Quick thought about Crop Circles Origins

[cosmicmonk710]

Hi everybody, just a quick thought here about what might be causing the appearance of crop circles, well two thoughts actually! Firstly I thought about the possibility of Crop Circles being the result of Alien Communications to us. We assume that SETI did in fact send out signals from Earth to see if we got a reply, what if the reply was Crop Circles. Picture is a base language to humans of all races. Just a thought. The second thought that I had was that maybe these Crop Circles are being caused by magnetic rays / waves coming from space and colliding into, or passing through the Earth, but because of some sort of interaction between the invading ray/wave and Earth's own magnetic field that these Crop Circles are the outcome.<br />What do you guys think about these possibilites?

 

[bdewoody]

Maybe they are just what the Discovery channel reported them to be. A HOAX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em><font size="2">Bob DeWoody</font></em> </div>

 

[avidgamer]

BBC News has a great article about the hoax.<br /><br />http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/2310127.stm

 

[tom_hobbes]

Not aimed at anyone, just funny... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[qso1]

CosmicMonk710:<br />Firstly I thought about the possibility of Crop Circles being the result of Alien Communications to us.<br /><br />Me:<br />This has been postulated as the reason for crop circles for a long time by UFO proponents but the question they fail to ask, "What are the ETs saying to us?" I would think the ET beings would come up with a better way to communicate with us if they are advanced enough to travel between star systems.<br /><br />The evidence I've seen so far leads me to conclude crop circles are great peices of art generated by humans, but I leave open other possibilities.<br /><br />As for magnetic rays/waves. Crop circles are physically such localized phenomena that it seems highly unlikely that magnetic interaction would cause such small areas to occur considering the scale at which earthly magnetic fields occur. Not to mention that AFAIK, no natural phenomenon produces such artificial looking patterns. The closest I can think of is Saturns rings and they look almost artificial in part because we still view them at relatively large distances. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[torino10]

Ok a scifi hypothesis for Crop circles.<br />Intelligent life has evolved on either europa or Io.<br />Ionian life would be silicon based and would have evolved due to the unique electromagnetic relationship betwean Io an jupiter.<br />Itelligent life evolving on europa would have a good chance of utilizing the magnetic spectrum as a main source of sensory input in the absence of the visual light spectrum.<br /><br />Either way the life forms in question would have a far dreater understanding of how electromagnetic fields operate and possibly of how to manipulate them.<br /><br />The invention of radio and television on earth would have been noticed by either of these hypothetical alien intelligences. Not having any understanding of what these signals might actually mean would not mean that they would ignore the signals as random noise.<br />With there vastly superior understanding of how magnetic fields work it would not be too unreasonable accept that they could configure Ball lightning probes that could send such simple messages of mandelbrot sets or depictions of the solar system that could imprint themselves on nearby biological material that responds to the magnetic spectrum <br /><br />This is scifi, not anything that represent an actual physical possibility

 

[vogon13]

What's a magnetic spectrum?<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[jmilsom]

And why do magnetic rays(!) only form circles in crops? Why don't they sometimes form circles in our hair for instance? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[tom_hobbes]

You're obviously not mixing in the right circles... <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[torino10]

"What's a magnetic spectrum? "<br />I have no idea, Different wave lengthss af magnetic radiation with different penetrative qualities? <br />Nahhh just my own personal GWism..

 

[qso1]

Torino10:<br />Ok a scifi hypothesis for Crop circles. <br />Intelligent life has evolved on either europa or Io. <br />Ionian life would be silicon based and would have evolved due to the unique electromagnetic relationship betwean Io an jupiter.<br /><br />Me:<br />Being that crop circles have been around according to some folks, since long before they became widespread knowledge starting around 1978.<br /><br />The problem then becomes. If they were beings from Io/Jupiter, would they not know enough about us to seek better forms of communication?<br /><br />Sending a ball lightning probe to communicate mandelbrot fractal sets etc. We missed even the simplest messages. All the crop circles I have seen have minor differences and nothing to suggest a discernable liguistic pattern. Not only that, if they figured out what Mandelbrot fractal sets are, they should be able to make circles featuring only specific sets.<br /><br />But then again, thats just how I see it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[torino10]

First off just let me say that I do not take crop circles seriously.<br />This thread was posted under SciFi so I took it as an exercise in Hypothetical fantasy.<br />I tried to do a search on when the first crop circles appeared and couldn't find any older than 1938, long after We had started using radio. If there are any reports of them before we started using radio or even electrical power then my hypothesis has even more holes.<br />As far as Ionian or Europainians(what do you call ET's from Europa?) having a better way to communicate, well I'm not sure they would even have anything we would be able to recognize as a language. They recieve our signals and know that they are not random, but do not have enough in common with us to truly have anything but the most basic understanding of the signals. Hence only simple geometric shapes conveying simple mathmatical concepts.

 

[qso1]

I see where your coming from and being that its here in sci fi, maybe you could write it as a book. I don't know when the crop circles first started appearing but the best I could recall was 1978. Some here on the phenomenon boards have suggested they were around well before then. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[tony_williams]

There was a long BBC programme on the subject some years ago. One of the protagonists was arguing for a natural cause, and produced a reasonably convincing argument (to do with the rare phenomenon of short-lived, highly-focused whirlwinds IIRC) - as far as the simple circles were concerned. But as the circles became more and more complex his argument slowly fell apart.<br /><br />I too have read that simple circles have been reported for a long time. From which I conclude that simple circles might originally have had a natural origin, but the more recent activity is pure hoax - in fact the original perpetrators of the hoaxes confess to this some time ago.<br /><br />I think that it would be difficult to get a convincing story out of it, unless you took into account the fact that many of them are now known to have been hoaxes.<br /><br />Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

[qso1]

I agree, human generated works of art IMO. A natural explanation for even simple circles is hard to swallow. I remember when the two guys who stamped crop circles admitted they did it and one of the cereologists didn't believe their account. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[lsbd]

two things that should never be in the same sentence:<br /><br />crop circles and thought

 

[tomnackid]

Circles in fields have been around for a long time. Some were caused by whirlwinds, some by fungus killing the grass. Fungi grow underground from a central spore forming an ever widening circle. Some can become quite immense. When the fruiting body of the fungi (what we call a mushroom) sprouts to the surface along the edge of the structure you have what is known as a "fairy circle" (Step in one at your peril!)<br /><br />The thing that these natural circles had in common is that they were relatively simple and irregular. The complex, perfectly formed "crop circles" that we are all too familiar with first appeared in Britain in the late 70s--almost always in fields adjacent to major roads. Two English artists, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, eventually admitted to making the first circles. Even before they came out many others began copying them--some openly some in secret. Many of the patterns came from popular works on chaos theory and fractals--two subjects that gained widespread popularity in the 80s. (At least widespread as mathematical theories go!) So if any of these circles have been done by ETs then they are just copycats! Although they do show an amazing grasp of current pop trends--something I'm sure all space explorers need to cultivate.

 

[jmilsom]

Yeah. I think I would do that too. If I were an inter-stellar explorer and discovered an agrarian race of aliens. I'd sneak down to their planet and make groovy patterns in their crops to freak them out. It would be an excellent way to demonstrate my technological power! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[qso1]

tomnackid:<br />So if any of these circles have been done by ETs then they are just copycats! Although they do show an amazing grasp of current pop trends--something I'm sure all space explorers need to cultivate.<br /><br />Me:<br />LOL, ET does have to keep up with popular culture to be sure. I recall the two guys but couldn't recall their names. Mandelbrot fractal geometry has its origins in fractal geometry theories first formulated in 1975 IIRC. I've always thought of crop circles as great works of human art. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[tomnackid]

LOL, ET does have to keep up with popular culture to be sure. I recall the two guys but couldn't recall their names. Mandelbrot fractal geometry has its origins in fractal geometry theories first formulated in 1975 IIRC. I've always thought of crop circles as great works of human art.<br />------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />I remember once seeing one of the crop circle "true believers" trying to cast doubt on a group of confessed crop circle hoaxers by pointing out that the image they claim to have made was a complex piece of fractal geometry and that none of them had any advance math training. The hoaxers replied that they simply copied the image out of a math book because it was pretty!

 

[spacester]

I looked into crop circles and cattle mutilation in some depth about 4 years ago. Crop circles were obviously a hoax, but they had some interestuing footage of these small litttle balls of light that were swooping thru the air in the same areas as the circles. Pretty weird, but no doubt a follow-on hoax.<br /><br />But what about Cattle Mutilation? That was weird and I did not see a good explanation, as in: if a hoax, why? Do those things still happen or did the whole thing fade away like most hoaxes? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[tomnackid]

When pastured or free range cattle die (and they occasionally drop dead from disease or exposure just like we do) it usually takes several days before ranch hands notice. By that time the body has bloated from both decay and fermention of grass in the stomachs and often bursts open. Scavengers do the rest. I once knew a woman who raised sheep and goats and she occasionally had to insert a giant syringe into the animals intestines to bleed off excess gas from fermentation before it could rupture the animals stomach. <br /><br />As far as I know "cattle mutilations" only take place out west on range land where the cattle feed freely for days at a time. I have never heard of any on small farms where the cattle are checked and accounted for every day.<br /><br />Of course since cattle mutilations made the news as something mysterious there are sickos out there who will do it for "fun".

 

[thebigcat]

I gotta say I just love all the "true believer" stuff about UFO's. Personally I truely believe that there's a lot of money to be made convincing people of thing that can't be disproven so you can get them to buy your books and go see your movies.<br /><br />I saw something on TV a couple of days ago and I think this thread is a good place to mention it. Concerns a guy who had an episode back in 1976 where he woke up unable to move and saw a strange light hovering over the crib of his toddler daughter which was across the room from the bed where he and his wife slept. He went back to sleep and in the morning he thought it was a strange dream and forgot about it. <br /><br />Fast forward to 1993 when he had an anxiety attack at work. Curious as to why he would have something like that when everything was normal and going good in his life, he had no answer until a few days later when he saw a TV show dealing with alien abductions. He asked around and was introduced to a hypnotherapist form MUFON.<br /><br />You see where this is going?<br /><br />His initial experience was a case study event of sleep apnea, which has only recently come under study. I myself suffer form it. My first attack was in 1984 and it scared me. I noticed that it only happens when I sleep on my back, so now I sleep on my side or stomach and have no problems. <br /><br />The second incident, the anxiety attack, is actually something that is little understood, but there has been research which indicates that there might be physiological or environmental factors which contribute to them. In fact, they are not at all unheard of among people who are not experiencing any undue emotional stress in their lives.<br /><br />So here is a guy who is merely uninformed about two odd occurences in his life. It would have ended there, but for the fact that our society is innundated with tales of alien abduction, crop circles, cattle mutilation, bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, etc., which brings us to the fourth ingredient: MUFO <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>