what is your theory? do you folks think it's aliens? or just a hoax? i think it could be aliens. maybe they're drawing a map of other places... hahahaha. i just don't know what the meaning is.
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Re: circle crops
Mon, March 15, 2004 - 5:04 AMI saw a special on TV where they showed these two English guys making crop circles with boards and rope. I think that can account for some of them, but not all. I think we're too quick to discount the fantastic in this world. Maybe the aliens just like to make pretty designs and screw with our heads. -
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Re: circle crops
Mon, March 15, 2004 - 12:02 PMpretty is right. i saw that same special and i can see that some of the crop circles are definately man made. some of the more detailed are just so amazing to me, its so beautiful and i just wish that we could i guess credit something for it. then again, the fact that it remains a mystery is great. -
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Re: circle crops
Mon, March 15, 2004 - 2:05 PMThe thing I can't figure out is if all of them are man-made, which I don't believe, how do they do them in one night and get the design right over such a large area? I mean, some of these things are HUGE Shelley! I remember reading somewhere that some of the circles don't just have plants that were mashed down, they were bent over and WOVEN together. I don't think a plank could do that, do you? -
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Re: circle crops
Mon, March 15, 2004 - 2:26 PMWOW! woven together... geez, definately NOT an overnight thing for humans... so pretty and yeah, in the dark how could you tell?
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Re: circle crops
Mon, March 15, 2004 - 12:02 PMOH! i remember someone saying that the circles translate into songs... er, song notes. don't know if i heard that one right.
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Re: circle crops
Wed, May 19, 2004 - 2:52 PMIntuitively speaking...
I think that crop circles are a natural phenomena of the evolving conscioussness of the planet itself. Just as your neurons cooperate to create mental pictures, I think that clusters of minds also cooperate to create a new level of cognitive "imaging" that is above thought. It is hard to conceptualize because concepts are comprised of thoughts and using thoughts to describe a process that is of a higher order then thought is a difficult proposition indeed.
Not only are crop circles a result of this functioning, they stimulate it as well. Just looking and studying "genuine" crop circle designs stimulates the parts of the mind that connect and relate to the higher dimension of consciousness I am speaking of. They are focal coordinates of sorts.
They also have unique harmonics which different minds will resonate and attune with according to the nature of the process described within the design. I have noticed that there are certain designs that I find very attractive and others that don't move me at all. Remarkably, this attration/repulsion doesn't seem to have to do with the level of intricacy of the design but rather the shape, positioning and size relationship of the elements involved.
It is interesting to me how much of the crop circle conversation is about who and how, and very little about the why? But that is also a notable curiosity in our popular media as well. What ever happened to the why?
Meaning, meaning, meaning. Maybe the *only* purpose for them is to get us to return to the roots of meaning!
These are things I feel, not things I know. -
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Re: circle crops
Wed, May 19, 2004 - 8:44 PMHere's some information about crop circles from a source that I trust:
skepdic.com/cropcirc.html
Personally, I wouldn't put it past the deep-pockets producers of the movie "Signs" to have bankrolled a rash of crop circles as a way of promoting the film. Others do so in order to promote books. The majority of crop circles seem to show up in private fields, where individuals can provide access while keeping the project quiet until it's completed. Two hoaxers, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, have identified themselves. Several others have been caught.
By the way, I firmly believe in UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) which, by definition, are unidentified. I don't find it credible to identify them as extraterrestrial spacecraft. -
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Re: circle crops
Thu, May 20, 2004 - 3:23 PMI would point out that there are historical records of crop formations occuring well before the advent of film cameras and multinational corporations. While the frequency and intricacy of the designs seem to be increasing in their levels of complexity in our present times, the phenomena is hardly a modern one.
I will freely entertain the idea that there are many that have been hoaxed. These are usually apparent in that the techniques used are either sloppy or too specific in their rendering (faces, symbols, etc). Doug and Dave did hoax a few circles, but they also made some erroneous claims about designs which they could not corroberate through factual testimony (i.e. they couldn't remember specific shapes and locations). Later they admitted to lying about their participation in the creation of many of the designs they had initially claimed authority on.
There are several ways to identify hoaxed circles at the close-up scale as well. Hoaxed circles are usually trampled leaving the crops dead and dying. Whereas in genuine circles the still living stocks of the individual plants have actually grown bent at the node an inch or two off the ground. Sometimes the stocks are woven together, sometimes the stocks change direction *in layers*. Here are some photos and detailed research on the physical changes that occur in the plants of genuine crop formations:
www.bltresearch.com/plantab.html
Some scientists have theorized that such mutations in the stocks of the plants can be caused by microwave radiation emmitted from plasma vortices. Plasma vortics are also the phenomena responsible for ball lightning which is sometimes wittnessed before the occurence of "genuine" circles. Humans have been able to recreate ball lightning and plasma vortices in a laboratory environment, but it requires very specific conditions, expensive equipment and working knowledge of certain quantum principles. Not an amature project. This explanation still does not account for any design more complex then a simple ring or circle.
An excellent resource of crop circle info;
www.cropcircleconnector.com/index2.html -
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Re: circle crops
Thu, May 20, 2004 - 8:34 PMI followed the link you gave about physical changes in plants within "genuine" crop formations, which cited the work of biophysicist W.C. Levengood. Here's what the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal has to say about Levengood's research:
www.csicop.org/sb/9606/crop_circle.html
It concludes, "Apparently no one has yet independently replicated Levengood's work. One scientist from Colgate did attempt to verify his seed germination claims using some of his seeds but without success. Apparently few mainstream scientists take Levengood's work seriously other than one or two friends who wish 'to remain anonymous because of the ridicule.' Until his work is independently replicated by qualified scientists doing 'double-blind' studies and otherwise following stringent scientific protocols, there seems no need to take seriously the many dubious claims that Levengood makes, including his similar ones involving plants at alleged 'cattle mutilation' sites."
Since he's a crop-circle "believer", there are questions about objectivity in Levengood's studies. Furthermore, since replicability is critical for the evaluation of scientific research, it's probably best to hold off on theorizing about what might be the cause of plant alterations until it has been conclusively demostrated that they actually occur.
For additional reading, and another excellent resource of crop circle info, see CSICOP's Crop Circles Report:
www.csicop.org/hoaxwatch/...ircles.html -
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Re: circle crops
Fri, May 21, 2004 - 9:46 PMI haven't read all that the BLT research team has presented to offer, but what I did read struck me as very methodical and well thought.
It galls me that those who have no authority, appreciation or understanding of a given subject can throw unsubstantiated opinions in the face of a dedicated enthusiast and somehow achieve a more credible stance in public eye.
I appreciate that you are looking for hard facts... But I'm a Mystic and I see the world as being comprised of meaning rather then facts. I always like to see my intuition substantiated by science, but as a rule, I trust my intuition first and science second. I certainly haven't seen any credible scietific evidence that disproves that there is a more advanced prinicple at work in the generation of formations which have not been trampled. In fact I haven't heard any alternate explanation for the non-trampled formations... have you? -
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Re: circle crops
Mon, June 28, 2004 - 10:46 PMYou write, "I always like to see my intuition substantiated by science, but as a rule, I trust my intuition first and science second." Have you ever seen a professional magic show, such as a performance by Penn & Teller? They, like Harry Houdini, love to show how people who trust "intuition" get taken all the time. If you haven't seen it, their "Bullshit!" series is excellent:
www.sho.com/site/ptbs/home.do
I'm not sure what you mean by "unsubstantiated opinions". It seems to me the burden of proof is upon the crop circle enthusiasts to provide some evidence to substantiate their incredible claims.
I don't have anything against mystics. There can be a universe of meaning in the period at the end of this sentence if you meditate upon it long enough. Have fun. -
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Re: circle crops
Tue, June 29, 2004 - 3:31 AMI agree with you, Hoopes, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Without that proof, there are going to be people who won't believe in crop circles, sea monsters, ghosts and Sasquatch. Some things *can* be proved scientifically, such as the fact that Loch Ness does not contain enough food to sustain a breeding population of large predatory creatures, so Nessie probably doesn't exist. Then again, there are probably some phenomenon that *can't* be proven scientifically, like ghosts. It's an interesting question.
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Re: circle crops
Tue, June 29, 2004 - 9:50 AM"It seems to me the burden of proof is upon the crop circle enthusiasts to provide some evidence to substantiate their incredible claims."
An awful lot of skeptics pass the burdon of proof on the believers (and us agnostics) without offering any of their own. True, some of the extraordinary theories of crop circles (for example) don't hold water, but neither do the scientific theories. To say that the scientific theory is true unless one can prove the extraordinary theory is abdicating the responsibility of scientific research. We know that some crop circles are hoaxes; others cannot be shown to be hoaxes. One cannot extrapolate that all crop circles are hoaxes using the evidence that some are. -
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Re: circle crops
Wed, July 14, 2004 - 8:21 PMPhilosopher of science Karl Popper wrote that one of the fundamental properties of a good scientific theory was that it was potentially "falsifiable". According to his reasoning, since it is impossible to prove that a theory is definitively true, scientists can only prove that specific hypotheses are false. The truth can never be known for sure, but only approached gradually through the elimination of false hypotheses about reality. The only hypotheses that scientists can test are ones for which it is possible to imagine evidence that will definitively prove them wrong.
It will never be possible to prove that all crop circles are hoaxes. Similarly, it will never be possible to prove that extraterrestrial beings do NOT exist. However, it is possible to prove that a crop circle can be made by people and not exclusively by unknown forces. Until there is a preponderance of evidence suggesting that most crop circles are NOT made by people, it seems unreasonable to interpret any of them as evidence of extraterrestrial contact--a hypothesis that is not falsifiable and therefore remains beyond the reach of science.
A testable hypothesis about extraterrestrial contact is that these supposed beings left some tangible evidence of their presence that cannot be explained in any other way. So far, this hypothesis has not been proven false. There are always other explanations.
The issue is not one of burden of proof. The burden is that of the many assumptions necessary to sustain belief in a reality that appears from all available evidence to be highly improbable. It is not all that different from belief in a six-day Creation, the rejection of the theory of evolution, and denial of the many discoveries of the sciences of biology, geology, and paleontology. It's my experience arguing with crop circle enthusiasts is not a lot different from arguing with Creationists. The responses are often the same.
It is absurd to say that the scientific theory that crop circles were created by people using ingenious methods for making elaborate art is one that "doesn't hold water". It is the simplest hypothesis, which makes it the best until there is some believable evidence that proves it to be false. -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: circle crops
Wed, July 14, 2004 - 8:32 PMYour point is well-taken. I just know too many people to convert hypotheses into fact. The True Believers tend to forget that "unknown" means just that, and the Skeptics tend to forget that "unknown" is a viable catagory.
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