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Crop Circles Explained

2/1/2017

9 Comments

 
Picture
By Benjamin Radford on January 24th, 2013 on livescience.com
According to some estimates, crop circles appear every week somewhere around the world. The strange circles and patterns appear mysteriously overnight in farmers' fields, provoking puzzlement, delight, and intrigue for both locals and the news media.

The circles are mostly found in the United Kingdom, but have spread to dozens of countries around the world in past decades. But who — or what — is making them?

PictureA woodcut pamphlet that some claim represents an early crop circle.
Early claims of crop circlesMany people believe that crop circles have been reported for centuries, a claim repeated in many books and websites devoted to the mystery. Their primary piece of evidence is a woodcut from 1678 that appears to show a field of oat stalks laid out in a circle. Some take this to be a first-hand eyewitness account of a crop circle, but a little historical investigation shows otherwise. 


The woodcut was actually used to illustrate what in folklore is called a "mowing devil" legend, in which an English farmer told a worker with whom he was feuding that he "would rather pay the Devil himself" to cut his oat field than pay the fee demanded. The source of the harvesting is not unknown or mysterious — it is indeed Satan himself, who can be seen in the woodcut holding a scythe. According to the original text of the legend, the devil "cut them in round circles, and plac't every straw with that exactness that it would have taken up above an Age for any Man to perform what he did that one night." This image and story cannot be related to crop circles because it states explicitly that the crop was cut (i.e., harvested) rather than laid down, as occurs in crop circles.

Some claim that the first crop circles (though they were not called that at the time) appeared near the small town of Tully, Australia. In 1966 a farmer said he saw a flying saucer rise up from a swampy area and fly away; when he went to investigate he saw a roughly circular area of debris and apparently flattened reeds and grass, which he assumed had been made by the alien spacecraft (but which police investigators said was likely caused by a natural phenomena such as a dust devil or waterspout). Referred in the press as "flying saucer nests," this story is more a UFO report than a crop circle report.

As in the 1678 mowing devil legend, the case for it being linked to crop circles is especially weak when we consider that the impression or formation was not made in a crop of any kind but instead in ordinary grass. A round impression in a lawn or grassy area is not necessarily mysterious (as anyone with a kiddie pool in the back yard knows). Indeed, mysterious circles have appeared in grass throughout the world that are sometimes attributed to fairies but instead caused by disease.

In fact the first real crop circles didn't appear until the 1970s, when simple circles began appearing in the English countryside. The number and complexity of the circles increased dramatically, reaching a peak in the 1980s and 1990s when increasingly elaborate circles were produced, including those illustrating complex mathematical equations such as fractals.

Theories & explanations
Unlike other mysterious phenomenon such as psychic powers, ghosts, or Bigfoot, there is no doubt that crop circles are "real." The evidence that they exist is clear and overwhelming. The real question is what creates them.  

Crop circle enthusiasts have come up with many theories about what creates the patterns, ranging from the plausible to the absurd. One explanation in vogue in the early 1980s was that the mysterious circle patterns were accidentally produced by the especially vigorous sexual activity of horny hedgehogs. Some people have suggested that the circles are somehow created by incredibly localized and precise wind patterns, or by scientifically undetectable Earth energy fields and meridians called ley lines.

  Many who favor an extraterrestrial explanation claim that aliens physically make the patterns themselves from spaceships; others suggest that they do it using invisible energy beams from space, saving them the trip down here. Still others believe that it is human, not extraterrestrial, thought and intelligence that is behind the patterns — not in the form of hoaxers but some sort of global psychic power that manifests itself in wheat and other crops.

While there are countless theories, the only known, proven cause of crop circles is humans. Their origin remained a mystery until September 1991, when two men confessed that they had created the patterns for decades as a prank to make people think UFOs had landed (they had been inspired by the 1966 Tully UFO report). They never claimed to have made all the circles — many were copycat pranks done by others — but their hoax launched the crop circle phenomena.

Most crop circle researchers admit that the vast majority of crop circles are created by hoaxers. But, they claim, there's a remaining tiny percentage that they can't explain. The real problem is that (despite unproven claims by a few researchers that stalks found inside "real" crop circles show unusual characteristics), there is no reliable scientific way to distinguish "real" crop circles from man-made ones. [Related: Crop-Circle Artists Becoming High Tech]

Crop circle featuresWhile there are exceptions, virtually all crop circles share a set of common characteristics.

CirclesCrop circles, as the name implies, almost always involve circles — rarely triangles, rectangles, or squares, though some designs contain straight or curved lines.  Perhaps not coincidentally, a circle is the easiest pattern for hoaxers to create.

Nocturnal creationCrop circles are formed overnight, often sighted by farmers or passersby the next morning. Though there seems no logical reason for extraterrestrials or earth energies to only create patterns at night, it is obviously a great advantage for hoaxers to create the designs under the cover of darkness; full moon nights are especially popular.

Camera shynessCrop circles have never been recorded being made (except, of course, for those created by hoaxers). This is a very suspicious trait; after all, if mysterious earthly forces are at work, there's no reason to think that they wouldn't happen when cameras are recording. The same thing is true with other explanations including alien spacecraft; the only things ever caught on camera making the circles are hoaxers.

No obvious human traceMost crop circles show little or no signs of human contact. While many people consider this very mysterious, in fact it's quite logical: Hoaxers who devote the time and effort required to design and create the (often complex) crop circles are unlikely to carelessly leave obvious signs of their activities.

Access to roads Crop circles usually appear in fields that provide reasonably easy public access, close to roads and highways. They rarely appear in remote, inaccessible areas. Because of this, the patterns are usually noticed within a day or two of their creation by passing motorists.

There are many theories about what creates crop circles, from aliens to mysterious vortices to wind patterns, but they all lack one important element: good evidence. Perhaps one day a mysterious, unknown source will be discovered for crop circles, but until then perhaps they are best thought of as collective public art.

9 Comments
Warren Westall
5/15/2017 11:52:44 am

I believe that there are ways to tell the difference between man-made and however made crop circles. The differences between man-made and however make crop circles can be quite evident with just the amount of traffic in and around the area prior to making the crop circles. I am noticed on many crop circles that man-made ones have significant damage to the foliage. They looked like they have been trampled on by hundreds of people. The real ones do not have that type of damage.

From the the interweaving of the different layers, the stocks themselves, they appear undamaged apart from the exploding nodes and the extended nodes.

From my understanding the nodes have been investigated. I do believe that was on one of the Ancient Alien programs.

Now there are some crop circles that have been claimed to have been made by certain individuals, but when push comes to shove, they are unable to reproduce these crop circles that they said that they had made even when asked to do it during the daytime.

Reply
Nick Smith link
10/2/2018 11:22:50 am

To prove these crop circles are not man made a competition needs to be held with a 50k prize for a man made team to create an intricate crop circle in day light taking 12 hours. The results will be disappointing.

Reply
nick smith
4/1/2020 10:48:58 am

The evidence is all there. Most intricate designs made over night.If you want proof look at the milk farm video from Wiltshire in England. Two balls of light circling over a wheat filed forming the designs in day light.These light balls flew over a farmers tractor & the engine immediately stopped.The government publishes disinformation, any evidence released is vetted. They know whats going on. he nuclear bunkers at Rendlesham Forest RAF Bentwaters where a nuclear bunker holding 100 war heads had all the missiles disarmed by one of these things. Do you own research, the state likes to treat public like mushrooms

Reply
A Brown link
1/31/2018 06:47:28 pm

I think it's secrej lovers rolling around at night wot causes 'em meself.

Reply
James Sidaway link
12/23/2018 12:53:06 pm

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, actually, I'm not sorry because the people can only hide from being intelligent for only so long... and then pop!

The Crop circle mystery has been solved. Their is a technology now that turns people into robotic, remote-control, digital, dot-matrix printer heads. And the Crop is a kind of paper that the HUMAN-printer-head tramps upon.
Yes, the Mystery School Cult that William Cooper exposed in 1993 has been using it's brainchip/cell-tower combination to remote control it's cult initiates to dazzle the "profane" who just can't seem to figure it all out and glorify the Artificial Intelligence(AI or Lucifer) re-created by the Mystery School, world-wide-cult to make massive, symmetrical, digital, Crop Circles. These hivemind, worker-bees are guided by their wireless brain-interface turning them into (willing) Manchurian candidates to march around like multi, printer-head-robots in the shadows of night. Well, they use boards on the crops in the total darkness of night to create a very, grand, digital effect. The brainchip commands them what angle to slide the board into the standing crop and which way to flop that board. BINGO!!! The human-body becomes a luciferian-glorified human-printer-head for farmer John's sprayed crop-field. Why sprayed? Because the hivemind needs an access-route, away from the edge of the crop-field to get a clean “page” to print upon away from overhead wires. Why no overhead wires? So the dis-information-ists can railroad the profane into imagining a alien craft drawing the design like it’s a big inter-galactic message of love. But the message is from the wicked Cult! “We are going to enslave you dumbos.”

Good luck finding a crop-circle in an areal-sprayed or un-sprayed crop... (No-luck finding one? Go figure!)
I see this author says the circles are just "collective public art" that started in the 1970s. Dr. Rauni Kilde exposed the distributions of mind-controling brain-implants in 1974. Just publicly viewed, but only the cult knows who made them until now..; I just exposed them, now you know, "the real truth!"

SHADOW BANNED, I am!
See my article at computerbraininterface.science.blog about Crop Circles Solved https://computerbraininterface.science.blog/2018/12/09/riddle-of-the-crop-circles-solved%ef%bb%bf/ ... it has been "shadow-banned" by the world-wide-cult for exposing too much "truth." No popular search engine creates links to it .... anymore!
https://i.imgur.com/F73QK9s.png This likely holds a real digital message within it.

Yours truly,
James Sidaway

Reply
Cass
6/3/2019 08:30:37 am

There is NO PROOF that crop circles have been proven this would have been on the news so this comment is fake, this is a theory not proven!

Reply
Cass
6/3/2019 08:29:14 am

Ok, I looked at another website called Livescience.com and this shook me cause this person who wrote this copied and pasted this WORD FOR WORD. I could not post the link here but look up live science.com crop circles and the website will pop up. Live science is a website written by REAL SCIENTISTS and would never be copied and pasted. SO disapointed in this website.
Copy and pasting is illegal and this person who wrote this could go to jail or be fined thousands of dollars.
Learning lesson: Never copy and paste
what a stupid website

Reply
Shameem link
4/1/2020 09:45:00 am

This is quite interesting and informative.. Keep doing..

Reply
John Root link
4/6/2020 04:10:16 pm

Hoaxers are incapable of producing the exquisitely interwoven designs and the many changes to instruments, plants, soils, people, and animals that have been documented at bltresearch.com and other sites ... also, check out Kendall Gennick’s account of marine light wheels and the 1990 Sri Yantra formation in Oregon.

Reply



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    • Honor Roll >
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    • Historical >
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      • Aurora, TX Crash - 1897
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