# Crop Circles



## RJM Corbet

Doug with a board in the middle of the night?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSNmLmS5fMY&feature=player_detailpage


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## J-WO

I think crop circles are made by drunken young farmers. Drunken young farmers in spaceships.


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## soulsinging

Man, I don't know what to think about stuff like this anymore.


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## RJM Corbet

There are always a lot of associated videos and the problem is to sift out the fakes. Some are obvious, but many are very well done ...


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## Metryq

I don't understand why UFOs (ETs) or time travelers _must_ be associated with crop circles. The original pranksters admitted their work long ago.

"You're right. No human being would stack books like this." —Peter Venkman


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## RJM Corbet

C'mon Metryq, are you really saying that a couple of students did those in the middle of the night for a prank? 

The fact that once some students made some crude crop circles doesn't mean that they were capable of creating these ones? In a few hours? In darkness?  With no lights? With bits of wood? Directly beside a very powerful radio telescope -- that is undoubtedly well-guarded at night? 

I'm not saying: yes, its definitely extraterrestrial contact -- but it deserves more consideration than the drunken students theory.

Here's another one, same subject, but shorter (3min):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KoR2t-iM9k&feature=player_detailpage


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## HareBrain

They're incredible pieces of work. I don't doubt that there are people capable of conceiving such a project, even of putting large amounts of time into what is no more than arsing about. But I can't see anyone making the thing so perfectly in one night, or getting together enough people to do so without word of it leaking out (a good argument againt 9/11 conspiracies).

But if not human pranksters, then what? Colin Wilson summarised a lot of evidence in his book Alien Dawn and concluded that all ET experiences were probably created by facets of human consciousness, even those that left physical evidence. That at least accounts for the huge range of such experiences and removes the need for FTL travel, but of course brings its own huge problems.

In the end, I have to agree with Soulsinging.


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## Nik

"...putting large amounts of time into what is no more than arsing about."

D'uh, that built the pyramids, don't forget !!

/cynic

IMHO, it's all down to pranksters. 
Don't get me started on 'UFOs' and 'alien abductions' as, IIRC, the one star definitively claimed for ET's origin has been falsified by recent observations: No habitable zone here, folks; move along...


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## Metryq

RJM Corbet said:


> Directly beside a very powerful radio telescope -- that is undoubtedly well-guarded at night?



Undoubtedly? Pure assumption. What's to guard around a receiving dish? It is standing in the middle of farmland after all. How about Arecibo, or VLA—are they guarded, too? (FYI, a highway runs right over one of the VLA tracks. I'm sure they have border guards and dogs and TSA-style gropers checking everyone who passes through. And the "fence" around Arecibo is to screen out local radio noise.) If you were a prankster, where would you put a crop circle? Near something "space" related right? 

*The principle of exclusion works from the premise that “there is no other way of accounting for the phenomenon.”*


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## HareBrain

HareBrain said:


> But I can't see anyone making the thing so perfectly in one night


 
Just realised that all you would need is a couple of people and a fairly simple robot.


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## RJM Corbet

Metryq said:


> Undoubtedly? Pure assumption. What's to guard around a receiving dish? It is standing in the middle of farmland after all. How about Arecibo, or VLA—are they guarded, too? (FYI, a highway runs right over one of the VLA tracks. I'm sure they have border guards and dogs and TSA-style gropers checking everyone who passes through. And the "fence" around Arecibo is to screen out local radio noise.) If you were a prankster, where would you put a crop circle? Near something "space" related right?
> 
> *The principle of exclusion works from the premise that “there is no other way of accounting for the phenomenon.”*



Suspicion is good. Necessary. But so is an open mind. Ok, so it was near a telescope. Let's just say it's far more likely the designs were made by something you can't at this time explain, than by drunken students? 

EDIT: Sorry, Harebrain. Of course ... possibility. Human beings are very ingenious -- also prepared to go to seemingly endless lengths to pull off pranks,  just check out the fake videos on You Tube. There are also more sinister applications, computer viruses, etc.


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## mosaix

RJM Corbet said:


> Let's just say it's far more likely the designs were made by something you can't at this time explain, than by drunken students?



No it isn't.


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## Ursa major

Let's just say it's far more likely the designs were made by something you can't at this time explain: drunken students.








​


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## RJM Corbet

ursa major said:


> let's just say it's far more likely the designs were made by something you can't at this time explain: Drunken students.



.....


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## Metryq

> *RJM Corbet wrote:* Let's just say it's far more likely the designs were made by something you can't at this time explain, than by drunken students?



_I_ didn't offer an explanation. I just want to know why some people seem so certain these patterns could not have been created by humans, drunken or otherwise. How do _you_ know these things were created all in one night—or created _at_ night? Because someone called the newspapers and very earnestly said the patterns weren't there when they left work the night before? 

HareBrain made a very plausible suggestion. I've even read about people plotting these patterns with computer software. Look around the Web and you can probably find some. Perhaps you've heard about the gags at MIT? I remember seeing that automobile on the roof from across the river. My first assumption was not that "UFOs did it because humans couldn't possibly have done it overnight." (Because humans did do it overnight. Without a time machine.)

One thing I've noticed about UFO and crop circle stories is the "one-upmanship." If you're telling a UFO story, be sure to mention high-speed right angle maneuvers so that some party-pooper skeptic can't deflate your story as a common airplane. Same thing with details, like windows, lights of any color than red/green/white (commonly used on human aircraft), etc. I've read all about the wild imaginings surrounding the Zond 5 re-entry. 

Note that I am not completely discounting extra-terrestrial spacecraft, but there is no evidence at all to draw that conclusion. That's not narrow-mindedness, it is pragmatism. "Experts" once concluded that there were rain forests on Venus, which was not a first level assumption. To get there, one had to imagine (without any evidence whatsoever) that the clouds of Venus were water, followed by the assumption that there was plant life below. As Nik noted, one of the extrasolar planets around Gliese 581 went from a speck of light at the edge of the "Goldilocks zone" to water-bearing, life-bearing, and even sending us radio signals. I think maybe the speculation on water has been reinforced, but the rest of it? Let's not hatch any of those eggs before they even come out of the chicken; it's painful for the chicken.


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## RJM Corbet

Cool, Metryq. It's open to debate, of course it is.


I think anyone coming into this thread at a later stage could actually watch the videos at the start of the thread before jumping in with a knee-jerk response?


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## mosaix

Let's just weigh up the two arguments:

One the one hand we have humans. They live here, they aren't necessarily drunk, some of them have admitted doing this in the past and even provided demonstrations of how they did it. Some of them have a history of just doing things for fun and because they enjoy playing pranks on other people. None of the designs that have been made are beyond the skill of one, two or more people to do.

On the other hand we have aliens. They have come here from light years away. They have identified the Earth as habitable from a vast distance. Despite being technologically advanced, they have chosen to communicate with us by destroying crops in a pattern-fashion and they have travelled billions of miles to do this.

You judge.


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## RJM Corbet

mosaix said:


> ... On the other hand we have aliens. They have come here from light years away. They have identified the Earth as habitable from a vast distance. Despite being technologically advanced, they have chosen to communicate with us by destroying crops in a pattern-fashion and they have travelled billions of miles to do this.
> 
> You judge.



I don't judge. I say: here is a mystery, not easily explained by a midnight prank by students or graffiti artists, drunk or sober or on mescaline or morning glory.

I also don't assume that any form or extraterrestrial life is going to even be visible to our five natural senses of sight, touch, and so forth -- although they may choose to make themselves visible to us. I don't assume they cross space in metal tin cans just because that's the only way WE can imagine doing it. 

I don't believe they have to be particularly interested in what we think or believe, or how we go about life at all -- or that 'they' would have the same natural senses that we do, or that they would even be limited by the dimension of time/space as we are -- or that they would have any reason for contacting us whatsoever, except perhaps to help us forward out of our ridiculous material beliefs and our own absurd treatment of the planet that supports us ...


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## mosaix

RJM Corbet said:


> I say: here is a mystery, not easily explained by a midnight prank by students or graffiti artists, drunk or sober or on mescaline or morning glory.



That's where we differ, RJM. 

I think it is easily explained, by the very things that you mention.


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## RJM Corbet

mosaix said:


> That's where we differ, RJM.
> 
> I think it is easily explained, by the very things that you mention.



Not 'easily' mosaix -- not in a few hours of darkness ... not those ones ...


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## mosaix

RJM Corbet said:


> Not 'easily' mosaix -- not in a few hours of darkness ...



The thing is RJM, crop circles appear in summer*, when it's light quite early for a few hours before anyone is around. And with a bit of planning, a few people (each taking a small bit) can do a lot of work. Here in Shropshire it's easy to walk around my garden at 3:30am without any difficulty at all.


*Lack of light is probably why we never get snow circles, that and the footprints leading away would all too obvious...


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## RJM Corbet

mosaix said:


> The thing is RJM, crop circles appear in summer*, when it's light quite early for a few hours before anyone is around. And with a bit of planning, a few people (each taking a small bit) can do a lot of work. Here in Shropshire it's easy to walk around my garden at 3:30am without any difficulty at all.
> 
> 
> *Lack of light is probably why we never get snow circles, that and the footprints leading away would all too obvious...



The crops also appear in summer ... 

I don't know about snow circles. Good point, I suppose ...


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## Metryq

RJM Corbet said:


> I think anyone coming into this thread at a later stage could actually watch the videos at the start of the thread before jumping in with a knee-jerk response?



If you're suggesting that I did not watch the video, I can tell you that it convinced me more than ever that humans are making these patterns. I agree with Mosaix's "you judge" posting, which is essentially Occam's razor: "don't multiply entities unnecessarily."

I've read Carl Sagan's detailed explanation of the Arecibo message beamed at M13, and the message itself makes tremendous assumptions, the biggest of which is that aliens would think enough like humans to "recognize" DNA, a radio telescope, and a human silhouette in the very low resolution graphic. A music video titled "Video Computer System" pays homage to the old arcade video games. The brilliance of the piece is that _humans_ can recognize the figures in the animations at all. As for the Arecibo message, I don't "see" how those curves are supposed to look like DNA, a shape more complex than a cube. Yet there is a certain level of understanding "assumed" for a wireframe cube figure:





Also, the Arecibo message was sent out by radio telescope. Why would aliens/time travelers/Atlanteans reply in crushed grass? "But the return message was _near_ a radio telescope and shows silicon based life! That proves it was aliens!" Perhaps it's an inside joke by the pranksters that a _computer_ was used to map out the "reply." For all you know, I'm one of the "insiders," which is why I "know" this was part of the inside joke. ("Computers" are also on several of the planets in our Solar system.)


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## HareBrain

mosaix said:


> That's where we differ, RJM.
> 
> I think it is easily explained, by the very things that you mention.


 
Easily? The ones in that video?

How would you even map them out to start with? Would you use GPS? (What degree of accuracy does GPS have in an open space, btw? Is a few inches possible?)

I'm more than happy to start from the assumption that they're the work of human beings, but I'd like to see some discussion as to how they might be made.


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## RJM Corbet

Metryq said:


> If you're suggesting that I did not watch the video, I can tell you that it convinced me more than ever that humans are making these patterns. I agree with Mosaix's "you judge" posting, which is essentially Occam's razor: "don't multiply entities unnecessarily."



No I'm not suggesting that. Sorry. No, it wasn't implied at all, Metryq ...


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## Metryq

GPS is not accurate to a few inches, although making crop circles does not have to be all that complicated. 

How Stuff Works

How did the Nazca artists create their giant works of art? 

(Although some archaeologists reject the theory as ad hoc, Jim Woodman conducted "experimental archaeology" to determine if the Nazca art was meant to be viewed by balloon. The Nazcas had textiles suitable for balloons, "burn pits" for hot air were found near many of the lines, and the art on Nazca pottery shows what appear to be balloons and kites. The incas, who followed long after the Nazcas, have legends of a boy named Antarqui who flew above the battlefield to report enemy positions.) 

How did the ancient Egyptians plot farm land? How did the ancient Greeks plot and build the Parthenon, a structure requiring massive machines and complex stone cutting equipment for its modern renovation? The ancients were very clever at working out these things when there were no other alternatives, and there are lots of clever people today who enjoy doing complex things in "simple" ways that puzzle other people into wondering, "How did they do that?" That was my point in the exclusion principle above: just because one may not be able to puzzle out an alternative does not mean that alternatives do not exist.

I read about a final exam given at an engineering school. The test was administered in a common "science" classroom with sinks, bunsen burners, and other hardware. A 2.5 meter tall lucite tube was bolted to the floor, and a ping pong ball was dropped into it. The exam was to remove the ball from the tube by the end of the exam period using only items available in the room. Students worked in groups. Many groups did things the "hard way" by tearing up T-shirts into strips and fishing the ball out of the tube with some chewing gum, or similarly Rube Goldbergish designs. Some of the brighter groups simply used beakers to fill the tube with water from the sink. None of the groups resorted to UFOs with anti-gravity tractor beams.

Sometimes one can be hobbled by "knowing too much." 

An experiment similar to that with the ping pong ball was conducted with chimpanzees in a "natural" enclosure featuring bushes, trees, and a small beach. Feed grain was thrown onto the sand. Many of the younger and more stubborn chimps proceeded to pick the grain out of the sand one grain at a time. A grizzled oldster grabbed a handful of beach and threw it into the water, then scooped the floating grains off the surface of the water.

Many solutions are simple, if we allow ourselves to see them.

"Shoot the hostage." —from the movie _Speed_


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## Metryq

Yuki Nagato, Mikuru Asahina, and Itsuki Koizumi all plead "innocent," but Ryoko Asakura is claiming responsibility for all crop circles in Canada.


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## mosaix

HareBrain said:


> Easily? The ones in that video?
> 
> How would you even map them out to start with? Would you use GPS? (What degree of accuracy does GPS have in an open space, btw? Is a few inches possible?)
> 
> I'm more than happy to start from the assumption that they're the work of human beings, but I'd like to see some discussion as to how they might be made.



HareBrane, I'm convinced that if you and half a dozen of your mates with mixed ability skills got together to come up with a method of duplicating what was done in that video, you could probably do it by the week-end. Your execution of it may be a bit rough-around-the-edges at the first attempt but after implementing a few I'm sure you could execute a design or two that would attract the cry of _aliens!_

I've seen your posts over the years, HareBrane. I've read your work in the challenges, I know you're an intelligent person. I'm convinced that trampling out a design in long grass, at night isn't beyond you - given some thought.

_Edit:_ To follow on from Metryq's posts about problem solving. Try this. Most of us believe that our houses are secure. Ever locked yourself out and had to find a way in without a key? I did. I was in the house within 5 minutes without leaving a trace. As Metryq says people work out ways of doing things when there are no alternatives.


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## Starbeast




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## skeptical

About a year ago I saw a documentary on TV by the BBC.  On crop circles.

They had a bunch of university students who confessed to doing them.  They showed their methods.   These guys were computer whizz kids, and they planned it all out on computer well in advance.  Amazing detailed patterns.   Each one of their group knew well in advance exactly what he/she had to do.  Basically it was done with boards and ropes.

There are a number of such groups in the UK, and they are quite competitive with each other.  Each outdoing their rivals in complexity and ingenuity.

If you look at the history of crop circles, you will see a growth in complexity.  Simple ones at first, growing more complex over time.  This is the result of competition between different groups of university students.  Never underestimate the ingenuity of a prankster!

Let me also quote Richard Feynman on the subject of UFO's.

_"It is far more likely that UFOs are the result of the known irrational nature of terrestrial intelligence than the unknown rational nature of extraterrestrial intelligence!"_


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## Boneman

Yeah, I saw a documentary on BBC where a guy claimed he was the son of God, an ancient reincarnated soul, and so on. Didn't make that documentary true, either... Some people will own up to anything just to get on the Television. And the day you start believing in 'its-on-the-television-it-must-therefore-be-true' is the day you start believing in aliens visiting: you can't have it both ways. 

I'd like to see the documentary where the incredibly complex patterns are reproduced iovernight the dark, etc etc, but with a real-time counter running. Documentary makers will do anything to get on the televison - it's how they make a living...


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## Chaoticheart

Starbeast said:


>


















Same guy? And they all just happen to be based upon the alien from the alien autopsy vid. 






And that video was... you guessed it - a fake. The alien in this was in turn based upon an alien race described in Sandgren's _Den okända faran _which could be based upon H G Wells's Selenites and/or one of the alien races in war of the worlds.


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## RJM Corbet

Ok Chaotic, fair point and yes, the 'alien' does look suspiciously pop-art.

The debate really is: how was that done?

It's suggested that -- assuming, say, that _aliens_ were responsible --  they would make sure we earthlings 'got the message' in the most direct and startling way -- and therefore designed it to be effective at a level that would directly and immediately to appeal to human consciousness -- which is precisely the effect it has achieved, even here in this thread. 

The 'CD' is something we all immediately recognize and understand, and were able to decode, for example?

Of course, the aliens may _really_ look like that.


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## Moonbat

The original clip was very intriguing, but I find the notion of Aliens using binary dubious, especially 8 bits to a byte binary, then also that it refers to ASCII and that it translates into English, all a bit odd. Though as RJM says it could be the best way to communicate with us (the best way that is available to them)
There does seem to be an amazing high level of coordination between different 'circles' and a surprisingly cohenrent narrative to the explainations.

I'm not sure that I believe in the students who say yes we did it, if I remember correctly the guys who came out and admitted to the early ones were some old guys, it always seemed a little unlikely that they were fully responsible. Of course it could be that they are in the pay of the government and the 'grays' and have been bribed to admit it was them in an effort to disparage their authenticity.


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## RJM Corbet

Moonbat said:


> The original clip was very intriguing, but I find the notion of Aliens using binary dubious, especially 8 bits to a byte binary, then also that it refers to ASCII and that it translates into English, all a bit odd. Though as RJM says it could be the best way to communicate with us (the best way that is available to them)
> There does seem to be an amazing high level of coordination between different 'circles' and a surprisingly cohenrent narrative to the explainations.
> 
> I'm not sure that I believe in the students who say yes we did it, if I remember correctly the guys who came out and admitted to the early ones were some old guys, it always seemed a little unlikely that they were fully responsible. Of course it could be that they are in the pay of the government and the 'grays' and have been bribed to admit it was them in an effort to disparage their authenticity.



I don't know -- but it would be nice to know 'we're not alone'. I hope it's true, and that's the whole thing: it's easier to make someone believe a lie they want to believe, than a truth that they don't want to believe?

If they're leaving crop circles and stuff it makes you wonder why they don't come on and do something definite and unmistakable: you're not alone, and all your great science is but fluff in the wind to us ...

There's the question of free will, they may perhaps advise and signal, but humans must direct their own destiny?


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## Metryq

> *Moonbat wrote:* Of course it could be that they are in the pay of the government and the 'grays' and have been bribed to admit it was them in an effort to disparage their authenticity.



Planet ten, real soon? What is this, _Buckaroo Banzai_?



> Though as RJM says it could be the best way to communicate with us (the best way that is available to them)



These alleged aliens can receive radio signals, like the Arecibo message, yet you're suggesting that the _best_ way for them to reply is by coming all the way here to stomp grass? You know, there's a deposed Nigerian prince who needs your help.



> *RJM Corbet wrote:* it's easier to make someone believe a lie they want to believe, than a truth that they don't want to believe



Bingo. Because it was really the ETs who helped NASA fake the Moon landings by carrying a radio transmitter there. That way if anyone picked up the telemetry, it would definitely be coming from the Moon. 

Actually, the grass was stomped by *Mega Robot*.


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## RJM Corbet

*Neil Armstrong:*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1vFEwAJZQY&feature=player_detailpage

I am NOT suggesting the moon-landing was false. That's ridiculous, and even if someone's inclined to believe it, how would such a cover-up be concealed when so many people were involved.

But those guys saw something out there they were not at liberty to discuss ...

*Buzz Aldrin:*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlkV1ybBnHI&feature=player_detailpage

*Gordon Cooper:*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvPR8T1o3Dc&feature=player_detailpage

These are astronauts, highly trained observers ...


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## HareBrain

Metryq said:


> Actually, the grass was stomped by *Mega Robot*.


 
No one responded to my earlier robot idea. I can't find many hits on Google relating robots and crop circles either. But wouldn't it actually be fairly easy for some robotics researchers to set off a crawling machine to flatten wheat in a programmed pattern?


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## Boneman

RJM Corbet said:


> I don't know -- but it would be nice to know 'we're not alone'. I hope it's true, and that's the whole thing: it's easier to make someone believe a lie they want to believe, than a truth that they don't want to believe?
> 
> If they're leaving crop circles and stuff it makes you wonder why they don't come on and do something definite and unmistakable: you're not alone, and all your great science is but fluff in the wind to us ...
> 
> There's the question of free will, they may perhaps advise and signal, but humans must direct their own destiny?


 

Let's face it, if they did arrive 'unannounced' every nucler weapon would be thrown at them, and millions would panic and milions would die. Ah, the power of Hollywood and the media, to influence people.... Of course they could just be stopping here for directions...


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## RJM Corbet

This two hour video is dry, no frills, often tedious and the sound quality is pretty bad. Nevertheless, anyone who is seriously prepared to approach the whole subject of 'UFOs' with an open mind might like to bookmark and watch it at their leisure, as nearly 2 million others have already done ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vyVe-6YdUk&feature=player_detailpage


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## Metryq

RJM Corbet said:


> anyone who is seriously prepared to approach the whole subject of 'UFOs' with an open mind



Would you still consider someone "open minded" if they came away from this video unconvinced that we've been visited by ETs? Just curious, as that phrase is a common bit of rhetoric. "You want the best for your family, right?"

Also, endorsements from celebrity or "trained" authority do not prove anything—unidentified sightings are still _unidentified_. Nothing more. Yet it seems to be the default position of those who _want_ to believe in ETs that if a sighting is unidentified, then it _must_ be an alien spacecraft. (Again, the exclusion principle.) 

The first contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization will be a historic event. I have no preconceptions about whether it will save the world or doom it. The actual events may take so long to unfold that the general public will grow bored with the subject. My one bias is that I doubt first contact will be their arrival here, buzzing our moon flights and capital cities, stomping grass and hiding behind bushes, or brazenly stepping out in a D.C. park followed by a giant silver robot.


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## RJM Corbet

Metryq said:


> Would you still consider someone "open minded" if they came away from this video unconvinced that we've been visited by ETs? Just curious, as that phrase is a common bit of rhetoric. "You want the best for your family, right?"
> 
> Also, endorsements from celebrity or "trained" authority do not prove anything—unidentified sightings are still _unidentified_. Nothing more. Yet it seems to be the default position of those who _want_ to believe in ETs that if a sighting is unidentified, then it _must_ be an alien spacecraft. (Again, the exclusion principle.)
> 
> The first contact with an extra-terrestrial civilization will be a historic event. I have no preconceptions about whether it will save the world or doom it. The actual events may take so long to unfold that the general public will grow bored with the subject. My one bias is that I doubt first contact will be their arrival here, buzzing our moon flights and capital cities, stomping grass and hiding behind bushes, or brazenly stepping out in a D.C. park followed by a giant silver robot.



It's your life, mate ...


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## Metryq

RJM Corbet said:


> It's your life, mate ...



Meaning what? That if I don't "believe" in extra-terrestrials on speculative "evidence," I must be a close-minded dullard doomed to a life of boredom? Let me rephrase your earlier question: Would you rather know the truth of a situation, or know nothing but lies so long as they cater to your fantasies?


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## skeptical

The students who confessed on the BBC doco to doing it, then demonstrated how they did it.  OK, there was no clock running.  But they designed a pattern using their computer program, and then rehearsed their actions as a team.  Then they went out after dark, and in less than one night created a very detailed (and rather pretty) pattern.   To do this, they got permission from the farmer, and no doubt, the BBC paid the farmer.

Guys.
There is no need to postulate aliens.   That is just plain irrational.   This is the kind of thing that can easily be done by clever pranksters.  The students who confessed were clearly very clever, and had excellent computer skills for designing patterns, and planning the easiest way to create those patterns.

The confessions on TV have pretty much proven that the crop circles were done by human pranksters.  Any other hypothesis has to be regarded as very, very, very improbable.


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## RJM Corbet

Metryq said:


> Meaning what? That if I don't "believe" in extra-terrestrials on speculative "evidence," I must be a close-minded dullard doomed to a life of boredom? Let me rephrase your earlier question: Would you rather know the truth of a situation, or know nothing but lies so long as they cater to your fantasies?



No, no Metryq -- this is an open discussion. If you keep taking things personally that's up to you, It's not my intention, neither can I prevent it, ok?

Whatever you think is your business, not mine ... kindly allow me the same freedom 

EDIT: skeptical, you're probably right about the crop-circles ...


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## Dave

Can I just point out that there have been a number of huge assumptions made in this thread that need further scrutiny:
All Students are drunken (some might be teetotal.)
Students can get out of bed at sunrise (or even before Noon.)
Students can do real physical work in fields (with or without wooden planks.)

Also could I point out that when I was at University students painted a Zebra Crossing on the M1 and nobody noticed!
(though the M1 was a bit quieter then.)


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## J Riff

Heh, hee good points Dave.
When, exactly, did crop circles begin? Probably back around the time of '1st contact' with aliens who have arrived here, recently.
Recently. These are the ones rumored to make crop circles, if not a gang of sober students (impossible!). 
There are no ancient records of crop circles, not a one. There are hundreds of sightings of the silver saucer, dating back to ancient times.
A decent UFO documentary is 'Out of the Blue.'
It may well be that there has been 1st contact AND second contact, and we now await the influx of many others.
Another weird book you may wish to peruse, is 'The Case for the UFO' - M. Jessup. It has handwritten annotations, supposedly from two disparate individuals, who seem to know everything about huge ancient UFO wars etc. etc.
Extreme, but a good read because the author asks all the right questions, and compiles a lot of unusual events which may not even have been traditionally connected to UFOs.
Of course, one can never lose sight of the fact that human beings started trying to build flying saucers quite some time ago. But if we are to believe ancient historical records, there's always been something else up there.


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## JunkMonkey

I would be much more impressed by crop circles if they didn't have at least one set of easy access tractor tracks running through them.


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## J Riff

Do they? I've never really studied any crop circles, but some are mighty impressive. Still, if humans can't catch inebriated students illegally defacing private property, what chance have they at will-o-th-wisp UFOs?


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## skeptical

I think you would find that the students making crop circles are stone cold sober throughout the action.

At the end of the post-crop circle party - that is another matter!


----------



## RJM Corbet

skeptical said:


> I think you would find that the students making crop circles are stone cold sober throughout the action.
> 
> At the end of the post-crop circle party - that is another matter!



Yes, it's true that 

1) Crop-circles have become more and more complex over the years
2) They almost all occur in England
3) There are always tractor tracks
4) The few 'snow-circles' on _You Tube_ are very crude
5) Graffiti artists, for instance, also come up with amazingly complicated, well planned and impressively large creations overnight and no-one suggests extra-terrestrial technology
6) There are obviously some very clever and creative people out there


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## J Riff

Too clever, too creative, too much time on their hands.
Why do this? Are only English students doing this?
Where would students get a tractor? Why not a car?
Why not look at satellite imaging to catch the guilty transgressors?
They are moving a tractor around the country or renting a different one each time?
So many questions.


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## JunkMonkey

What tractor? Why do they need a tractor?


----------



## RJM Corbet

JunkMonkey said:


> What tractor? Why do they need a tractor?



No, it's just the access the area without leaving tracks in the barley, or whatever -- that's the problem with making snow-circles you see? Read mosaix' and harebrain's earlier posts ...


----------



## Metryq

J Riff said:


> Why not look at satellite imaging to catch the guilty transgressors?



Someone has been watching _Enemy of the State_, I see. Although data storage and analysis is becoming easier as computers become more sophisticated, I seriously doubt that high resolution scans of _everything_ are made 24/7. Assuming such continuous scans are made, maybe we could also catch _every single person_ who was speeding or running a stop sign. </sarc>

I'm surprised no one has blamed crop circles on global warming. It's the root cause for everything else.


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## HareBrain

Metryq said:


> I'm surprised no one has blamed crop circles on global warming.


 
I blame crop circles _for_ global warming.


----------



## JunkMonkey

RJM Corbet said:


> No, it's just the access the area without leaving tracks in the barley, or whatever -- that's the problem with making snow-circles you see? Read mosaix' and harebrain's earlier posts ...



Yeah - I had got it. I was questioning why J Riff had the idea that crop circle makers went around in tractors. (Or rented them.)


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## RJM Corbet

Off topic: the channels on Mars:

1)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_T6__JDeyw&feature=player_detailpage

2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-qrnsh83f4&feature=player_detailpage


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## mosaix

RJM Corbet said:


> but it would be nice to know 'we're not alone'.



Now there we can agree, RJM. 



HareBrain said:


> No one responded to my earlier robot idea. I can't find many hits on Google relating robots and crop circles either. But wouldn't it actually be fairly easy for some robotics researchers to set off a crawling machine to flatten wheat in a programmed pattern?



Great idea. I know that there are programmable vacuum cleaners and I believe that there are programmable lawn mowers. Not beyond the wit of man to adapt such devices with a roller...


----------



## mosaix

RJM Corbet said:


> Off topic: the channels on Mars:
> 
> 1)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_T6__JDeyw&feature=player_detailpage
> 
> 2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-qrnsh83f4&feature=player_detailpage



Not sure what they are implying there, RJM. So something quite small looks a little like something very large. That doesn't mean they were created by the same processes.

When NASA publish similar photos of, say, liquid flows on Titan and Earth, they are of the same scale and so we can make assumptions about similar process being involved.


----------



## HareBrain

mosaix said:


> Great idea. I know that there are programmable vacuum cleaners and I believe that there are programmable lawn mowers. Not beyond the wit of man to adapt such devices with a roller...


 
I seriously wonder if they haven't already done it. The increasing complexity of crop patterns might be down to competition between groups of students, but it does also coincide with this kind of technology. Older crop-patterns were mostly based on circles, which can done with pegs, ropes and planks. I hypothesise (though am too lazy to survey the evidence) that the more complex non-circle patterns have only arisen since these kind of robots became feasible.

One of the reasons I asked about GPS earlier is that if a lawnmower-type robot were programmed to go, say, eighteen inches forward and then turn left, its driving wheels/tracks might slip on the crop, and the distance would not be read accurately enough for such complex patterns. GPS would solve this if it could provide fine enough detail.

The other reason I suspected GPS was that in some example I've seen, the crop circles have been on sloping ground, and have actually been elliptical, only appearing circular from directly above.


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## mosaix

The other thing about a programmable GPS device, HareBrane is that it would allow them to 'trial' the programmed design first. Say on a remote beach where the evidence could easily be destroyed. The GPS co-ordinates could easily be modified / transferred from one location to another.


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## Dave

Let's start planning then, its almost Summer already!


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## mosaix

Dave said:


> Let's start planning then, its almost Summer already!



I suppose we could meet in a pub near the beach. That would get the planning off to a good start...


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## HareBrain

mosaix said:


> I suppose we could meet in a pub near the beach. That would get the planning off to a good start...


 
At the very least we could disprove the "drunken student" assumption. Might look like something from an early episode of "Last of the Summer Wine", though.

How fast could such a robot move, any idea? I can only think of bomb-disposal robots that move about 0.0002 m/s.

Also, we must make sure no corncrake nests are harmed.


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## Starbeast

Soil studies at 2:21

(also see post #29 in this thread)​


----------



## skeptical

Starbeast.

When you look at something weird like UFO claims, you should start with the assumption that there are hordes of hoaxers out there.

Recently I was in a forum discussion on Bigfoot.   The pro-Bigfoot people put up evidence coming from indistinct video and photos of something ape-like, plus photos of Bigfoot footprints.   When I did my background literature research, I discovered a number of cases where such evidence was presented, and later on, a confession by a hoaxer was made.   People made up strap on Bigfoot footprint makers, or walked in the forest in gorilla suits to be photographed.   The real evidence that would be genuinely scientifically convincing involves novel DNA.   This can be gained from hair samples, Bigfoot droppings, or a corpse.   Not at all difficult if such a beast were out  there.  Yet, nothing.

In the same way, look for hoaxers in the UFO story.   Your youtube showed nothing that could not have been produced by hoaxers.   Your 'researcher' seemed to be operating alone.   If UFO landing sites are so impressive, why was there not a team of reputable scientists working alongside this guy and publishing results in reputable, peer reviewed scientific journals?    This did not happen, which makes me believe the 'researcher' is a fraud.  After all, real scientists are frequently open to doing this kind of work.

If extraterrestrial spaceships are landing as often as your fraudulent 'researcher' claims, then why has there never been one filmed in detail by a professional videographer, with the equipment needed?  After all, such professionals are bloody near everywhere these days.

Why has no-one ever discovered a genuine alien artifact? 

If our hypothetical aliens were trying to be sneaky, why the hell are they zapping around in large, visible craft at all?  Humans are already making robots the size of insects.   A species capable of flying between the stars would have no problem making spy robots that look like insects, or something else innocuous, that we could not detect.

Sorry, but the obvious rational explanation for the stuff in your youtube is a bunch of hoaxers, and a UFO 'researcher' who is 100% fraud.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Maybe so, but why are people so quick to dismiss Buzz Aldrin, or the many VERY credible witnesses in post *40*? (on this thread). You can knock 99.99% out of court, if you can, but there are too many. And I don't think SB said anything about bigfoot? 

EDIT: Sorry the channels on Mars videos below seem to show quite convincingly that the 'canals' were formed not by water, but by electricity. That knocks a lot of Mars theories right off the table -- both 'model' and 'alternative' -- one must remain open-minded to evidence, and the internet cooks, although much is fakery. That is indeed the whole issue with the internet: not one word is necessarily true. 

In the course of this thread, because of the 'evidence' posted, I've become fairly convinced that the crop-circles are probably a (very clever) human creation. That doesn't knock the whole extraterrestrial-visitors debate out of court just yet though ...


----------



## J Riff

Are there hordes of hoaxers out there? Really?
Who finances these pro nutbags? What is their mission... to convince people of UFOs even though they don't exist? Huh?
Thousands of UFO sightings, a few hoaxers exposed, don't see how it relates.
I don't think there's many amateur hoaxers out there.... unless it's a gang of rich bored people with a really, really weird agenda.
I've never known a hoaxer - as opposed to the people who run around writing and rewriting history as if it's a job. They _do_ exist, but I think the word 'criminals' fits as well as hoaxers, which makes it sound like fun. 
'Hoaxers' sounds like rich bored kids, maybe someone has a clue what they are trying to achieve?


----------



## skeptical

RJM

No wanting to upset your belief system, but there are no canals on Mars.   There are some features that look exactly like they were created by flowing water, and it seems clear from the minerals analysed by the Mars rovers that, at one time, there was indeed surface water on Mars.   The electric hypothesis is totally unnecessary.

The only reason anyone ever talked of canals on Mars is a single reference, in the early days of large telescopes, of 'canali'.   This is an Italian word that means channels - not canals.  In fact, the channels described were illusions - artifacts of poor optics in early primitive telescopes.  The water courses we now know of are too small to be visible from Earth.

Dismissing Buzz Aldrin?
Yes, I do.   Because he is merely human, and humans make loads of mistakes.   You only need to look at the number of "murderers" sent to prison for life on the testimony of credible eye witnesses, who have since been discovered through DNA evidence, to be innocent.  * Everyone* makes mistakes.

To accept UFOs as extraterrestrial craft, we need stronger evidence.  We cannot rely on defective human perception and memory, and we cannot rely on solitary crackpots, and we cannot rely on any evidence that might be produced by hoaxers.  That still leaves room for lots of kinds of evidence that would be convincing.   So far, we have not seen it.


----------



## RJM Corbet

J Riff said:


> Are there hordes of hoaxers out there? Really?
> Who finances these pro nutbags? What is their mission... to convince people of UFOs even though they don't exist? Huh?
> Thousands of UFO sightings, a few hoaxers exposed, don't see how it relates.
> I don't think there's many amateur hoaxers out there.... unless it's a gang of rich bored people with a really, really weird agenda.
> I've never known a hoaxer - as opposed to the people who run around writing and rewriting history as if it's a job. They _do_ exist, but I think the word 'criminals' fits as well as hoaxers, which makes it sound like fun.
> 'Hoaxers' sounds like rich bored kids, maybe someone has a clue what they are trying to achieve?



Yeah, but Riff that's why a lot of stuff DOESN'T get reported in newspapers, etc. A newspaper or TV network can be sued for serious libel. Really big money. So they have to check it out pretty good before publication. 

But a video on You Tube under a username can be anything. And there seem to be A LOT of people out there who really enjoy hoaxing -- it's like computer viruses, they compete with each other...

EDIT: sorry skeptical, your post landed while I was typing. Haven't read it yet ...


----------



## skeptical

J Riff said:


> Are there hordes of hoaxers out there? Really?
> Who finances these pro nutbags? What is their mission... to convince people of UFOs even though they don't exist? Huh?
> Thousands of UFO sightings, a few hoaxers exposed, don't see how it relates.
> I don't think there's many amateur hoaxers out there.... unless it's a gang of rich bored people with a really, really weird agenda.
> I've never known a hoaxer - as opposed to the people who run around writing and rewriting history as if it's a job. They _do_ exist, but I think the word 'criminals' fits as well as hoaxers, which makes it sound like fun.
> 'Hoaxers' sounds like rich bored kids, maybe someone has a clue what they are trying to achieve?


 
Yep.
Loads of hoaxers.   Take George Adamski for example, who in the 1950's made a lot of money writing books about extraterrestrials visiting Earth.   He put photos in his books of flying saucers.   They were all replicated by one of his critics who threw things like hub caps into the air, spinning, and got photographed against the sky and distant mountains.

I have since seen a very large number of photos from a wide range of people, of purported UFOs.  All those photos could be made by the same technique.  You will see a few in Starbeast's referenced youtube video.  

These days, you do not even have to do that.   Photoshop will make excellent fakes!  I have seen photos of UFOs in which I have recognised the spacecraft as coming from a TV show or movie.   The value of being keen on scifi.

It is really easy to set up a UFO hoax.   All that is needed is one or a few people who want a bit of nefarious entertainment.


----------



## RJM Corbet

skeptical said:


> RJM
> 
> No wanting to upset your belief system, but there are no canals on Mars.   There are some features that look exactly like they were created by flowing water, and it seems clear from the minerals analysed by the Mars rovers that, at one time, there was indeed surface water on Mars.   The electric hypothesis is totally unnecessary.
> 
> The only reason anyone ever talked of canals on Mars is a single reference, in the early days of large telescopes, of 'canali'.   This is an Italian word that means channels - not canals.  In fact, the channels described were illusions - artifacts of poor optics in early primitive telescopes.  The water courses we now know of are too small to be visible from Earth.
> 
> Dismissing Buzz Aldrin?
> Yes, I do.   Because he is merely human, and humans make loads of mistakes.   You only need to look at the number of "murderers" sent to prison for life on the testimony of credible eye witnesses, who have since been discovered through DNA evidence, to be innocent.  * Everyone* makes mistakes.
> 
> To accept UFOs as extraterrestrial craft, we need stronger evidence.  We cannot rely on defective human perception and memory, and we cannot rely on solitary crackpots, and we cannot rely on any evidence that might be produced by hoaxers.  That still leaves room for lots of kinds of evidence that would be convincing.   So far, we have not seen it.



Yes, but there you go, you see? You say: my belief system. 

You *assume* Aldrin is talking sunshine, and I *assume* an astronaut knows what he's talking about when it comes to his own area of particular expertise, which is to travel to the moon, walk on it, look around, and then come back and tell people what he saw?

That may not reinforce _your_ belief system, but it doesn't change the event.

Re: Mars: unnecessary to whom? I don't know why you're talking about telescopes when the various Mars missions have photographed every inch of Mars in glorious high resolution. I don't know what you're getting at? Do you mean you're not interested in the evidence for electrical patterns because it's 'unnecessary'? The electrical research is both recent, scientific and very convincing. It would explain all those features on Mars, that water cannot -- all of them. It's nothing to do with ufo's, by the way. 

It's lightening, but lightening like you wouldn't believe. Huge lightening bolts.

I'm prepared to bet it will become the model. Science doesn't have to come from billion dollar labs ...


----------



## mosaix

skeptical said:


> RJM
> Dismissing Buzz Aldrin?
> Yes, I do.   Because he is merely human, and humans make loads of mistakes.   You only need to look at the number of "murderers" sent to prison for life on the testimony of credible eye witnesses, who have since been discovered through DNA evidence, to be innocent.  * Everyone* makes mistakes.



I'd just like to back up what what skeptical is saying with two experiences of my own.

1) I was witness to a shoplifting offence. I was about six feet from the guy. After he had gone I reported it to the shop assistant, the police were called and they caught the guy in the street a short distance away. I was called to the magistrates court about two months later to give evidence. I didn't recognise the man in the dock as the same person I remembered in the shop and would have had to say so if called. Fortunately he pleaded guilty.

2) I was on the third floor of an office block one evening and witnessed a guy with an iron bar breaking shop windows across the street. I phoned  the police and watched two policemen arrive in a car. One of them wrestled the guy to the ground and hand-cuff him and they both got him into the car and drove off. The police rang me back and asked me to go to the police station to make a statement. I was taken into an interview room and the conversation went along the lines of:

Policeman: Did you see a policeman arrest the offender?

Me: Yes.

Policeman: Would you recognise the policeman again?

Me: Yes.

Policeman: Have you seen this policeman since you've arrived at the station?

Me: No.

Policeman: It was me.


----------



## J Riff

You miss the point. These people have an organized agenda_,_ and spend money on it steadily, for years. Why?
There are thousands of reports of UFOs, thousands more than there are crop circles. 
Hard to imagine there are still people who argue as if they know something... about something witnessed and documented far more times than needed to prove it's existence.
Major league conditioning of human beings is one obvious answer to why the uninformed scoffing continues. 
The motive_ has_ to be profit for one human gang or another, and I can't see that with crop circles.
 Again - are there really gangs of rich, spoiled, English.... kids... doing this weird, weird act? For who, and why?
Another thing - what does a tractor have to do with it? Are they supposedly using a tractor to pull planks around, flattening the area with them, to a prearranged pattern? Seems fairly complicated. So, rich, bored and smart... kids... are... no, aliens makes more sense.


----------



## Metryq

skeptical said:


> I have seen photos of UFOs in which I have recognised the spacecraft as coming from a TV show or movie.



*Or cutting edge fighter planes being tested by the US Navy?* I can understand someone getting away with this _before_ a movie is released if they happen to acquire some preview images. A friend got this e-mail about a year ago—_and he had seen the movie_, but did not remember the design of the fighter. He forwarded the e-mail to me, and when I reminded him of the movie _Stealth_, he did very convincing Homer: "D'oh!"


----------



## RJM Corbet

mosaix said:


> I'd just like to back up what what skeptical is saying with two experiences of my own.
> 
> 1) I was witness to a shoplifting offence. I was about six feet from the guy. After he had gone I reported it to the shop assistant, the police were called and they caught the guy in street a short distance away. I was called to the magistrates court about two months later to give evidence. I didn't recognise the man in the dock as the same person I remembered in the shop and would have had to say so if called. Fortunately he pleaded guilty.
> 
> 2) I was on the third floor of an office block one evening and witnessed a guy with an iron bar breaking shop windows across the street. I phoned  the police and watched two policemen arrive in a car. One of them wrestled the guy to the ground and hand-cuff him and they both got him into the car and drove off. The police rang me back and asked me to go to the police station to make a statement. I was taken into an interview room and the conversation went along the lines of:
> 
> Policeman: Did you see a policeman arrest the offender?
> 
> Me: Yes.
> 
> Policeman: Would you recognise the policeman again?
> 
> Me: Yes.
> 
> Policeman: Have you seen this policeman since you've arrived at the station?
> 
> Me: No.
> 
> Policeman: It was me.



Ha ha. Don't become a cop then 
Seriously, cops are trained to make that sort of observation though, aren't they? It's an essential job skill?


----------



## RJM Corbet

J Riff said:


> ... Again - are there really gangs of rich, spoiled, English.... kids... doing this weird, weird act? For who, and why?



There probably are. And they would do it just to prove they can -- like graffiti or computer viruses.




> Another thing - what does a tractor have to do with it? Are they supposedly using a tractor to pull planks around, flattening the area with them, to a prearranged pattern? Seems fairly complicated. So, rich, bored and smart... kids... are... no, aliens makes more sense.



No, the tractor road through the field would enable them to access and leave the site without leaving tracks in the barley -- if it's kids ...


----------



## mosaix

RJM Corbet said:


> Ha ha. Don't become a cop then
> Seriously, cops are trained to make that sort of observation though, aren't they? It's an essential job skill?



I know what you are saying, RJM but on both occasions what I witnessed weren't fleeting events that happened in a second or two. I was aware that what was happening, on each occasion, was a crime and that in all likelihood I would be called to give evidence. With this in mind I was trying to remember what I was seeing as accurately as possible.


----------



## skeptical

On human error.

There is a woman at Auckland University, who is a psychology professor.   She works with teams of Ph. D. students doing research on human behaviour, and I have attended two of her lectures on the subject of the imperfection of human perception.

I don't know how many of you have heard about the moving door experiment?  You send someone to talk to a person in the street, to ask directions.   As they are engaged in discussion, your stooges walk towards them carrying a door.   They rudely walk right between the two people in discussion.   

As the door blocks off the view of the man in the street from the person asking directions, that person is switched with another person who has hid by walking behind the door.  The man in the street is then left facing a totally different person when the door goes past. 

Believe it or not, most of the time this experiment is done, the victim fails to realise that a switch has been made, and will continue giving directions to the person who has switched.

This is an extreme example of human perception error, but as mosaix points out, major errors are normal.  

Memory is also variable.  I like to reference the 'growing trout' phenomenon.   A man catches a 30 cm trout.   When he tells his buddies in the pub about it, the trout is 35 cm.   A year later, the story is a 40 cm trout, and five years later, it is 50.   This is not due to dishonesty.  The teller of fishy tales genuinely believes that was how big the fish was.   Human nature at work, and imperfect memory.

There has been heaps of research done on imperfect perception and malleable memory.   This applies to everyone, *including* Buzz Aldrin.

In this, I am not wilfully insulting Aldrin.   This process screws up everyone, and probably me also.


----------



## J Riff

Fwiw, the word went around, and family people started manufacturing UFO photos, very deliberately, in the fifties.
However, you can find, in the mix, a shot or two of the saucer which was built around that time, and you can find shots of the actual mysterious silver saucer that is not fake at all, merely unexplained.
Thinking 'hoaxers' are goofing around is perhaps a bit trite. This is an organized mob of people at work, covering various huge crimes, causing suicides and other fun stuff, and rolling merrily along in the guise of civilized society.
The most corrupt, s'far as I can see, are the ones in the prime positions. Cops, lawyers, judges, connected rich family types. So far, no alien, real or imaginary, has such questionable morales and tactics.
If you haven't worked for the army, navy, air force. in any of these 'special' areas, well, don't. They are quite literally a piece of **** who use and discard human 'material' so that invisible monkeys at the top can have their fun and keep all the good stuff for their gang. Criminal gang, Govt gang - a matter of degree.
 In other words... IF you were involved in an 'alien' event... and made it through it somehow... they will grab the glory and profit and bury you, using, you-guessed it -armed 'trained' monkeys, sorry, thugs, no I meant police. They do this to their own people.
 Pretty sure that, if aliens ever legitametely arrive, this sort of organization will become extinct pronto. The real problem is, on a personal level, if you have anything whatsoever of value, you are working for one human gang or another, like it or not.
 Not to rant on here, but this issue is no joke. Someone said that discovering the truth about UFOs is close to being the meaning of life. Yet, human beings will monkey around with it as if their little gang of leechers overrides the whole subject.
  Maybe the aliens aren't so much superior, as humans are inferior. From my vantage point, it's so bad that _only_ having aliens arrive and light up the sky for all to see, has the slightest chance of causing any real change.


----------



## Starbeast

skeptical said:


> Starbeast.
> 
> When you look at something weird like UFO claims, you should start with the assumption that there are hordes of hoaxers out there.


 
What else is new?

It's not easy to find people who'll talk openly about real alien related stuff, most are afraid too, some just can't grasp the idea even if they saw something on a clear day. Also there are others who have bad memories who can't even remember what they ate for breakfast a week ago, much less describe something from an hour ago.

I only post items that I find and leave it up to people to think about a subject or decide for themselves if they should do their own investigating or just forget the whole thing. If I was the only one explaining facts or speaking about strange craft in the sky seen on a clear day.....who would believe it? I could descibe in detail about the grand slam homerun I made in high school that helped my baseball team win, and people would say: "Wow, that's great! That must have been an exciting day in your life." But if I said: "The craft floated above the tree tops on a clear day, it stopped in the air, folded it's wings, flashed a blinking light at me, then it moved forward, changed color from black to red to white then back to black and was seen also by a personal jet that flew passed it." People would think I'd lost my mind.

Anyway, crop circles are in the same catagory as Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster and aliens from other dimensions, they are just fictional interests.


----------



## RJM Corbet

skeptical said:


> On human error ... In this, I am not wilfully insulting Aldrin. This process screws up everyone, and probably me also.



No it's not insulting, it's only right to question such things.

If an astronaut tells me there's wood-beetle in my roof, I may think: what does he know? But if a roofing specialist tells me the same thing?


----------



## skeptical

I remember a similar discussion, with the claim being made that aircraft pilots were especially astute and their UFO claims should be taken seriously.  I was not winning the argument, but then a real pilot spoke up and told us all that pilots are just as liable to error as other ordinary humans.

It really does not matter if a claim is made by Buzz Aldrin, President Obama, or Nelson Mandela.   They are all, like you and I, merely human and fallible.  Their claims require strong and credible supporting evidence, or else they should not be taken seriously.


----------



## Starbeast

skeptical said:


> I remember a similar discussion, with the claim being made that aircraft pilots were especially astute and their UFO claims should be taken seriously. I was not winning the argument, but then a real pilot spoke up and told us all that pilots are just as liable to error as other ordinary humans.


 
So you're going to believe ONE man, instead of many pilots and astronauts?


----------



## RJM Corbet

Yes, if a pilot doesn't have a pretty good idea about what else is up around there with him, he's probably in the wrong career? If he wants to live? I mean test pilots, high altitude pilots, navy pilots, airline pilots (at least the ones flying my plane, I hope) -- not some hungover hack pilot doing low level coast patrol in a Cessna.

Then there are the air-traffic controllers, and I'm not exaggerating at all when I say that air-traffic controllers are very highly trained observers of the skies -- any mistakes they make can cost thousands of lives

It's quite a long list of very credible sightings by people trained to know exactly what's in the sky.

Never mind Obama and Mandela ...


----------



## skeptical

Starbeast said:


> So you're going to believe ONE man, instead of many pilots and astronauts?


 
Or do I believe the dozens of people who claim to have seen the Loch Ness Monster, or the dozens who claim to have seen Bigfoot, or the hundreds who claim to have seen sea serpents, or the thousands who claim to be able to read minds.

Short answer : I do not believe any of them.   Claims are very suspect.    I look for real evidence.


----------



## Starbeast

skeptical said:


> I do not believe any of them. Claims are very suspect. I look for real evidence.


 
I know.

My ufology studies are just about finished, after decades of work, I'm nearly satisfied. I just need a bit more, but I'm not sure how long that will take.


----------



## J Riff

Maddening.
Anyway, what was that circular...thing, they had in the silo for two years? It was alive, no two ways, and it stayed alive for two years. It fell from the sky, as did others of it's kind, and there was talk at the time of magnetic ley lines or some such, screwing up the landing approach of these things.
We all saw it, touched it, lots of people saw it. What was it?
This is a minor, insignifigant event in the scheme of things, but an undeniable one.
That one event would be enough to convince me. You can read about it, but since it was whisked away and hidden, no official 'credible' people were allowed to 'interfere.' Of course it gets studied and any knowledge is absorbed by whoever has their hands on it. 'Credible' people.
The more 'credible' someone is, the further into the system they are, and the system can lie about anything and make it stick, and will.
 'Coop' didn't like having to lie to the public. This was back when they still hired real, honest people, who would have trouble lying even when the Govt. told them to. 
After his famous orbit he walks on stage and makes a remark to the effect that 'I always tell it like I see it, and today I can(t) do that. So he wasn't even in that ship when it orbited. Take it from there and tell me what you think was actually going on.


----------



## JunkMonkey

J Riff said:


> Another thing - what does a tractor have to do with it? Are they supposedly using a tractor to pull planks around, flattening the area with them, to a prearranged pattern? Seems fairly complicated. So, rich, bored and smart... kids... are... no, aliens makes more sense.



I think it was me who originally mentioned the tractor.  I said I would be more convinced of the spooky origins of crop circles if there wasn't, in every photo of a crop circle I have seen, tractor tracks that cross the circle at some point.  It might have been my bad phrasing but what I meant to convey was the fact that these tractor tracks were there before the crop circle 'mysteriously' appeared.  The tractors aren't driven by the crop circle's creators, they are there as part of the normal, day to day farming operation.  They also happen to provide an easy access to the centre of the field for anyone on foot without leaving obvious traces.  (A point another posted picked up and linked to the scarcity of snow circles where the tracks of the artists approaching their 'canvas' would be much more obvious - there's a point; let's stop calling them 'hoaxers', they're artists.  If Banksy can be an artist, so can these guys.)


----------



## JunkMonkey

J Riff said:


> Maddening.
> Anyway, what was that circular...thing, they had in the silo for two years? It was alive, no two ways, and it stayed alive for two years. It fell from the sky, as did others of it's kind, and there was talk at the time of magnetic ley lines or some such, screwing up the landing approach of these things.



What_ are_ you talking about?


----------



## RJM Corbet

JunkMonkey said:


> ... let's stop calling them 'hoaxers', they're artists.  If Banksy can be an artist, so can these guys.)



Absolutely!


----------



## Starbeast

skeptical said:


> I do not believe the dozens of people who claim to have seen Bigfoot.


 
I watched a new show on Animal Planet called "Finding Bigfoot", and that is probably one of the funniest things I have ever seen. People claiming encounters, others showing lame evidence and groups of people wondering around at night in the woods saying stuff like: 

"Did you hear something?" 
"I thought I saw something."
"That sounds like a bigfoot."

I was laughing my potatoes off. I found this show funnier than all those new sitcoms combined (they're garbage anyways). The show "Finding Bigfoot" reminded me of those outrageous claims that people were making in the 1950's about alien enounters, great stuff.


----------



## JunkMonkey

Starbeasty said:
			
		

> "Did you hear something?"
> "I thought I saw something."
> "That sounds like a bigfoot."



LOL.  Reminded me of that line from_ Ghostbusters_ "Listen! - can you smell something?"
 and this from a 1956 Goon Show.  The characters are trying to blowopen a safe quietly using 'Silent TNT':


> Ned: Bluebottle, how do I know when the silent TNT has exploded?
> 
> Bluebottle: Oh, I never thought of that. I suppose that, when you hear nothing, that's it.


----------



## Starbeast

JunkMonkey said:


> LOL. Reminded me of that line from_ Ghostbusters_ "Listen! - can you smell something?"
> and this from a 1956 Goon Show. The characters are trying to blowopen a safe quietly using 'Silent TNT':


 
Check your local tv listings or a website for "Finding Bigfoot", it's worth it just to watch even one episode of it.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Starbeast said:


> Check your local tv listings or a website for "Finding Bigfoot", it's worth it just to watch even one episode of it.



Here they are. Remember everybody, these are being posted here as a *joke*... 

1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfKjzhIiOdI&feature=player_detailpage

2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz3EdZWWNo8&feature=player_detailpage

3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTd6qyvFdGk&feature=player_detailpage

4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWG9uAGGg_g&feature=player_detailpage


----------



## Starbeast

*Big Feets*



RJM Corbet said:


> Here they are. Remember everybody, these are being posted here as a *joke*...


 
Excellent, you found that comedy show I like.


----------



## JunkMonkey

I managed to hold on till someone said "This is a very squatchy area...." and I lost it.  Thanks, this is so funny.


----------



## RJM Corbet

*Re: Big Feets*



Starbeast said:


> Excellent, you found that comedy show I like.



Hmmm ... have just finished watching the intrepid sasquatch hunters. I'm glad nothing happened to the rabbit! But they seemed to encounter _something_?
No proof what it was, of course, but there seemed to be _something_ out there (part four)?

You know, on the subject of hairy apes -- when I lived near Cape Point, in Cape Town, I used to get baboons in my house, often -- everybody did. If you leave a door open one of them will walk right past you, if you're lying on the bed with your back turned, and you'll look up and he's in the kitchen. They are _so_ silent. They never attack or hurt anyone, though.

And they never come out at night because their greatest predator is the leopard, so they still retain that instinct, although there aren't too many leopards around Cape Point anymore these days.

When you live there, you have to keep all your food locked up, because that's all they're interested in. They never hurt anyone, but if you tried to take your food back from one, he would fight you, and they're very strong -- that's the rule there: don't try and take it back from him. The most effective way to shoo them off is with water from a garden hose.

But people are very fond of them, it's like this ongoing battle of wits with the baboons. I have lots of baboon stories.

They open doors and cupboards. They go through the kitchen and help themselves to bread, rice, lentils -- and then just walk out the door. You have to keep the door locked, windows open just a crack, food locked away out of sight etc. 

The last one that tried me walked off disgustedly with some teabags and raw onions, and dropped them in the garden before climbing the wall and loping off into the bush. After a while, if you do that, they leave you alone and try somebody new.

But the real point of this is that once I had bacon cooked in a pan (cold) and the baboon wasn't much interested, though it took the bread ...


----------



## J Riff

Not artists, not real artists, No artist would not claim such work.
No. If human, they are: Rich. Bored. Have a friend who is some kind of genius at design. Are extremely sneaky and organized. 
Or, the aliens are mute. They try, but people are too conditioned, or dim, to bother figuring it out. What...? ... they should develop speech and learn a new language - just to communicate with idiots who can't read the simplest markings on the ground?


----------



## Starbeast

RJM Corbet said:


> Hmmm ... have just finished watching the intrepid sasquatch hunters. I'm glad nothing happened to the rabbit! But they seemed to encounter _something_?
> No proof what it was, of course, but there seemed to be _something_ out there (part four)?
> 
> You know, on the subject of hairy apes -- when I lived near Cape Point, in Cape Town, I used to get baboons in my house, often -- everybody did. If you leave a door open one of them will walk right past you, if you're lying on the bed with your back turned, and you'll look up and he's in the kitchen. They are _so_ silent. They never attack or hurt anyone, though.
> 
> And they never come out at night because their greatest predator is the leopard, so they still retain that instinct, although there aren't too many leopards around Cape Point anymore these days.


 
I wouldn't like those baboons sneaking around, I'd post pictures of jaguars in the windows and use recorded jaguar roars to keep them away. Maybe a life-size dummy jaguar near the sliding doors too.

Thanks for the episode of "Finding Bigfoot", I haven't seen that one. Sorry to go off the subject of crop circles.



J Riff said:


> Not artists, not real artists, No artist would not claim such work.
> No. If human, they are: Rich. Bored. Have a friend who is some kind of genius at design. Are extremely sneaky and organized.
> Or, the aliens are mute. They try, but people are too conditioned, or dim, to bother figuring it out. What...? ... they should develop speech and learn a new language - just to communicate with idiots who can't read the simplest markings on the ground?


 
I believe that in rare cases crop messages, that aliens have tried to let us know they are usually around. The authentic crop circles always show signs of great heat affecting the plants and extremely dry soil from something that generated intense heat. I remember as a kid when I would go to a certain park and there was a large circle on the ground and that nothing would grow there no matter how much grass seed and water the groundskeeper would put there. I didn't think anything about it then, but today, I would have taken soil samples. Unfortunately that park has been developed and buildings now stand there.

Since there have been so many hoaxers creating highly detailed (sorry to use the term J Riff) "crop art", I believe the aliens (whoever they are) are using other means to make us aware that they are around.

Perhaps all of those ancient people who spoke of beings from elsewhere returning here some day were serious. We know they weren't igorant because they knew about astronomy, building structures, art etc. But they looked upon these strange travelers from the sky as magical beings who used incredible flying things to get here.


----------



## skeptical

Starbeast said:


> Since there have been so many hoaxers creating highly detailed (sorry to use the term J Riff) "crop art", I believe the aliens (whoever they are) are using other means to make us aware that they are around.


 
How about knocking on the door and saying : "Take me to your leader."

Sorry, Starbeast, but that is a very naive interpretation.   We are talking of potentially star travelling extraterrestrials with massively advanced civilisations, and all they can think of to communicate is a few mashed wheat plants?

If your belief was correct, and our hypothetical aliens had been observing humanity for decades, if not eons, then they would have translated our languages, and determined our radio frequencies.   Communication would be the least of their problems.


----------



## Starbeast

skeptical said:


> How about knocking on the door and saying : "Take me to your leader." If your belief was correct, and our hypothetical aliens had been observing humanity for decades, if not eons, then they would have translated our languages, and determined our radio frequencies. Communication would be the least of their problems.


 
I don't think most humans are ready for a direct approach, they'd freak out. Wouldn't you be alarmed if you spotted (let's say) a grey alien staring quietly at you from a darkened room at your home?


----------



## skeptical

Personally, if I met a friendly alien, especially one that could speak English, I would be over the moon with delight. 

Sadly, I have not done so, or seen credible evidence that any such beast exists.


----------



## Dave

Starbeast said:


> I don't think most humans are ready for a direct approach, they'd freak out.


Well, if Crop Circles are just 'hints' to us, I'd have to agree with skeptical that they have some serious communication problems.


----------



## J Riff

Nope, these are the new ones, and they are mute. Evolved beyond speech.
They don't like our official leaders. They have been shot at numerous times. 
They contacted humans in the late seventies and met with them, and the other alien race that's been here for a long time, on Mars, where our former owner had it's main base. This happened in conjuction with the first NASA photo op up there.
A deal was struck, and now the spheres are here to stay. There may have been thirty of them when I was there, no idea who has showed up since, or who else is on the way.
The Spiders? May still be around, though I think they took off and burned for eighteen days, but were indeed requested to return if possible.
"Hi! I'm your new leader!"

Of course it's a lot worse that just that. There goes our history...(flushing sound)and our science, and oh gee probably our art and most everything else. Hope that fits into everyone's reality.

waitaminit... what is that giant Krasnodar cropart?... it's ... it's ... a Giant Spider! he's back!


----------



## JunkMonkey

Starbeast said:


> I don't think most humans are ready for a  direct approach, they'd freak out. Wouldn't you be alarmed if you  spotted (let's say) a grey alien staring quietly at you from a darkened  room at your home?



I think I prefer my theory which I posted on my blog a while back:



> I've been convinced for years that aliens have already made contact and are softening the world up by infiltrating children's TV. The real aliens aren't grey like the UFO nuts have us believe they are just about every colour but grey. Red. Green. Blue. Orange. When the generation brought up on The Tweenies, Barney, The Teletubbies, BooBahs and all the other weirdnesses that fill the preschool schedules at the moment hold the reigns of power the aliens will step forward.
> 
> In 2065 a giant silvery flying saucer will land on the White House lawn. Troops will rush into place. Tanks trundle down Pennsylvania Avenue. A line appears in the side of the ominous silveryness. A crack. It widens! It's a door! A ramp starts to slide forward. Troops finger triggers in nervous anticipation. Around the world millions lean forward towards their TV screen. The ramp has touched the grass. There's movement inside the disc and a strange figure emerges. It stands for a moment at the top of the ramp and raises a hand in an unmistakable gesture of friendship. It speaks:
> 
> Eh-oh, La-la! Eh-oh, Tinky-Winky!
> 
> In my more horrible 4am bouts of paranoia I'm convinced the world has been contacted by more than one alien race - and they don't like each other. For some reason they have chosen Earth as their battleground and during my kids' lifetimes vast ranks of evil Tweenies and Teletubbies will fill the streets and blast away whole city blocks with powerful laser weapons as they attempt to exterminate each other.


----------



## RJM Corbet

It's likely that Cosmic law prevents superior cultures from interfering with inferior ones, without the express request of that inferior culture -- according to the Higher Law of 'free-will'.

Of course, an evil superior culture might ignore the law of free will, and just invade. 

So, unless aliens are going to invade and occupy earth, it's probably against the 'law' for them to interfere with us physically?

We would have to ASK them for help ...


----------



## JunkMonkey

All together now.

One... Two... Three...

*HELP!

 *If they're not here by the end of next week I'll assume they're not coming.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Funny! 

But the concept of free-will does seem to go with civilized behaviour?


----------



## HareBrain

You only have to brush the accounts of contact experiences to know there's absolutely no consistency to them apart from their lack of consistency. A great many of these beings seem to have no ethical problem with getting physical with the natives, and apart from a few vague messages about peace and love, their motives are inscrutable. Or would be, if they truly existed. But whether those stories are made up, the result of some kind of psychotic episode or something weirder, the sheer variety and randomness of them argues against anything as logical as actual beings from space.


----------



## RJM Corbet

HareBrain said:


> You only have to brush the accounts of contact experiences to know there's absolutely no consistency to them apart from their lack of consistency. A great many of these beings seem to have no ethical problem with getting physical with the natives, and apart from a few vague messages about peace and love, their motives are inscrutable. Or would be, if they truly existed. But whether those stories are made up, the result of some kind of psychotic episode or something weirder, the sheer variety and randomness of them argues against anything as logical as actual beings from space.



My own personal philosophy is that we exist in a room of 'nature' enclosed by walls of time within a greater house of 'spirit' which surrounds and contains and permeates nature (by which I mean all that we can perceive, including the stars) but is not contained by nature. 'My Father's house has many mansions.' 

We are like tiny little three-year-old kids in a kindergarden, learning what we have to know to go forward, and protected by walls of time from outside forces we know nothing about and which would destroy us in an instant -- not maliciously -- just as a three-year-old wouldn't last half a day in the city without being hit by a bus or something.

We form groups and nations, religions and sciences, while these great cosmic beings look down on us and watch us, as we play and fight and learn life's early lessons, and graze our knees. It all seems pretty serious and important to us, though. They may sometimes reveal themselves to us, but they don't have to. They're not limited by space and time. They are what we call 'spiritual' beings; they are our own higher destiny.

The walls of the house of spirit are LOVE. But we don't fully understand love. It is the glue of existence. It is what holds everything together as 'one' in the same way that 'time' holds nature together. Physical love is an expression of spiritual love -- the desire to enter 'paradise' by becoming 'one with the all' -- and the knowledge that in fact, we are.

Perhaps there are other, even higher dimensions, that surround and permeate both the spirit and nature.

We don't know ...


----------



## HareBrain

RJM, you should definitely read this.


----------



## RJM Corbet

HareBrain said:


> RJM, you should definitely read this.



Cool, you mean someone used my idea already? 
Thank you


----------



## HareBrain

RJM Corbet said:


> Cool, you mean someone used my idea already?


 
Ha. No, not quite, but you'll find many of the ideas in sympathy. Although I think his attitude to evidence is a little less rigorous than it could be, I found his ideas on consciousness and its evolution inspiring.


----------



## RJM Corbet

The chance of 'life' originating, even in the perfect conditions on our planet, was very slim indeed. University professors will tell you that the chances of a barrel of monkeys writing the complete works of Shakespeare are actually higher than the chances of _dna_ originating.

That's the truth.

It's not as if you just take the chemicals and shake them up in a bottle at the right temperature and pressure and so on, and 'life' is just automatically going to -- what's the word? -- happen.

Now there's an interesting punctuation conundrum ...


----------



## skeptical

RJM

That is 'logic' from ignorance.   No offense intended since I am just as ignorant as you on the business of the origin of life.

However, we just do not know how the first DNA came into existence, and so any statement about probability on the basis of mixing chemicals in some kind of bucket is just silly.

There have been a few things discovered that increase the likelihood.   For example, crystals of montmorillonite - a common form of clay - act as a template for amino acids, lining themup to polymerise into polypeptides, the simplest form of protein.   There are interactions between polypeptides and nucleic acids.   So it is very likely that something very simple happened, like a polypeptide forming against montmorillonite crystals, and that lining up nucleotides to form the first RNA.   After that, it is all evolution.

Of course, I do not know.   But to speculate that DNA is less probable than Shakespeare from monkeys, is to p*ss into the wind.   Not a wise act!


----------



## Starbeast

Without our Moon that orbits our planet, life would be different here.

Is Earth a planet where humans evolved from apes? I could never believe that.

But that's my opinion.

The right conditions could make a planet habitable, but to find a planet close to our own isn't easy. 

To live in a space station isn't easy, nor living in a contained environment (let's say) on Mars wouldn't be easy. It would take a great deal of time to set up and transport thousands people to the planet.

Humans are still struggling, and the road ahead doesn't look promising. Perhaps the real message from most of these crop circles (be they man-made or other) are trying to tell us that we need to work together and help each other before it's too late.


----------



## RJM Corbet

skeptical said:


> ... since I am just as ignorant as you on the business of the origin of life ... However, we just do not know how the first DNA came into existence ... Of course, I do not know.



Well let's not lose any sleep over it, we're in the same condition of ignorance on 'how' life came into being as the greatest biologists on earth. It's all speculation. Educated guesswork. Definitely no 'proof' -- except the undeniable fact that life _does_ exist.

But the point I'm making is that nowadays everyone seems to assume that if they find a planet suitable for life -- and there are some amazing forms of life proposed, sulphuric acid life in Venus' atmosphere -- that 'life' will originate there. I don't actually mean Venus, though of course it's theoretically still possible.

The chances of life originating anywhere, even on Earth, are actually pretty slim. That's the point I'm making. Perhaps Earth just 'won the cosmic lottery' -- Steven Hawkins words, not mine. Perhaps life, and our human life, is far more rare and precious than we suspect? 

But then again, the universe is so huge. 

We might have to go a bit further out than some people seem to imagine, to find other life in the universe though ... 

EDIT: Thanks SB for making an effort to nudge this thread back on course. I quite like the way these threads tangle and wander, but the _mods_ don't always seem to agree. We could perhaps start with the Sahara desert, or the arctic, before trying to 'terraform' Mars?


----------



## skeptical

To RJM

I totally agree with you in your speculations about the probability of life forming around other stars.  I am especially skeptical considering there have now been over 200 extrasolar planets discovered, and not one solar system equivalent to our own.

Our solar system is strange in that
1.  Planetary orbits are close to circular
2.  Our largest planets are way out.
3.  No super-giant planets, much bigger than Jupiter.

The first is important since it ameliorates climatic variation.   For life to thrive on a planet with a strongly elliptical orbit, which we now know is true for most planets, with enormous changes in temperature over one planetary year, seems unlikely.

The second is important since large planets close to the star have massive effects on planets further out, partly due to the effect on the star, and partly due to planetary perturbations.   In our own solar system, having Jupiter well out means that it acts as a "cosmic vacuum cleaner" with its gravity sweeping up assorted system debris, that might otherwise be turned into an orbit that intersects the Earth.

The third would be devastating.  A super-Jupiter could not avoid upsetting planetary orbits all over the joint.  Especially if it had an inner orbit, as so many do, making it orbit very close to any planet in the 'Goldilocks' or liquid water zone.

Overall, for life to develop around another star will require, not just a planet in the 'Goldilocks Zone' with liquid water, but probably a whole range of other properties suitable for life.   If I am right, then life will be rare.   Intelligent life will be even rarer.


----------



## J Riff

Life is dirt cheap, like muck, everywhere, I've been informed, on good authority. On every planet where it can possibly get a foothold, boom single-cells, then poof, spiders etc. Can't not happen, in fact. 
Water? Ants in the desert? Don't need water, except for soft, grublike lifeforms and babies. 

Back to cropart. What about the farmers who report these things forming in under a minute? Nutbars? Nutbar farmers trashing their own property to get in the newspaper for no financial gain? OK.
What about evidence of a heat-stamp effect? Is there a scientific explanation for that? 
 Mercy. Who is telling these lies if not the military/monkey/Govt. forces.
Stop listening to them. They will have to be destroyed before this issue can be dealt with properly, sadly.
 Really. An army, with soft inferior types on top sending others to do their dirty work? Kind of an inferior ancient system, no? It still is. 
 Maybe if a big crop circle appeared, ten miles long, that said 
_Listen to J Riff! _
Then you could wait for some military goons to tell you if you should believe it or not.


----------



## skeptical

To Riff

Life on Earth is ubiquitous, certainly.   But life has had nearly 4 billion years to adapt to all the extreme conditions.   That is quite different to saying that life can form elsewhere in extreme conditions.   Maybe I am wrong.  Maybe not.   We will not know until we can sample other worlds.

Evidence of a heat stamp effect?
Please present such evidence.   Make sure the source is a good one, like a scientific peer reviewed journal, and not some person who might be a nutcase, who reports without evidence.

So far, I have seen no evidence of crop circles that could not have been done by clever, computer savvy students.


----------



## Dave

skeptical said:


> So far, I have seen no evidence of crop circles that could not have been done by clever, computer savvy students.


Or Chronicles members following a practise down on the beach.


----------



## J Riff

Have you visited the sites worldwide with your chemistry set? 

Here's what we should do.... figure out the next cropart site, hide, and wait. When the spoiled little brats appear with the wires, planks, tractor and lights, grab 'em and hold for ransom. Daddy has gotta have a LOT o' dough, no ordinary kid could possibly have the time, or be spoiled rotten enough, to do something like crop circles. These are rich kids with far too much time on their hands, or drug-ravaged loons.
 And where's the buzz if it stays secret? Who do they brag to - each other? Sheesiz that is pathetic. 
It's not adding up that immature kids do all this damage without getting caught, sorry. They've never been caught, and there are HOW many crop circles?
Genius, spoiled, rich, master criminal kids, uncatchable for years! - making massive structures in the night for no discernible reason. Ordinary working farmers are, of course, nutbars and not to be believed.
 See, I'm trying hard to come around to the sound, scientific explanation, (spoiled kids worldwide) but it just doesn't add up yet. 
Show me some evidence of this gang of genius kids, please. There's plenty of cropart evidence online that shows heat effect, depleted soil etc. - but no evidence of kids doing it. Please provide such before you suggest such a wild, improbable theory. ( *


----------



## HareBrain

J Riff said:


> Here's what we should do.... figure out the next cropart site, hide, and wait. When the spoiled little brats appear with the wires, planks, tractor and lights, grab 'em and hold for ransom. Daddy has gotta have a LOT o' dough, no ordinary kid could possibly have the time, or be spoiled rotten enough, to do something like crop circles. These are rich kids with far too much time on their hands, or drug-ravaged loons.


 
OK, but if they're drug-ravaged loons, _you _can look after them while we await the ransom.



> There's plenty of cropart evidence online that shows heat effect, depleted soil etc. - but no evidence of kids doing it. Please provide such before you suggest such a wild, improbable theory. ( *


 
I've read about some of the heat-effect stuff before, and if true, it would certainly argue against the student theory (unless their robot overheated). But does it actually, actually stand up to sceptical examination? (Don't ask me, I'm too lazy to find out.)


----------



## skeptical

Riff

The evidence is of the soundest as I told you before.  They owned up and demonstrated how they did it, by doing it in front of cameras.   Sheesh!  How much evidence does it take, for Finagle's Sake!

And they do not have to be spoiled rich kids.  I well remember my own university days, and the enormous spirit of mischief that flowed through our veins.  University students will do almost* anything* for amusement.  

I could tell you of some of the jokes we carried out.   Like phoning the local radio station with an eyewitness account of an iceberg in the harbour.  And another time, of a Russian military submarine.  Of tarring and feathering (actually kapok and syrup) a fellow student when he got engaged, and padlocking him in half naked state to a lamp stand in the main city centre.

I bet lots of contributors to this forum have got great stories of their own.


----------



## Anthony G Williams

skeptical said:


> Riff
> 
> The evidence is of the soundest as I told you before. They owned up and demonstrated how they did it, by doing it in front of cameras. Sheesh! How much evidence does it take, for Finagle's Sake!.


 
Exactly. Crop circles caused a lot of debate in the 1980s (I was interested in the phenomenon at the time and recall reading books and watching TV programmes about it) but when people began to confess to doing them and providing demonstrations of how they did it, that effectively killed it as a mystery.

Less than a year ago some of those responsible were commissioned to make a crop circle for a TV programme, and they did a convincing job. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/clips/p00b8tch/qi_the_qi_crop_circle/

The probability of life developing in other solar systems can't yet be assessed - there isn't enough data. I have posted a couple of pieces about this on my blog; first this one: http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/05/where-is-everybody-fifty-solutions-to.html

and the next: http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.com/2011/06/alien-civilisations-less-likely.html


----------



## mosaix

Anthony G Williams said:


> Exactly. Crop circles caused a lot of debate in the 1980s (I was interested in the phenomenon at the time and recall reading books and watching TV programmes about it) but when people began to confess to doing them and providing demonstrations of how they did it, that effectively killed it as a mystery.
> 
> Less than a year ago some of those responsible were commissioned to make a crop circle for a TV programme, and they did a convincing job. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/clips/p00b8tch/qi_the_qi_crop_circle/
> 
> The probability of life developing in other solar systems can't yet be assessed - there isn't enough data. I have posted a couple of pieces about this on my blog; first this one: http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.com/2009/05/where-is-everybody-fifty-solutions-to.html
> 
> and the next: http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.com/2011/06/alien-civilisations-less-likely.html


 
Great line from the QI program: "Is it real or is it man-made?"


----------



## RJM Corbet

Yes, thanks for that video, Anthony.

Googling around, I'm getting odds of DNA originating by chance in the region:

 1 x 10 to the 40 000 zeros (Fred Hoyle)

That is a very big number. There are biologists working who believe that RNA (a less complicated code) might also work, for life -- that there was a primordial struggle of millions of different sub-life systems competing and interacting with one another, and that DNA came out on top. However the one essential common factor of all life on earth is DNA.

Even viruses, which mainstream biology says do not fit into the definition of 'life', contain DNA.


----------



## Anthony G Williams

RJM Corbet said:


> Yes, thanks for that video, Anthony.
> 
> Googling around, I'm getting odds of DNA originating by chance in the region:
> 
> 1 x 10 to the 40 000 zeros (Fred Hoyle)


 
Fred Hoyle was brilliant in some ways but not in others. He was the major proponent of the "steady state" rather than "Big Bang" theories of the universe and held onto this belief in the face of mounting contrary evidence long after the Big Bang theory had been generally accepted.

The figure you quote is meaningless. It is impossible to calculate what the chances of DNA formation are, since we don't know how it happened. One thing we can be sure of, though: whatever the odds, it *did* happen here!


----------



## mosaix

RJM, regarding your odds re DNA - interesting. But, as with all biology it all developed from something else, something else that may have existed in just the kind of numbers that you are talking about (especially at the microscopic level). It only takes one of these to accidentaly develop some kind of advantage over its neighbour and so on and so on. I doubt DNA would have 'originated' in its present form in a single step, but would have been a progression of developmemnts.

What's the odds of someone inventing, in one step, the PC as we know it today? Very, very small. But starting with large machines with paper tape and cards over 60 years ago they've developed with mag tape, discs, integrated cicuits and operating systems to what we have today. Much the same could be said for cars and aeroplanes.


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## RJM Corbet

Yes, but mosaix, computers and aeroplanes are a result of _evolution._ And yet, there's probably more chance of a computer just happening by chance, than of life originating by chance. That's what the _biologists_ say. 

Life is something completely strange and unique. It's _viable_. It propagates itself, and contradicts the natural principle of entropy. Life is, in fact, anti-entropic, whatever 'life' is. However, it *did* happen here -- against all odds.

But what's the chance of it happening _everywhere_?

We seem to agree? In principle?

Anthony: I'm not standing in the 'steady state universe' camp, but Fred Hoyle hasn't been proved wrong, merely sidelined by the model. There's still gravity to account for. Dark-matter/energy is really just a big question mark to make the equations balance. Again, I may be out on a limb?


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## Anthony G Williams

RJM Corbet said:


> Life is something completely strange and unique. It's _viable_. It propagates itself, and contradicts the natural principle of entropy. Life is, in fact, anti-entropic, whatever 'life' is. However, it *did* happen here -- against all odds.
> 
> But what's the chance of it happening _everywhere_?


 
We simply don't know whether it's strange or unique. It might be, or it might be extremely common - we have no data on which to base a judgment, since a sample of one is of no use in making statistical calculations.

All we can say is this: the fact that life here on Earth has spread to every conceivable ecological niche (including some which are extremely hostile to most forms of life) suggests strongly that once it gets a chance to start, there's no stopping it.


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## Starbeast

skeptical said:


> Life on Earth is ubiquitous, certainly. But life has had nearly 4 billion years to adapt to all the extreme conditions. That is quite different to saying that life can form elsewhere in extreme conditions. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe not. *We will not know until we can sample other worlds.*


That indeed would take a very long time and be exceedingly costly to send rockets with robots, and even then for the data to be sent back would take time to return from deep space. It still takes a lot of time for our efforts in examining Mars and our Moon, and costly to keep the space station going, even when many countries are funding the program.

It's been over forty years since we were able to make it to the Moon, build space stations and send probes out into space, our technology is still making some advances, but slowly. At the rate the space programs are going, it could take possibly two hundred years more before we can help humankind to survive.



Anthony G Williams said:


> All we can say is this: the fact that life here on Earth has spread to every conceivable ecological niche (including some which are extremely hostile to most forms of life) suggests strongly that once it gets a chance to start, there's no stopping it.


Uncaring governments and companies have ravaged a great deal of our planet *within a short time*, changing eco systems, causing extinct of planets and animals (some animals were of course hunted to extinction). Testing nuclear weapons, dumping toxic waste, filling our foods with chemicals, overfishing etc. etc. etc.

Heck, there are places in the U.S. that are so toxic that nothing can live there and no one can go there, entire towns are completely uninhabitable.

Efforts for a cleaner environment are finally beginning, but we still have a long way to go. Efforts are being made to save the last two fresh water lakes of the Great Lakes, Canada and the U.S. are dividing the rights to the lakes.

It's scary how close humans are to ecological disaster, the balance of life is a fine line. If all the water on Earth goes bad...we die.



RJM Corbet said:


> Life is something completely strange and unique. It's _viable_. It propagates itself, and contradicts the natural principle of entropy. Life is, in fact, anti-entropic, whatever 'life' is. However, it *did* happen here -- against all odds.
> 
> But what's the chance of it happening _everywhere_?


For humans to push their efforts into space programs is great, but it takes a great amount of time. If we don't push our efforts into saving this precious planet we live on, we may not make it into a bright and shiney future. The search for answers in space will be only a waste of time, and it wouldn't matter if there are other intelligent beings out there or useful resources light years from our reach.

Oh yeah, crop circles, they look cool, but farmers don't like them.


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## Metryq

*If they printed it, it must be true*

I remember this event. One of the locals who owns horses chased them out of the barn so they'd be safe before the lava arrived. No drunken students were involved.

*The Eruption of Mt. Milton* (1980)
The Channel 7 news in Boston ended with a special bulletin announcing that a 635-foot hill in Milton, Massachusetts, known as the Great Blue Hill, had erupted, and that lava and ash were raining down on nearby homes. Footage was shown of lava pouring down a hillside. The announcer explained that the eruption had been triggered by a geological chain reaction set off by the recent eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington. An audio tape was played in which President Carter and the Governor of Massachusetts were heard declaring the eruption to be a “serious situation.“ At the end of the segment, the repoter held up a sign that read “April Fool.“ However, by that time local authorities had already been flooded with frantic phone calls from Milton residents. One man, believing that his house would soon be engulfed by lava, had carried his sick wife outside in order to escape. The Milton police continued to receive worried phone calls well into the night. Channel 7 was so embarrassed by the panicked reaction that they apologized for the confusion later that night, and the executive producer responsible for the prank was fired.


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## Starbeast

*If they make a movie too real, people will scream*



Metryq said:


> At the end of the segment, the repoter held up a sign that read “April Fool.“ However, by that time local authorities had already been flooded with frantic phone calls from Milton residents. One man, believing that his house would soon be engulfed by lava, had carried his sick wife outside in order to escape. The Milton police continued to receive worried phone calls well into the night. Channel 7 was so embarrassed by the panicked reaction that they apologized for the confusion later that night, and the executive producer responsible for the prank was fired.


 
Oh man, I haven't been aware of that one. Now THAT was the dumbest prank I've heard of. Thanks *Metryq*.

Have you seen the made for cable movie with John De Lancie playing a news reporter who was covering an alien invasion. I can't remember the name of movie which came out on cable in the 1980's, I tried to find it on Youtube. It was really good, the film was looked convincing and of course the aliens were defeatng us easily, I liked that movie more than ID4, it seemed like H.G.Wells "War of the Worlds".

Anyway, my brother and I were thrilled watching it, and when it ended we thought nothing more about it, other than how cool it was.

But what I didn't know was that other people who were channel surfing cable came across that movie and thought it was real. And just like the effect Orsen Wells had on people in 1938, happened again! People were leaving town or hiding in their basements with guns and others were commiting suicide!

I spoke to a friend about the cable movie a decade later and he told me that at the time, he was taking a nap and his mother woke him up to tell him Earth is being invaded by aliens. I was stunned.

People do panic easy.

Jeepers, now I want to see that cable movie again. I'll see if I can locate a trailer of it and post it in the movie section of this site.


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## Pyan

If this thread doesn't go back on topic, it will be closed. 

First and only warning, gentlemen...


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## Starbeast

pyan said:


> If this thread doesn't go back on topic, it will be closed.
> 
> First and only warning, gentlemen...


 


Starbeast said:


> Oh yeah, crop circles, they look cool, but farmers don't like them.


 
*Crop circles* are a double edged sword, they look more striking and beautiful as time goes by. But, with the tremendous and increasing amount of hoaxers they've lost their value as something unworldly to behold. Because IF aliens were trying to tell us something important....I feel that the message has been lost.


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## J Riff

Well then, let's see a documentary on how they could be made by people.
It wouldn't be easy, it would have to be automated to some degree.
Stakes driven in the ground, wires of many different lengths, and planks attached at different heights, then.... the planks dragged, all at once, and whoosh, a nice pattern.
Gather up all the miles of wire.... maybe retractable like a vacuum cleaner? .... load the boards onto the tractor, and sneak on out.
Unless someone can think of a better way>?
A helicopter? A giant rubber stamp suspended from a helicopter.
Trained grasshoppers. Trained cows!... 
Should have a contest with large cash prize. Choose an intricate crop circle, and see if anyone can duplicate it by any means, using any and all methods, as long as it's done in the dark. )


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## Starbeast

J Riff said:


> Well then, let's see a documentary on how they could be made by people. It wouldn't be easy, it would have to be automated to some degree.


 
True, I've seen some good ones made by people that have spent over five hours creating magnificant crop art. BUT, I am aware that black helicopters have been spotted by some of the questionable agroglyphs.

You're right *J Riff*, the really complicated ones would take too long to make by people, plus there is still the evidence of extreme heat being used that affects the plants themselves, in some cases, even mutation.

And the heat and mutation have been noticed in trees where people have reported strange aircraft flying low, or something that has fallen from the sky that damaged wooded areas.


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## skeptical

Heat and Mutation?
Beyond that which could be done by pranksters?

Please forward evidence, because I do not believe it.


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## JunkMonkey

I have to wonder about the intellectual capacity of an alien race who encounter a species of 2M tall bipeds with eyes mounted in the fronts of their heads and then decide to communicate with them by doing drawing they can only see from the air.

If it's not to personal a question, J Riff,  what do you do for a living?  I ask because time and again I have seen programmes in which 'experimental' archaeologists and academic 'experts' have tried to explain how impressive ancient building could have erected while all they really demonstrated was that they clearly have no idea of how the physics of the real world works.  (Or indeed how much work a human being can actually do when not sat behind a desk twiddling their thumbs up their arse.)  One I particularly remember was a bunch of experts working out how they could portage a Viking longboat.  They spent ages floundering about trying to work out how long it would take the crew to unload, by hand, the several tonnes of ballast rocks the boat carried.  They figured it would take days.  As I and about five other people had unloaded and transported, on site, by hand, 9  tonnes of building materials of the back of a delivery lorry in under two hours the same day I nearly wet my pants I was laughing so much.  When they came to do 'the experiment' it took them a couple of hours to manhandle all the rocks off the boat.

People are insanely inventive things and capable of fantastic amounts of work.  Sometimes for the most weird and wonderful reasons.  

'HOW can this be man-made????' asks the first video a couple of posts ago.  Very very simply.  Get a compass - one of those things you used to use in high school geometry lessons - and just doodle some patterns on a piece of paper.  I'll bet you within a very short time you will start to come up with the sort of geometric shapes and patterns on show in crop circles.  Now substitute a string for the compass and have a bloke at each end to substitute for the point and the pencil and there you go.  It's obvious.  

If it is aliens doing all this why don't they do something _alien_.  Make the flattened corn float 12M up in the air, rotate, and whistle the theme from _Close Encounters of the Third Kind_?   Something drunken students or clandestine artists couldn't do.  If they are so advanced why are they dead set on sneaking about fields in the dark making wildly inconstant patterns and symbols?  Why don't they call a press conference and do the chat show circuit - it would be a lot simpler.

You know why.  Because they don't really exist.  We are not being visited by higher beings.  It's wish-fulfilling fantasy to think so.


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## J Riff

I'm a retired astronaut. Really. Seriously. 
Beats me. Some circles are downright awesome, better than Spirograph.
Aliens without sound? Very limited vision, thus the huge eyes?
Those exist. They have these ships that they fly around in.
You can see them on youTube, next to the crop circle vids.

Humans could be doing the circles, IF they have one of the hover ships, around since the fifties. First one I saw used an oil rig as a base.
Anyway, I wish any of this was wish-fulfillment, but torture is a better word for it. Everyone involved seems to be frozen, waiting for someone else to do something. Meanwhile, UFOlogists clean up at the bank, while anyone actually involved burns up in isolation.
 But if you won't believe visible guys like Cooper... what's the point arguing it?  The conditioning works. There are no aliens making crop art till you see it on the news.


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## skeptical

I agree with junkmonkey.

All the evidence I have seen for crop circles, and it is overwhelming evidence, is that for clever pranksers.   Totally human.

When I ask for other evidence from you "true believer" guys, I get silence.  It is just like a religion.  Take it on faith.   

Sorry guys.  Faith is not enough.   If you want to believe in ET, then cough up the evidence.


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## Dave

Can I add that real evidence is not "You can see them on YouTube" and that if "you see it on the news" you know that it has been rigorously checked for accuracy, balance, comprehensiveness, and objectivity? That, there, is the difference between your bizarre claims and theories and what is established as the truth.

When I claim something, I always provide a source for it, I don't tell you that "guys like Cooper" say it is true. Here is an interesting document:

http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/190...e_Has_Been_Kidnapped_by_Extraterrestrials.pdf

However, the fact that 3.7 million Americans believe that they have been abducted by space aliens (Hopkins, Jacobs, & Westrum, 1991) on the basis of listening to "guys like Cooper" and seeing it "on YouTube" is quite shocking to me.

J Riff - the Mods are aware that you have been peddling these bizarre theories around other forums and that threads have been closed in those forums. I don't want to do that, though it is still an option, but your claims need to be backed by facts. If you claim you have knowledge because you are a "retired astronaut" then we can quite rightly ask you which astronaut? If you have seen an alien hovership take off from an oil rig base, then which oil rig was it, what was the date, and why were you there?

If you can't do that then don't post any more.

This thread was about 'Crop Circles' please keep to that subject - second warning.

I was actually serious about Chronicles members making our own Crop Circle. I have no idea how we would organise it, and maybe we pay the farmer for his loss of grain, but surely if we could do it, that would lay to rest any possibility that is was anything other than students.


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## RJM Corbet

Anthony G Williams said:


> ... Less than a year ago some of those responsible were commissioned to make a crop circle for a TV programme, and they did a convincing job. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/clips/p00b8tch/qi_the_qi_crop_circle/



Everybody seemed to miss this one? (Anthony's link, above.)

*Dave*: good, well-researched article -- will read it later, thanks ...


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## JunkMonkey

skeptical said:


> All the evidence I have seen for crop circles, and it is overwhelming evidence, is that for clever pranksers.   Totally human.



A thought has just occurred to me - has anyone ever plotted the incidence of Crop Circle appearances with days of the week?  I wouldn't be surprised to see a strong correlation between appearances and weekends with spikes on bank holidays.  Just a though.  


(Second thought - this was probably mentioned in one of the articles linked to that I haven't read.  Sorry if it's old ground.)


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## Dave

JunkMonkey said:


> A thought has just occurred to me - has anyone ever plotted the incidence of Crop Circle appearances with days of the week?  I wouldn't be surprised to see a strong correlation between appearances and weekends with spikes on bank holidays.  Just a though.


A quick Google search and:
http://www.execonn.com/cropcircles/hoaxes.html



> CONCLUSION
> 
> The obvious conclusion is that although there are certainly hoaxes, there is also another catagory (sic) of events which can be shown to be statistically independent of the hoaxes.


That wasn't the result I would have expected. If all crop circles were hoaxes you would expect very few to be found on Fridays. While most were found over the weekend, there were significantly more on Fridays than other days. Very strange!

Anyone have a reason?

Edit: The articles gives one - "However, part of this clustering on Fridays can be attributed to the fact that some of the pilots do more overflying on Fridays (and Saturdays) than other other days of the week."


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## Metryq

Of course, this could be a new hybrid grass cross-bred with Scottish fold cats. As the grass matures, it folds down. Some farmer cleverly plants it in a pattern, then one day...


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## skeptical

Nah
The reason this is done mainly in Fridays is that ET likes to go to the pub on Fridays.   When he gets totally shickered he flies in geometric patterns.


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## JunkMonkey

Dave said:


> While most were found over the weekend, there were significantly more on Fridays than other days. Very strange!
> 
> Anyone have a reason?



Makes sense to me: if you were going to be up all night one day a week you might as well make it a Friday as it gives you time to catch up on your sleep before you have to be back a work on Monday.  Some of these guys are getting on a bit, they've been doing this for years - they're not as young as they used to be.

EDIT:  I misread.  They were _found _on Friday meaning they were made on Thursday night.  Which if I remember my feckless youth correctly was Giro Day! (That list was compiled in 1992) Get up, get down the Post Office, cash your Giro fill up with Breaker Lager and go tramp a field flat.  What else was there to do in Wiltshire before the Internet?  God, I miss the Eighties.


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## J Riff

Someone said that the circles were each a representation of the new improved Atomic table of elements. Hope someone is keeping track of them all.

Another point - all along, people involved in the coverup have gone out and deliberately created hoaxes. None of them have the slightest idea who's doing crop circles, it ain't us.

And not to put too fine a point on it... but if you see it on the news, anything important, you know it has been sanitized, the names changed, the right people paid off, and anything offensive to certain groups surgically removed.

Dave - Delta/Alpha. There's a Russky cosmonaut in the house at the moment, too. We are waiting for the mighty ones to speak. Never a shred of paperwork since the 50s when the penny dropped.

 Think a minute and you will realize that no common astronaut can be sent to deal with aliens. They have to come back and tell the truth, we don't. They are not trained for it, they would snap.
 The coverup has been for reasons you won't like, but will understand. The 30 yrs. conditioning have been neccessary. Wait.


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## skeptical

Riff

You obvously have little knowledge of conspiracies.   The cardinal rule of conspiracies is simple :   *too many members ensure betrayal*.

The "magic number" is 7.   That is the number of members that researchers found, on average, make for a 50:50 chance of betrayal.   Get a conspiracy with many more than 7 members, then a whistleblower becomes inevitable.

A conspiracy to hide crop circle causes would require a lot more than 7 people.  Therefore, if such a conspiracy was real, it would already have been betrayed.  It has not, therefore there is no conspiracy.

I suggest you dump your pseudo-religious belief that crop circles, and no doubt, UFO's are little grey men in flying saucers.  They are not.   The evidence that crop circles are made by hoaxers is overwhelmingly strong.  The evidence that UFO's are extraterrestrial is overwhelmingly weak.


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## J Riff

Hopeless. This is why it's been so_ easy_, people will fight to the death to deny something they have no real knowledge of.
There are huge, massive, sprawling crimes and operations which you know nothing of, involving hundreds of people, kept secret for fifty years. A whole bunch of them, including UFOs.
Mind, what you say is generally true, which is why a mere handful of people have done the actual nuts and bolts. Wait and see.
Far as I can tell, there's only a certain narrow age range of people left to deal with, before anything can safely come out. I imagine that people over 30 are more or less aware, at least generally, what has happened.
_Happened_. This will be the shock - no more discussion, no more theorizing - here's the facts and the video and all of it. You won't like it.
Go to the NASA board if you want a real argument, or a UFO board. I speak in here because, bion, it's more fun than the NASA geeks, who are forced to grind their teeth a lot. In here, we have open minds and SF concepts galore, so that if 'disclosure' happens, everyone should be able to deal with it to some degree.
Plus, I'm a SF writer and fan since the fifties, there is no better home, and nobody is forced to lie in here, as they are elsewhere. Over and out.


----------



## skeptical

J Riff said:


> There are huge, massive, sprawling crimes and operations which you know nothing of, involving hundreds of people, kept secret for fifty years. A whole bunch of them, including UFOs.


 
*Wrong.*
You only have to look at the mafia families. They represent a conspiracy with a very, very powerful disincentive plan. _"If you betray us, we kill you."_

In spite of that, over the past 50 years, the history of the mafia is the history of repeated betrayals, and mafia families broken up and locked up. The power of the mafia destroyed by betrayals. Those betrayals are inevitable, because each family consists of a lot more than 7 people.

Get it straight. You *cannot* have a secret operation involving hundreds of people, without betrayal. It is a law of human behaviour.

Shoot.  The crop circle hoaxers themselves illustrate the point.  There are more than 7 hoaxers, so the hoaxes were betrayed, and the nature of those hoaxes is common knowledge.  

You cannot keep a secret if too many people know it.  You cannot maintain a conspiracy if too many people are members.   There is absolutely *no* chance, repeat - *none*, that a secret group of hundreds of people can cover up stuff about crop circles and UFO's.


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## Anthony G Williams

skeptical said:


> Get it straight. You *cannot* have a secret operation involving hundreds of people, without betrayal. It is a law of human behaviour.


 
It is rather a waste of time using logic to argue against delusional fantasy - your chances of achieving a change of mind are as close to zero as makes no difference.


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## J Riff

Assume astronaut Cooper lands and informs the debriefing people that he saw a silver disc flying alongside his aircraft. A radar blip confirms this.
This information becomes what as known as a _fact._
 Astronaut Cooper does not lie, he virtually cannot. He does not hallucinate. He saw something, radar confirms it. It is real.
 Then, Astronaut Ruff lands and says - I saw it, I saw the pilot of the saucer! The blip confirms the saucer. The pilot is a ___, says Ruff.
This becomes a fact, never questioned again.
Lie? About aliens? Are you NuTs!? Cooper, lie?
Uh, NO.
Now, MiB Dave goes to interview a farmer about a crop circle said to have formed in under a minute.
The farmer is normal, hard working. His eyes are clear, his behaviour is open and consistent, etc. etc. etc.
They may check into his past, but often not. He is _not _lying or hallucinating, and there is no motive for such.
Hand the guy over to the FBI experts and they will return the same result.

So, is this a _fact,_ a crop circle forming in a minute?
Y'see... YOU have to decide, Mibster. Someone has to, right?
What if it was your Dad? It's always someone's Dad, y'see? His daughter is standing there staring at you as if daring you to suggest her Dad is anything other than what he says he is - and he isn't. He's telling the truth. 
It's aggravating, to this day, to have Cooper or anyone like that questioned.
 You, I don't know from. A guy like that I would trust with my life.
The crop circle formed in under a minute. I believe the farmer, because people do not lie for no reason.
Two such incidents constitute virtual proof. There's nothing personal, there's no _opinion_ involved, it's just common sense combined with professional expertise with people.
 The MIBs are convinced, the public can think what they like.
It doesn't prove a UFO made the particular object in question - only that people didn't.


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## HareBrain

skeptical said:


> A conspiracy to hide crop circle causes would require a lot more than 7 people. Therefore, if such a conspiracy was real, it would already have been betrayed. It has not, therefore there is no conspiracy.


 
I'm sure the larger and more complex patterns would have taken more than seven people to create in one night (unless robot etc etc). But though some creators of some circles have confessed, I don't believe they have for the particularly spectacular ones such as those in the video in the first post. Why doesn't that seven-person "rule" apply here?


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## Anthony G Williams

When the crop circles hit the news in the 1980s, they were at first very simple - a circular area of plants flattened in a circumferential alignment.  It was claimed that such simple circles had occasionally been reported in the past. The most popular explanation at that time was for a natural cause - some kind of rare and intense meteorological phenomenon - and much effort was expended in trying to identify what it could be. 

Then the circles started to get more complex, and I recall watching a TV debate in which a proponent of the "natural" theory was tying himself into knots trying to account for the complexity. It was by then obvious that while it was just possible that the early simple circles had some natural cause, the later ones had to be artificial. Over the next couple of decades, the complexity multiplied.

Then some people with a loose hold on reality started babbling about aliens (as they do, concerning just about everything, at every opportunity). However, this was soon shot down when some of the original perpetrators confessed and demonstrated how they did it, but that didn't discourage the alien fantasists of course - merely confirmed their delusion that it was all a big cover-up. Not even the fact that you can get very fancy designs made to order nowadays - as demonstrated in the QI link I provided - discourages the fantasists.

The reason why you don't get "leaks" reported in the press from the perpetrators is simply that it isn't really news any more, since there's no secret about how it's done. The only time you hear about it in the news media might be on a slack news day when they want to fill some space with a pic of a particularly artistic example.  But there is a good reason why they tend not to go around boasting about it - the farmer may slap a criminal charge against them. The crop is his livelihood, after all.

Apart from the harm to the farmers' pockets, I rather like crop circles - they are a most impressive and appealing temporary art form, which is presumably the motivation for doing them. There must be a considerable sense of achievement among the perpetrators of a particularly fine example. The art may not last long, but aerial photographs of it will.

One common thread among the alien fantasists is a lack of faith in humanity's capabilities. "People," they say, "couldn't possibly have built those pyramids / made the Nasca lines / transported those vast stones / made those crop circles." That merely demonstrates a failure of the imagination. People are very capable and ingenious, and are more than able to do all of those things. In fact, they are all very simple and easy by comparison with the achievements which we take for granted today (like sending rovers to Mars, or just posting a message on the internet). 

We live in a complex environment and, although we are learning more every day, we don't understand everything and don't have an immediate answer to every question. That should be seen as a trigger to more research, rather than an excuse to go "off with the fairies" and believe all kinds of bizarre notions for which there is little or no evidence. However, the results of such research into unexplained phenomena are increasingly pointing to faulty human perception and memory - for which there is a huge and growing body of evidence.

Something instructive happened to me a few years ago, as may have mentioned before. I live in a rural, hilly area in which fields are typically divided by dry stone walls. I was walking along a lane next to a small field when I noticed that a bicycle, with no-one on it, was running along the top of the wall on the far side of the field, all by itself. For a few seconds I was shocked and dumbfounded - how on earth could this be possible? The wall was far too rough for a cycle to run along it - it would instantly fall off if anyone tried to put it up there and push it. My eyes were providing clear evidence of something that was physically impossible. Then as the bicycle reached the end of the wall I realised the truth - the cycle was fixed to a roof-rack of a car which had been travelling along a lane on the other side of the wall, and by coincidence the roof-rack was at exactly the same height as the top of the wall. A simple example, but it demonstrated to me the potential for human misperception.


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## J Riff

Pfffft*....

 Meanwhile, the professionals who investigate such things look at you like some kind of monkey wandered into the party.
 Appeared in the eighties is right, that's when it started. All other 'alien' sightings, perhaps 10,000, did not involve crop circles. 

A fantasist doesn't believe what his senses tell him. 

You'd have to be a Grade A nutbag to not believe there haven't been saucers flying around for aeons. Likewise, tons of evidence for non-human construction of crop circles, is supposed to be negated by someone's _opinion?_ 

The least scientific words ever spoken, must be 'I don't _believe_..."
Look at the evidence, and leave opinion out of it. Or, show proof of your theory.
A fantasist _could_ be someone capable of ignoring 10,000 slabs of evidence in favor of his fantasy of a non-alien universe. )
 Doesn't mean aliens make crop circles! But I seriously doubt people are clever enough. * )


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## skeptical

Riff must think people are idiots.

_" No, it is not possible.  Mere humans can't do it.  They cannot do crop circles, because they are too complicated."_

Riff, you and I might not be able to do it, because we are too damn stupid.  That does *NOT *mean no-one else can.

Take Stonehenge.   Lot's of crackpots have claimed that aliens must have been a part of building Stonehenge, since primitive people could not do it.   Well, watch the following video, and tell me that!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRRDzFROMx0


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## HareBrain

Anthony G Williams said:


> The reason why you don't get "leaks" reported in the press from the perpetrators is simply that it isn't really news any more, since there's no secret about how it's done. The only time you hear about it in the news media might be on a slack news day when they want to fill some space with a pic of a particularly artistic example. But there is a good reason why they tend not to go around boasting about it - the farmer may slap a criminal charge against them. The crop is his livelihood, after all.


 
Good point.


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## JunkMonkey

Anthony G Williams said:


> One common thread among the alien fantasists is a lack of faith in humanity's capabilities. "People," they say, "couldn't possibly have built those pyramids / made the Nasca lines / transported those vast stones / made those crop circles." That merely demonstrates a failure of the imagination.



Simultaneously the same alien fantasists will credit the 'Ancients' with all sorts of 'lost knowledge' that holds them up to be our superiors in many respects.  Anyway you cut it they will have their cake and eat it, and have it  again tomorrow.  

Good post, AGW, makes a lot of good points very clearly.  



			
				HareBrain said:
			
		

> I'm sure the larger and more complex patterns would have taken more than seven people to create in one night



Why?  Why would they have taken more than seven people?  If you had ever worked on any physical job for any length of time I doubt if you would have said that.  Go to work on building sites for a few years and just see how much work a human being can do in a couple of hours when they put their mind to it. (Preferably a small scale local builders without lots of machinery to do all the work.)  Just look at the canal network in the UK, and all the railway lines and dams the Victorian built - made for the most part by men with hand tools.  By comparison, flattening a field of defenceless barley is a doddle.  

That you can't believe that it  is possible is a failure on your part to recognise how bloody incredible people are.  The fantasists may have a really low opinion of themselves and project that feeble world-view on the rest of the human species but take a cold hard look at the world and you will soon see humans are wildly industrious, and  inventive creatures.  Probably too industrious, and  inventive for our own good - but that's opening another (Gaiean) can of worms.


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## J Riff

Problem is - some people maybe don't realize that the people who investigate these things are just exactly like you lot. Could be you, easily. Open-minded, educated, normal, well-read, high IQ.... y'Know?
 So, yes, people can and are idjits, often. The guy who saw a small creature run through his garden. You get there and he's cracked out. Take a look around, no footprints, file under unsolved.
 The farmer? Unsolved - OPEN.
Why open? You believe him. I mean - You, not me.
Then someone wanders up and starts accusing the farmer of being an alien supporter, or some kind of mental case, while he's standing there looking at his field.
He suggests he get some psychiatric help. His daughter kicks him hard where it hurts most. I chuckle. Unsolved - Open case number *.
 The X files and other shows make people think weird stuff is happening, all kinds of different unexplainable events, all the time. They aren't. There's no special agents sitting around waiting for this kind of excitement to pop up. If I went and saw someone about something it's because it was in my neighborhood and I was asked. There's no pay, no status, no nothing.
 But, reports come in, you've all seen them. There's thousands if you dig a bit into the past.
And, logically, they should all be linked somehow, and this has proven to be the case.
Almost every single unexplained event that has occured _could _be attributable to aliens.
Not all unexplained events can be attributed to humans.
Then - what explanation do we have the most evidence for, across the board of all events.
Bloody aliens every time. There's no other explanation that fits.
Nobody is trying to make this happen.
But - crop circles included, nobody asks the big question. WHY is this then being covered?
Because, like I said, this is YOU or you and your pals, looking at this stuff, not Superman and the CIA, and deciding what to do. 
You cover it up if you find the real stuff. So it's got to be a very good reason, right?

You might think there are a lot of fervent UFO nuts out there, but I find the anti-alien crew to be much more tenacious. I blame television for overdoing it on both fronts.


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## JunkMonkey

J Riff said:
			
		

> Almost every single unexplained event that has occured_ could_ be attributable to aliens.



Almost every single unexplained event that has occurred _could _be attributable to a small pink elephant called Geraldo.


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## Anthony G Williams

JunkMonkey said:


> Almost every single unexplained event that has occurred _could _be attributable to a small pink elephant called Geraldo.


What an amazing coincidence! I've suspected that for a long time...


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## J Riff

Now you're talking.
Aliens moving rocks for people is not on the menu, never was.
Disinformation. SB posts some great ones. The little saucer pops out and shoots down the missile. It looks pretty good, but I know it's fake, and not from analyzing it.
Those guys are on TV, they can't tell the truth, and I remember that vid being done, it is a deliberate hoax. Still, it does tend to get people used to the concept of UFOs as a possible reality, as do crop circles.
Last point - anybody stop to think how bloody insidiously poisonously dangerous aliens could be?  Just because you saw it in a movie doesn't mean it isn't true, or something weirder is. I would tend to worry about that part of the UFO issue, if anything. Otherwise, why bother at all with silly UFOlogy, SF is much more interesting and variegated. 
 Meanwhile, the highest level of security ever imposed on any subject remains in position, worldwide. I really hate that. Get us out of here, Scotty!


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## Moonbat

> _Almost every single unexplained event that has occurred could be attributable to a small pink elephant called Geraldo._


 

Hmmm, as terrestrial elephants are large and grey could it be said that Geraldo* is* an alien.


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## HareBrain

JunkMonkey said:


> Why? Why would they have taken more than seven people? If you had ever worked on any physical job for any length of time I doubt if you would have said that. Go to work on building sites for a few years and just see how much work a human being can do in a couple of hours when they put their mind to it. (Preferably a small scale local builders without lots of machinery to do all the work.) Just look at the canal network in the UK, and all the railway lines and dams the Victorian built - made for the most part by men with hand tools. By comparison, flattening a field of defenceless barley is a doddle.


 
Well, doubt away, but I did do physical work for a few years (conservation/forestry), and I did say that. But I wasn't talking about the amount of physical work so much as the accuracy of those complex designs and the degree of surveying and mapping out, all done at night. I'm sure we're all glad the Victorian surveyors didn't do all their work in twenty minutes before getting started on the railway network.

I don't doubt (unless someone comes up with convincing evidence otherwise) that people were responsible for crop circles (or indeed the railway network) but I'd be surprised if less than seven people could make those designs, to that accuracy, in the dark, in a few hours. But whether it was three or ten I guess doesn't really matter: Anthony provided a good enough reason why Skeptical's seven-person "conspiracy failure" assumption wouldn't apply, which was the only point I was making.


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## RJM Corbet

Yes I don't think the 'conspiracy of 7' is too convincing applied to 'the mob'. C'mon _skeptical_, haven't you followed 'The Soprano's'? 

But demands for evidence can also stretch science too far, as it's doing with 'string theory' -- the strings are just too tiny, but the mathematics is sound. Some events have to be accepted 'beyond reasonable doubt' or 'in all probability' -- as sometimes that's the best evidence we're ever going to get?

EDIT: Riff, when you're talking about crop-circles, you can't talk about a cover-up at the same time. The whole thing about them is that they're immune to cover-up, which may be one thing that works in their favour, if it's true that the stalks are (sometimes) strangely bent and that there are oddities in the soil. But these are both things that science _can_ examine ...


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## Anthony G Williams

RJM Corbet said:


> But demands for 'evidence' can also stretch science too far, as it's doing with 'string theory' -- the 'strings' are just too tiny, but the mathematics is sound. Some events have to be accepted 'beyond reasonable doubt' or 'in all probability' -- as sometimes that's the best 'evidence' we're ever going to get?


 
Yes, that's true, but we still have to look at the nature of the evidence.

If a theory is consistent with the mathematics, then it's worth taking seriously. If it is consistent with the mathematics *and* is the only theory which accounts for observed phenomena, then it's worth adopting as the principal theory, for the time being, until stronger contradictory evidence comes along. 

There's a lot of activity going on in cosmology and astrophysics at the moment which is consistent with the mathematics (so I'm assured by mathematicians - I wouldn't be able to judge) but which does not appear to account for all observed phenomena. So it's a pretty open field with all sorts of rival theories battling it out. No doubt the number of theories will be gradually whittled down as the CERN LHC gets up to speed and other discoveries are made.

Coming back to crop circles, there is just one theory for their formation which is consistent with the evidence and complies with known science. That is, that people have made them for fun. Furthermore, this is testable because people have demonstrated their ability to make such circles on demand. Any other "theories" are based on wild suppositions about aliens for which there is no verified evidence at all. So it's a bit of a no-brainer really; a very easy cut for Occam's razor.


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## Dave

I'm getting tired of some of this nonsense.





J Riff said:


> Go to the NASA board if you want a real argument, or a UFO board. I speak in here because, bion, it's more fun than the NASA geeks, who are forced to grind their teeth a lot. In here, we have open minds and SF concepts galore, so that if 'disclosure' happens, everyone should be able to deal with it to some degree.


J Riff, the only reason you are here is because your threads on the other boards have been closed. And unless you provide some proof of the wild and outrageous things you keep promoting as facts, I'll close down these too.



J Riff said:


> They may check into his past, but often not. He is _not _lying or hallucinating, and there is no motive for such.


Why should people lie? What motive might they have? That's a little rich considering what you claim in previous posts in this thread, but I'll answer that anyway. They are attention-seeking and they crave publicity and look-at-me-mama-I'm-on-top-of-the world notoriety.

Why else would someone do this:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=124906&page=1#.TgjdA2GkOSo

or this:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2994946.ece

or this:
http://books.usatoday.com/book/mark-seal-the-man-in-the-rockefeller-suit/r172688

Of course people lie, and we even enjoy it up to a point. “A world without lies would be a terrible world[...] A world without lies would be a world without fiction,” said Ricky Gervais at the premiere of _The Invention of Lying. _


----------



## skeptical

RJM Corbet said:


> Yes I don't think the 'conspiracy of 7' is too convincing applied to 'the mob'. C'mon _skeptical_, haven't you followed 'The Soprano's'?


 
I should explain about the "magic number" seven.

It is an average. It was estimated by researchers working on historical conspiracies. It refers to the number of people in a conspiracy before the odds of betrayal reach 50%.

Of course, this is wildly variable. You could get a conspiracy of 2 which is immediately betrayed, or another of 20 which remains tight. However, when someone talks of hundreds of conspirators keeping a secret, you know immediately it is bulldust.


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## Metryq

_The Sopranos_ was also fiction. It proves nothing. However, I recall plenty of characters getting rubbed out for betraying.


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## J Riff

I have never once had a thread closed, here or on the NASA board... or anywhere worth mentioning. The NASA board, in fact, put up a great show, very intellectual, then announced that my personal issues were 'beyond the scope of the board.' Fine, we knew that. 
 I left there deliberately, and went back only this week. Tons of conspiracy/UFO/Mars threads are closed, so someone has been acting up, but taint me. 
I truly, sincerely and humbly do not give a bleep who believes what.
My advice to you all would be to believe astronaut Cooper. He has an official identity, and without that apparently this discussion cannot procede. 
Beautiful setup, absolutely bulletproof, like going through a vegetable chopper.
Only people without official identities do the really dangerous stuff.
Therefore the truth can never be proven. Neat. 
Obviously, you would _start_ there in any such operation, correct?
You tell me how to beat it. Dave, you have the goods, you know the truth, but have no physical proof. Can ypou possibly get it out? Will they come after you?
That's why this subject gets closed in various places - it is a truly heavyweight issue, a monster.
I've had enough, but have to add that this place fares better than the official types, who tend to lack imagination.
THE END.

I'm in here because I'm a SF writer, that's the most fun I have these days, so for me this UFO issue is dead, I'm not losing sleep _or_ SF over it. I'm lurking on the NASA board again so, like the giant spider on Phobos, who is a fine, absolutely terrific alien being.


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## Dave

Just Google "J Riff Conspiracy".


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## mosaix

J Riff, I'm almost given up on threads like these - I get frustrated with belief systems of all kinds. At the risk of going off topic (and I wouldn't mind in the least if a mod wanted to delete this post) could I ask a question?

Have you ever been presented with a conspiracy theory that you didn't believe? And, if so, why?


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## J Riff

Hee hee. Well, the program is over and here's my final word on the subject: Alien contact, which did occur, _is the greatest thing that has ever happened!_

 Ghosts? Other dimensions. Those are things that we aren't able to understand,  I don't know if anyone can. I have no information along those lines whatsoever. 
The physical realm is going to be easy, for advanced beings. 
Like everyone always knew, it becomes a spiritual quest with apparently no limitations. Are human brains even able to encompass such? 
 The big questions remain. Aliens are not able to answer the question of God any more than we are.


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## RJM Corbet

mosaix said:


> J Riff, I'm almost given up on threads like these - I get frustrated with belief systems of all kinds. At the risk of going off topic (and I wouldn't mind in the least if a mod wanted to delete this post) could I ask a question?
> 
> Have you ever been presented with a conspiracy theory that you didn't believe? And, if so, why?



Sorry mosaix, but does that mean you only believe what has been been proved by experiment, or by deduction?

Those are two different things?

The greatest scientists on earth 'believe' (by deduction) that 96% of the universe is dark matter/energy which would account for the extra gravity in the universe, so they can't see it or measure it in any way except that _something_ must be there, to make the equations balance.

And yet the 'physics model' rejects 'string theory' as a 'philosophy' because it can't be proved by physical experiment, simply because the apparatus to measure it does not exist, although the Large Hadron Collider might help string-theory gain some credibility with 'real' physics. 

So even physics is not that different from being a religion, when you think about it.

Biology and chemistry can work by direct experiment, but even biology has to make assumptions about 'life'.

So you can't always demand direct physical proof of everything ...


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## Dave

RJM Corbet said:


> Sorry mosaix, but does that mean you only believe what has been been proved by experiment, or by deduction?
> 
> Those are two different things?


They certainly are, they are the difference between a theory and a hypothesis.



RJM Corbet said:


> ...they can't see it or measure it in any way except that _something_ must be there, to make the equations balance.


The equation has been tested in other ways, and proven, but yes, direct physical proof is still demanded.

That has nothing to do with Crop Circles. If you have an equation that proves that aliens made crop circles can you produce it please?  

As for deduction, you appear to be deducing in a reverse-Sherlock Holmes manner: You have already eliminated the improbable (students and young farmers) and so you must believe the impossible that remains (aliens.)


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## Anthony G Williams

RJM Corbet said:


> Sorry mosaix, but does that mean you only believe what has been been proved by experiment, or by deduction?
> 
> Those are two different things?
> 
> The greatest scientists on earth 'believe' (by deduction) that 96% of the universe is dark matter/energy which would account for the extra gravity in the universe, so they can't see it or measure it in any way except that _something_ must be there, to make the equations balance.
> 
> And yet the 'physics model' rejects 'string theory' as a 'philosophy' because it can't be proved by physical experiment, simply because the apparatus to measure it does not exist, although the Large Hadron Collider might help string-theory gain some credibility with 'real' physics.
> 
> So even physics is not that different from being a religion, when you think about it.


 
A classic chain of illogical thinking....we don't know everything, therefore anything we can't prove is in the same category, therefore physics is no different from religion.

No, NO, *NO!!!*

Physics, like all science and many other disciplines (historical research, for instance), is based on evidence. Cosmological theories are an attempt to make sense of our observations of the universe (which is our basic evidence) in a way which is consistent with known science (evidence collected concerning the existence and behaviour of sub-atomic particles) and with mathematical logic. The fact that there are several competing theories is because, at the moment, the evidence we need is incomplete. 

By definition, theories about the formation of the universe are not "testable" in the sense of "setting up an experiment to create a universe", but that doesn't mean that they are no more than fantasies. As the evidence comes in, so the theories will be whittled down. It's the evidence which determines and validates (or rejects) the theories.

Religion, on the other hand, is a "given" body of knowledge: it rejects any evidence which does not comply with the holy texts (in fact if you're in a Muslim country and you start questioning the factual accuracy of the Koran, you'd better have a very fast getaway in place and ready to go...). It is the antithesis of science, as different as it could be. Religion has always hated science (and tortured scientists to "recant" until this became regarded as rather uncivilised) because religious leaders do not want any questioning of their authority, or of the basis for that authority. If religion had not been challenged by the scientific method (which kept being proved right), we would all still be in the Dark Ages, because religion resists change as hard as it can.

The belief that aliens exist is not based on any verified evidence whatsoever. Let alone the belief that aliens have formed advanced technological civilisations, have managed to visit the Earth, and have amused themselves, first by building the pyramids and Stonehenge and now by having fun with crop circles. Attempts to point out that there are perfectly simple, mundane explanations, based on solid evidence and fully compliant with scientific and historical knowledge, which account for all of these are rejected by the "alienists" with the same blind vehemence as medieval priests rejected the notion that the Earth might be a spheroid, and that it might be orbiting the sun rather than the other way around. 

It's the alien fantasies that are in the same camp as religion - as we have seen in this thread, you will not shake the true believers by producing solid evidence that they are wrong.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Dave said:


> ... As for deduction, you appear to be deducing in a reverse-Sherlock Holmes manner: You have already eliminated the improbable (students and young farmers) and so you must believe the impossible that remains (aliens.)



I have never once drawn any conclusion as to the origin of crop circles ...


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## JunkMonkey

Anthony G Williams said:
			
		

> Religion has always hated science (and tortured scientists to "recant" until this became regarded as rather uncivilised) because religious leaders do not want any questioning of their authority, or of the basis for that authority. If religion had not been challenged by the scientific method (which kept being proved right), we would all still be in the Dark Ages, because religion resists change as hard as it can.



Which throws up the interesting possibility (albeit a very remote one) that one day actual physical, scientifically verifiable, concrete evidence will be found for sapient life elswhere in the universe - that will be denied by the UFO cultists because it doesn't fit with their orthodox view of Greys, abductions, anal probings and all the rest.


----------



## Ursa major

Interviewer: "So we now have incontrovertible, though indirect, proof that there is intelligent life in our galaxy?"

'Expert' on aliens: "Yes."

Interviewer: "What do you think these aliens look like?"

'Expert' on aliens: "To be frank, it's a bit of a grey area."


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## Chaoticheart

I'm slightly curious as to how we got here from crop circles. Guess I'll have to backtrack a few pages.

A few points.



Anthony G Williams said:


> A classic chain of illogical thinking....we don't know everything, therefore anything we can't prove is in the same category, therefore physics is no different from religion.
> 
> No, NO, *NO!!!*



If one were to look at it from a philosophical standpoint however, which is arguably as logical a train of thought as you can get, then both physics and religion lack evidence in the same level. As there is absolutely no way to prove anything apart from ones own mind exists, belief in anything else, be it math, physics etc. is simply an act of blind faith (granted their are numerous attempts to counter this, but, having read many, I feel they failed to logically prove anything).



> If religion had not been challenged by the scientific method (which kept being proved right), we would all still be in the Dark Ages, because religion resists change as hard as it can.



The Dark Ages is a ridiculously misleading term; the time period is known as such simply because it appears dark to us due to a lack of records, not because people were less intelligent or because religion made scientific advancement lesser. And regarding religion vs science, that's really more an age of enlightenment thing, which came about seven hundred years after the end of the dark ages (or 200 years after if you use the time period to describe the entire middle ages).

As a side note, Einsteins views on religion vs science are quite interesting.

"Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no  doubt of the significance and loftiness of those superpersonal objects  and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation.  They exist with the same necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself.  In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become  clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and  constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of  religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict  between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is,  but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of  all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with  evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of  facts and relationships between facts. According to this interpretation  the well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must  all be ascribed to a misapprehension of the situation which has been  described."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_religion_and_science#cite_note-72



> The belief that aliens exist is not based on any verified evidence whatsoever.



Perhaps, but there is no verified evidence that aliens do not exist either. Simply because we have not seen them in this insignificant fraction of the universe is not verified evidence. By merely following the laws of probability it becomes likely that life exists elsewhere in the universe. In fact if it somehow turned out that this world was unique in having life, that, in my mind, would be a huge supporter towards the existence of a God.


----------



## skeptical

Chaotic

It is, of course, extremely likely that alien life exists somewhere else in the universe.

However, this idea is a hell of a long way from the assertion that crop circles and UFO's are caused by little grey men in flying saucers, or little green men, or any intelligent extraterrestrial.

In fact, as far as I can tell, there is no credible empirical evidence of any form that any extraterrestrial intelligence has ever visited the Earth.   Instead, we get lots of evidence that terrestrial unintelligence is very active on Earth.


----------



## Chaoticheart

skeptical said:


> Chaotic
> 
> It is, of course, extremely likely that alien life exists somewhere else in the universe.
> 
> However, this idea is a hell of a long way from the assertion that crop circles and UFO's are caused by little grey men in flying saucers, or little green men, or any intelligent extraterrestrial.
> 
> In fact, as far as I can tell, there is no credible empirical evidence of any form that any extraterrestrial intelligence has ever visited the Earth.   Instead, we get lots of evidence that terrestrial unintelligence is very active on Earth.



I agree entirely. My prior comment was simply directed at that tiny little sentence which felt as if it were implying there were evidence that aliens did not exist anywhere/shape/form.


----------



## Anthony G Williams

Chaoticheart said:


> If one were to look at it from a philosophical standpoint however, which is arguably as logical a train of thought as you can get, then both physics and religion lack evidence in the same level. As there is absolutely no way to prove anything apart from ones own mind exists, belief in anything else, be it math, physics etc. is simply an act of blind faith (granted their are numerous attempts to counter this, but, having read many, I feel they failed to logically prove anything).


 
True, but pointless. There is also no way to prove that we are not all simulations in some advanced being's computer programme. None of this gets us anywhere at all - they are just debating points for the sake of debating.

In the real world (by which I mean, the world we live in as long as we accept that we are not simulations etc), science has brought us the civilisation we enjoy today, including the ability to post messages in discussion forums on the internet. That's pretty solid evidence by real world standards, which is not matched by any equivalent evidence for the basis of religion.



> The Dark Ages is a ridiculously misleading term; the time period is known as such simply because it appears dark to us due to a lack of records, not because people were less intelligent or because religion made scientific advancement lesser. And regarding religion vs science, that's really more an age of enlightenment thing, which came about seven hundred years after the end of the dark ages (or 200 years after if you use the time period to describe the entire middle ages).


 
True - I was using the term loosely to refer to the long period of time before the Enlightenment (after all, if we weren't enlightened, we were presumably endarkened )



> As a side note, Einsteins views on religion vs science are quite interesting.
> 
> "Accordingly, a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance and loftiness of those superpersonal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation. They exist with the same necessity and matter-of-factness as he himself. In this sense religion is the age-old endeavor of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals and constantly to strengthen and extend their effect. If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside of its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary. Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action: it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts. According to this interpretation the well-known conflicts between religion and science in the past must all be ascribed to a misapprehension of the situation which has been described."


 
I don't have much of an argument with that, but it's an idealised view of religion which doesn't closely match with reality. The problem with religion is when it insists it alone knows the truth about the material world in which we live: it then does indeed "speak of facts and relationships between facts". Which is why battles still rage over the teaching of evolution in US schools, and why none of the Republican Party's presidential hopefuls will admit to believing in it. Pathetic, really.



> Perhaps, but there is no verified evidence that aliens do not exist either. Simply because we have not seen them in this insignificant fraction of the universe is not verified evidence. By merely following the laws of probability it becomes likely that life exists elsewhere in the universe. In fact if it somehow turned out that this world was unique in having life, that, in my mind, would be a huge supporter towards the existence of a God.


 
I never suggested that aliens did not exist - just that there is absolutely no evidence that they do, therefore no rational reason to develop a belief system based on their existence.

In my youth I used to assume that the galaxy would be teeming with advanced alien civilisations, but I am now a lot more doubtful. See: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/Fermi.htm


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## RJM Corbet

If I say, quite correctly, that string-theory, because it cannot provide evidence, is openly referred to as a 'philosophy' by the physics 'model' -- why does that mean I think aliens made crop circles?

Isn't religion a philosophy? Or the belief that it's wrong to kill, steal, covet thy neighbour's ox, etc?

A lot of physicists nowadays 'believe' in string theory -- it unifies quantum gravity, which is the holy grail of modern physics. Some physicists, like Leonard Susskind, of Stanford University, have literally given their lives to the 'belief'.

I'm saying there can't be 'evidence' of everything, and it gets boring, whenever someone wants to even discuss possibilities -- especially in a science-fiction forum -- that everyone shouts for: evidence -- as if science is all there is in the world, and when the best actual _evidence_ science _can_ provide accounts for only 4% of observed phenomena.

There are some things human beings will just never know. Get used to it ...


----------



## Anthony G Williams

RJM Corbet said:


> If I say, quite correctly, that string-theory, because it cannot provide evidence, is openly referred to as a 'philosophy' by the physics 'model' -- why does that mean I think aliens made crop circles?


 
It may be referred to as a philosophy by some physicists, but not by others - there is, as always, healthy disagreement among scientists working at the cutting edge of knowledge and understanding. 

I never said that you, personally, believed that aliens created crop circles - but lots of people seem to.



> Isn't religion a philosophy? Or the belief that it's wrong to kill, steal, covet thy neighbour's ox, etc?


 
No, to both. There is such a subject as the "philosophy of religion" and another called "religious philosophy" (which is different) but both of these are ways of thinking critically about issues raised by religion, whereas a religion is a body of law and belief which must be accepted and obeyed - quite different in principle.

The belief that it is wrong to kill etc (people of the same group, anyway - naturally you should kill enemies!) results from the long history of human development in cooperative groups (and also applies to social animals), and has subsequently been codified for social management by both secular and religious authorities as we have discussed before. It long predates religion - or philosophy.



> A lot of physicists nowadays 'believe' in string theory -- it unifies quantum gravity, which is the holy grail of modern physics. Some physicists, like Leonard Susskind, of Stanford University, have literally given their lives to the 'belief'.


 
They believe that it represents the best chance of explaining observed phenomena, as far as they know. However, a key difference between science and religion is exemplified by the fact that if new evidence clearly indicates that string theory is wrong, it will be abandoned (maybe with great reluctance by its main proponents, but that's human nature for you...).



> I'm saying there can't be 'evidence' of everything, and it gets boring, whenever someone wants to even discuss possibilities -- especially in a science-fiction forum -- that everyone shouts for: evidence -- as if science is all there is in the world, and when the best actual _evidence_ science _can_ provide accounts for only 4% of observed phenomena.


 
Yes, I know, people get bored by the constant demand for evidence - especially when it gets in the way of what they really _like_ to believe in. 

To say that we can only account for 4% of observed phenomena is nonsense: the (so far) unobserved dark matter and energy affects cosmological calculations but little else: once that mystery is solved, it will only drop a few pieces into place in the vast jigsaw of knowledge.



> There are some things human beings will just never know. Get used to it ...


 
The only thing which I can think of which _might _in principle be forever beyond human understanding is why the Universe emerged in the first place. For the rest, there are many things we don't know now, and some we may not know for centuries, but the number keeps falling as knowledge increases, and there is no reason to suppose this will stop for as long as our civilisation lasts. Get used to it...


----------



## RJM Corbet

It starts becoming semantics: religion, faith belief, etc. But perhaps this thread isn't the place to go on with this one?

Back to crop circles: let me know when the beach party's on Dave -- could do with some fresh air, I'll bring my own board, long as you bring the beer?


----------



## RJM Corbet

Sorry, had to post this. 666 is a BAD number ... superstition


----------



## Metryq

Alien Wizards did it!


----------



## J Riff

*sorry, out of patience*

There is proof, yes. You can see it, _yes_. You will be informed via the worldwide media, yes, then this discussion will be actually interesting, instead of theoretical blather.
Mercy. 1950s _- the pilot of the craft was determined to be a large insect._
1962, Mars mission _- 'there's carvings and statues everywhere.'_
You can imagine what's gone on since. Get over it, fleshapoids!
Anyway. Posting Mars images, with details of various places visited, on a UFO board, of all places. 
There were others up, some will be talking soon I hope, including the young female, who you_ will_ believe.
NASA will hang on to the bitter end, but none of them were up there so I reckon they don't count for much in the end.
No, not kidding. I led the fragging mission - liason, if you will. Wattaya goon do about it? 
 Where else would it end up if not on an English SF board? My Pa was a limey and the missions ran out of Canada with US and Brit financing. 
Sorry. It gets a lot worse than you may expect, people are dead, families destroyed, a lot of tragedies in the wake of this monster. Nasty, nasty business. Yech. God, you won't even believe it.
 Unless the goon squads keep the cap on somehow, it should be bubbling out steadily now. I heard something about this fall for some kind of worldwide mind control, sorry _television...._announcement.

Something worth discussing? How about the concussion weapon they use to punch holes in anything, like maybe the crust of a planet.
It burns a large crystal, looked like quartz, for every shot. The bigger the crystal the heavier the impact. These crystals are loaded, by hand, into a metal cylinder and fired single-shot style. Advanced, but ancient, technology.
 How does it work? I don't know - but someone does, and you are being denied knowledge of the existence of this, saucers and other tech. I wonder why.

BTW this nightmare has temporarily destroyed my writing ability, on top of all the other torture, so I'm not around here much, won't be, but puhlease stop arguing or denying or theorizing and remember that this is a Science Fiction board. If you can't wrap your mind around it what chance does Joe Public have?


----------



## Starbeast

The Unexplained Crop Circles​ 
Hoaxers may create most agroglyphs, but not all.​ 


http://www.timstouse.com/CropCircles/planksstring.htm​


----------



## RJM Corbet

Starbeast said:


> http://www.timstouse.com/CropCircles/planksstring.htm​





This means _nothing_ without at least one or two of the red parts filled in? Is the reader supposed to do the research? That's the _researcher's_ job! That's what researchers _do_. Trawling 99th hand 'facts' off the net and then collecting them is _not_ 'research'. Research is phoning and visiting people and laboratories. How can 'researchers' complain that nobody takes them seriously if they keep recycling this sort of thing as 'research'? Crop circles aren't hidden. Big cover up? Afraid? Oh, _please!?_ Anyone can pick a bent barley stalk and take it home, or a scoop of earth. There's plenty of opportunity for someone to come forward with real lab test results. Why would they want to hide their names? It makes no sense at all? So all we get to read, is stuff like this: 


*... The real issue is that no man-made crop circle has satisfactorily replicated the features associated with the real phenomenon, and this has baffled scientists and researchers. (But WHICH scientists and researchers?) Crop circles are created by a force seemingly at odds with modern science. (No further details? Says who? Why? Where?) Central to the hoax argument is that a physical object is required to flatten the crop to the ground, resulting in the breaking of the plant stems. In genuine formations the stems are not broken but bent (left), normally about an inch off the ground and near the plant's first node. The plants appear to be subjected to a short and intense burst of heat which softens the stems to drop just above the ground at 90ª, where they reharden into their new and very permanent position without damage. Plant biologists (WHICH biologists?) are baffled by this phenomenon, and farmers, (Which farmers?) who know how the land ticks, have no explanation either. It is the singlemost method of identifying the real phenomenon. Research and laboratory tests (Laboratory? Where? Link for test results?) suggest that microwaves or infrasound may be the only method capable of producing such an effect ...*


If someone wants to publish 'proof' he _knows _he has do better than that. He KNOWS it. But he just goes ahead anyway. Why? That's the part I don't get ...


----------



## RJM Corbet

Try this site if anyone wants to really check this stuff out, with references, etc ...


http://www.barry.warmkessel.com/9related.html


----------



## Dave

I'm afraid I've given up the ghost on this thread. I can't argue with the fact that they were made by giant Martian insects. The evidence is now insurmountable, not!


----------



## RJM Corbet

If I could see or read about ONE scientist (ie: NAME, qualifications, and university or institution) who is prepared to stand up with 'evidence' of unusual effect or unusual soil residues? There are thousands upon thousands of web entries on the subject, but never anybody's _name_. Maybe there _is _someone out there with PROOF? But my own life's too short to be wading through thousands of cranky, unsubstantied web and you tube posts  ...


----------



## RJM Corbet

Science spends billions on telescopes and so on, searching for 'exoplanets' and 'et' radio signals. It's right at the top of the list of priorities. So it's not as if scientists would be making fools of themselves by investigating the 'bent-stalk' and 'soil-radiation' in crop circles. To find something linking circles with 'et' would be probably the biggest scientific breakthrough of all time. Nobel prizes all round. So where are these 'scientists and researchers and biologists'?

They can't give their names? Yeah, right. Well, when they do ...


----------



## J Riff

Well as long as you are reeady for a lifetime of backpedalling if and when the real explanation shows up.
 One scientist. Hoo boy. Find one press person who can print the truth. What chance does a wimp scientist with tape on his glasses have?


----------



## Metryq




----------



## Starbeast

Great comic strip *Metryq*, very funny.


----------



## J Riff

It's those college kids again, and their UFO.
How dissapointing would it be to capture a UFO and find out it's people flying them all along?
 Howdja like cop-saucers patrolling the cities? I'm moving back to Mars asap.


----------



## Ursa major

We'd taken that as red....


----------



## Dave

I said I would post in this thread again, but I just had to bring you this:



> * Stoned wallabies make crop circles*



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8118257.stm


----------



## Metryq

Dave said:


> I said I would post in this thread again, but I just had to bring you this:
> 
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8118257.stm



Well, that really threw a monkey wrench into the works. Now we have to figure out how wallabies made it to England (inside a UFO?). Or perhaps it was just Wallace and Gromit playing a prank? I think they live on West Wallaby street. Or it might have been a were-rabbit.


----------



## JunkMonkey

I think the point is that if off their tits marsupials get the urge to make patterns think what something with opposable thumbs, a piece of string, and skin-full of Red Stripe* will get up to.



*or whatever it is the young people drink these days.  In my day it was Newcastle Brown, Red Stripe, and Breaker.  Anyone remember Breaker?  ****ing awful stuff.  Got you drunk though.


----------



## RJM Corbet

JunkMonkey said:


> I think the point is that if off their tits marsupials get the urge to make patterns think what something with opposable thumbs, a piece of string, and skin-full of Red Stripe* will get up to.
> 
> 
> 
> *or whatever it is the young people drink these days.  In my day it was Newcastle Brown, Red Stripe, and Breaker.  Anyone remember Breaker?  ****ing awful stuff.  Got you drunk though.



Newcastle Brown Ale's still going strong.
But I doubt the creators of some of the amazingly intricate artworks shown in this thread are on it.

These designs would have to be carefully plotted on computer first, to the point of planning elliptical circles on slopes that will look perfectly circular, or else look perfectly 3D from the air -- and I mean perfectly. 

The teams, of probably at least twenty in some cases, would have to first survey the topography of the intended field and then be trained with repeated dry runs to the Nth precision to come in and work silently for just a few hours in darkness to lay the stalks in grids and patterns _without breaking them_ to create light and dark 3D effects, without any mistakes at all, and without bumbling around into each other.

It's not just crop circles anymore, its DNA strands, complicated 3D molecules, screen-print faces with shading on the facial planes, a CD disc painstakingly marked with the correct code that can be translated into words -- all sorts of things, and no beer cans or roach ends left lying around afterwards either ...


----------



## Metryq

*Aliens!* It couldn't be anything else, except maybe Atlanteans stuck underground. Jabba the Hutt's hooka?


----------



## J Riff

I don't trust scientists, nor do  ithink they could pull off some of the crop circles out there.
 I just looked at one, an old one, on the sideof a mountain in BC. So it hasto be airborne college students after all.


----------



## Peter Graham

With respect, this rather short post is very telling:-



> I don't trust scientists


 
A lack of trust of anyone potentially associated with "The Man" is a common theme is conspiracy theories. Everything is predicated on the notion that those in authority or those with knowledge are part of a shadowy cabal whose only interest is hiding "the truth" from the lumpen masses.

My question is: Why, if aliens exist and make pretty pictures in fields, would the government have any interest or need to hide the fact? Assuming that they even could hide it, of course.




> nor do ithink they could pull off some of the crop circles out there.


 
It's tempting to think that something that looks odd must be odd - but it's a false correllation. There is plenty of stuff I don't understand - electricity for one - but I am happy with my lack of knowledge and do not assume that the fact that I can't understand something means it must be inexplicable or must have a supernatural cause. After all, its not like I'm an expert in the field.




> I just looked at one, an old one, on the sideof a mountain in BC.


 
Let us be clear here - you have looked at the actual circle on the actual mountain with your own eyes, or you have looked at pictures in books or on t'internet which *claim* to be the actual circle on the actual mountain. The two things are really not the same.




> So it hasto be airborne college students after all.


 
Even if this really is the only possible "natural " explanation, it still remains significantly more likely than invisible airborne aliens with a cryptic interest in landscape design.

Regards,

Peter


----------



## RJM Corbet

Peter Graham said:


> ... Even if this really is the only possible "natural " explanation, it still remains significantly more likely than invisible airborne aliens ...



Crop circles _could_ have been created by people. It's even likely that they were. People are clever.

But 'aliens' _could_ exist. It's even likely that they do. Somewhere. Even invisible ones. Cloaking devices are being researched by modern science. The whole direction of 21st Century space exploration is the quest for life on other worlds.

Its quite ironic that nowadays its the sci-fi writers who laugh at the idea of 'aliens', and the scientists who're taking the idea seriously.

And before anyone starts asking: "But _why_ would 'aliens' remain invisible, etc." The answer is: Who knows what 'aliens' would do ...


----------



## JunkMonkey

I think the horse is dead, RJM.


----------



## RJM Corbet

JunkMonkey said:


> I think the horse is dead, RJM.



You never know, and better a slow horse than a dead horse?


----------



## Lilmizflashythang

Just have to stoke the fire, but here goes:

In the Middle Ages, what we call crop circles was called fairy circles. So who made those? Remember that at that time, people were worried about the plaque, about being accused of heresy or witchcraft--both fatal--or even scared of angering the kings. 

On the note of bigfoot, I seem to recall learned people of science saying that there was no hairy man-like creature in the Congo. I guess they were right, weren't they?


----------



## Ursa major

I thought fairy circles were rings of mushrooms rather than arrangements of trodden-down crops.


----------



## J-WO

Lilmizflashythang said:


> In the Middle Ages, what we call crop circles was called fairy circles. So who made those? Remember that at that time, people were worried about the plaque


 The Hundred year was was fought over mouthwash.



> On the note of bigfoot, I seem to recall learned people of science saying that there was no hairy man-like creature in the Congo. I guess they were right, weren't they?



An interesting fact is that, though Bigfoot sightings were known before the famous Patterson film of the fifties, the physical descriptions were wildly divergent. With the Patterson film, Bigfoot suddenly became uniform in appearance. Odd that.

And so, come to think of it, did aliens after the highly publicized Betty and Barney Hill abduction.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Ursa major said:


> I thought fairy circles were rings of mushrooms rather than arrangements of trodden-down crops.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybe_semilanceata


----------



## Ursa major

To which I can only reply: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_circle.


----------



## JunkMonkey

Ursa major said:


> I thought fairy circles were rings of mushrooms rather than arrangements of trodden-down crops.




Me too.  I came across one last summer on a roadside verge.  It was only a few feet across but very distinct.  A ring of darker grass with yellowy/creamy 'shrooms dotted around the outside edge. 
My 8 year old eldest daughter, who has a vivid imagination and is a voracious reader,wouldn't step inside it.

 No aliens involved.  Just magic.


----------



## JunkMonkey

Lilmizflashythang said:


> On the note of bigfoot, I seem to recall learned people of science saying that there was no hairy man-like creature in the Congo. I guess they were right, weren't they?



Sources please.


----------



## Varangian

There was a program on 60 minutes (here in Australia) some years ago now, and it covered the crop circles that people (with boards) had created, and the circles were intricate and very convincing. The program then moved onto other crop circles and compared the two together.

The crops of the man made circles were snapped at the base and were lying on top of each other in a mess. The crop of the other circle, however, was bent over, not broken, and they were interwoven, not lying on top of each other. In addition, there was also a very strong magnetic field associated with the latter crop circle that was absent with the former.

I'm not suggesting non-earth entities are involved, but I am suggesting that there is a small percentage of crop circles that cannot be explained (yet) and were certainly not made by a bunch of weed smoking hippies with a board.


----------



## J Riff

I don't trust scientists because I have personally witnessed a mountain of lies spew from the area of theior mouths. Heck, I was in on a lot of them, and they made sense at the time. Many still do.
 People aren't clever they are generally dim and unimaginative. You may continue to assume otherwise because you hang in a inelletchal place like the Chrons. )
 What's very interesting is the fact that so-called official sites, like NASA or serious UFOlogy sites, are the most uptight and resistant to discussion. The mere mention of posting the wrong Mars photos, and opening a discussion about same, will get you instantly banned by NASA. They have their hands full with the 'never went to the Moon' crowd, I guess. They also have horrendous crimes hanging from them, like any Govt. agency that indulges in  secret tests, missions and so forth.
 Will all this human crime be revealed when ET finally shows? 
 I'd like that, but you can bet the gravy train crowd will do anything to stop it and put their version of the truth out there. They do seem to have stopped throwing people out of skyscrapers for threatening to go on TV and talk, so that's a start.


----------



## JunkMonkey

Fights urge to.... must resist...  cursor can't quite reach the next tab...




J Riff said:


> They do seem to have stopped throwing people out of skyscrapers for threatening to go on TV and talk, so that's a start.



_NASA used to defenestrate it's critics? _The same NASA that people have been castigated for years by the naysayers, doom-mongers, and every other person on the planet with an axe to grind about anything as being a bureaucratic mess costing gazillions in cost overruns and waste?  That NASA?  The NASA whose legendary inefficiency is about the _only _thing that  crop circle fruit-loops and hard science buffs can agree on?  Can you imagine the paperwork involved in NASA throwing someone out of a window?  The poor f**ker would still be filling out forms as he hit the street.


----------



## RJM Corbet

There is a lot we do not know.
Man has learned to identify DNA and how it works, atomic forces, amazing feats of spaceflight, don't denigrade what NASA has achieved -- amazing technology.

But all the same, all man can do is to find out more about how nature works.

It is nature that created DNA and the planets and the galaxies, not man.

It is very arrogant for man to decide what exists out there, unseen. Logic only goes so far.

Our physical vision is restricted to a tiny slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, etc.

Science is only a tool for understanding nature. Man is not inherently superior to a caterpillar or a horse.

The act of observing an electron determines its position. Somehow, everything that I see, or you see, is created by the act of perception.

Strange world we live in ...


----------



## Ursa major

RJM Corbet said:


> It is very arrogant for man to decide what exists out there, unseen. Logic only goes so far.


The thing is, the crop circles are not out there, they're down here and very much visible.

Bringing together Occam's Razor with the occasionally true equation (students plus alcohol give rise to pranks) suggests that it would be arrogant to blame some poor innocent alien life form for crop circles.


----------



## JunkMonkey

RJM Corbet said:


> Man is not inherently superior to a caterpillar or a horse.



Every Man vs Catapillar smackdown I've ever seen the caterpillar lost.  Most of them didn't come back for a rematch.


----------



## RJM Corbet

I'm just saying we don't know everything. Science doesn't know everything. We can't demystify everything. There are mysteries of nature.

Man vs caterpillar smackdown? How about man vs lion or grizzly bear? Man has no strength or speed or horns or fangs. Man has no right to think he has any more rights in nature than a caterpillar.

There may be beings out there who perceive man as man perceives a caterpillar. Perhaps part of their advancement includes a respect for nature. How do you talk to a caterpillar? We don't know, do we?


----------



## Ursa major

On the other hand, we ought to be interested in advancing science and logic, and should not be diverted by somethhing that's simply... er... moth-making.










​


----------



## JunkMonkey

Ursa major said:


> The thing is, the crop circles are not out there, they're down here and very much visible.
> 
> Bringing together Occam's Razor with the occasionally true equation (students plus alcohol give rise to pranks)



V True. 

And 

Taking Barnum's Assertion then multiplying it by average life expectancy, I calculate there are (roughly) some 32,587,200 suckers alive at any one time.  Though as Barnum failed to say whether his Assertion applied only to the USA and whether this was a finite number, or if it would vary in proportion to the population, this result may well be a hideous underestimate.  If the 1 per Min. number is not absolute (see Straczynski's work in the field of Minbari soul migration) then it is obvious that this number is wildly out of date and vastly underestimative.  There are a lot of suckers out there. Most of them seem to have internet access.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Ursa major said:


> On the other hand, we ought to be interested in advancing science and logic, and should not be diverted by somethhing that's simply... er... moth-making.



Not at the expense of nature and the world that supports us. Oil companies, logging the Amazon, etc.


----------



## Harpo

Crop circles are logging the Amazon??


----------



## JunkMonkey

Harpo said:


> Crop circles are logging the Amazon??



Now they would be really big crop circles.  If I saw a few of_ them_ I might be more convincable that our little grey brothers were trying to tell us something.


'Look, Earthlings, we just flattened Venezuela; what more proof do you need?'


----------



## RJM Corbet

Harpo said:


> Crop circles are logging the Amazon??



Know-it-all human beings are logging the Amazon ...


----------



## Ursa major

And the latest piece of misheard news: "Amazon is cropping writers' circles!"











​


----------



## RJM Corbet

Ursa major said:


> And the latest piece of misheard news: "Amazon is cropping writers' circles!"



Well anyway, if aliens make crop circles, I hope they tell the caterpillars first ...


----------



## Metryq

JunkMonkey said:


> see Straczynski's work in the field of Minbari soul migration



You forgot to mention the *Theological Engineering Exam*.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Metryq said:


> You forgot to mention the *Theological Engineering Exam*.



Where do you _find_ these things, Metryq?


----------



## Metryq

RJM Corbet said:


> Where do you _find_ these things, Metryq?



Someone sent the Theological Engineering Exam to me by e-mail ages ago, and I laughed myself silly. I especially love the bit about Stan being massless and frictionless.


----------



## RJM Corbet

Metryq said:


> Someone sent the Theological Engineering Exam to me by e-mail ages ago, and I laughed myself silly. I especially love the bit about Stan being massless and frictionless.



I have one big problem with it though, and that's how I know it's not a real exam, you can't fool me, you know. Everyone knows that exams nowadays are always multiple choice answers ...


----------



## J-WO

Thanks Metryq- that exams hilarious. And I always assume a spherical Jesus.


----------



## Ursa major

J-WO said:


> Thanks Metryq- that exams hilarious. And I always assume a spherical Jesus.


Does this mean that there could be an even deeper allegorical meaning to the (original) TV series, _The Prisoner_?


----------



## Metryq

Ursa major said:


> Does this mean that there could be an even deeper allegorical meaning to the (original) TV series, _The Prisoner_?



I've never seen this series, but it's there in the library, and I know it is popular with many. Now I'll have to go sign it out and watch it.

Do these spheres stomp grass, or is that all a bunch of crop? And now the thread comes full circle...


----------



## Ursa major

The spheres are a very important part of the series. (And they "walk" on water....)


----------



## Harpo

Here’s a new one, with a big mistake.


----------



## mosaix

You can see the line where the guy ran through it shouting 'damn, damn, damn' and tearing his hair out.


----------



## mosaix

RJM Corbet said:


> Sorry mosaix, but does that mean you only believe what has been been proved by experiment, or by deduction?
> 
> Those are two different things?
> 
> The greatest scientists on earth 'believe' (by deduction) that 96% of the universe is dark matter/energy which would account for the extra gravity in the universe, so they can't see it or measure it in any way except that _something_ must be there, to make the equations balance.
> 
> And yet the 'physics model' rejects 'string theory' as a 'philosophy' because it can't be proved by physical experiment, simply because the apparatus to measure it does not exist, although the Large Hadron Collider might help string-theory gain some credibility with 'real' physics.
> 
> So even physics is not that different from being a religion, when you think about it.
> 
> Biology and chemistry can work by direct experiment, but even biology has to make assumptions about 'life'.
> 
> So you can't always demand direct physical proof of everything ...



Looks like I missed this one - from 11 years back! I've just stumbled across it whilst re-reading the thread. In addition @Dave's and @Anthony G Williams' more than adequate responses to the question my own is that I'm not a scientist but, to get by in the world I have to rely on other people's knowledge in areas I know nothing about - including science. I have to make value judgments. With regards to science, I do this by listening to respected scientists and reading scientific publications. Here the key is peer review.

In some other areas I am forced to use my common sense and I apply this to the subject of this thread - crop circles. I can only repeat what I said back in 2011:

_Let's just weigh up the two arguments:

On the one hand, we have humans. They live here, they aren't necessarily drunk, some of them have admitted doing this in the past and even provided demonstrations of how they did it. Some of them have a history of just doing things for fun and because they enjoy playing pranks on other people. None of the designs that have been made are beyond the skill of one, two or more people to do.

On the other hand, we have aliens. They have come here from light-years away. They have identified the Earth as habitable from a vast distance. Despite being technologically advanced, they have chosen to communicate with us by destroying crops in a pattern fashion and they have travelled billions of miles to do this.

You judge._


----------



## Ursa major

mosaix said:


> On the other hand, we have aliens....



One way of thinking about it is that: explaining why they're here, what they can do, and all sorts of other things, takes far too much time and is far too much bother when they're only here for a mow....


*gets environment suit*


----------



## Alex The G and T

The old link to the exam came up 404.

It's still hilarious, though. http://danny.oz.au/danny/humour/theology-exam


----------



## BAYLOR

Harpo said:


> Here’s a new one, with a big mistake.
> 
> View attachment 91252



He flunked Geometry class.


----------



## hitmouse

Mods: can you move this thread to the Games section?


----------



## Brian G Turner

Why the Games section?? Anyway, this is an old thread, no need to create unnecessary work for the mods.


----------



## RJM Corbet

mosaix said:


> Looks like I missed this one - from 11 years back! I've just stumbled across it whilst re-reading the thread. In addition @Dave's and @Anthony G Williams' more than adequate responses to the question my own is that I'm not a scientist but, to get by in the world I have to rely on other people's knowledge in areas I know nothing about - including science. I have to make value judgments. With regards to science, I do this by listening to respected scientists and reading scientific publications. Here the key is peer review.
> 
> In some other areas I am forced to use my common sense and I apply this to the subject of this thread - crop circles. I can only repeat what I said back in 2011:
> 
> _Let's just weigh up the two arguments:
> 
> On the one hand, we have humans. They live here, they aren't necessarily drunk, some of them have admitted doing this in the past and even provided demonstrations of how they did it. Some of them have a history of just doing things for fun and because they enjoy playing pranks on other people. None of the designs that have been made are beyond the skill of one, two or more people to do.
> 
> On the other hand, we have aliens. They have come here from light-years away. They have identified the Earth as habitable from a vast distance. Despite being technologically advanced, they have chosen to communicate with us by destroying crops in a pattern fashion and they have travelled billions of miles to do this.
> 
> You judge._


Oh wow! Yeah, 11 yrs have changed my mind. I was more gullible those days. It's students, lol ... not spacemen


----------



## THX1138

Here is a link to a Crop Circle Location Map. There's bound to be a clue in all of this!
My theory is that the aliens choose grain fields is that after all that time traveling in space, they need a drink.
So, I feel that the real meaning of the crop circles is, "Bring us to your beer"...
I brew my own, and good thing I wear an Aluminum cone on my head when do so! They might find it... 
2022 Crop Circle Location Map (brought to you by CropCirclesandMore.com)


----------



## CupofJoe

THX1138 said:


> Here is a link to a Crop Circle Location Map. There's bound to be a clue in all of this!
> My theory is that the aliens choose grain fields is that after all that time traveling in space, they need a drink.
> So, I feel that the real meaning of the crop circles is, "Bring us to your beer"...
> I brew my own, and good thing I wear an Aluminum cone on my head when do so! They might find it...
> 2022 Crop Circle Location Map (brought to you by CropCirclesandMore.com)


Some geographical profiling and we could find where the "humans" live...


----------



## Phyrebrat

For my sins I have a bit of experience in this ‘phenomena’. I’m typing this to remind myself to post here when I get back from screaming at children. 

Hint: they’re all done by us. But…


----------



## Elckerlyc

... done compulsively while being remotely possessed by aliens?


----------



## Dave

CupofJoe said:


> Some geographical profiling and we could find where the "humans" live...


There does seem to be a strong correlation between crop circle sites and Stonehenge. 
(but even if accurate, how comprehensive is that map? I'm sure there are more crop circles that those shown. Looks like cherry picking data to fit one's hypothesis.)
Which University? Bristol? Southampton?



RJM Corbet said:


> 11 yrs have changed my mind. I was more gullible those days. It's students, lol ... not spacemen


Actually, I'm more open to some conspiracy theories now. Maybe not quite up to giant Martian ants creating crop circles rather than students, however I seriously underestimated the number of clandestine government plans or elaborate murder plots (which I thought were merely the unhinged beliefs of a small number of paranoid idiots) but have now seem to have been proved actually to be true, but we can't discuss that more.



hitmouse said:


> Mods: can you move this thread to the Games section?





Brian G Turner said:


> Why the Games section?



Well, if it isn't a student game/prank then it is world/current affairs (which we don't do here anymore) or else it is humour. It certainly has little to do with Science or Nature if they are pranks. It's an old thread, but no religious discussion is allowed, even as humorous exam questions.

I suggest that we stick to those Science and Nature aspects of this thread and ignore the conspiracy theories if it isn't to be removed - the geographical, geometrical aspects of the circles, the use/misuse of data to prove theories. Enough has been said on the other aspects.

Creating these circles with wooden planks, poles and rope; managing a large number of other students (whether inebriated or sober) would be incredibly difficult - the logistics of getting people and equipment there and back again, early in the morning - not one person accidentally standing in the wrong place.



Phyrebrat said:


> I have a bit of experience in this ‘phenomena’.


Spill the beans, old Bean!


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## RJM Corbet

I don't think there are going to be any physical aliens, in any form that we as carbon based life with limited carbon based natural senses could recognize. At the same time I think there is conscious life everywhere in the universe. I think the planets and the sun are living entities.

Life overflows any human ability to recognize it -- some inferior and some far superior to man. I don't think it's safe to make pronouncements and judgements about consciousness and the universe based on what we know now -- wonderful as that is.


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## CupofJoe

Dave said:


> There does seem to be a strong correlation between crop circle sites and Stonehenge.
> (but even if accurate, how comprehensive is that map? I'm sure there are more crop circles that those shown. Looks like cherry picking data to fit one's hypothesis.)
> Which University? Bristol? Southampton?


Given the current data set, my bet would be on Marlborough College's upper sixth or their favourite pub in town...
Just look for kids carrying metre long planks around with them.


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## hitmouse

RJM Corbet said:


> I don't think there are going to be any physical aliens, in any form that we as carbon based life with limited carbon based natural senses could recognize. At the same time I think there is conscious life everywhere in the universe. I think the planets and the sun are living entities.
> 
> Life overflows any human ability to recognize it -- some inferior and some far superior to man. I don't think it's safe to make pronouncements and judgements about consciousness and the universe based on what we know now -- wonderful as that is.


If the universe is full of numinous and mysterious consciousness then the most ineffable aspect for me is why, given all of the galactic possibilities for showing off, it would demonstrate itself by flattening some corn in middle England in the image of Richard & Judy.


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## Toby Frost

"Greetings humans! We have observed your television broadcasts. We demand an audience with your leaders, Richard and Judy!"


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## Phyrebrat

Okay my experience with CC’s was from 1989-ish to 2000. I got into meditation and other things when I was in my late teens/early 20s following hospitalisation from a suicide attempt. I had a bit of an epiphany re life and it led me into all sorts of things.

One thing was crop circles. I loved the abstract oddness of them and had bought many many books with all sorts of far fetched explanations. Whether it was DnD or aliens, I knew there was ‘more’ to it.

As I got older, I got a car and spent 10 weeks of the crop circle season in the Salisbury triangle/Wessex Corridor visiting all the ones I could. As time went on and the geometry became more intense and complex, I started to smell a rat.

I got involved with a couple of the largest land artists (as they call themselves — as opposed to criminals, haha) and went on some ‘hoaxing’ missions with them.

To be clear; they’re all fake depending on your definition of ‘fake’.

The thing is, there is something ‘magical’ about them inasmuch as there would be occasions when we would have a field but change the location or design at the last minute. This might seem like no big deal, but the precision needed meant that every design and plan took forever so these occurrences were rare, but present. It was because [redacted] or one of us would feel strongly that we should change plans. And on those occasions (and others, to be sure), we encountered what I suppose can only be described as balls — mostly amber or white — that would appear before us from time to time.

The hot spot for CC is the Alton Barnes area of Wiltshire and has a lot of helicopters and military stuff going on but these were no aircraft lights. Not at a foot or two above the ears.

There are examples of us leaving unfinished ones    - I’ll post some pics if you like. Stuart ended up in court over this one at goldenball hill. Only three members were making that flower formation so it was a bit risky. British summers have such short nights and we have about 4-5 hours.

I quit when I realised there was no supernatural element to the formation, but I believe there is some kind of paranormal ‘stuff’ inasmuch as the feelings and things that happen in or near them _after_ they’ve been laid.

I see them as temporary temples — lots of new agers getting together and doing healing or meditation inside those ones with an honesty box.i think of them as Fortean rather than alien or human. More is going on. 

If you’re interested in the human element — check out the most famous group: The Circlemakers/Team Satan (as were). Please don’t ask me to comment on how to hoax or what o did because it’s something I’m ashamed of and managed to avoid charges.

ETA. Typing this on the 123 from
Tottenham so forgive any typos, please.


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## Foxbat

I wonder if  Banksy will ever do one.


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## THX1138

hitmouse said:


> If the universe is full of numinous and mysterious consciousness then the most ineffable aspect for me is why, given all of the galactic possibilities for showing off, it would demonstrate itself by flattening some corn in middle England in the image of Richard & Judy.
> 
> View attachment 91795


Well that blows my "Bring us to your beer" theory. My ale is safe!


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## Phyrebrat

Argh. I see I forgot to add the one my acquaintance was charged for creating. When I go back to the site I use it’s in the archive which you have to be a paid member for!


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