Crop circles - a theory

[Rosemary Fryth]

I've always been fascinated by crop circles and although I realise that the vast majority of modern crop circles have been created by creative people armed with rope, boards and a GPS device, there are a few over the years that defy rational explanation, including the very famous 'Julia Set' circles that appeared in broad daylight near Stonehenge in 1996.

Now I'm not one for believing in alien intervention, however I do have a theory which I'd like to put forward for comment and discussion.

I find it interesting that most crop circles seem to appear where there are neolithic formations - stonehenge, avebury, silbury hill, long-barrows etc. It occurred to me that perhaps circles appeared in the grain crops of early neolithic man as well. Perhaps that is the reason for the building of so many stone circles and the enigmatic silbury hill. Perhaps neolithic man was simply imitating the patterns in the crops - perhaps formulating 'god' or 'fairy' legends about those who created the circles.

If we take another leap of imagination - perhaps the intelligence which created those early crop circles might well be linked to an unconscious interaction with humanity. Perhaps what creates the crop circles is an unknown local power, an unknown natural intelligence which 'feeds' off human belief. If my theory is correct then the more belief these 'gods' receive, the stronger they become - less worship means they recede, diminish. Now although crop circles were mentioned once or twice in past history, they were pretty much dormant in the landscape and in people's awareness - ie there was almost no belief in the old powers, the old gods, Christianity and other mainstream religions were ascendent in Britian and elsewhere, paganism had almost died out.

So what is to explain the sudden reappearance of them over the last thirty years or so? The only answer I can come up with is that people are now thinking, believing in the great natural powers rather than in organised religions like Christianity. Witness the rise of New Age beliefs, Wicca, the re-emergence of paganism. The worldwide interest in sci-fi, fantasy stories, fantasy movies, fairy tales. The modern cult of vampires, demons, elves etc. Perhaps all this interest 'feeds' something: a power, it gives it life, it gives it awareness. Perhaps too its intelligence grows in response to our own growing intelligence as a species - which might explain the emergence of extremely complex crop circles, some featuring fractal designs.

Anyway, back to earth - this is all supposition and day-dreaming, however as a theory I guess it's good as any others out there, and perhaps a little more realistic than the CIA carving designs in crops using lasers, or aliens trying to contact us...

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Having worked on excavations in Hampshire, Wiltshire and Somerset (95-97) - if there is anywhere an elaborate hoax could be pulled off it's there. There are students and others with the finances, education and inclination to do it. A group of students in a field round Stonehenge at the time was not unusual and passers by as a result may not have noticed them. I've walked in those fields as a group - admittedly not traipsing across crops we'd have done it at different time of year.

He mentions the security guards during special events they are stupidly dilligent (think they are scared we might manage to fit a stone in a handbag) - their eyes don't stray from those souls hoping for something magical from within the stones. They wouldn't notice if a hundred kippers streaked across the field.

Now some crop circles appear near ancient sites because of the archaeology beneath the surface. That would have happened for many centuries - in the stone age they didn't have great tracts of fields like they do now. They are the product of the 18th Century onwards. We don't get that many in the North of Scotland where there is an abundance of stone circles. The county I live in has at least six or seven remaining in some state or another.

 

[Metryq]

there are a few over the years that defy rational explanation, including the very famous 'Julia Set' circles that appeared in broad daylight near Stonehenge in 1996.

I was a passenger in a car that was broad-sided years ago by another car pulling out of a side street. Although the driver of the other car was turning in the same direction as a tractor-trailer, his car was in another lane beside the truck, thus blocking his view of our approach. In later testimony the other driver explained, "I didn't see anyone coming."

That's entirely different than "I could see that no one was coming."

No one admitted seeing the pattern being made near Stonehenge, so naturally it requires exotic explanations. As I quoted Dr. Venkman in another thread on crop circles, "No human would stack books like this."

A counter theory might be that people are giving such "mystical sightings" more significance. If I say, "Wow, look at all the red cars!" you will suddenly see them everywhere. I must be magic.

 

[Rosemary Fryth]

Your local perspective is interesting Anya. Could you explain to an Aussie how below-ground archaeology could produce a pattern in above-ground crops. Is it because crops don't grow as well if there are the remains of a neolithic roundhouse just below the surface?

As for the 1996 circle - I don't believe students could do it given that the design was created in around 45 minutes. I think it has a different and less straightforward explanation.

Not sure of the lack of circles in Scotland? Perhaps in earlier neolithic times Scotland had a more temperate climate which encouraged the planting of cereal crops and thus the building of stone circles?

 

[AnyaKimlin]

http://www.damerhamarchaeology.org/

Here are some cropmarks - not as elaborate as some crop circles but enough to have been described as such in historical documents. It can be anything that causes them under the surface but it affects growth patterns.

As the articles about the Julia set formation point out it is an area with an RAF base, there will be the expertise in the area between them and the archaeologists to work this one out. I've seen examples of what both groups when bored are capable of.

We get plenty of cropmarks here in Scotland, but seem to get less of the other variety - we do however have more stone circles.

 

[RJM Corbet]

There's been a fair lot said on the subject of crop circles.

Don't expect an easy ride!

Check out this thread:

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/532288-crop-circles.html

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I'm not saying they did it but a bunch of RAF guys could pull it off easily in 45 minutes - not to mention the navigators have the mathematical skills. There was also a fair number of army regiments within easy reach. Archaeologists that do the experimental, practical stuff. New Age folk (who are often very talented, very well educated, and very well off).

I live near an RAF Base (well in process of becoming an army base) that has a New Age foundation as its neighbours. The RAF and a New Age foundation together have proved an effective team in this area.

 

[Rosemary Fryth]

There's been a fair lot said on the subject of crop circles.

Don't expect an easy ride!

Check out this thread:

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/532288-crop-circles.html

Thanks for the head's up. Interesting that the prior thread did not come up under a forum search.

I read through (or rather browsed) the entire lengthy thread. There are definately two camps, the dyed-in-the-wool believers, and the dyed-in-the-wool human creators. I believe I fall somewhere in between in that its entirely practicable that most crop designs are man-made, yet I believe a few are unexplainable, especially the ones where the crop has been laid-down and interwoven without damaging or breaking the stems. Some designs have shown evidence of heat and there seems to be in others, a residual magnetism. My own theory about the unexplainable ones is above, and has a paranormal explanation. Personally I feel that if aliens travelled thousands of lightyears to Earth they'd have more important things to do with their time than draw doodles in our crops. The thing that dissuades me about the university student explanation is that nowadays most people wanting their five minutes of fame put their endeavours up on you-tube. Why spend all that time and energy creating crop masterpieces when you don't get recognition for your efforts. I had a look at the 'documentary' on you tube about the making of a crop design - its not particularly convincing and frankly the whole layout of the crop is really messy and 'unprofessional'.

I'd recommend that you read Janet Ossebaard's book 'Crop Circles The Evidence'. I found it very interesting reading.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

The Julia Set Formation in particular was 1996 - no youtube, very few students I was in halls with even had mobile phones or laptops. Internet was accessed from the library - heck my uni had something called I think a Vax? Vacs machine to send emails from.

As students we did stupid things - archaeology and engineering students tended to be of the can we do this? Would this work? The thrill came from knowing you could knap a piece of flint, and use it to butcher an animal etc Although the locals did try to blame a missing 64Kg of cheese on us in Somerset not sure that was us.

The guys that toilet papered the trees outside, constantly set off smoke alarms and one night managed to purloin 150 traffic cones (all of us in halls got one) and a toilet (except the guy that got the toilet) didn't put it on youtube.

Anyone military wouldn't want it known - they'd lose their jobs.

 

[mosaix]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, Rosemary.

Do you have any documentary evidence reagrding the 1996 Stonehenge event?

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, Rosemary.

Do you have any documentary evidence reagrding the 1996 Stonehenge event?

That's a thought the internet sources aren't exactly the BBC - I'm surprised I had to look it up, but I was buried in Somerset, 8 miles from nowhere at the time. (no radio and no newspapers). It was just before my ME flared badly.

 

[RJM Corbet]

I've pasted this comment from the old 'crop circles' thread, which was my own personal conclusion after all the discussion on the subject:

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 ...

 

[AnyaKimlin]

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

We'll know which students made the crop circles

 

[Peter Graham]

I find it interesting that most crop circles seem to appear where there are neolithic formations - stonehenge, avebury, silbury hill,

These three places are all very close to one another. What you are actually saying is "I find it interesting that most crop circles appear on Salisbury Plain". Salisbury Plain vies with Glastonbury for the coveted title of UK Hippy Central. If I was hoaxing crop circles, I'd also do it on Salisbury Plain - a large, sparsely populated agricultural area (easy to do it unnoticed) popular with feeble-minded new age types (who will believe anything which you can hang the word "spiritual" off).

Perhaps that is the reason for the building of so many stone circles and the enigmatic silbury hill.

For this to be right, you'd need evidence of crop circles in other important surviving stone-circle areas such as Cumbria and (especially) Orkney. I'm not aware of any.

Perhaps neolithic man was simply imitating the patterns in the crops - perhaps formulating 'god' or 'fairy' legends about those who created the circles.

For that to be a runner, you'd need to show stone circle alignments which look like the wierder crop circle marks.

If we take another leap of imagination - perhaps the intelligence which created those early crop circles might well be linked to an unconscious interaction with humanity. Perhaps what creates the crop circles is an unknown local power, an unknown natural intelligence which 'feeds' off human belief.

Perhaps. Perhaps they were created by me with my time machine.

If my theory is correct then the more belief these 'gods' receive, the stronger they become - less worship means they recede, diminish.

For your theory to be correct - or even worthy of serious debate - you're going to need some evidence. Do you have any?

ie there was almost no belief in the old powers, the old gods, Christianity and other mainstream religions were ascendent in Britian and elsewhere, paganism had almost died out.

What are the "old powers" and what evidence is there that they are real (cringes at thought of imminent discussions about ley lines)?

Witness the rise of New Age beliefs, Wicca, the re-emergence of paganism.

What my pal, Dave, collectively calls "religions of consolation for people with no problems".

however as a theory I guess it's good as any others out there

...which ain't saying a right lot.

, and perhaps a little more realistic than the CIA carving designs in crops using lasers, or aliens trying to contact us

Slightly less realistic, I feel. At least the CIA can be shown to exist.....

Regards,

Peter

 

[Interference]

Ok, here's a theory - untestable and free of all evidence, so perhaps "theory"'s putting it a mite strongly, but never mind all that....

What If Crop Circles were crop sink-holes, some gravitational force exerted following some tectonic flux or something, showing the shape of something deep underground? A ship? A fossil? An ancient Termite City?

The big dilemma is finding a reason for the complexity of the shapes and, in some cases, the precision of the geometry. Could there be, deep underground, an analogue for these shapes on the surface? A Stone Circle, perhaps, or some other ancient astronomy-based structure? Lands rise and fall over millions of years, could an evolved earth-based intelligence have existed so long before ours that the remnants of their civilisation are only now being revealed in some "natural" way?

A second - can't say theory, so let's just call it a concept: What happens when a galaxy is acted on with a force of sufficient strength - again my imagination seems stuck on gravity, but this time black holes - that it brushes alongside other dimensions of reality? Might a parallel Earth, for example, imprint some of itself on the surface of our world in some seemingly-mysterious manner?

 

[Peter Graham]

Hi Inter,

The "deep underground" bit might be an issue. Crop marks (as distinct from crop circles) can show underlying archaeology such as hut circles, especially in certain light conditions or after a very dry spell, but the marks tend to be somewhat indistinct and certainly bear no resemblance to the sharp, complex geometric shapes which hoaxers stick in Westcountry cereal fields. In addition, once you have enough good topsoil, the crop marks probably won't show anyway, as there is enough nutrition in the topsoil to ensure that crops grow the same whether or not there is a hard pan of archaeology underneath.

Sink holes are a geological feature of certain rock types - notably limestone, which slowly dissolves in rainwater. Sink holes are amazing things (there are some crackers on Twistleton Scars above Ingleton, for example), but you couldn't possibly confuse them with crop circles. And although I'm probably wrong, I don't think Salisbury plain is limestone - chalk, perhaps?

Regards,

Peter

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau.

Crop marks can show a variety of earthworks and other formations, existance of walls etc and can be very distinct but they don't destroy existing crops, the crops don't grow.

 

[Peter Graham]

Hi AK,

Thanks for that. Chalk it is.

My understanding is that crops do grow over archeaology, but don't grow as tall or as strong or as colourfully (sic) due to the relative lack of nutrients caused by the thinner covering of topsoil over the walls etc. What you'll see at ground level is very little, but if you get up above them or see them in low sun conditions, you'll see the colour variation or the size variation which allows you to make out the rough shapes.

Orkney is big on pastureland, so if crop circles really are something to do with neolithic/bronze age sites (which I don't think they are), we should be seeing lots of exciting crop circles in the fields around Maes Howe, the Ring of Brodgar et al. We don't, which I think has lots to do with Orkney's relative geographical isolation, which in turn discourages the hoaxers from going all that way to play fairly lame practical jokes.


Regards,

Peter

 

[Vertigo]

Did you see the recent Ancient Britain Special on TV about the new Temple site at Brodgar? It seems to pre date Stonehenge and they now seem to think it was more important religiously than Stonehenge and that Stonehenge and Durrington Walls were modelled on the Ring of Brodgar and Maes Howe. They are both paired sites Stonehenge/Ring of Brodgar for the dead and Durrington Walls/Maes Howe for the living.

Now if they are right, and everything seems to point that way, then, as Peter says, surely we should be seeing more crop circles up there. But no, again as Peter says, rather a lot of effort involved in getting there just to play a hoax.

Also as Peter observed Salisbury plain is big and very sparsely populated (nearly everyone lives in the valleys) so very easy to go play without being discovered.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I live an area with an awful lot of much less well known but almost as impressive sites. I'm about three miles from the Burghead Pictish Fort, Sueno's Pictish Stone. and I can think of about three stone circles within twenty miles. We also used to have dinosaur footprints until someone lost them. Similar lack of care has been taken over a lot of local sites which have now collapsed, grown over, been reduced to one or two stones and a bank and ditch.

A bit further out are the stunning Clava Cairns. I cannot anywhere find any reference to a crop circle here. The area despite having been hugely important in Scottish history has been mostly forgotten.