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Crop field circles

Posted: 2003-09-13 02:18am
by Sarevok
What causes crop field circles ? Are they real or hoax ?

Posted: 2003-09-13 02:19am
by Darth Wong
The two guys who started making those in England fessed up and even went on TV to show how they did it. Naturally, the "UFOlogists" continued to research the "crop circle phenomenon" and ignored them :roll:

Posted: 2003-09-13 02:20am
by Shinova
Laugh at me, but personally I find it hard to believe a team of people can create crop circles hundreds of meters wide, filled with extremely complex designs, in the time between dusk and dawn, without waking up the field's farmer, or without leaving a single trace.


Call me weird, but I think that at the very least it's not people who's doing some of the more awesome-looking crop circles.

Posted: 2003-09-13 02:21am
by Yuri Prime
Darth Wong wrote:The two guys who started making those in England fessed up and even went on TV to show how they did it. Naturally, the "UFOlogists" continued to research the "crop circle phenomenon" and ignored them :roll:
Sounds a bit like the religious solution to such a problem, no?

Posted: 2003-09-13 02:22am
by Bug-Eyed Earl
Didn't they happen in more places besides England at the time these two were at work?

I wish I could have a timeline as to when these guys were doing their stuff and all other recorded crop circles.

Posted: 2003-09-13 02:30am
by Darth Wong
Shinova wrote:Laugh at me, but personally I find it hard to believe a team of people can create crop circles hundreds of meters wide, filled with extremely complex designs, in the time between dusk and dawn, without waking up the field's farmer, or without leaving a single trace.
Ropes and blades. It's not that complicated.
Call me weird, but I think that at the very least it's not people who's doing some of the more awesome-looking crop circles.
And you have a more reasonable hypothesis?

Posted: 2003-09-13 02:34am
by Shinova
Darth Wong wrote: Ropes and blades. It's not that complicated.
And time. Time to make such a huge and accurate design overnight.

And I've seen how they do it on a documentary.
And you have a more reasonable hypothesis?
The closest is aliens.

Posted: 2003-09-13 02:39am
by Darth Wong
Shinova wrote:The closest is aliens.
So you figure that "two guys work fairly quickly at night, taking several hours to make a crop circle using methods which have been documented and demonstrated" is somehow less reasonable than "aliens violate the known laws of physics, travel here from a distant star system at FTL, and have nothing better to do after that stupendous accomplishment than to make funny patterns in farmers' fields"?

Posted: 2003-09-13 02:43am
by Shinova
Darth Wong wrote: So you figure that "two guys work fairly quickly at night, taking several hours to make a crop circle using methods which have been documented and demonstrated" is somehow less reasonable than "aliens violate the known laws of physics, travel here from a distant star system at FTL, and have nothing better to do after that stupendous accomplishment than to make funny patterns in farmers' fields"?
Until I see them or read about them actually demonstrating the creation of one of the super-huge and complex designs in the correct time period with a limited amount of equipment and doing all that under observation, I won't be fully convinced.

Posted: 2003-09-13 02:48am
by Frank Hipper
Actually, to the "serious" UFOlogist, the more intricate and complex designs are the ones that they don't argue being hoaxes.
It's the small, simple, circlular ones that they find fascinating. Mainly because there are documented cases of them appearing in the U.S. and elsewhere from the mid-seventies. Years before the English hoaxing duo even started, not to mention thousands of miles away from their base of operations.

I think they're all bullshit, myself.

Posted: 2003-09-13 02:53am
by Darth Wong
Shinova wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:So you figure that "two guys work fairly quickly at night, taking several hours to make a crop circle using methods which have been documented and demonstrated" is somehow less reasonable than "aliens violate the known laws of physics, travel here from a distant star system at FTL, and have nothing better to do after that stupendous accomplishment than to make funny patterns in farmers' fields"?
Until I see them or read about them actually demonstrating the creation of one of the super-huge and complex designs in the correct time period with a limited amount of equipment and doing all that under observation, I won't be fully convinced.
Luckily for the UFO people, you need no evidence whatsoever of FTL travel possibilities, the failure of the theory of relativity, legitimate alien visitation, or a mechanism by which the alien spacecraft would have flown down to a farmer's field, done this, and then lifted off in the middle of the night with no noise. Nice to see that you're being reasonable about this :roll:

Posted: 2003-09-13 02:59am
by Agent Fisher
favorite circle was that of a smily face

Posted: 2003-09-13 03:00am
by Shinova
Darth Wong wrote:Luckily for the UFO people, you need no evidence whatsoever of FTL travel possibilities, the failure of the theory of relativity, legitimate alien visitation, or a mechanism by which the alien spacecraft would have flown down to a farmer's field, done this, and then lifted off in the middle of the night with no noise. Nice to see that you're being reasonable about this :roll:
Why thank you. Doesn't change a thing.



To Frank Hipper: There were crop circles back in the 1600s also. Woodcuts have been found depicting them.

Posted: 2003-09-13 03:06am
by Peregrin Toker
Some "cropcircle-ologists" have suggested that cropcirles are caused by an as-yet-unknown weather phenomenon similar to ball lightning.

Still, I put my trust in Occam's Razor and prefer the explanation about cropcircles being elaborate hoaxes.

Posted: 2003-09-13 03:34am
by Johonebesus
Shinova wrote:Until I see them or read about them actually demonstrating the creation of one of the super-huge and complex designs in the correct time period with a limited amount of equipment and doing all that under observation, I won't be fully convinced.
I seem to remember reading an article about a student project at MIT. They created a moderately complex design, complete with magnetized metal shavings, in one night. They didn't quite make it by dawn, but then they were experimenting. If they had more experience, they could have easily finished it in the time allowed.

The fact that plain crop circles have been observed in many countries for at least a couple of centuries indicates that the recent hoaxers are not solely responsible, but I am more inclined to believe that they have been made by a secret cult hiding in the shadows since pagan times than by aliens.

Posted: 2003-09-13 03:43am
by Cyborg Stan
Here's one page with professional crop-circlers Circlemakers.Org Not only they do circles, but they also do potraits and adversiments.

Here's one in particular : "New Zealand's First", which involved over 100 flattened circles over a 300 ft diameter, that was designed to be done at night in under four hours.

There's also this one, 240 ft in diameter, done four hours in the dark with three people, consisting of 178 elements.

There are other exhibited circles on the page. However, the one noted for alot of difficultly is not one with many fractal circles, but a van. While series of circles may be difficult to draw out by hand, they can be rather easily described with a few numbers and equations. I'd actually imagine that the van job would be closer to doing NURBS modeling with primitive tools.

So..... which circles would mysteriously out of human capacity to make? And how would the aliens be able to make it? Even if we give them FTL travel and the motavation, they still would have to travel from outside of Earth's atmosphere to near the ground (unless if you propose they do it by inivisible beams of force, adding yet ANOTHER unknown) which if all of our other experiences with large objects coming through the air, is anything BUT stealthly, espically at night.

Posted: 2003-09-13 03:46am
by Darth Wong
Sshhhhhh!! You'll blow a hole in Shinova's UFOlogy dreams!

Posted: 2003-09-13 03:54am
by Shinova
Good for them. They've done some to convince me that humans could do them in the appropriate time.


Now to see if every crop circle in history has been done by humans.

Posted: 2003-09-13 04:00am
by Cyborg Stan
Please show us where the hand of humans cannot explain one. The burden of proof is on you. (Even if we mysteriously have one that cannot be done by human hands, it still would not mean that aliens were responsible.)

Posted: 2003-09-13 04:06am
by Shinova
Cyborg Stan wrote:Please show us where the hand of humans cannot explain one. The burden of proof is on you. (Even if we mysteriously have one that cannot be done by human hands, it still would not mean that aliens were responsible.)
I never said proof.
me wrote:The closest is aliens.
It was an inclination.


Don't assume that everyone who makes an opinion that sounds like a statement is out to prove something to people other than him/herself.

Posted: 2003-09-13 04:23am
by Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi
Considering just about anything is more logical than a bunch of little green men travelling hundreds of lightears to leave circles in farmland, I'd say they're done by man, but why they'd do it I, don't know.

Posted: 2003-09-13 04:34am
by Shinova
Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote:Considering just about anything is more logical than a bunch of little green men travelling hundreds of lightears to leave circles in farmland
Except for weather-phenomena drawing crop circles.

Posted: 2003-09-13 04:36am
by neoolong
Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote:Considering just about anything is more logical than a bunch of little green men travelling hundreds of lightears to leave circles in farmland, I'd say they're done by man, but why they'd do it I, don't know.
If you disregard humans doing it, wouldn't the closest alternative be something from Earth, just not human? After all, you don't have to screw around with space travel and all that.

Posted: 2003-09-13 11:01am
by Alyeska
Shinova wrote:
Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi wrote:Considering just about anything is more logical than a bunch of little green men travelling hundreds of lightears to leave circles in farmland
Except for weather-phenomena drawing crop circles.
Weather related crop circles are VERY rare. Patterns are not common in nature. That is why its damned near impossible to predict nature and its effects. Furthermore the fact that said crop circles are drenched in rain...

Shinova, you have an illogical viewpoint with no factual evidence to support your position. The logical conclussion is that humans make the crop circles. The fact that humans can make the most complex ones automaticaly means they can make the easy ones as well.

Posted: 2003-09-22 05:56am
by Sarevok
Except for weather-phenomena drawing crop circles.
Many scientists believe that a weather phenomenon known as plasma vortex creates crop circles. Plasma vortexes are based on ball lighting which themselves are a mysterious phenomena so little is known about them.

In theory computer simulations have shown that plasma vortexes can exist and create crop circles. However to this day no one has observed a plasma vortex making a crop circle.

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