The truth about Crop Circles

Its age is estimated to be 3,100 BC. It's also estimated to have taken more than 30 million hours of labour to build. Nothing else on that scale has survived in the British Isles, although Arthur's Stone (less than thirty minutes drive from my home) is another mystery:



During the second phase of building, stones from South-West Wales were transported to Henge. These stones were dragged across to the coast on enormous sledges and then loaded onto rafts and carried along the south coast of Wales and then along the Avon, then dragged overland again to the present site (240 miles).

Of course, fantasists might claim that the effort involved is far too great and the stones were somehow "beamed up" and landed in place without human intervention. You will never stop folks' imaginations running wild over things that cannot be proved one way or the other. Everything is speculation. Rational people will take one view and irrational folk will take things to the extreme with everything else in between.

Shelagh,

People worked hard then. I wonder why?

We can only speculate about life on Earth 5,000 years ago. However, when you consider the scale of buildings that we build today, there is an insight into the human mind and man's desire to challenge the elements to see how tall we can build, how fast we can travel, how deep we can mine and tunnel and how great a distance we can span over rivers and ravines. We are not much more sophisticated than man 5,000 years ago but the difference is that we have technology.

“Who are your favourite authors?” I enquired, without giving much thought to the question.

He seemed perplexed, until he said, “English writers?”

I realised that I only knew of Henrik Ibsen and another modern, Scandinavian author, so I asked him if he had read the bestseller by this modern author. He looked at me almost in disbelief, and said, “Have you read that?”

He thought the content of the book I mentioned, which contained a great deal of philosophy, was more like an educational text book than a novel. I took the lead and we discussed philosophy for ten minutes and somehow progressed to Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

We talked about Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Descartes and Freud (though, surprisingly, neither of us mentioned Kierkegaard) with respect to the purpose of life, and how little we’ve progressed since the great Greek philosophers posed the eternal question about the meaning of life.

I was undaunted by humanity’s lack of moral and ethical progress because, compared to the world, humanity is extremely young: we are just a blink in the development of the Universe. We’ve had insufficient time on earth to change and adapt our thinking in any significant way, so we are still faced with the same unanswered questions and the answers are simply a matter of interpretation: neither right nor wrong.

However, the well-spoken Norwegian, who’d introduced himself as Olaf, thought it was all very depressing; the fact that there were still so many unanswered questions suggested to him that little or no progress had been made.

“There’s been so much technological and scientific progress made in the twentieth century,” I said, “that we now expect our understanding of deeper, more meaningful things to suddenly proceed at the same rate … which is unrealistic.”

He looked at me quizzically, so I continued, “Imagine your own small community where you live. If …for some reason … you suddenly lost the electricity supply without any way of replacing it and … suppose … at the same time … you were completely cut off from the rest of the world, how would you survive? Think of the people you know around you … what kind of living conditions would they be able to create to restore life to some kind of normality?”

From this question, it was a natural step to William Golding’s thought-provoking novel set on an isolated island, describing the horrific exploits of a band of young children whose instincts were no better than those of cave dwellers millions of years ago.

Chapter Fifteen A Common Language The Power of Persuasion Copyright © Shelagh Watkins

Shelagh,

You are a deep, very deep thinker. Did you take after Mum or Dad?

Neither really. My grandfather was an inventor -- but he had a troubled mind. He designed a more stable means of tipping coal from the coal carriers on rails - miners used to be crushed by the coal if the trucks came off the rails. When two men turned up to discuss his invention, he thought they were trying to steal his ideas, and refused to open the door. They were, in fact, from the goverment, Ministry for Coal, and they wanted to put his idea into all British mines. My grandfatrer was so paranoid, he only allowed the design to be used in Yorkshire mines. A bit like new authors who are afraid that someone is trying to steal their ideas. It's an irrational fear but one we can all understand.

Where is James? How long is a bit?

I came across Wiltshire just today, while I was googling some possible family history. My great-great grandmother Martha Ann, Ailcy Foster's daughter, from my book, Ailcy's Legacy, and whom I was named for, married a Thorne. I've decided to use the surname for a character in a new project I've started working on, and wanted to trace the history of the name, and came up with connections to Somerset and Wiltshire. I had forgotten that that was near Stonehenge. This is so cool. My new project is set in the Texas Hill Country during the 19th century, and revolves around a place called Enchanted Rock, which is listed as one of the Earth's sacred places, as Stonehenge is. The hero, whose last name is Thorne, was (fictionally speaking) the younger son of an English family, who is seeking his own fortune, and wanders into this place and is caught up in the magic of it. And now, I'm finding evidence that the Thorne family in England may have lived close to another sacred place. It fits in so perfectly with my character and his story.

Ann

Leave it to you Ann, no wonder you are so intelligent--you come from good stock.

Let’s look at this second reference
http://www.bbc.co.uk/southampton/features/cropcircles/cropcircles.shtml

Throughout we’re treated to words of discouragement and a suggestion of exploitation :

Quote :

fakes, UFO landing sites, hoaxers, ley lines, fakers; and formation visits @ $2,199 per person.

At this point our confidence should be at an all time high!

Then it goes into a spasm of naming people: US billionaire Laurance Rockefeller, Lucy Pringle, David Chorley and Douglas Bower (our infamous hoaxers), Colin Andrews, and self-proclaimed hoaxer John Lundberg


But unfortunately the article runs out of names at a most crucial point (the last paragraph)!

Quote :

Most mainstream scientists believe the only explanation for crop circles lies in the footboards of hoaxers.

Who are these mainstream scientists? What is their training that they are unable to distinguish between a stem broken by a (quote) "footboard" - and stems and roots so clearly altered biologically that a five year old could identify it.

Perhaps they are not biologists!
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James
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James with respect that is only a photo and not evidence.
This is the big problem with this subject matter, proof is not conclusive.
Every expert for or against in reality has a so called agenda, even yourself.
I myself keep an open mind about these things.
I have yet to see anything convincing enough to make me believe in their having extraterestial origins.

Shelagh wrote:

A bit like new authors who are afraid that someone is trying to steal their ideas. It's an irrational fear but one we can all understand.

When you've had a book plagiarized as I have, you will understand even more. Just because one is paranoid...

dmondeo

Quote :

James with respect that is only a photo and not evidence.

James) Keep in mind that every single stalk in a formation have these characteristics (not a hundred, but hundreds of thousands)! If that isn’t evidence than God didn’t make little green apples

dmondeo

Quote :

I myself keep an open mind about these things.
I have yet to see anything convincing enough to make me believe in their having extraterestial origins

James) I don't know where you came up with that - you won't find any talk of
extraterrestrial origins in anything I write

James
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Ladies and Gentleman; Boys and Girls; Lads and Lassies

This third reference given us by Shelagh is worth the read. It doesn’t use hype or hackneyed words and phrases to produce a negative spin. Rather it is factual and interesting. Titled, Those Mysterious British Crop Circles, and written by Joanna Emery - it will leave you with the realization that these are real, mysterious, and yet unsolved as to origin

http://www.timetravel-britain.com/articles/history/crops.shtml

But let me be clear. Mysterious, and yet unsolved as to origin, does not mean that we don't know the physics that creates them. The physics we know - it's the who or what that we don't know!

James
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So what do you write? Crop circles may seem wondrous to you, but since there are so many here, we don't pay them much attention.

There is no evidence to suggest that they are in any way spiritual. They arrive in the night. No one has ever recorded a circle in the making. Farmers cannot claim insurance because they are the result of natural causes. In fact, if you could prove exactly how these circles come about, UK farmers would be in your debt. With definite proof that these circles are not natural phenomena, they would have legitimate insurance claims.

There is no conspiracy to hide information about crop circles in the UK and no untruths told because no one knows the truth to lie about.

"Relevance of these discoveries for the people of Antiquity and their Monuments.
If a well-regarded scientist, writing in Nature, can describe natural crop-circles of flattened corn with a circular wall and a standing centre which he saw in 1880 CE, then so could the Ancient Britons have seen similar circles in their cornfields or hay-meadows in 1880 BCE or 2880 BCE etc. Therefore, the suggestion is that in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods of Britain, it is possible that the sites of some round monuments were decided by the finding of naturally-formed circles in the fields. If a religious connection was made between the visitation of a spiralling whirlwind and its subsequent ground-trace, this may have been enough to consider the site sacred and eminently suitable for the construction of a stone circle, round cairn, round house or round barrow.
These ideas have been developed by Prof Terence Meaden in the book The Goddess of the Stones. A summary will be added here at a later date.
The Goddess of the Stones. 1991. ISBN 0-285-63031-8. Souvenir Press, 43 Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3PA "

From the Science of Crop Circles:

http://www.stonehenge-avebury.net/scienceofcropcircles.htm

Let's look at your comments Shelagh, one at a time

Shelagh

Quote :

Crop circles may seem wondrous to you, but since there are so many here, we don't pay them much attention.

James) "we?" It is a personal preference item.

Shelagh

Quote :

No one has ever recorded a circle in the making.

James) There have been videos taken. I've seen some but do not have access

Shelagh

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In fact, if you could prove exactly how these circles come about

James) I've already stated we know the physics - we don't know the whos and whys and the methods

Shelagh

Quote :

If a religious connection was made between the visitation of a spiralling whirlwind and its subsequent ground-trace, this may have been enough to consider the site sacred

James) Not likely in my opinion. Dust devils produce many of the same
characteristics - but they have been around for eons and wouldn’t cause any commotion or spiritual givings

James
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Gophers. And groundhogs. It's a little known fact that gophers and groundhogs are quite spiritual with a practical understanding of geometry and trigonometry. And they know how to manage vegetation to achieve their purposes, which they learned from their cousins, the beavers. We just don't know what their purposes are because no one has ever known any of them to speak English.

What does he write? He writes fiction.

If you’re not where there are Crop formations, and there are no fields where dust devils play - not to worry, because the same phenomenon can be seen in wild wheat along the road side.

Look for the same characteristics that I have described through out. The root will be arthritic and fused with the ground and the nodes will be deformed
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I am not suggesting that these road side wild wheat are mini-formations. It is just that the physics is the same.

James
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James wrote:

Let's look at your comments Shelagh, one at a time

Shelagh

Quote :

Crop circles may seem wondrous to you, but since there are so many here, we don't pay them much attention.

James) "we?" It is a personal preference item.

Shelagh

Quote :

No one has ever recorded a circle in the making.

James) There have been videos taken. I've seen some but do not have access

Shelagh

Quote :

In fact, if you could prove exactly how these circles come about

James) I've already stated we know the physics - we don't know the whos and whys and the methods

Shelagh

Quote :

If a religious connection was made between the visitation of a spiralling whirlwind and its subsequent ground-trace, this may have been enough to consider the site sacred

James) Not likely in my opinion. Dust devils produce many of the same
characteristics - but they have been around for eons and wouldn’t cause any commotion or spiritual givings

James
/

All my comments are taken out of context, which makes your responses irrelevant.

Why are you making such a big deal out of this? Why is it so important to you?

Al Stevens wrote:

Gophers. And groundhogs. It's a little known fact that gophers and groundhogs are quite spiritual with a practical understanding of geometry and trigonometry. And they know how to manage vegetation to achieve their purposes, which they learned from their cousins, the beavers. We just don't know what their purposes are because no one has ever known any of them to speak English.

What does he write? He writes fiction.

It would seem that way, Al.

Cerealogist: Crop circles are not formed by hoaksters.

Me: Okay, who did then?

Cerealogist: I don't know.

Me: Tell me what you do know then.

Cerealogist: The crop is deformed after a circle forms in a way that cannot be produced by man's interference.

Me: Okay, so could the weather do it?

Cerealogist: I don't know.

Me: Okay, can you suggest any way that might cause the deformation?

Cerealogist: No.

Me: Okay, so circles are formed in a way that you don't know and it isn't done by pranksters. Anything else?

Cerealogist: No. That's all there is to know.

Me: Glad we got that sorted. I'm non the wiser and you never were.

Shelagh

Quote :

Why are you making such a big deal out of this? Why is it so important to you?

Years ago I became interested in the Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts (those 4000 lines of hieroglyphics scribed on the walls of the pyramids of Saqqara; whose form was deciphered by Jean Francois Champollion (1821), by means of the Rosetta Stone.

I became quite expert and realized therefrom that much of what we know came from that source. This was the driving force to look into (study actually) extraordinary phenomenon

Phenomenon like the Cerne Abbas Giant, the White Horse of Uffington, Crop Circles, the Nascan figures, the Blythe intaglios, the Piri Re’is Map of 1513, the sphinxes of the U.S. and Peru.

What we are told about these are mostly un-truths - Why? Greed, agenda, the pleasures some get from smugness, the whole gamut

But this study is what I like and what I do!

James
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A very fitting ending. You like it.

Very well. I hope you continue to enjoy it.

Thank you for your honest answer.

Shelagh wrote:

Quote :

All my comments are taken out of context, which makes your responses irrelevant.

That seems to be the invariable result of taking words out of their context.

Ann

'
Cerealogist - disappointing dialogue

Me (Shelagh): equally disappointing dialogue

alj wrote:

Shelagh wrote:

Quote :

All my comments are taken out of context, which makes your responses irrelevant.

That seems to be the invariable result of taking words out of their context.

Ann

Ann,

A very astute observation! You are a true sage.

No, I'm not disappointed, James. I agree with Alice; if you enjoy studying unusual phenomena, then I'm pleased for you. I would be far more interested in knowing just how crop circles are formed than proving that hoaxers aren't responsible.

This summer, my husband was invited to meet the chief curator of the Mary Rose Trust in Portsmouth. Partial remains of about forty crew have been collected for scientific study. My husband and a fellow researcher were given a guided tour of the stores of all the artefacts from the ship. They brought back the partial remains of about seven skeletons to scan and produce three-dimensional models from which measurements of bone length and girth can be taken.

On Thursday, five members of the Medieval Society of Great Britain came to the university. They brought long bows with them and one of the five members was marked up and filmed for biomechanical analysis of the shoulder and arm action when shooting an arrow with a long bow. This is all part of the study of the Mary Rose and her crew.

The sinking of the Mary Rose is a mystery and theories have been put forward. This type of speculation cannot be proved (although models can be produced and simulations used to demonstrate probably causes of the sinking).

This is only one of the interesting features of the Mary Rose. Many universities around the country are actively involved in research using materials, skeletons and artefacts from the famous ship. Not everything will be understood and accounted for, but a greater insight into the life and times of Tudor England will be gleaned.

The Mary Rose Trust:

http://www.maryrose.org/