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Title: crop circles 2009
Source: You Tube
URL Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVWMBh3WleE&feature=related
Published: Mar 21, 2010
Author: staff
Post Date: 2010-03-21 01:44:47 by buckeroo
Keywords: None
Views: 3080
Comments: 105


Poster Comment:

April 2010 is right around the corner. Crop circles are notorious about this month and through the harvest season around the world.

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

#1. To: buckeroo (#0)

I still see these "circles" as language.

Until we get a "rosetta stone" equiv. we'll not comprehend.

ndcorup  posted on  2010-03-21   10:04:17 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: buckeroo (#0)

These are interesting. IMO some of them are much too complicated for people to have done in one night, and especially not leaving a trace. I'd like to know who or what is doing this. I don't think all of them are hoaxes.


Click for Privacy and Preparedness files

CHIMPOUT!

Live free or die kill ~~ Me

PSUSA  posted on  2010-03-21   10:33:33 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#3. To: ndcorup, PSUSA, ALL (#1) (Edited)

ndcorup: I still see these "circles" as language.

PSUSA: IMO some of them are much too complicated for people to have done in one night, and especially not leaving a trace.

Below, Jaime Maussan (commentator from Mexico) shows a bit more than just some pictures but on the ground and sky views of the phenomena. It is an excellent series if you are interested in this detail. It is a little rough for those lacking Spanish but it actually is the best documentary I have seen for last year.

I[t] is about 60 minutes of your time. Crop circles are fantastick.

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-21   14:37:04 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: buckeroo (#3)

I bet if we could get pictures of this graffiti to whatever alien taxpayers sent these guys to explore strange new worlds to show them how their money is being wasted, these things would disappear for good. ;-)


TEXT DOLPHIN To 44144

Ferret  posted on  2010-03-21   15:03:40 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: buckeroo (#0)

Whatever they mean, and however they were made, it was not by a bunch of morons in the middle of the night. imo

Lod  posted on  2010-03-21   15:08:16 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: Ferret (#4)

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-21   15:51:55 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: Lod (#5)

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-21   16:03:40 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#8. To: buckeroo, 4 (#7)

Mind-numbingly beautiful.

The symmetry is just unbelievable.

Lod  posted on  2010-03-21   16:21:08 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#9. To: Lod (#8)

--

The two most important crop circles ever. No joke

This one raised the hair on the back of my neck.


TEXT DOLPHIN To 44144

Ferret  posted on  2010-03-21   16:29:14 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#10. To: Lod, Ferret, PSUSA, ndcorup, Original_Intent, James Deffenbach, ALL (#8)

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-21   17:51:37 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#11. To: Ferret, 4 (#9)

When they start communicating in computer coding, best we start paying really, really close attention.

Lod  posted on  2010-03-21   18:45:11 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#12. To: buckeroo, 4 (#10)

peace, indeed

Who the freak knows?

When you see Menorahs, and the Masonic Eye, what the hell are we to think, believe, or imagine?

Lod  posted on  2010-03-21   18:51:23 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#13. To: buckeroo (#10)

I dont know why he went off on a HAARP tangent. But there were some more great pics there.

There is intelligence behind these designs. I just wish I knew who the intelligence belongs to.

I know UFOs are real. I dont know if there is a connection to circles or not. Too many interested parties are making that leap based on incomplete information.

I wish people wouldn't speculate so much.


Click for Privacy and Preparedness files

CHIMPOUT!

Live free or die kill ~~ Me

PSUSA  posted on  2010-03-21   18:56:20 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#14. To: Lod (#12)

Who the freak knows?

Good question.

Here is another explanation:

The bizarre revival of crop circles - and advice on how to make your own

Adrian Potts, landlord of the Barge Inn outside Pewsey in Wiltshire, was pretty cheerful yesterday morning. The pub, on the Avon Kennet canal, is the centre of the British crop circle industry and each year, starting in early May and running for about four months, circle fans (and circle-makers) turn up from round the world. The backroom of the pub has circles on the ceiling, news of the latest formations is posted, and the chat revolves around the images that have been appearing for more than 20 years in the fields of southern England.

Potts has sold many pints on the back of crop circles, but for the last few years the Barge has been quiet. "In the late 1990s and through to 2002, [the crop circle trade] was massive. On a sunny day we'd have people here by 10am. But it dropped off and the last few years have been dreadful. The last two summers have been terrible - both in terms of weather and of circles," he says.

There are many explanations as to why the circles barely appeared in Wiltshire. The suicide of one of the chief circle-makers in 2006 and the death of two others, as well as boredom in the ranks of pranksters, have all been cited. Mostly, though, it is thought that heavy rain and high winds have made crops hard to handle and have deterred aliens and humans alike.

But just as the demise of the peculiarly English rural tradition was predicted, the circles - which can take the shape of DNA structures, scorpions, snowflakes, helices, webs, knots and complex geometric patterns - have abruptly returned in force.

The 2009 season began in April with an unprecedented six formations. The first was a series of simple circles in a field of rape; then came a 350ft yin-yang symbol in a barley field near Devizes. Three ambitious formations were reported over the last bank holiday and on Tuesday this week a giant 600ft jellyfish was found in a barley field on Bill and Sally Ann Spence's farm near Kingston Coombes in Oxfordshire.

As of yesterday, there have been more than 20 major formations spotted. Potts, who could claim to be something of an expert on the subject, has a hunch that this will be a good summer for circles: "The crops are not true enough yet. Weather permitting, I'd say the best ones will start now. In the next two weeks there should be a burst of activity."

Francine Blake, who founded the Wiltshire crop circle study group in 1995, shares Potts's optimism. She and other self-appointed investigators identify, measure, photograph, and report on all formations. They go circle-spotting at night in likely places, send crop stalks for chemical analysis in university laboratories (yes, really), and have more than 6,000 crop circles on their database.

She was excited by the jellyfish: "It's fantastic. When we look at it, it's got seven small circles, or moon shapes. It's describing the magnetic field of Earth," she says. She too is optimistic about the summer ahead: "This year started much earlier. There's one every day now. It is very intense already. I have never seen such complex designs in rape in all my years of studying this subject. Usually, the season starts with a nice little pattern, a tri-petal flower or such like, one or maybe two in rape if we are lucky. But this year they are big, complex and numerous right from the start."

"What does this mean?" Blake asks on her blog. "It means that we have to take note that something extraordinary is happening. Crop circles are not normal occurrences, they do not fit in too well with our usual beliefs. This of course is not to everyone's liking - it is not easy to face the unknown."

From this you may gather that Blake eschews more prosaic explanations for the circles. In fact the professional circle world divides neatly. One hemisphere is occupied by questors, spiritualists and paranormalists, such as Blake; the other by makers, tricksters and artists.

The first group can tell from post-holes, foot tracks, and other clear signs that the majority are made by humans. But they argue that many crop circles - perhaps 20% - defy rational explanation. Their research suggests that "true circles" are created in a very few minutes by a blast of energy. According to some, the crop cells become swollen and are bent down at the nodes, or joints. Others say the cellular structure of the plants is affected and that the composition of the soil is altered. A few circles, they say, display a phenomenal level of complexity and would be difficult to draw on paper, let alone in a field after dark.

When they cannot explain what they see, they turn to UFOs, aliens, symbols, alchemy, ancient wisdom, sacred geometry, whirlwinds, the fingerprints of God or unknown "entities" to explain what they say are messages from extra-terrestrials or signs and portents of the times.

The second group is made up of artists and pranksters. What began in the late 1970s with two Wiltshire watercolour artists, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, going into the fields for a laugh to create simple circles to tease those who believe in UFOs, was picked up by London-based artists and sculptors in the mid-1990s.

One group, now calling themselves the Circlemakers, includes situationist artists Rod Dickinson and John Lundberg, the sculptor Gavin Turk, Rob Irving and others. They say on their website that they latched on to the circle believers, created images from reading the same books that the believers read, and that they now team up with other teams of circle-makers to create ambitious formations. Together they say they have made crop circles an essential part of our popular culture, part of the myth of the English countryside.

"We weren't pushing paint around on a canvas that sat in a sterile gallery environment; we were quite literally forming and shaping the culture that surrounded us," Lundberg said in 2004. "We are the heretics, calling their belief system into question by the mere fact that we exist and talk about our circle-making activities. Sometimes this spills over into threatening behaviour on the part of the believer. We've had potatoes stuck up our exhausts, wing mirrors ripped off of our cars, and threats of physical violence, in person, over the phone, via email and through our letterboxes."

For a long time the Circlemakers kept their identities secret but they now openly claim to have made many hundreds of circles. However, they play the game that there is some inexplicable force out there by not claiming to have made them all, and never revealing which particular ones they created.

Those in the other camp are adamant the Circlemakers are destructive. "They used to call themselves Team Satan. They live in south London and it takes them days to make them even in daylight. They have nothing to do with the phenomenon," says Blake.

The other reason why there may have been fewer circles in recent years is that leading circle-makers are growing up, and can now command big money. Formations are now regularly commissioned by multinational companies, advertising agencies and the media. Nike, Pepsi, BBC1, Greenpeace, Sky, Weetabix, Big Brother, Mitsubishi, Thompson Holidays and O2 have all paid circle-makers tens of thousands of pounds for a night's work. They have been made for pop videos, corporate parties, TV dramas and ads. The Sun paid for one to publicise its campaign to bring the Olympics to Britain.

From being genuinely intriguing, amusing and innocent folk art, the formations have become worth millions of pounds to the Wiltshire tourist industry. Farmers, too, can make thousands of pounds, either in compensation from companies wanting to have their logos plastered in their fields, or from charging people £2 each to walk in a circled field. One farmer near Stonehenge is said to have made about £30,000 by charging tourists to visit circles on his land.

The "believers" also make money from conferences, books, magazines, and calendars, lectures and sightseeing tours. "A good aerial picture of a sophisticated circle picked up by TV or the press can make tens of thousands of pounds," says the head of one picture agency, who asked not to be named. "Everyone is at it."

Of course some farmers are furious to find their crops flattened. They do tend to stand up again, however, after they've been bent over; normally this is enough to smooth most feathers. And no one is suggesting that this year's circles have been commissioned by tourist boards, or have been sponsored by corporations. But it's more than likely that someone will make money from the photographs, the field, or the design of these latest additions to the oeuvre.

Blake dismisses any idea that the phenomenon is driven by art or by money. "Something important is happening. It's raining shapes every day now. Nothing man-made could be like this. That's why people can't get their heads round it." How to make a crop circle

• Prepare a detailed drawing. Keep it simple. Circles and triangles are relatively easy to make. Advanced curves, spirals, straight lines, fractals and pictures can take a long time to mark out and work.

• You will need helpers; decide who will do what and in what order the image needs to be constructed.

• You will need a marked rope or a 100ft measuring tape to mark out the site, and a foot-wide wooden board about 4ft long to do the flattening. The board should have ropes attached to each end so you can loop it over your neck.

• Ask permission from a farmer and be prepared to pay compensation. A crop circle can cause hundreds of pounds of damage.

• Wait for a moonlit night when it is dry. Enter the field by the tramlines, or marks left by tractors.

• Mark out the field carefully. Some circle makers use sticks or poles but these can leave tell-tale holes of human intervention.

• Put the rope round your neck, with the board on the ground in front of you; press down with your right foot, move it forward, press it down again, and so on.

• Leave the field the same way you entered.

• Hide your tracks.

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-21   18:58:28 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#15. To: Lod (#8)

The symmetry is just unbelievable

Makes me pine for the ol' Spirograph. : )

I tried to find one for me and my kiddies, but they don't make them anymore. You have to purchase one off of E-Bay and hope all the parts are in the box. Of course, they want "antique" pricing.

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ... We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of." Edward Bernays, Father of Public Relations

abraxas  posted on  2010-03-21   19:36:30 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#16. To: buckeroo (#14)

tons of "how to" pictures

overview

groundresonance  posted on  2010-03-21   19:47:38 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#17. To: groundresonance (#16)

I love it! The Firefox logo. Another fun thread!

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-21   19:57:11 ET  (1 image) Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#18. To: abraxas, buckeroo, 4 (#15)

I do not believe that these creations are man-made.

Lod  posted on  2010-03-21   21:59:01 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#19. To: Lod, abraxas, buckeroo (#18)

I do not believe that these creations are man-made.

I do.


"With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
James Madison, Letter to James Robertson, April 20, 1831

farmfriend  posted on  2010-03-21   22:01:08 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#20. To: PSUSA (#13)

"I wish people wouldn't speculate so much."

Don't think, just blindly hate with fury merely for a warped aesthetic preference in other words; right?

I prefer speculation; it means people are using their minds to think for themselves. You prefer blind impulse and the seduction of a one size fits all hatred.

I actually wish yo would use your brain and speculate more. You have many things you need to re-think and find the true perspective of.

I have read the E activism threads in Storm Front that talk about going forth to other forums to seed them with bigotry. I know you could well be from there and know why you do what you do. However, in the end you will fail; and you are your own worst enemy.


TEXT DOLPHIN To 44144

Ferret  posted on  2010-03-22   5:09:21 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#21. To: farmfriend, Lod (#19)

Aren't those crop circles from last year AWESOME! They get better every year. I am hoping that 2010 reveals some new artwork to inspire us. Over time, they have become increasingly complex.

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-22   14:42:42 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#22. To: buckeroo (#21)

Over time, they have become increasingly complex.

Yes, they are like an unspoken challenge. See if you can top this! I believe it is groups of college students doing this. It would be interesting to see how many of these have colleges in near by town.

Seems like I remember one TV show having a contest to see if these can be created in one night with very successful results.


"With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
James Madison, Letter to James Robertson, April 20, 1831

farmfriend  posted on  2010-03-22   14:50:32 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#23. To: buckeroo, farmfriend, 4 (#21)

Well, planting season will soon enough come to the northern hemisphere, and I'm looking forward to seeing what this year's offerings/signals/messages will look like.

They still look other-worldly to my simple mind.

Lod  posted on  2010-03-22   15:09:36 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#24. To: farmfriend, groundresonance (#22)

See groundresonance's post#16 on this thread ... if that isn't called fun, I don't know what is. Those links are too cool.

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-22   15:41:44 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#25. To: farmfriend, buckeroo (#22)

Seems like I remember one TV show having a contest to see if these can be created in one night with very successful results.

All of the man-made crop circles committed by hoaxsters LOOK man-made, and are not perfectly symmetric like the circles which are made by unknown entitites.


"The real deal is this: the ‘royalty’ controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children." - James Hansen

FormerLurker  posted on  2010-03-22   15:50:50 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#26. To: Lod (#23)

Well, planting season will soon enough come to the northern hemisphere, and I'm looking forward to seeing what this year's offerings/signals/messages will look like.

Well said. I am not convinced that all of them are college pranksters of local pub drunks or landlords attempting to make a few bucks. As yourself, those designs are exquisite and truly capture your imagination about significance.

Still, the original pranksters in the UK caused my doubt and give the increasing technical detail, I think it is possible to perform this stuff (given a team of friends) to make MORE of it.

If there truly were some form of message ( from anyone), why don't the crop circles become simpler with time?

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-22   16:06:46 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#27. To: buckeroo (#26)

i'd be more inclined to accept the possibility of divine or alien intervention if one of these things would appear in a field without tractor tracks in it, with features that werent connected to each other by at least a narrow path, or features that werent within jumping distance of another feature.

we need one perfect design in a dense field of vegetation (dense enough to reveal footprints) without tractor tracks, consisting of multiple features isolated from each other by more than polevaulting distance.

might be an interesting project for a billionaire who owns a helicopter.

groundresonance  posted on  2010-03-22   16:20:36 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#28. To: groundresonance (#27)

I might add one teenie tiny, tid bit: I haven't seen a popularly photographed crop circle that was poorly constructed anywhere. It isn't like a pile of pranksters never make mistakes, year after year. And this stuff has been on-going for years around the world.

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-22   16:30:08 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#29. To: buckeroo (#28) (Edited)

who's gonna waste film and publicity on a slipshod crop circle?

anyhow, let's start thinking of tools...

how bout, for more-or-less instant circles... (that would be the smaller circles) a piece of steel tubing, with a hole drilled in it so you can slip it over a piece rebar you've driven into the ground to serve as a pivot.

you could even make the steel tubing telescopic, so you could do different sizes of circles with one tool.

just rotate the tubing once on the rebar, and you've got your perfect circle.

groundresonance  posted on  2010-03-22   16:41:16 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#30. To: FormerLurker (#25)

All of the man-made crop circles committed by hoaxsters LOOK man-made, and are not perfectly symmetric like the circles which are made by unknown entitites.

Not true. I saw one demonstrated by college students that rivaled anything you can show me. Clean lines, complex geometry etc. It was even done at night in the dark.


"With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
James Madison, Letter to James Robertson, April 20, 1831

farmfriend  posted on  2010-03-22   17:33:13 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#31. To: buckeroo, farmfriend, 4 (#26)

If there truly were some form of message ( from anyone), why don't the crop circles become simpler with time?

Good point.

Obviously, were there one, we've not yet got the message(s).

The ASCII field was kinda mind-boggling to me, as well as the one with the menorah.

As one poster noted, we need a rosetta stone for these circles to be deciphered.

Lod  posted on  2010-03-22   18:05:00 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#32. To: groundresonance, Lod, farmfriend (#29)

who's gonna waste film and publicity on a slipshod crop circle?

Crop Circles: The Art of the Hoax
They may not be evidence of UFOs, ancient spirits or secret weapons, but there is something magical in their allure

* By Rob Irving and Peter Brookesmith
* Smithsonian.com, December 15, 2009

When Doug Bower and his co-conspirator Dave Chorley first created a representation of a “flying saucer nest” in a wheat field in Wiltshire, England, in 1976, they could not have foreseen that their work would become a cultural phenomenon.

Almost as soon as crop circles became public knowledge, they attracted a gaggle of self-appointed experts. An efflorescence of mystical and magical thinking, scientific and pseudo-scientific research, conspiracy theories and general pandemonium broke out. The patterns stamped in fields were treated as a lens through which the initiated could witness the activity of earth energies and ancient spirits, the anguish of Mother Earth in the face of impending ecological doom, and evidence of secret weapons testing and, of course, aliens. Today, one of the more vigorously promoted ideas is that they are messages, buried in complex numerological codes, concerning a Great Change connected to the pre-Columbian Mayan calendar and due to occur in 2012.

To appreciate how these exotic responses arose, we need to delve a little into history. Before today’s circle-makers entered the picture, there had been scattered reports of odd patterns appearing in crops, ranging from 17th century pamphlets to an 1880 account in Nature to a letter from astronomer Patrick Moore printed in 1963 in New Scientist. In Australia, the mid- to late-1960s saw occasional reports of circles in crops, and they were often ascribed to UFO landings. At around the same time in England, the Wiltshire town of Warminster became a center of UFO-seeking “sky watches” and gave birth to its own rumors of crop circles, or “saucer nests.” None of these, unfortunately, was photographed.

It was such legends that Bower had in mind when, over a drink one evening in 1976, he suggested to his pal Chorley: “Let’s go over there and make it look like a flying saucer has landed.” It was time, thought Doug, to see a saucer nest for himself.

Since then, crop circles have been reported worldwide in a multitude of crops. In southern England, which sees most activity, circle-makers tend to concentrate on canola, barley and wheat. These grow and are harvested in an overlapping progression: canola from April through May, barley throughout May and June, and wheat from June until early September. In recent years the occasional rudimentary pattern has been found in corn, extending the crop circle season as late as October. Since Bower and Chorley’s circles appeared, the geometric designs have escalated in scale and complexity, as each year teams of anonymous circle-makers lay honey traps for New Age tourists.

A crucial clue to the circles’ allure lies in their geographical context. Wiltshire is the home of Stonehenge and an even more extensive stone circle in the village of Avebury. The rolling downs are dotted with burial mounds and solitary standing stones, which many believe to be connected by an extensive network of “leys,” or paths of energy linking these enchanted sites with others around the country. It is said that this vast network is overlaid in the form of “sacred geometries.” The region has also given rise to a rich folklore of spectral black dogs, headless coachmen and haunted houses.

Crop circles are a lens through which we can explore the nature and appeal of hoaxes. Fakes, counterfeits and forgeries are all around us in the everyday world—from dud $50 bills to spurious Picassos. People’s motives for taking the unreal as real are easily discerned: we trust our currency, and many people would like to own a Picasso. The nebulous world of the anomalous and the paranormal is even richer soil for hoaxers. A large proportion of the population believes in ghosts, angels, UFOs and ET visitations, fairies, psychokinesis and other strange phenomena. These beliefs elude scientific examination and proof. And it’s just such proof that the hoaxer brings to the table for those hungry for evidence that their beliefs are not deluded.

False evidence intended to corroborate an existing legend is known to folklorists as “ostension.” This process also inevitably extends the legend. For, even if the evidence is eventually exposed as false, it will have affected people’s perceptions of the phenomenon it was intended to represent. Faked photographs of UFOs, Loch Ness monsters and ghosts generally fall under the heading of ostension. Another example is the series of photographs of fairies taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths at Cottingley, Yorkshire, between 1917 and 1920. These show that the motive for producing such evidence may come from belief, rather than from any wish to mislead or play pranks. One of the girls insisted till her dying day that she really had seen fairies—the manufactured pictures were a memento of her real experience. And the photos were taken as genuine by such luminaries as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—the great exponent, in his Sherlock Holmes stories, of logic.

The desire to promote evidence of anomalous and paranormal events as genuine springs from deep human longings. One is a gesture toward rationalism—the notion that nothing is quite real unless it’s endorsed by reasoned argument, and underwritten by more or less scientific proofs. But the human soul longs for enchantment. Those who don’t find their instinctive sense of the numinous satisfied by art, literature or music—let alone the discoveries of science itself—may well turn to the paranormal to gratify an intuition that mystery dwells at the heart of existence. Such people are perfectly placed to accept hoaxed evidence of unexplained powers and entities as real.

And so, the annual appearance of ever more complex patterns in the wheat fields of southern England is taken by “croppies”—the devotees who look beyond any prosaic solution for deeper explanations—as signs and wonders and prophecies. The croppies do, however, accept that some people, some of the time, are making some of the formations. They regard these human circle-makers as a nuisance, contaminators of the “evidence,” and denounce them as “hoaxers.” The term is well chosen, for it implies social deviance. And therein lies the twist in the story.

In croppy culture, common parlance is turned on its head. The word “genuine” usually implies that something has a single, identifiable origin, of established provenance. To the croppy it means the opposite: a “genuine” circle is of unknown provenance, or not man-made—a mystery, in other words. It follows that the man-made circle is a “hoax.”

Those circle-makers who are prepared to comment on this semantic reversal do so with some amusement. As far as they’re concerned, they are creating art in the fields. In keeping with New Age thought, it is by dissociating with scientific tradition that the circle-makers return art to a more unified function, where images and objects are imbued with special powers.

This art is intended to be a provocative, collective and ritual enterprise. And as such, it is often inherently ambiguous and open to interpretation. To the circle-maker, the greater the range of interpretations inspired in the audience the better. Both makers and interpreters have an interest in the circles being perceived as magical, and this entails their tacit agreement to avoid questions of authorship. This is essentially why croppies regard “man-made” circles as a distraction, a “contamination.”

Paradoxically, and unlike almost all other modern forms of art, a crop circle’s potential to enchant is animated and energized by the anonymity of its author(s). Doug Bower now tells friends that he wishes he had kept quiet and continued his nocturnal jaunts in secret. Both circle-makers and croppies are really engaged in a kind of game, whose whole purpose is to keep the game going, to prolong the mystery. After all, who would travel thousands of miles and trek through a muddy field to see flattened wheat if it were not imbued with otherworldly mystique?

As things stand, the relationship between the circle-makers and those who interpret their work has become a curious symbiosis of art and artifice, deception and belief. All of which raises the question: Who’s hoaxing whom?

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-22   18:30:44 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#33. To: Lod (#31) (Edited)

deciphered

there's no doubt what's going on...

these crop circles are made by an alien race that's developed interstellar travel, and the crop circles are intelligence tests.

the aliens are trying to decide whether or not intelligent life exists on earth.

if we fail to figure the crop circles out, life on earth will be exterminated, earth itself will be overhauled so it can support alien life (ammonia atmosphere and nitric acid seas) to serve as an advance base for the aliens' conquest of the universe.

groundresonance  posted on  2010-03-22   18:31:37 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#34. To: buckeroo (#32)

Both circle-makers and croppies are really engaged in a kind of game, whose whole purpose is to keep the game going, to prolong the mystery.

As things stand, the relationship between the circle-makers and those who interpret their work has become a curious symbiosis of art and artifice, deception and belief. All of which raises the question: Who’s hoaxing whom?

perfect

groundresonance  posted on  2010-03-22   18:35:44 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#35. To: buckeroo, farmfriend, 4 (#32)

After centuries of circles, and especially today with all our cameras and recorders, would not someone have infiltrated the hoaxers, and exposed them?

Lod  posted on  2010-03-22   18:42:21 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#36. To: Lod, buckeroo (#35)

After centuries of circles, and especially today with all our cameras and recorders, would not someone have infiltrated the hoaxers, and exposed them?

Not really. Secrecy is part of the game. Believing as I do that these are done by college kids, I'm sure they stick to friends and people they trust. Infiltration would be difficult and how would you know who was planning on doing circles etc?


"With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
James Madison, Letter to James Robertson, April 20, 1831

farmfriend  posted on  2010-03-22   18:49:14 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#37. To: Lod (#35)

From time to time, they are. Groundresonance brought up a group of college students at Oregon State. It's back up the thread a bit.

And the article you are responding to is cause celebrie with Doug Bower and his co-conspirator Dave Chorley. BTW, Chorley just murdered himself over this stuff. And the only reason Bower was found out was because of his suspicious wife, thinking he was having an affair at late night hours.

Bower's last crop circle was in 2004.

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-22   18:54:21 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#38. To: buckeroo (#37)

Good grief.

Of all things to off yourself.

I will inform the 4 if any of our corn and bean fields, in Iowa, have a visitation of any sort this year.

Lod  posted on  2010-03-22   19:18:28 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#39. To: buckeroo (#37) (Edited)

just murdered himself

according to this article from manchester.com, chorley died in a hospital of cancer in 1997.

i guess the article could be a hoax.

EDIT: whoops... make that 1996.

groundresonance  posted on  2010-03-22   19:22:38 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#40. To: groundresonance (#39)

I shall check. I am sure he offed himself.

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-22   19:36:29 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#41. To: groundresonance, Lod, farmfriend (#39) (Edited)

My error. It wasn't Chorley ... it was Paul Obee, see below:

Fewer crop circles after guru's suicide

By Anil Dawar
Published: 12:01AM BST 05 Aug 2006

The death of one of the leading lights of England's crop-circle world has led to a fall in agricultural artwork, it emerged yesterday.

Friends of Paul Obee admitted they had been devastated by his suicide this year and no longer had the will go out and create the circles.

Fellow "croppie" Andrew Byrne, 41, said: "There was a slump in crop circle-making after Paul's death. The community of circle-makers was whacked by his death because we're all quite close. People just didn't want to go out and make them."

The huge intricate patterns that adorn fields are believed by some to be the work of a paranormal force.

In reality the geometric designs are created at night by "landscape artists" who are considered vandals by many. The designs attract tourists from around the world.

Wiltshire, where Mr Obee lived, has seen a slump in the activity of the crop-circle makers in what is traditionally their peak season.

The professional driver from Horton, near Devizes, was found dead in his Volkswagon Polo by a walker on a remote country track in May. The engine was running with a pipe feeding exhaust fumes into the car, which contained two suicide notes. He had also sent his partner, Debbie Keogh, a hand-written journal in the post entitled These Are My Last Words, in which he told her: "I want to go off and see what's on the other side."

Signs have appeared that the county's croppie fraternity, which is based at the Barge Inn in Honeystreet, near Pewsey, have come out of mourning and will continue to work. In recent weeks, a crop-circle jester has appeared in a field at Eastfield, near Alton Priors, a nod to Mr Obee's nickname - "The Fool".

Yesterday Nigel Brookes, assistant deputy coroner for Wiltshire, recorded a verdict of suicide on Mr Obee's death.

Groundresonance, thanks for forcing the correction. You are a human dyna-mo digging for truth just like the rest of us!

"Yes they have been experimenting on us for decades. The Chemtrails are just one aspect." -- Original_Intent, circa 2010-03-14 21:00:46 ET

buckeroo  posted on  2010-03-23   10:59:51 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  



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