Crop Circle Jerks
Crop circles are finally commonly known to be man made. Why do some people maintain that they're not?
Filed under Aliens & UFOs
| Skeptoid #62 August 21, 2007 Podcast transcript | Listen | Subscribe |
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Tonight we're going to take our dowsing rods and our tinfoil helmets, stand out in a remote wheat field, and try to feel the psychic energies as a UFO comes down and forms a gigantic complicated geometric pattern by crushing the wheat. It might use a whirling dimensional vortex as its mechanism. It might be ball lightning or some strange effect of the wind. It might be the aliens trying to communicate with us. It might be the Earth herself expressing profundities. Or it might be a couple of clowns with a piece of wood.
We've all heard how in 1991, two old English guys, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, went public with the confession that they had been making crop circles throughout England since 1976, using ropes and planks and simple surveyor's tricks. They generally did it after pub night on Fridays, and had a rollicking good time. They had been enjoying the resulting media circus immensely, and would gladly have taken their secret to the grave, but for Bower's wife who noticed the mileage on his car and wondered if he was having an affair. So, to protect Bower's marital bliss, the two made a public confession, and even did live demonstrations on TV. The media reported that the crop circle phenomenon had been solved. But, of course, to any intelligent person, Bower and Chorley's confession didn't prove a thing, any more than Ray Wallace's family's confession about him making Bigfoot prints proved that there weren't also a thousand other sources of footprints. Artist John Lundberg, who formed a group called Circlemakers, has been making many of the most complex and beautiful crop circles ever since the public confession, including many for commercial purposes. Even I made an effort in the late 1980's. My friend and I took some old skis and were going to make a crop circle in Irvine, California, but when we got there we discovered the last remaining field had just been plowed for a new subdivision.
One good thing about the crop circle phenomenon is that there are very few people left who believe that they have some cause other than pranksters. But those few people are resolute in their belief. Hoaxing is now so prominent that most of the staunchest crop circle researchers now concede that the vast majority of crop circles are manmade. However, some of them have found an "out" that lets them continue to stroke their paranormal explanations for even the manmade variety: Some researchers now believe that the same paranormal or alien forces that create "real" crop circles are also responsible for controlling the minds and actions of the hoaxers. Thus even the manmade crop circles are equally significant as evidence that an unknown intelligence is behind all crop circles.
One prominent researcher of crop circles is a man named Colin Andrews, who used to call himself CPRI or Circles Phenomenon Research International until he ran out of money a few years ago. His web site at CropCircleInfo.com offers CD-ROMs and Powerpoint presentations about crop circles for sale, but little in the way of testable hypotheses about non-human origins of crop circles. His research methods largely center on dowsing and psychics — which is what I'd do too, since those sources produce claims of such a nature that they cannot be tested or falsified.
In 1993, Andrews contacted Masahiro Kahata, a Japanese software engineer who constructed a simple device for measuring electroencephalogram activity and displaying it colorfully on a Macintosh screen. He calls it the Interactive Brainwave Visual Analyzer. Kahata came to England, and the two of them tromped around taking amateur EEGs of people on the street as a control, and also of dowsers in the act of examining crop circles. Andrews reported:
What we found, measuring with a computer real-time in the fields, was that the right brainwave activity of the dowser, at the precise moment those seven rings were measured and reacted to by the dowsing rods, spiked in all the brainwave frequencies — alpha, theta, beta, and delta — at the precise moment the dowsing rods moved.
Andrews regards this as hard scientific evidence that the dowsers are reacting to a physical manifestation of the crop circle, though he's vague on what that might be. As it turns out, Kahata had also done similar experiments on his own in the 1970's, when he applied an earlier version of his device to magicians and self-described psychics while they were performing spoon bending tricks. He got the same results: higher EEG activity during the spoon bending performances. Was this evidence of an unknown psychic force? Science writer and magic teacher Dorion Sagan, son of Carl Sagan, offered a different conclusion:
If there is a tightly correlated increase in mental activity while a psychic is bending spoons, it is probably because he is nervous he is going to get caught.
Now I'll grant that most dowsers, especially those who invest the time and money to travel to crop circle sites, are not consciously out to fool anyone and thus aren't nervous that any deception will be detected. But since dowsing of any kind has never passed any rigorously controlled test (sorry, but it hasn't), and it's well established that many psychics and other mediums are genuinely but unconsciously using well established cognitive phenomena to guide their divinations (sorry, but they are), honest dowsers are probably genuinely excited every time their dowsing rods move. And genuine excitement is just as good at making an EEG jump as is the state of being nervous.
Most neurologists agree that EEGs are useful to a certain point. You can derive basic information from them, but they are too vague to indicate anything complex like sending telepathic messages. Intense concentration on a pattern, for example, can produce a recognizable signal in some cases. An epileptic seizure throws up a giant spike. But to state that any given spike indicates the presence of a paranormal force and not the excitement or nervousness of the dowser, you need to leave the realm of what neurologists have learned and enter the land of pure speculation. Andrews himself states that the same spikes in EEG activity were observed on one occasion when a military helicopter flew close by. Such a flyby would make me pretty nervous.
So much for dowsing the crop circles. What about their formation? The people who make them use simple tools and surveying techniques to transfer complex plans into a full-scale wheat field, but what about those said to be formed by paranormal means? How does that happen? Colin Andrews explains further:
The eyewitnesses I've interviewed in many countries over the years have all agreed with me on one point: when they claim to have seen circles form, they appear in 10 to 15 seconds.
In any picture you see of Colin Andrews visiting a crop circle, he's loaded with camera equipment and so is everyone else in the picture. In fact, it's hard to find any picture of crop circle investigators where everyone in the shot is not holding a camera or binoculars or something, finger on the trigger. So my question to Colin Andrews would be, "Did you not ask these crop circle investigators who witnessed the formations why, in every single case, they failed to produce a single photograph or frame of videotape showing this wonderful creation?" If I were Colin Andrews, these investigators are not those whose testimonials I would flaunt to the world. Instead I would tell them they screwed up, and probably even accuse them of trying to hoax me. How can they spend all day and night camped out on the hilltop, finger on the video camera trigger, witness a crop circle forming, and produce only a lengthy list of verbal reports, and no video? Inexcusable for a conscientious researcher. The first thing I would fault Colin Andrews for would be requiring only the lowest of standards for the information he accepts as evidence.
So what about all these numerous eyewitness accounts of crop circles being formed, in seconds, by hovering balls of light? Well, again, I'd point to the evidence issue. These eyewitnesses, or at least those reporting the accounts, always turn out to be crop circle believers. If they'd seen a real event, they probably would have used that camera hanging around their neck. But in every case, they've failed to do so.
Well, almost every case. There is one famous video of white balls of light actually creating an entire crop circle, in seconds. It's called the Oliver Castle video, and you can find it on YouTube. It was made by John Wabe in 1996 or 1997, a partner in a small video production company called First Cut Studio. He took some simple video of the completed crop circle, and ran it through their Quantel Paintbox. In a video subsequently broadcast on the Discovery Channel and on National Geographic, he showed how he rubber-stamped other pieces of the wheatfield background to "erase" the crop circle, and then un-erased it bit by bit underneath some flying white dots that he added. He then added some shake and some artificial generation loss to the video, and presto, a great hoax was done. For years it was considered definitive proof by many crop circle believers. But when he finally went public with how he made it, guess what? Few believed him, and many still believe to this day that the video is genuine, and that it's his confession that is the real hoax. Web pages accuse him of earning huge sums of money — government payoffs for discrediting a genuine video. Even if you read the comments on YouTube — which are, granted, mostly the half-literate and profanity-laced ravings of young people — it's painfully clear that many people cannot be convinced by any evidence that a paranormal phenomenon is not real.
And although some prominent crop circle researchers (Colin Andrews among them) do accept that the video is a fake, many do not. Believer web sites assert that top video analysts have proven that the Oliver Castle video cannot have been faked. My favorite among these top analysts is Jim Dilletoso, whom you may remember from Skeptoid episode 41. Dilletoso is one of the most vocal UFO advocates, and claims to have spent six weeks at an underground base for gray aliens outside Dulce, New Mexico. Judge his credibility for yourself.
It is an interesting world we live in, where you can tell a group of people that you made a crop circle with a rope, even show them how you did it, and they still insist that an unknown paranormal intelligence did it. You can tell them that two plus two equals four and they'll insist that it's five, even after you line up four apples for them. You can make a simple hoax video with them sitting at your elbow watching, and they'll conclude the video's real and you're a paid government stooge. And then they'll put their tinfoil helmet back on.
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© 2007 Skeptoid Media, Inc. Copyright information
References & Further Reading
Andrews, C., Delgado, P. Circular Evidence: A Detailed Investigation of the Flattened Swirled Crops Phenomenon. London: Bloomsbury, UK, 1989. 1-190.
Branwyn, Gareth. "The Desire to Be Wired." Wired. 1 Sep. 1993, Volume 1, Number 4: 62-65, 113.
Irving, R., Lundberg, J. The Field Guide: The Art, History and Philosophy of Crop Circle Making. London: Strange Attractor Press, 2006.
Nickell, Joe. "Circular Reasoning: The Mystery of Crop Circles and Their Orbs of Light." Commitee for Skeptical Inquiry. Commitee for Skeptical Inquiry, 20 Sep. 2002. Web. 6 Oct. 2009. <http://www.csicop.org/si/show/circular_reasoning_the_mystery_of_crop_circles_and_their_orbs_of_light/>
Ridley, Matt. "Crop Circle Confession." Scientific American. 1 Aug. 2002, Volume 287, Number 2: 25.
Reference this article:
Dunning, Brian.
"Crop Circle Jerks." Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, Inc.,
21 Aug 2007. Web.
6 Sep 2010. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4062>
Discuss!
Remember, you should always read with skepticism the comments of anyone too lame to put their real name & city.
Mmmmm.... humans.
Marius vanderLubbe, Nullabor Plain, Australia
August 28, 2007 5:40pm
But to aliens... we are the aliens!
neil griffiths, Cardiff uk
September 01, 2007 4:45pm
Crop circle hoaxes may have been inspired by a natural phenomenon. When I was a kid working on a farm, I frequently discovered partial crop circles in the mornings. They usually consisted of flattened grain stalks that traced out sectors of circles and occasionally full semicircles. As I saw more of them in various stages of formation, it became apparent that they were partially caused by dew or rain. My guess is that as the heads of the grain stalks became heavy with moisture and a wind blew, some of the stalks would fall over and bring down a growing number of stalks in their path in a kind of domino effect. The flattening effect would fan out radially to make unexpectedly circular patterns. Of course, none of the patterns were as elaborate as the obvious hoaxes.
Shayne, Oxford, MA, USA
September 30, 2007 5:26pm
I juts want to add, that it is really amazing how resistant people can be against truth in the "esoteric" world. This not only can be found with respect to crop circles, but in a lot of other fields as well.
I once gave an totally hoax-tip how to accomplish a "ritual", one hour later I revealed that this was just made up. Still some people even weeks later asked me either to give them a ritual too and/or believed that I actually had a profound knowledge of "rituals" and magic.
(Of course all my "knowledge" was that one can Google in 20 minutes plus some fantasy.)
Why some people rather like to believe, than to think. Does thinking hurt so much?
Maybe this question is the biggest "phenomenon" of all...
Nico Riffel, Munich, Germany
December 04, 2007 9:53am
Three important things were overlooked or ignored.
First, the physical scientific evidence that _some_ formations are not man-made:
http://www.bltresearch.com
http://www.cccrn.ca/science.html
Second, the historical evidence for simpler formations dating back at least a few centuries (including Nature magazine, 1880):
http://www.bltresearch.com/otherfacts.html
http://www.cccrn.ca/history.html
Third, most of the eyewitnesses reporting a formation occuring have _not_ been researchers, as wrongly stated. Most have been general public, farmers, etc. And most of those have reported seeing simple circles or rings form in a few seconds, not complex formations.
Widespread hoaxing has simply now overshadowed what may be another interesting (natural?) phenomenon.
Paul Scott Anderson
founder
Canadian Crop Circle Research Network
http://www.cccrn.ca
(1995-2008)
Paul Scott Anderson, North Vancouver, BC, Canada
January 11, 2008 8:30pm
It gets to a point where you can simply no longer bother to investigate all the charges of "real" crop circles. Once you've debunked and falsified a theory so many times, there comes a point when you get diminishing returns from examining 'new' events. The people who believe will always find a new reason to believe, despite the repeated instances where previous incarnations of crop circles were proven to be false.
When you can no longer falsify a theory, it's not science.
eric thorn, Seoul, ROK
June 22, 2008 6:57am
I found this interesting site in a Google search.
Most intelligent people would prefer to *learn something* about a subject, before they express such strong opinions concerning it.
The English/European crop circle phenomenon has been going on strongly since 1990, with 50-100 new complex field images every year.
Many of those show indications of non-mechanical construction, as can be seen from heated/bent plant stems, while a few (say East Field of 2007) have been caught on multiple cameras by several witnesses while forming, at 3 AM with no one around.
Just imagine that: a 300-meter crop picture appears within 15 minutes in East Field on July 7, 2007, and no humans are in the field below!
Would any "skeptical" people like to concern themselves with observed facts such as these, or is this forum just a kind of ego-strengthening?
Red Collie, Australia
April 02, 2009 2:15pm
Hi Red,
Perhaps you could provide a few more details of the ittem in question. Such as ... links to objective sites where the size and speed of creation were accurately measured.
I have googled and can only find ... well, let's just say ... less than critical material.
A crop circle is an extraordinary event. It requires VERY good evidence to support the claims of extraterrestrial construction - expecially when so many are simply hoaxes, and the hoaxters admit and demonstrate how the hoax is perpetrated.
Brenton, New Zealand
April 02, 2009 3:23pm
Many thanks for your enquiry.
Just less than two years ago in the early morning of July 7, 2007, Winston Keech along with Gary King and his partner Paula stayed up all night on a hill overlooking East Field (near Avebury) in Wiltshire, England, because that field is a prime location for new crop pictures to appear. They had been doing this practically every night since June 1.
Finally on July 7 at 3 AM, they were rewarded by a sudden light flash caught on four separate cameras, and a huge new formation in the field below. Terje Toftenes (a Norwegian film maker) held a press conference a few days later in Alton Barnes. All of those witnesses and films are completely trustworthy and reliable. If you search for their names, the detailed information should appear on Google unless recently censored. Here is one link from a local paper:
www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/1559662.the_crop_circle_mystery
Attempts to cite that new and well-documented evidence on Wikipedia or other major international media outlets met with nearly complete censorship, which is why perhaps you have not heard of it before? Nor the author of this article, who wrote the uninformed essay above on August 21, 2007.
One other interesting bit of evidence: all of its large circles appeared precisely round when photographed from above, but projected as ovals into the sloping field below: excellent evidence for "creation from above".
Best wishes, Red Collie
Red Collie, Australia
April 06, 2009 10:29pm
Quoting from the article mentioned above:
"It appeared on the video footage and lasted four microseconds."
That's 4 millionths of a second. What the hell kind of frame rate are they shooting at? Plus it's at night when one normally uses longer frame rates to let in more light.
Also, on a side note, why don't we see them on golf courses?
Glen Wolfram, Eugene, OR
May 24, 2009 9:51pm
i welcome your skepticism, but please at least get facts straight, Bower and Chorley outed themselves publically when they heard that the government was going to invest public funds into the investigation of their crop circles. whereas many, perhaps most, but at least many crop circles are fakes...some like the alien with orb with ascii message in the orb, not to mention numerlogical data giving the latitude and longitude, dates, etc found in england are FAR LESS EXPLAINABLE! other than obvious fakes, you've really disproved nothing and offered little to no evidence to back up your statement in the first paragraph. so thus, ive concluded you are just as much a douche and fraud as many as these liars and fakes. not to mention bower and chorley were copycating a phenomenon that was already occuring, since at least the 9th century, maybe you should have added that, no?
Josh Cornell, Niagara Falls, ON
July 17, 2009 1:27pm
I find it quite funny that you reject in an offhand manner the efforts of individuals seeking to further understand the phenomena as they have not got a wealth of empirical data and scientific accreditation to backup their statements.
How does one begin to be taken seriously in the scientific world in the first place when you have already decided to reject any information or hypothesis put forward? This is a fundamental problem of the scientific community and has been seen in the past. What are now accepted as scientific truths have initially been ignored, then ridiculed, then argued over and finally decreed to be the truth. Is it not folly to so utterly dismiss the phenomena?
If it wasn't so sad I laugh at the irony of your 'research', an account of the history of the phenomena based on the farcical tabloid journalism that 'created' a nice long running bit of throw away news based on the fact that 2 old men had the ability and time to spend years making often complex formations. It's well documented they could barely trample down a miss-shaped circle with none of the grace let alone biological characteristics of a real crop circle. So why is it you have done no research yourself and armed only with prejudices you have rejected the sincere hard work of others taking time to further understand a phenomena documented for centuries?
Scientific papers have been published on the effects present in the crops that have been flattened in formations. Do you disregard them??
Laurence Winram, Edinburgh
August 29, 2009 4:05pm
Well,Laurence Winram, Edinburgh, perhaps you might be so kind as to throw up a link to these "scientific" papers.
Any rejection is not offhand, as you put it. It is based on the best available evidence.
What do you suggest is the origin of crop circles,Laurence Winram?
Marius vanderLubbe, Nullabour Plain, Australia.
August 29, 2009 7:29pm
Marius,
the article above was not based on 'best available evidence'. As I said before, it's based on tabloid journal accounts from around 19 years ago which is about the standard of 'research' that sceptics seem to do on the subject.
Heres a link to published papers on the subject
http://www.bltresearch.com/published.php
I'm a big fan of science, the problem is when they find things that don't fit the existing paradigm then it gets thrown without serious thought. There are a number of scientists working on crop circles now but often anonymously for fear of ridicule, a pattern we've seen repeated many times in history.
A biogeneticist from Australia analyzed crop circles and in June concluded that based on the information drawn from the formations from earlier this year a 'solar event' was indicated to occur on the 7th July. Then on the 5th to 7th July we had the first massive sunspots to appear for 2 years, something that drew attention the world over.
http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1584&category=Environment
I know that this would need many other events predicted to make the science world to pay attention but at least he's not sticking his head in the sand.
If you're going to criticize crop circles at least do a little homework.
Laurence, Edinburgh
September 05, 2009 1:10pm
How about you explain the science in your own words, Laurence. As a fan of science, you should be able to give us the distilled version. The links you provided contain such a lot of scientific sounding jargon.
I can easily give you my distilled version.
People dun it, with sticks, string and GPS an' shit.
Isn't that a whole bunch more likely than all the pseudo-scientific bollocks that gets kicked around by people looking for mystery where none exists?
I look forward to you giving us the skinny on the mystery.
Marius vanderlubbe, Nullabour Plain, Australia.
September 21, 2009 2:52am
I dont know if any of have seen the one and only video of how crop circles are made.
On this video, you will see two balls of light circling in an area,
about 30 seconds go, there you have beautifull crop circles.
And know they are not from planet.
Looks like something GOD would do.
As FAr as I am concered these are as real as you and I..'You will.
You can try martrixnewsnetwork.com to see this.
Fred Howard, St Augustine FL
January 21, 2010 3:51am
Where is the line between blind faith and mental illness? I wonder if some of these people (the UFO alien abduction guy in particular) are suffering from undiagnosed Schizophrenia. I feel a little sorry for them, and a little guilty for chuckling at these podcasts.
Abby, Austin, TX
February 17, 2010 4:55pm
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I totally believe this stuff. Didn't you see "Signs" with Mel Gibson. We're all going to be harvested as food for aliens! Arrrrghh!
Barry, USA
August 28, 2007 10:22am