Study of Crop Circles : Debunking UFOs and Messages Theories
It all started on August 15, 1972, when the American journalist Bryce Bond and the English UFO specialist Arthur Shuttlewood saw two luminous objects in the sky of Warminster, in the south of England. Later, Bryce Bond will tell that one of these triangular light objects about 7 meters long began to describe a rotary movement over a field of wheat. On the spot, the ears then harmoniously lay in a spiral, and in less than a minute a large drawing was formed on the ground having the same shape as the mysterious flying object. Immediately after, a second circle 10 meters in diameter appeared. Then, once its “drawing” is completed, the object flew away at high speed, disappearing immediately. That of Warminster is the first crop circle to have had eyewitnesses.
A strange phenomenon
From the second half of the 1960s, stories of crop circles became recurrent. The very first testimonies date from 1966 and come from Australia; however, like those of the 1940s and 1950s in the United States, they are not supported by any photographic evidence. Over the years, the number and quality of these crop circles have grown incredibly. To date, the most surprising design is the one discovered on August 13, 2001 at Milk Hill, in Wiltshire in the south of England, which measures 300 meters in diameter and includes four hundred and nine drawn circles. The phenomenon concerns several countries, because in 1991, the first pictograms appeared in Germany. However, the country with the most crop circles and UFOs occurrences - the two things seem to go hand in hand - remains England, and more precisely the region of Warminster, one of the most mysterious in the world.
What is a crop circle ?
Experts who have studied the issue have made several assumptions. According to some, they are forms created by wind vortices; others claim, on the other hand, that this would be the trace of the landing of flying saucers, others still - the most daring - claim that it would be Mother Earth who “reacts” to the deterioration of the environment. In all cases, in the collective imagination, these crop circles are in relation with extraterrestrial beings. Indeed, UFO specialists are convinced that these are messages left to our attention by extraterrestrials who would try to get in touch with us. These drawings should therefore allow the connection of the human spirit with that of the inhabitants of other worlds.
Human art or UFOs work ?
According to Michael Hesemann, one of the most eminent specialists in the matter, the solution of the mystery is linked to the next arrival on Earth of the extraterrestrials. These crop circles would be a way for them to announce their return, while sparing us the shock of surprise by this fascinating mode of communication. Conversely, critics argue that these are works of art created by man.
Many associations have tried to reproduce these signs in wheat fields to prove that they are made by humans. The most successful of them, an English association called Team Satan, has obtained very good results; far, however, from the excellence of those of the crop circles considered as “authentic”. This also applies to all the people in England who have confessed to making crop circles for years all while making fun of the whole world. No one, to date, has been able to produce a work whose quality rivals that of the most famous crop circles.
The most common tool used by men to draw a crop circle is a ladder acting as a pivot, which is placed in the middle of the circle, attached to a rope. Then, the rope is made to rotate 360 degrees while men with wooden boards accompany the movement by bending five or six stalks of wheat at a time. Another technique consists in lowering the ears by crushing with the foot a stick whose two ends are attached to a rope.
How were these crop circles made ?
The characteristics of “authentic” crop circles are numerous and important. First, they always appear at night, then there is never repentance in the drawing, whatever its shape and size, and finally, they mainly appear in the regions of ancient prehistoric installations. The most eloquent example in this sense is that of Stonehenge in Wiltshire. Inside each circle, the ears are folded, never broken, clockwise - or counterclockwise - with the edges folded in opposite directions so that the overall design becomes sharper. The stems are sometimes braided, a few times slightly burnt.
The insects found in wheat are always dead, as if they had imploded after exposure to a strong source of heat. What about other animals living in this type of environment ? A hedgehog found in a crop circle in Milestone, Canada, on August 12, 1992, was crushed to a thickness of 2 centimeters, its pikes bent in the same direction as the ears of wheat. Another notable feature is the total absence of any trace or imprint near the drawing. What is even more surprising is that the ears are fragile and break easily under the feet of visitors. Sometimes these circles have been found to exhibit strong electromagnetic and radioactive anomalies, to the point of triggering nausea and headaches in visitors. Often, the folded inflorescences have genetic mutations, such as the deformation of wheat grains or the explosion of cell pores, as if the ears had been placed in a microwave oven for several minutes. Finally, these crop circles appear systematically in regions where the appearance of UFOs is recurrent.
Do UFOs exist ?
If crop circles have appeared in very many places on the planet, it is only in England and Germany that the phenomenon has occurred near sites of archaeological interest, notably prehistoric. The gradual increase in the complexity of the drawings seems to coincide with a kind of refinement of the technique which, from year to year, is becoming more sophisticated. Most often, the wheat fields are crisscrossed with dirt roads allowing the passage of tractors. In all the cases listed, the drawing systematically crosses one of these paths. If we admit that the mysterious authors use these paths to start their work, this would explain the absence of footprints outside the crop circles. During the summer, thousands of people flock to Wiltshire to organize vigils, equipped with cameras. Among them are sometimes scientists and journalists. However, to date, not a single film has confirmed the phenomenon irrefutably. After all, nausea, headache and buzzing could also be the result of auto-suggestion.
The message of the Earth
Among the various hypotheses, there is one that seems particularly fascinating to us: apparently, a large number of the signs found in these crop circles belong to the alphabet of the Hopi Indians, to that of the Australian aborigines and the Dogons of Africa. Some specialists consider that these figures have one thing in common; the crop circles would translate messages from Mother Earth, which would also manifest itself through atmospheric phenomena and magnetic fields. Pollution, with all that it entails for environmental changes, would cause the Earth to emit an alarm cry. Many Aboriginal prophecies - who have known the symbolism of crop circles for centuries - agree on this point.
The fact that our planet is going through a critical period is before our eyes every day. All these drawings, however, start by attracting our attention, and then intrigue us with complex and subtle details. As if to encourage us to make the effort to understand their message.
Strange analogies to fractals
A fractal is an irregular geometric shape that can be divided into several parts, each being a certified copy of the whole, in reduced format. Fractals are an essential aspect of “chaos theory” in relation to clouds, mountains and coasts, but also with all kinds of forms other than a regular geometric figure. It is striking to see how certain crop circles resemble fractals: the Mandelbrot circle, for example, seems to be a true copy of the homonymous fractal. Pure coincidence? Whatever the answer, the beauty and mystery of the crop circle as well as the fractal increase its appeal.
