    Foundation, he has come to the conclusion that the circles are
    'simply formed by the earth's magnetic field.' This magnetism
    somehow 'electrocutes' the wheat, causing it to lie down in a
    neat circle. But what about the elaborate patterns that have
    been appearing during the past few years: the triangles,
    concentric circles, the exotic spirals, or even the enormous
    key shapes? These, say Andrews, are all fakes, made by
    hoaxers who use short planks to flatten the corn and create
    the patterns. Only one fifth of all the crop formations - the
    perfect circles - are, he says, genuine.

    There is one simple and obvious objection to Andrews' theory
    about earth magnetism. If crop circles really are caused by
    some form of electricity, then why have they appeared only in
    the past 20 years or so? England, Canada, America, Australia,
    have been full of gigantic cornfields for centuries, and there
    have always been chroniclers to record strange events. Why
    do we not hear about crop circles in the time of Chaucer or
    Shakespeare? Because, I am fairy certain, they did not exist.
    Whatever is happening began in the mid -20th century. On
    September 1, 1974, long before anyone had heard of the crop
    circle phenomenon, a Canadian farmer named Edwin Fuhr,
    who lived near Langenburg, Saskatchewan, was driving his
    tractor in a field of rapeseed when he saw a round, shiny disc,
    about 11-ft across, whirling above the crop and causing it to
    sway. Then he saw four more in different parts of the field.
    For 15 minutes he sat frozen with fear, until suddenly the
    discs took off, rising in a kind of grey vapour. There in the
    rapeseed were five circle, 11ft across. Hoards of journalists
    rushed to photograph and report on them.

    Other circles began to be reported: from Manitoba, Canada,
    from Victoria and Queensland, Australia, from Ibiuna, Brazil
    from New Zealand, the Soviet Union, France and Switzerland.
    It was not until 1980 that the first crop circles were reported
    in England. A Wiltshire farmer, John Scull, found three of
    them, each 60ft wide, in his oat field near the famous White
    Horse land-mark at Uffington. A meterologist named Terence
    Meaden lost no time in providing a commonsense explanation.
    The circles, he said, were by summer whirlwinds. But Farmer
    Scull's circles would have needed three whirlwinds, each 60ft
    across. In fact, they would have to have been tornadoes. In
    August the following year, crop circles near the Cheesefoot
    Head beauty spot in Hampshire refuted Meaden's theory. There
    were three of them, one 60ft across, and the other two, placed
    symmetrically on either side of it, 25ft across. They were far
    too neat to have been made by a whirlwind - it was as if some
    gigantic pastry cook had leaned down from the sky with one
    of those metal cutters for stamping out biscuits. And the corn
    around them had not been broken or trampled. So it went on
    for year after year, with the British Press growing more and
    more exited. Then in 1991, two Southampton artists named
    Doug Bower and Dave Chorley announced that they had made
    all the crop circles, using a short plank. They obligingly
    demonstrated their trechnique for photographers by making
    a pattern like a dumbell in an hour and a half. But they also
    trampled down the wheat, and left broken stalks all over the
    place. Genuine circles had bent stalks that were unbroken, and
    no trampled wheat. And although Doug and Dave claimed
    they had made all the British Crop circles, even they admitted
    they had not travelled to Canada, Australia or the Soviet Union.

    Again and again, observers noticed odd phenomena associated
    with the circles. In June 1990, six observers at Wansdyke, near
    Silbury Hill in Wiltshire, heard a high pitched trilling and saw
    'black rods jumping up and down' among the wheat; next day
    there were crop circles. A radio ham in Devon had his listening
    spoilt in June 1991 by a series of high-pitched blips and clicks;
    the next day, a 70ft circle was found nearby. Astronomer,
    Gerald Hawkins was so fascinated by Colin Andrews' book that
    he began to study the precise measurements of all the circles in
    it. He soon noticed that these circles - often with patterns inside
     them - had been constructed very precisely according to the
    geometry of Euclid, the Greek mathematician who lived around
    300BC and compiled what was the standard text on geometry
    until the 19th century. So if the 'circle makers' were hoaxers,
    they must also be first-class geometers too. Then Hawkins
    noticed something even odder - that a large number of the circles
    also had complex musical ratios, rather like the simple
    fractional relationship that exists between the pitch of
    different notes on a keyboard.

    None of the circles made by Doug and Dave, or other
    self-confessed hoaxers, had been made with this musical
    code. As a scientist, Hawkins was naturally cautious in
    announcing his conclusions. But he admitted to me that he
    believed that these complex patterns were made by
    extra-human intelligence. Their purpose was not to convince
    the whole human race of the really of extra-terrestrials, but
    simply to convince a few intelligent scientists and philosophers
    that there are intelligences apart from our own, and that they
    are attempting a breakthrough in communication. When I
    started to study crop circles and UFOs in the mid-nineties,
    I was convinced that they were due either to hoaxers or to
    over-heated inmaginations. It took less than six months to
    leave me in no doubt: that something or someone is trying
    communicate with us, but with the exaggerated caution of
    beings trying to get us slowly and gradually accustomed to
    the idea. That is why I am convinced that Colin Andrews
    will fail in his attempt to provide a neat and down-to-earth
    explanation of crop circles. So far the circle makers have
    managed to keep one step ahead of the 'explainers', and
    they I strongly suspect that they will continue to do so.