19 June 2010

technology or sci-fi? - Crop Circles

Whatever you think of their origins, they are usually intricate and captivating to look at; pretty, even.

Crop Circles - formations, usually found in grain crops, where the crop has been mysteriously found laid flat, in patterns, that did not exist in daylight the previous day. Although thought by many to be a phenomena of the 20th Century, crop circles and formations have been around for a very long time, and records even date back well before the invention of the camera.[SOURCE: World Mysteries article by Suzanne Taylor]
Some people have suggested that crop circles are the result of extraordinary meteorological phenomena. This hypothesis probably originated from a 1880 publication in Nature by investigator and amateur scientist John Rand Capron. Part of the publication reappeared in the January 2000 issue of Journal of Meteorology.
    Since appearing in the media in the 1970s, crop circles have become the subject of speculation by various paranormal, ufological, and anomalistic investigators ranging from proposals that they were created by bizarre meteorological phenomena to messages from extraterrestrials.
    The location of many crop circles near ancient sites such as Stonehenge, barrows, and chalk horses has led many New Age belief systems to incorporate crop circles, speculating their existence in relation to ley lines.
    Some New Age supporters have arbitrarily related crop circles to the Gaia hypothesis, alleging that "Gaia", the earth, is actually alive and that crop circles are messages or responses to stimuli such as global warming and human pollution. However, the Gaia hypothesis is actually not a theory of the paranormal, as it originated from academic scientists. It asserts that the earth may be modeled as if a single super-organism, in that earthly components (e.g. biota, climate, temperature, sunlight etc) influence each other and are organized to function and develop as a whole. [SOURCE: Wikipedia: Crop Circles]
How do they do it? By typing ropes to a board, placing the board against the crops, and then stepping on it. That flattens out the plant, and then it's only necessary to move on to more plants. And how did they keep their orientation to create such incredible, perfect geometric patterns? More ropes! Apparently, England has a surplus of rope and young men with too great a knowledge of geometry, too little with which to keep themselves occupied, and a powerful lust for laying intricate plans. [SOURCE: The Triangle by Aaron Sakulich, "The Iron Skeptic"]

1 comment:

  1. So glad to see you're also interested in crop circles. I often post crop circle photos on my Facebook wall. There are some there now.

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