Crop Circles: The Unanswered Questions
Crop Circles are back in the news and with them the apparently endless debate about who or what creates them. The problem with addressing the issue of how the circles or formations are made is clouded by the usual "Woo-Woo Factor", the self-proclaimed experts or channellers whose fantastic claims scare away most sober scientists. I admit I am fascinated by the intricacy and aesthetic appeal of the most complex crop formations like this one photographed by Thomas Sutter, Jr. I would have no difficulty believing them to be human-made IF there weren't so many unanswered questions surrounding them. Let's take a look at the most popular "debunking" explanations.
Crop Circles: The Unanswered Questions
The argument advanced most often in defence of the human-made theory is that they are created by commercial interests who stand to profit from the sale of photos, DVDs, postcards, calendars, tee-shirts, totes, etc. bearing the images of the formations. This argument presumes the involvement of corporate 'sponsors' or film companies who somehow commission and create the formations, photograph them and then manufacture goods for sale using the images. Sounds plausible, right? Except that the vast majority of formations bear no evidence of connection with any corporate or commercial entity. The exceptions were a Swedish Rail Company that put its logo in a field next to a highway (Image courtesy Swedish Rail) and two other similar 'ads' in the landscape. The formations employing images of cultural "icons" like Homer Simpson are obviously human-made but since copyright law has not been applied to the crop formations no lawsuits have resulted from what would normally be considered a breach of copyright although there have been some exceptions. One man in the UK in Devizes was sued for damages to a field and two Hungarian Agricultural students were charged and fined for creating an image on land owned by a food production corporation.The corporate agriculture sector is no more enamoured of crop formations than commercial farmers. Most crop formations are made in farmers' fields overnight and some have been documented by hikers as having formed in the space of an hour or less. The sheer size and intricacy of most formations means that humans would take many hours or even several nights in succession to create them. The complicated ones that formed apparently in minutes would rule out human participation.
The abiding fact remains that most crop formations appear overnight in farmers' fields sewn with rapeseed, corn, or other mixed-use crops. The farmers are not pleased to see their hard work undone and many would like nothing better than to have a rich corporation to sue. And what about the corporations themselves? It would take only one successful prosecution or even civil suit by a farmer against a corporation for trespass, damaging property, theft or fraud to irreparably damage the corporation's reputation and to end the entire crop circle phenomenon IF it is being perpetrated by corporate interests. No such case has come before the courts.
Some farmers who despaired of ever catching the culprits, much less bringing criminal charges, have placed donation boxes at the entrances to their fields in the hope that visitors will respect the fact that the object of their fascination has been created without permission on private land. Donations can help to reduce the loss of income from the formation crops. In addition, an entire Crop Circle Etiquette has been adopted by those who study the phenomena to ensure that no further damage is inflicted on the farm properties by visitors and tourists.
The abiding fact remains that most crop formations appear overnight in farmers' fields sewn with rapeseed, corn, or other mixed-use crops. The farmers are not pleased to see their hard work undone and many would like nothing better than to have a rich corporation to sue. And what about the corporations themselves? It would take only one successful prosecution or even civil suit by a farmer against a corporation for trespass, damaging property, theft or fraud to irreparably damage the corporation's reputation and to end the entire crop circle phenomenon IF it is being perpetrated by corporate interests. No such case has come before the courts.
Some farmers who despaired of ever catching the culprits, much less bringing criminal charges, have placed donation boxes at the entrances to their fields in the hope that visitors will respect the fact that the object of their fascination has been created without permission on private land. Donations can help to reduce the loss of income from the formation crops. In addition, an entire Crop Circle Etiquette has been adopted by those who study the phenomena to ensure that no further damage is inflicted on the farm properties by visitors and tourists.
The Fable of Doug and Dave
The next popular explanation we have is the overall claim that hoaxers are the source of all of the circles and formations and the "Doug and Dave" story is trotted out to "prove" it. The Doug and Dave theory claims that two pensioners with time to kill and nothing better to do with themselves, created the circles using boards and ropes and the BBC filmed the pair demonstrating their technique in a field of rapeseed. Unfortunately for the debunkers, the Doug and Dave hoaxer theory itself turned out to be a hoax when two pieces of evidence emerged that made the claim untenable. In the crop formations that have been studied by scientists from University of Michigan in America and by Eltjo H. Haselhoff in the Netherlands, it was found that circles and formations made by humans with boards and ropes crushed the nodes on the cereal crops and broke stems off as they bent the stalks. However, the samples taken from circles and formations that had appeared overnight on four continents (including several made on the same night dozens to thousands of kilometres apart were found to have been bent but not broken and the nodes of the plants had been radically altered by what appeared to be very high heat that caused the nodes to swell. Although researchers have attempted to duplicate the effect by super heating the nodes of experimental crops, thus far none has been successful. The cereal crop burns at temperatures too low to swell the nodes first.
In addition, in the crops with enlarged nodes there was no evidence of human infringement on the surrounding crops or within the tractor lines around the formations, no bent or broken stems outside the actual formations. Worse yet for the debunkers, soil samples from the formations that had obviously not been made with boards and ropes showed evidence of the same exposure to high heat for a very short period lasting no more than seconds, something akin to what a microwave burst might do.
In addition, in the crops with enlarged nodes there was no evidence of human infringement on the surrounding crops or within the tractor lines around the formations, no bent or broken stems outside the actual formations. Worse yet for the debunkers, soil samples from the formations that had obviously not been made with boards and ropes showed evidence of the same exposure to high heat for a very short period lasting no more than seconds, something akin to what a microwave burst might do.
The Experimental Technology Theory: Lasers and Micro-waves
"Aha!" said the debunkers," that's how the designs are being made." "Somebody" with laser and micro-wave technology must be creating the formations." Hmmm. Again, that sounds plausible except it fails to answer the first question regarding no one claiming responsibility for the formations. Surely a company with the time, money, technology, and manpower to launch such an elaborate operation would want to take credit for it and, of course, copyright all images of the designs to profit from them. But that has not happened. The vast majority of images of the crop circles and formations have been taken by amateur or self-employed photographers, film companies (National Geographic amongst them), and hobbyists. Furthermore, the best images have been taken from the air because most of the formations are not "readable" at ground level. And most important of all, each individual who photographs or videos or films the formations retains the copyright to their individual production and none has ever been challenged for violating a commercial copyright. As if that were not enough, many of the photographs made by individuals have been released by them into the public domain through Creative Commons as in the images in this article, thereby removing the money-making motive.
Technology Lag
The other fact that argues against commercial sources for the creation of crop formation is the absence of portable laser and micro-wave technologies prior to the 1980s when in fact crop formations had been photographed going back to the 1960s and had been described in historical documents going back many centuries. And finally, when a challenge was issued inviting anyone with the requisite laser and micro-wave techniques to come forward and be filmed in the process of creating a formation, there were no takers.
Should We Be Saluting The Crop Formations?
The theory of last resort is the one that posits military involvement in the creation of the formations. The military has a vested interest in developing new laser and microwave technologies for all sorts of applications. True. However, the historic record shows that advances in electronic technologies originate in the private sector as was true of the Allies in WW2 who had to use civilians inventors and scientists to design, test and refine new weapons systems. The notion that the military are testing 'weapons' by making popcorn in farmers' fields of corn is, frankly, worthy of Dr. Strangelove…
For books on Crop Circles visit Delia's Paranormal Phenomena Shop HERE.
© Delia O' Riordan 2012
