Crop Circles

[RJM Corbet]

Doug with a board in the middle of the night?

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

 

[J-WO]

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

 

[soulsinging]

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

 

[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 ...

 

[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

 

[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

 

[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.

 

[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...

 

[Metryq]

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.”

 

[HareBrain]

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.

 

[RJM Corbet]

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.

 

[mosaix]

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.

 

[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.

​

 

[RJM Corbet]

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

.....

 

[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.

 

[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?

 

[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.

 

[RJM Corbet]

... 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 ...

 

[mosaix]

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.

 

[RJM Corbet]

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 ...