Crop Circles...with some actual evidence

Interesting post, thanks for sharing, I've been following this subject for a few years. I haven't read the whole post, so forgive me if I am repeating.

I think most are faked but there are some that have very peculiar features, my theory is that genuine crop circles belong in the laser weapons research field, hence the microwave aspects. Maybe the star wars project is ahead of schedule?

I've been in many crop circles, but the one that was the most interesting for me, had a line of wheat...(literally one stem of wheat) line off the main messy circle (no pattern, just a roundish flattening), there were no markings on the ground and the wheat was bent from the ground at 90 degrees. I've witnessed all kinds of animals through cornfields and even cats weave through corn, they don't flatten it from the ground esp. without some kind of trail.

I wouldn't have noticed it myself, but the Military Chinook with a team of guys were hovering just above the telephone pole looking at something, so it seems its not just us conspiracy theorists that have an interest. They were so close, I could see their faces.

Also it is worth mentioning, that when crops get wet they are easy to bend, think corn dollies! Hence why those fakers go out early mornings, you can make 90 degree bends, but other signs of human tampering are normally apparent in most circles. So I kinda think the elaborate ones are fakes.

xOx

reply to post by Phage

Sunlight causes the uneven growth found in the nodes of the plants which have been flattened (by people).

Sounds like someone is grasping at straws!

reply to post by Software_Pyrate


Good post!
This & other info has been discussed by groups of scientists,
Go to Cropcircleship.com for some possible explanations,
and try the film 'New Swirled Order' on Youtube.
Funny how it mostly happens in Wiltshire

Originally posted by Software_Pyrate


Yes I agree with you 100% Since "Nothing" has been proven yet( as to who )....

Having an open mind is KEY.

So far I have yet to see you answer any of the criticisms I have pointed out in the "evidence" you present from BLT and Haselhoff.
I can only consider that this is from a lack of being open minded to the stance that BLT and Haselhoff are incorrect and thus, not reputable as evidence.

Being closed minded and set in your ways unable to process new information is in itself IGNORANT.

Your own sources state that they only speculate and their methods conclude nothing nor are they definitive of information regarding any cause in any way.
In light of the above, what are people being closed minded about exactly?

If, as you claim in the OP, these anomalies are real your sources do not state that they are significant to crop circles as they cannot differentiate between "genuine" and known man made crop circles.
The fact that some people correlate these anomalies together to make a case ignores and dismisses the fact that BLT cannot find a significance in anomalies when investigating them individually. So, if they are insignificant in isolation, why are they significant when correlated?
Think about that!
If you bunch a group of anomalies that cannot be shown to be genuine markers of CC's on their own, then when you put them all together, all you have is a group of different claimed "anomalies" that have no way of signifying a genuine CC.

Remember, the claim in the BLT studies is that they are anomalous, yet in these studies and the commentary of Haselhoff, they clearly say they cannot show that but it merits more study. Haselhoff states this clearly in his opinion piece.

By no means does the author pretend to present a ‘lithmus
test’ for distinction between a ‘genuine’ crop formation,
whatever it may be, and a hand-flattened area of crop.

www.ecn.org...
But this is exactly what you claimed in the OP.

This sounds a little more elaborate than a a couple of guys with some planks, rope, and GPS. Iam not saying aliens did this by any means @ all, just merely pointing out that these "Genuine" Circles have more to them then a couple of hoaxers making a good joke. This is the hard evidence that I am having a hard time explaining. Of course the debate comes in as to what actually causes this accelerated growth and expulsion cavities, not who made them.

post by Software_Pyrate

Haselhoff states that BLT cannot make a claim that the "anomalies" they say exist are typical of genuine CC's. This means that they are also found elsewhere. BLT point this out in their studeis, as I quoted in earlier posts.
You chose to focus on the Nodes in your OP, Haselhoff and BLT rule these out as markers. Emphatically.
Haselhoff points out specific assumptions in BLT node formula and the He(haselhoff) Omit data, and that other data contradicted their claims. These ARE YOUR SOURCES.
Here Haselhoff explains that the criteria BLT uses to trend out Node growth is extremely flawed and not based in reality:

Equation 1, however, explicitly assumes that
at low levels of I, that is, at long distances from the source,
or in the case of strong absorption, the pulvinus length, NL,
approaches a value of zero. This, of course, will never be the
case.

www.ecn.org...
What Haselhoff explains here is that BLT have set the node length at 0 in relation to position or distance to the source, all assumed. This is how BLT get anomalies. When they compare their "node length of the CC " with a human made circle where they measure the actual real node length, BLT come up with an anomalous growth because they have taken the length of the Node as 0 at the time of the "CC event" and then look at the actual node and attribute any node length from then on in as being growth from the "crop circle event".
In other words, BLT equation creates its own evidence. Think about that.
But if the actually used the real length of the nodes at the time of the event, this would not support the theory.
If you need to mess with the facts surrounding events, then you are lying. It is that simple.

More from Haselhoff on BLT.

In their paper, Levengood and Talbott (1999) suggest that
With the use of Equation 2, a corrected analysis was
performed employing the values of NL, N0 and the corre-
sponding distances from the epicenters as reported by Le-
vengood and Talbott (1999). As in the latter reference,
data points corresponding to the central ‘tufts’ in the for-
mations were omitted in the analysis. It was found that
the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient, R
(Levengood and Talbott 1999), decreases in one of the
reported cases. In the other two reported cases, however,
no significant changes in the correlation coefficients were
found (see Table 1, second column).

www.ecn.org...
Hasselhoff points out that using BLT equations needed a "corrected analysis". His was done by comparing the actual node lengths to a man made circle to the BLT circles(only three circles BTW). Haselhoff though, omitted areas of data( without an explanation) and found that when correct one of the circles argues against the BLT claims, whilst two other circles remained the same. Again, this is dubious because data has been omitted without an explanation. Why? What effect would that data have on BLT and Haselhoff?

Haselhoff concludes:

Much more data would have to be analyzed and thorough statistical
studies will be necessary before such a criterion can be defined.

Then why did Haselhoff omit data?

However, the position-dependent pulvinus length, and in
particular the apparent organised character of the data
analysed, is interesting and stimulates further study.

www.ecn.org...

Let me repeat that this is one of your source, Haselhoff on your OP's main source, so as to make it clear. Haselhoff wants more study.

YET- when Haselhoff was criticized in another Journal, he states that further and more rigorous study would only generate more questions?

WTF?

What about an open mind Mr. Haselhoff? Why is Haselhoff being so closed minded about this?
What say you OP. You seem to be quick to remind others in this thread about not being ignorant and closed minded, how about applying that to your sources.

"Deny ignorance....remember".

This is Haselhoff description of BLT, I will offer it again.

Moreover, the suggestions for extension of the BOL model made by Grassi et al. are not realistic because the results published by BLT (Levengood & Talbott, 1999) are not based on laboratory experiments, performed in a controlled environment, but on an analysis of circumstantial evidence, in the form of an apparent leftover of a largely unknown process. With the currently available data, the implementation of an advanced physical model like Grassi et al. suggest will only raise more questions than it could ever answer.

I put it to you that you are ignoring the actual evidence presented in your OP and have instead accepted the speculation and inferences offered as a "conclusion" surrounding specific "anomalies", anomalies that cannot be shown to be significant to CC's. It is suggested that BOL's are responsible for emitting some sort of energy that would explain the elongated nodes.

And you have repeatedly stated that the node anomaly is significant.
Which leads me to some interesting questions for you.

Do you know how many Nodes there are on a wheat stem(common CC environment).
There can be as many as 6 nodes on a wheat plant.

Does BLT or Haselhoff, or for that matter any CC research group show uniform Nodal elongation on the entire stem of any plants?
Go and have a look. www.bltresearch.com...
They don't.
They only show ONE node that is elongated, not the entire stem with all the internodal regions showing nodal regions elongated between.

This is significant because according to your sources, BOL and electromagnetic radiation(or some other source) is making the nodal regions expand and in some cases explode.
It should happen to all nodes.

Isolating just one nodal region can easily be attributed to phototropism and BLT point this out here

Marked bending of the plant stem nodes which can occur at all of the nodes in some cases, is most often observed in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th nodes down toward the bottom of the stalks. It does occasionally occur in the first, or apical node beneath the seed-head (see above). Usually this bending (if it is determined to be significant after ruling out natural plant recovery processes) is in the range of 45-90 degrees and considerable care must be taken to not confuse this node bending with two well-known plant recovery processes:

(1) phototropism (the plant's natural tendency to reorient itself to sunlight) and;

(2) gravitropism (the plant's natural tendency to reorient itself to the earth's gravitational field).

www.bltresearch.com...

But if it is not phototropism, then the entire stem of the plant will be effected ipsofacto all nodes on the stem will be effected by Electromagnetic radiation.
And so we should have images of these crops displaying uniform node elongation over as many as 4 to 7 nodal regions. This would be logical and expected for the region effected by the BOL, would it not?
Is BLT suggesting that only one node is effected. This would suggest the "source" was specifically targeting just one node on each plant, but BLT and HaselHoff are not that specific. BLT and Haselhoff generalize the effect of the source in their formula and in their comments.

The images they present do not support the claims.

reply to post by atlasastro


THanks for your insight.

You have yet to offer your explanation to the CC' case as well.

and you have done nothing other than disprove or discredit, which is fine...and that is what ATS is about, but offer NOTHING for an explanation.

As phage has said" I think humans did it, all of it ".

Is this your stance on the issue as well?


[edit on 30-5-2010 by Software_Pyrate]

Originally posted by Software_Pyrate
reply to post by atlasastro

 

THanks for your insight.

You are welcome.

You have yet to offer your explanation to the CC' case as well.

Why would I offer an explanation, this is your thread. You are the one offering "evidence". I am discussing that.

and you have done nothing other than disprove or discredit, which is fine...and that is what ATS is about, but offer NOTHING for an explanation.

There was nothing to disprove Software_Pyrate. The "evidence" you posted says nothing by its own admission in relation to cause. I have simply pointed that out. If BLT and Haselhoff cannot prove it is caused by something other then natural processes, why do I have to explain it? I don't claim that the nodes are an anomaly.

I did not read in your OP, a request to explain the phenomena but aspects claimed to be anomalies, but the fact remains that there is no phenomena in the evidence, just speculation.

Never mind WHO is making these circles...But rather lets discuss how these circles are being made with regards to node elongation and expulsion cavities.

I'd love to hear more about this subject if anybody has anything else to add.

I did exactly as you have asked in the OP.
Again, you have yet to discuss any of the points, or answer any of the question I have put to you regarding the material you have specifically asked others to consider and discuss.

As phage has said" I think humans did it, all of it ".

Is this your stance on the issue as well?

With all due respect to Phage, who cares what Phage said.
Did your OP ask us to consider what Phage said?

I will answer you, even though I believe you are avoiding the issues by trying to direct the discussion on to what I think is the cause, I too currently think, based on all the evidence(that includes BLT and Haselhoff as I have read their material before), that CC's are made by humans.

I think individuals have created "myths" to infuse crop circles with so as to get people interested in them. BLT and Haselhoff are part of this Mythology. They are not evidence my friend. Haselhoff published his commentary at the same time he published his Book. This gave him a "hit" on the academic side so as to lend credibility to his cause and make him look like an "expert".
It is interesting to me that you injected Haselhoff into this debate because the BOL theory originated from only a few sources and most of them are "researchers or experts" in the CC field. TWO of which Haselhoff actually names in the link you supplied in this post here. post by Software_Pyrate

However, the circular symmetry of many
of the crop formations and several eye-witness reports,
mentioning the involvement of ‘balls of light’ (referred to as
‘BOLs’) during the formation of a crop circle (Van den
Broeke, personal communication, and Meaden 1991), suggest
the introduction of an electromagnetic ‘point source’and.....

www.ecn.org...

Robert Van den Broeke is actually on BLT's website. So we have BLT and their "witness" to the BOL events together? Interesting.
www.bltresearch.com...

The Other person mentioned is Terrence Meaden who authored a book called The Goddess of the Stones. Which was published in 1991. In this book Meaden attributes certain sacred stone monolith sites to being inspired by naturally occurring crop circles(formed in fields by storms or whirlwinds). These places were considered religions due to these natural events and stone circles, mounds and barrows were then built on these sites.

It doesn't look good my friend. Just Google Van den Broeke and see what you get. Psychic, and Fraud etc etc. Anyway, it set of some flags for me. Haselhoff and BLT are using this guy to support their claims. Meadens book does not seem to indicate the BOL's as claimed by Haselhoff. I am still looking at material though.

The other main source of the BOL claim is a man named Gary King from the UK.
But anyway, I think they have created a myth, and are milking it for all its worth.
Here is another reason why I believe this.

www.abovetopsecret.com...
I would welcome your thoughts on what I provide and contend on this thread.

And here is another reason thread inspired by my thread above that adds another angle on the man made explanation.
www.abovetopsecret.com...


BTW, have you considered my questions relating to the Node photo's from BLT and other CC research sites?
Why are there no photo's of multiple node elongations on stems?
If it is electromagnetic radiation, or some other force, it would be effecting the entire region of the CC, including ALL the node regions on every single stem.
The evidence does not show this at all, ever, for any CC's.
Think about that Software _Pyrate.
They only ever show images of small regions, one node elongated and the two areas that run from the nodes, these regions that run from the node regions are called internodes, and they run into other node regions. On wheat and rape seed(most popular environment for CC's) these can have 4 to 7 node regions.

One node region showing elongation and bending can be attributed to phototropism and/or gravitropism. BLT say that. They also say they cannot tell the difference between node elongation from circles they claim are genuine and man made circles. They also say that they cannot use their studies to site node elongation as a genuine marker of crop circles.
I have said this before many times. How many more times do I have to say that before you actually comprehend its significance?
The nodes are irrelevant. Therefore they are not related to the direct cause of CC's. Therefore I don't have to explain them. BLT do that for us. They site phototropism and gravitropism as causes of node elongation on their own site, so it is not an anomaly. They cannot use elongated nodes as a markers, at all. The say that. So does Haselhoff. So it is natural then. The cause of the node elongation is natural.







[edit on 30/5/10 by atlasastro]

Just finding this discussion and am glad that the hoaxers aren't in this intelligent and respectful exchange..

I've been involved with the circles for some 20 years, and, when all is said and done -- whew, that's a big all -- what you have is a mystery. There are lots of points made in this discussion which challenge one thing or another, with some good sense, but at the end of the day there's no way to account for all of the circles coming from people.

You know, if we ever accepted that, it would be the biggest news ever for humanity, which could use some big news to redirect us from the course we are on. So, instead of cynicism and defense against the possibility of visitation, we would better be served by curiosity and openness. If we knew we were not the only intelligence in the universe we would be one humanity in relation 'the other,' and, as someone in my new film says, "That could be what saves this civilization." Someone else says, "You're never going to prove the crop circle phenomenon. All you can prove is that it is truly anomalous."

My film is "What On Earth? Inside the Crop Circle Mystery": www.CropCircleMovie.com.... It came out last year, won the award for Best Feature Documentary from the UFO Congress Film Festival, and is taken by many to be the best film ever made about the circles. It brings you up close and personal to interesting, intelligent people who have spent a lot of their lives paying attention to the circles. My objective was to open closed minds to make them curious about what could be so important to humanity.

I have long been producing events and projects that have to do with the transformation of consciousness and the upleveling of our worldview, and over the years have come to focus more and more on the circles because of the radical change that "CONTACT" in headlines could produce.
And, I'm the Executive Producer of "Crop Circles: Quest for Truth," that wardmax recommends in this thread. That film is more of a history of the phenomenon and does go into a lot of the science, for better or worse.

reply to post by atlasastro


Man, you are one tough opponent!

What you lay out here is a very strong case.
I guess I cannot counter it until I have been studying the phenomenon on site which might not happen in the very near future...

I have however, in completely different situations witnessed these "Balls of Light" but I do not know of any CCs left in their wake.

I will go through some material on both sides of the argument now and I will post my questions afterwards.
Though my initial wondering is:
If Haselhoff is who you say he is; a part in a myth-making industry with monetary ambitions, how did his paper get into the Physiologia Planatarum? If "peer reveiwed" means what I think it means, would not someone have written "BOGUS" all over it?

I have not read the named paper, I admit to that, but from the interview given in the video I posted, it is clear that Dr. Haselhoff thinks that CCs can be made by something else than rope and wood, namely BOLs.

Okay, I'll get into some serious reading-up now.
Will post more later on.


[edit on 31-5-2010 by Raud]

reply to post by squiz


Aaah, thanks for the heads up!

I had nearly forgotten why I had you on my Friend list!

The "Hidden Truth..."-thread of yours is freaking amazing!
You have improved my life with it.


Sorry for the OT.

reply to post by Raud


Thanks mate.

I look forward to your thoughts. There is a lot of material on this subject. But not much by way of solid evidence supporting anything "mysterious" creating these CC's.

If there was, it would be me telling you how compelling the OP's argument was.

On the subject of Haselhoff!. Haselhoff' piece in the Journal was not a study or research. It was an opinion piece on BLT and Levengoode.
That was all it was.
Can you see how it works now.
He writes the commentary, releases his book. You search his name and he gets a "hit" in the academic field and looks like he has actually done research on the topic, when all he has done is add his own speculation and "corrections" to BLT's poor studies.

Haselhoff has actually claimed that "studies have confirmed balls of light create CC's".
Again, the majority of these claims are dated to the year he released his book and many CC sites like Swirled News flogged it.
here are some examples.
www.bibliotecapleyades.net...

www.swirlednews.com...

SCIENTIFIC STUDIES “CONFIRM CROP CIRCLES ARE MADE BY BALLS OF LIGHT”
by Eltjo Haselhoff
31 July, 2001
from SwirledNews Website

DR ELTJO HASELHOFF is one of the few people on planet Earth to have had a paper published on crop circles in a peer-reviewed scientific journal (‘Physiologa Plantarum’).His paper asserts that the long-recognized connection of crop circles to balls of light may be even stronger than many think. Here, in layman’s terms, Dr Haselhoff outlines the important findings of his paper…

Firstly, his "paper is a commentary.
E H Haselhoff, ‘Comment to Physiol. Plant. 105: 615-624", Physiol. Plant. 111: 123-125 (2001).
Second, none of it was his research, it was BLT's.
Thirdly, no were does Haselhoff confirm anything or even conclude that BOL's exist and are linked to CC's.
Yet this is the type of Hype that Haselhoff built around BLT and himself.

Haselhoff actually tells blatant lies on these sites.

One year later, I contributed a paper reacting to the one by Levengood and Talbott. This article appeared early 2001 [2]. The paper reinterpreted the data published by Levengood and Talbott and showed that the node lengthening as measured in all three crop circles could be perfectly explained by assuming that a ‘ball of light’ had caused the node swelling effect. An identical analysis performed on a famous man-made formation (Dreischor, Holland, 1997) did not show these characteristics at all.

Haselhoff actually stated in his commentary that when he "re-interpreted the data": a. He omitted data. And b. He found that one of the circles contradicted the claim.
Here is is again.

As in the latter reference,
data points corresponding to the central ‘tufts’ in the for-
mations were omitted in the analysis. It was found that
the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient, R
(Levengood and Talbott 1999), decreases in one of the
reported cases. In the other two reported cases, however,
no significant changes in the correlation coefficients were
found (see Table 1, second column).

www.ecn.org...
www.swirlednews.com...
Just to explain something to you, when Haselhoff mentions Pearson and Correlation coefficient, this is the way BLT and Haselhoff link BOL's with node anomaly.
It is a statistical method in order to link to variables.
The correlation coefficient needs to approach 1 in order to indicate that the two variable(1.BOL's and 2.Node anomaly) are related. Here Haselhoff tells us that when he corrected the BLT formula the product moment correlation coefficient,R decreases. That means it moves away from 1 and away from the two variables being linked together. Yet, in the CC community he claimed something entirely different.
I hope that explains that to you.
One even more important factor is that statistically, the variable of the BOL's, is totally assumed. So, BLT and Haselhoff are trying to prove that the nodes are linked to what they can only assume exists. So their link statistcally is to an assumption, and that only.

SO, and this is the important part, they really need a node anomaly. The imagined and assumed element of the BOL's cannot be shown so it is inserted and the formulas are tweaked so as to show an anomaly, which they then link to their cause which is the assumed and inserted statistic of the BOL's that explain the anomaly that they invented by using flawed formula's that show a node anomaly existing.

Confused yet? Thats the point though.

A group of scientists reviewed Haselhoff and BLT but their peer review was not published in Physiologia Plantarum.
Physiologia Plantarum later stated that their was no ongoing scientific debate regarding CC's and that they regretted publishing the works by BLT.
Instead it was published in the Journal of Scientific Excellence.
Haselhoff responded to these criticisms and admitted that Correlation Coefficient was not an adequate indicator of his claims. His critiques found that they had tweaked their criteria to suit their results and that the BLT/Haselhoff formula, when used on known man made circles produced a favorable result that would have indicated a BLT/Haselhoff BOL as a cause.
You can read Haselhoff and his critiques comments:www.cicap.org...

Haselhoff was reviewed by his peers. He was found lacking, as was BLT.

Anyway. I'll leave you to digest some of this.
Take care.




[edit on 31/5/10 by atlasastro]

A interview and investigation was actually conducted with Doug and Dave.. takes about 10 mins to read.. but it's .. good..

investigation and interview

Originally posted by CropCircleQueen
Just finding this discussion and am glad that the hoaxers aren't in this intelligent and respectful exchange..

I've been involved with the circles for some 20 years, and, when all is said and done -- whew, that's a big all -- what you have is a mystery. There are lots of points made in this discussion which challenge one thing or another, with some good sense, but at the end of the day there's no way to account for all of the circles coming from people.

Hi Crop Circle Queen.

I often come upon this claim in discussions relating to CC's.
Can you account for every house being built by humans?
Can you document the building of every house and show that it was humans?
I mean some house get built quicker then others, and some appear to be really complex in design. I would say they are far more complex then patterns in wheat.

I would say that you would not be able to achieve this, that you could just not account for all houses coming from people. But I bet you just assume that every house was built by people.
You would naturally assume that people build houses because you have seen people build houses, you know people build houses. And that is logical, there is nothing mysterious about the houses that you did not see people actually build, is there? But you have not seen them build every single house, have you? You cannot account for that house as being built by humans , can you, you assume it was. No mystery.

Does that mean I can claim that just some houses are made by humans and others are "mysterious"?
I hope you can see were I am coming from.

The reason why some people think crop circles are all man made is based upon the factual evidence that Humans exists, and they are known to make crop circles and have been documented doing so. We know there are groups dedicated to CC making.

So people can hypothesis that all crop circles are man made.
This is logical.
It is based on evidence.
Sure, the assumption is made by the hypothesis, but that is the only assumption. All the variables in the hypothesis that "Crop circles are all man made" are factual, known and exist.

Now.
If you claim that we cannot account for the cause of some of these CC, is your only argument an appeal to the impossibility in actually physically and empirically accounting for each and every crop circle?
Because we can do this with almost anything.

If you have another cause to show us, then surely we can include that as a known cause and we can then add to our current list of only one known and observed cause for crop circles.

Otherwise, I suspect that you are only intent on mystifying the phenomena even more by way of appealing to impossibilities and setting false logic in order to stall any real investigation or critical thinking.

I constantly see people like you telling us what is impossible to explain. That is your explanation. "Oh we just can't account for them, its impossible".
This phenomena is explainable, but who wants to buy a DVD, or a watch a CC movie(cue celtic music and sound bites from Charles Mallet, Colin Andrews, Gary King et al) when you know its just humans. Who wants the calender or who is going to enjoy a UFO conference lecture, if we just know its humans.

Conference2010

Trade Fair offering:
Crop Circle Books and Films
Crop Circle Photographs & Pictures
Jewellry
Clothing
Health Products
Music CD's
Alternative Therapies

Crop Circles have a Crop Circles TRADE FAIR!
Crop Circle Health products, please!

Just some of the Business for this year as if the Crop Circles are guaranteed! So far only 2 have appeared.
www.sacredbritain.com...
www.cropcircleconnector.com...
www.glastonburysymposium.co.uk...
www.cropcircleconnector.com...
www.wccsg.com...
www.cropcircletours.com...
www.summerlectures.co.uk...
Now, do you think they really, really, really need circles to appear. Because I do. Do you think that people will be motivated to make these circles?
Because I do.
Do you think we can account for them all? Sure, but to do so would probably hurt your accounting$.




[edit on 31/5/10 by atlasastro]

reply to post by atlasastro


I'll digest your post as soon as I am done digesting what I am reading on CircleMakers.org
It seems like complex patterns can in fact be made by man, with rope and wood, in a matter of a few hours at night...and that it is a refined art, performed by skilled professionals...and that a living (bogus) culture evolving around this artform is a very important component in creating a "plausible" folklore...

I believe I've been had.

I seriously doubt however, that the CC artists do it for personal profit (unless their skills are asked for by commercial interests/advertisment).
It would rather be all those not involved in the process of making the CC themselves who are reaping the income.

Yet, there are still those who go about this phenomena with good intentions, like my good self... And there are still reports of sightings involving lights who leave formations on the ground.
These sightings require the same level of investigation as any other UFO/paranormal phenomena.

I can say as much as that and still keep my face.
Besides, I am no stranger to admitting to when I have been wrong. Not saying I am completely off track this time, just that I have to thoroughly revise my knowing in the subject.

As I stated before; I know that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to the world we live in. I've seen it with my own eyes on numerous occasions...but maybe CCs just ride on that wave, thus making it a beautiful art and a despicable way to abuse peoples beliefs at the same time.
Talk about having mixed feelings!

Still, it is pretty ridicoulus to "fake" the paranormal when there is the real deal out there.

I'll see if I come across anything of value.
I hope the OP won't feel betrayed or I might be keel hauled for ye olde mutiny!

Originally posted by Raud
reply to post by atlasastro

 

I believe I've been had.

I think you have been had too. But don't fret my friend. What you have really done is test yourself by confronting and challenging what people tell you is the truth or what they try and present as the truth.
In this instance you have two sets of information flowing in, you have used that information to form the best possible truth you can. Sometimes this process renders some of the sources, or the flow of information that we are familiar with and trust, to being totally redundant.

Unfortunately, we humans get attached to information in the form of beliefs and faiths in order to answer fundamental questions regarding life.
CC's, and the very nature of the myths spun around them fundamentally challenge many of these question. Who we are, what we are and what we believe, the nature of the universe. These are important questions to all of us.
Every one of us!
Getting attached or involved with sources or information is natural. That is why we have so many religions, political groups and cults etc etc. It is in our nature.

Go back now and look at videos and websites or some of the many CC movies(yes I am looking at you Suzanne Taylor), "experts" and researchers and you will see that they have one thing besides the crop circles in common.
And that is that they have a message or a philosophy that they claim is "from" or is inspired from these CC's. That somehow there is a deep meaning and great importance and relevance to these CC's. That they may hold the meaning to our existence, or keys to our future or instructions for only those brave enough to listen. But, they need CC to be mysterious in order to make this valid.

But it is the reverse, they have created the CC phenomena in order to infuse it with a religious belief. They don't actually create mystery, they create doubt. That is why they need to spread doubt about the cause of CC's.
And when there is doubt they can insert a suggestion or a possible answer. Mystery.
That is why the majority of crop circle experts and researchers and movie makers will constantly site that it is impossible for man to be making them, all the while spreading "mysterious" anomalies or "eyewitness testimony" etc etc.
Yet in the 20 odd years of CC making, no other source ever, in the entire history of CC has been shown other then Us. Not one ever!

Just plenty of people telling us how impossible it is that humans are doing it without ever showing us another possibility that is real.

No one explains how the slow progression from simplicity to complexity is mysterious!
That is a human trait, start out simple with an evolution of complexity in nearly all our design and its application. Crop circles are no different.

Why is it that the message and interpretations have slowly evolved with contemporary issues in the alternative community. UFO's to more religious mysticism of 2012, evolution(Homo Luminous)?
Why is the scientific research so poor? Considering so many people claim that they have been "studying" the topic for 20 years?
How is it these people can organize Movies, and Documentaries, Conferences and Lectures, Tours, Photographic exhibitions, Calenders, Research groups and website forums and apparently this is in an effort to "inform" the world of this phenomena.
But in all that time.
Only BLT have published 3 papers.

It is New Age mysticism, it is religion. It is deliverance, it is revelation, ascension, redemption, transformation, an answer, a hope, an awakening.
Raud.
It is religion.


[personal disclosure ahead]I have been studying this topic as well as the alien abduction phenomena and the UFO phenomena in the context that: I have the view that culturally we are currently updating our Axis Mundi. And that this is due to the dominant paradigm of science and technology. This dominance has resulted in our culture needing to update older and more abstract "religious" mysteries and phenomena that are in conflict with science and technology. We are doing this with a satisfactory contemporary"middle man" that science and technology agrees is possible and probable.
That "middle man" is ET/alien in nature.
We are now seeing many superstitious phenomena from across the spectrum being updated and influenced by these new beliefs. We see people updating reincarnation, psychic contact, organized religions, demonic possession, angelic visions, with a variety of alien inspired phenomena.

Crop circles are part of this renewal of our spiritual centers or Axis Mundi.

Like most new religious beliefs, these will appear as fringe or "cult" like until enough people take on these beliefs, so that they becomes a culturally accepted norm.

Like I said.
I am not new to this. Nor are you, Raud.

reply to post by Raud


Thanx very much for the kind words Raud.

Yeah we have no hard evidence for unknown origins of crop circles, just as we have no hard evidence for alien visitation. Only reports. No surprises there.

We do have some startling consistency of reports of paranormal activity from the circle makers themselves. Some have claimed that they have had there designs completed for them, or that the same design has appeared elsewhere on the same night. So I cannot rule out an anomalous origin for some altogether. Although many (not all) circle makers do.

I find the matches to cymatic patterns very curious, it's possible they could have served as the inspiration of course, but as far as I know no one else has connected the patterns directly. So it would be just myself and the circle makers themselves that knew of those particular matches Possible, but as I mentioned if that is the case, I don't think it was a conscious choice.

My point is that it doesn't matter if they are all man made or not. It does not disolve the enigma, it only transforms it. It may even get you a little closer to it perhaps.

Paranormal activity is attributed to man made glyphs including the BOL's.
As you know they have taught me a lot, and by the sound of it I think you also see the connection.

You are right it's only the biased researchers who profit from them. Most of the artists would never admit to there own creations, it's about keeping up the mystery you could say, or fear of repercussions.

To say that they are all man made and case closed is dismissing the real story. I think the wrong questions are being pondered.

The materialist debunkers don't like what some of the circle makers have to say and neither do the biased researchers.

Cheers!

[edit on 31-5-2010 by squiz]

Hello,
atlasastro
Raud
Crop Circle Queen
squiz


Been celebrating Memorial weekend...

Got a lot to digest here, and will get back

I appreciate the debate on research by Leavengood and BTL, but I don't care for the tearing apart their research and opinions just because "there is no peer review" or other research to back up their findings.

There is actually additional scientific research on the effects of crop circle anomolies that can be found if you look for them.

Sure...this doesn't tell us "who or what" made them. But certainly shows that there is a non-human element to the equation based on the genetic structual and DNA changes made to the crops.

For once, I would appreciate a thread that got "off" the man-made/ET debate and genuinely discuss the anomolies, the messages, the meanings, and the unkown aspect of the phenomenon.

Here I present you with another research article for your review and critique. As I am not a scientist, much of the research is above my head, but I do get the gist of the paper.

The Discovery of Thirteen Short-Lived Radionuclides in Soil Samples from an English Crop Circle

Another interesting (unscientific) read about "Balls of Light" is this article done by CSETI is here for your enjoyment:

CSETI Fieldwork Report 1994

Originally posted by Julie Washington
I appreciate the debate on research by Leavengood and BTL, but I don't care for the tearing apart their research and opinions just because "there is no peer review" or other research to back up their findings.

There is actually additional scientific research on the effects of crop circle anomolies that can be found if you look for them.

Sure...this doesn't tell us "who or what" made them. But certainly shows that there is a non-human element to the equation based on the genetic structual and DNA changes made to the crops.

For once, I would appreciate a thread that got "off" the man-made/ET debate and genuinely discuss the anomolies, the messages, the meanings, and the unkown aspect of the phenomenon.

Here I present you with another research article for your review and critique. As I am not a scientist, much of the research is above my head, but I do get the gist of the paper.

The Discovery of Thirteen Short-Lived Radionuclides in Soil Samples from an English Crop Circle

Another interesting (unscientific) read about "Balls of Light" is this article done by CSETI is here for your enjoyment:

CSETI Fieldwork Report 1994

As far as the rare isotopes found, it is very interesting as it eludes to my next thread. I think it has been argued that those results have not been duplicated...I said argued.

I haven't found any opposing views against there findings, but from what they say, very interesting.

In this paper we report the discovery of thirteen short-lived radionuclides (radioactive isotopes) in soil samples taken from an English crop circle. We will explain the significance of this discovery, rule out several mundane explanations for it (including hoax), and propose that the radionuclides were created by bombardment of the soil with deuterium nuclei (also called "deuterons.")

What sticks out most to me, is that these isotopes can be made a number of ways, but in these levels, deuterium is the best explanation.

Deuterium, is an excellent source for nuclear/energy.
Helium-3

Just puttin it out there but umm.....

Scientists estimate there are about1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the world for thousandsof years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 25 tons could supply the entire United States' energy needs for a year, accordingto Apollo17 astronaut and FTI researcher Harrison Schmitt.

Just puttin a little more out there....

Helium 3 fusion is also ideal for powering spacecraft and interstellar travel. While offering the high performance power of fusion -- ....,said Robert Frisbee, an advanced propulsion engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California.

Don't want to paint the whole picture
Just flirting with the idea ...thats all

reply to post by Julie Washington

Originally posted by Julie Washington
I appreciate the debate on research by Leavengood and BTL, but I don't care for the tearing apart their research and opinions just because "there is no peer review" or other research to back up their findings.

Do you care that the quality of their work is poor?
Do you care that they insert causes and then manipulate raw data so as to get a statistical correlation, that they then use these correlations to make claims?

They actually don't have any findings?
Which is the entire point of reviewing peoples work.
They don't find anomalies, they created them.
Which was discovered, not by tearing it apart, but by simply reading the actually studies and the material BLT provided.
They don't have a cause, they assumed that the cause was BOL's.
There is no debate regarding that, as both BLT and Haselhoff clearly say their models and papers assume that.

Sure...this doesn't tell us "who or what" made them. But certainly shows that there is a non-human element to the equation based on the genetic structual and DNA changes made to the crops.

It does not certainly show anything of the sort.
I would say that if someone could show that, there would be a Noble prize with their name on it.
What is that comment about extraordinary claims?

For once, I would appreciate a thread that got "off" the man-made/ET debate and genuinely discuss the anomolies, the messages, the meanings, and the unkown aspect of the phenomenon.

The message, their meaning and the unknown aspects are directly related to cause.
To truly understand them, people want to know the cause.
You raise some interesting points because people are already telling us what these CC mean, what causes them, and what messages they have encoded in them.
Just like you advised us regarding the "other scientific research" that is out there. One need only go looking for the numerous interpretations and claims concerning the causes, the messages and the meanings.
One of the most important unknowns regarding CC's, is who is actually making them.
Because this effects the meaning, the messages in an enormous way.
Which is why CC's need to have mystery.
Otherwise, if they are Man made, the meaning changes dramatically.
For example, lets compare another supernatural mystery within contemporary culture.

The mystery surrounding Jesus Christ.
Some say he is just a procession of Pagan myth.
Some say he was the son of God made flesh and he had extraordinary powers and wisdom.
Some say he was just a man, who was eventually used to establish political power via religion.

All these explanations profoundly change and alter the significance of the messages and the meaning of Jesus, the New Testament and the institute of the Roman Catholic Church.

Here I present you with another research article for your review and critique. As I am not a scientist, much of the research is above my head, but I do get the gist of the paper.

The Discovery of Thirteen Short-Lived Radionuclides in Soil Samples from an English Crop Circle

And I present you with the alterations from the two authors (not someone else tearing it apart), Dudley and Chorost, in MUFON UFO Journal, where they admit to many failings in their work and that it changes the claims they made regarding the causes and sources of the "radiation" they found.

In the winter of 1991 we circulated a paper in manuscript claiming to have discovered 13 unusual radioactive isotopes in soil samples from an English crop circle......We are satisfied with our logic, but, unfortunately, the basic data turned out to be less solid than we believed. For that reason we pulled the paper from publication, and we are withdrawing some of the claims made in it.

www.scribd.com...

If you read it, you will note that they even found that some of their controls(these are the samples used to compare with the crop circle samples so as to show that the crop circles are in fact anomalous) were actually higher then the crop circle readings.

Near the end, it was only a call from others to review the raw data that cause the two authors to withdraw the paper because the error were obvious.
These guys deserve respect.
They did proper research, put it out to their peers, found the errors and conceded they were wrong.
This is exactly the kind of people we need doing this kind of work. Looking for real anomalies and not inventing them.
Otherwise, we just get BLT.

They put their work out in 1991 in the hope of publishing their research in Feb. 1992. They were well ahead of the curve. Instead, they published their comments withdrawing their work in 1992.
They did nothing after that, that I can find.

Another interesting (unscientific) read about "Balls of Light" is this article done by CSETI is here for your enjoyment:

CSETI Fieldwork Report 1994

That is interesting.

Originally posted by atlasastro

In the winter of 1991 we circulated a paper in manuscript claiming to have discovered 13 unusual radioactive isotopes in soil samples from an English crop circle......We are satisfied with our logic, but, unfortunately, the basic data turned out to be less solid than we believed. For that reason we pulled the paper from publication, and we are withdrawing some of the claims made in it.

My internet is very slow right now and I can't seem to get on the site right now
www.scribd.com...

If you read it, you will note that they even found that some of their controls(these are the samples used to compare with the crop circle samples so as to show that the crop circles are in fact anomalous) were actually higher then the crop circle readings.

Near the end, it was only a call from others to review the raw data that cause the two authors to withdraw the paper because the error were obvious.

For example, lets compare another supernatural mystery within contemporary culture. The mystery surrounding Jesus Christ....

Bad form.....No need to bring Jesus Christ in to this

However, I Have read the Original thoroughly. And being open-minded to both sides. I believe I can find why there paper was such heavily scrutinized, and thus pulled.(forgive me if this is in the Mufon Journal_internet acting up).

2 big loose ends so to speak,
Control had two specific elements that were in the samples. This however, does not mean there findings are inaccurate at all,has been addressed and they offer suggestions..

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d8a1a95a1e42.png[/atsimg]

Assuming this is plausible, how do we explain the presence of the gold-194 in the control? Consider the fact that the mercury-194 has a half-life of 520 years. If the field had had crop circles in earlier years, the mercury-194 could have been spread around the field by wind, erosion, and plowing.

They also offer more radical scenarios, this to me, is most likely. They go on to say that more TESTING NEEDS TO BE DONE.

Loose end # 2
Less of an argument for the "skeps" IMO.

Is why none of the hypothesized parents are abundant elements. If trace elements like titanium and samarium were activated, it seems that abundant elements like silicon and oxygen should have been also. To answer this question, we took each element which composes more than 1% of the earth's crust and found its most likely deuteron-activation products. It turns out that they are either stable...

With a very big follow up to me...

in which case they would not have been detected by our instruments, or they have such short half- lives that they would have decayed off before testing, as Table 8 shows.

and...

Additional loose ends derive from the fact that the size of our sample set is too small to show that short- lived radionuclides are part and parcel of the crop circle phenomenon. However, we think our findings are so suggestive that further research is emphatically warranted. If one takes a single bucket of rock from a mine and finds gold in it, one is well justified in doing further digging.

As for the interpretation of the "Raw" data...

In addition, our interpretation of the data from the gamma spectrometer needs to be confirmed by similar findings from independent laboratories. Spectroscopic data is extremely complex, and its interpretation is inevitably a matter of judgment. But our interpretation of the data has convinced several of our associates in Oak Ridge. We believe it will stand; and we would be glad to show the raw data to those who wish to examine it for themselves.

Yes, Questions have been raised but I do not think they have been put to rest....not quite yet.

The thing I take most from this paper(that has been retracted) is that
MORE TESTING NEEDS TO BE DONE to either confirm or deny there findings...

Its the fact that the isotopes "Have been detected" that needs to be discussed further and not "where" they were detected ( that is used for "tearing down" )for there to be more validity to their argument.

I enjoy your posts atlasastro...but I think their research deserves more than what yer giving it. Yes, After Mainstream media throw every possible error into the pot....a lot of field data can be considered erroneous in most experiments.I believe if they were to know of the scrutiny that lied ahead, they would've covered there asses a little better, and tried to account for less variables. IMHO.

Whats important is...rare isotopes were detected.

But our interpretation of the data has convinced several of our associates in Oak Ridge. We believe it will stand; and we would be glad to show the raw data to those who wish to examine it for themselves.

And further more, being open minded,I will not jump to conclusions or make assumptions on just 1 finding alone.

The Bottom line is,
MORE RESEARCH NEEDS TO BE DONE.

and that good one liner...

If one takes a single bucket of rock from a mine and finds gold in it, one is well justified in doing further digging.