Crop circles
Crop circles are areas in grain fields where grain stalks are bent so that complex images such as geoglyphs are created. Most of the crop circles can only be seen from the air or from an elevated position.
History of the crop circles
One of the oldest reports of crop circles comes from France. The Lorraine lay judge and later procurer Général Nicolas Remy describes in his book Dæmonolatria a process in which a group of men and women are accused of calling buck-hoofed beings in a circular dance on July 24, 1590. The judge inspected the crop circle with witnesses.
The British pamphlet from Hartford-Shire from 1678, known as The Mowing Devil, is more well-known and regards the circles as the work of a mowing devil. In the 20th century, crop circles in southern England were still known as "Devils Twist".
Many sagas and fairy tales tell of fairy and elf rings, which are said to come from dancing fairy tale characters. In The Natural History of StaffordShire in 1686 Robert Plot described strange circles in the grass as "fairy rings".
In 1880, Nature magazine reported crop circles in a Surrey county. Such phenomena have also been known in Germany since the 19th century at the latest. The probably first photo of a crop circle was taken in 1932 and was added in 1937 by Cecil Curwen to the article "Crop-Marks on Stoughton Down" of the archaeological newspaper "Sussex Notes and Querries". Only a circle on Bow Hill near Chichester can be seen on it, but the author reports of a formation of four circles, the inner part of which alone was said to be approximately 36 meters tall.
In January 1966, a farmer from the Australian town of Tully claimed that he had spotted a UFO over a swamp. When a circular area with a diameter of approx. 9 meters was discovered, on which the reeds lay flat on the ground in a clockwise direction, this triggered intensive reporting on the "Tully Saucer Nest" and its possible causes. Inspired by newspaper reports on these events, the two artists Doug Bower and Dave Chorley created the first crop circles in southern England in July 1978.
At the end of the 1980s, as a result of increased media interest, the number of crop circles worldwide increased. The shapes got bigger and more complex. Between 150 and 300 crop circles are now counted annually.
In 2002 the film Signs (by M. Night Shyamalan with Mel Gibson) was released; it depicts the crop circles as symbols of extraterrestrials and showed modifications of the 1990 pattern of the "Alton Barnes" type.
The makers of the Crop circles
We do not want to go into the theories of crop circle researchers for extraterrestrials as the cause of crop circles ...
The first people to go public and confess to producing crop circles were the two artists Doug Bower and Dave Chorley in southern England in July 1978.
A known method of production is to create a circle with the help of a stick placed in the center and a rope, by running circles with the taut rope in hand and knocking down stalks. A clear indication of this is provided by the tractor tracks already present in the grain field, which run through the center of almost all crop circles and are used as an entrance to the starting point without the grain being knocked over at unintended places. A single person runs in a circle starting from the center point and gradually releases rope until the desired radius is reached. If several people are involved, this is faster, as is the use of wooden rollers (logs) that are rolled and can also produce other, non-concentric shapes.
Combinations of different processes are often used for complex shapes. The effort is relatively high and requires precise coordination and sophisticated techniques, which the helpers have to plan beforehand using sketches. If the crop circle is to be made secretly (e.g. at night), more helpers are needed because only a limited number of hours are available and no semi-finished circles are to be created. If the helpers are trained or trained, it is possible to create very complex shapes with the help of circular, pantographic or spirographic techniques. In many cases, after the work was discovered, it became known that the locations of the districts had been planned precisely (motorway exits, easily visible valley sinks) in order to attract onlookers. Humanly conceived concepts such as u. a. The stereotypical morphology of extraterrestrials or religious symbols (e.g. Yin and Yang) are deliberately chosen in order to indicate a supernatural connection and thus to achieve a higher level of attention. Sometimes commercially available semi-precious stones or shiny coal splinters were distributed on the crop circles to stimulate the onlookers to search and linger longer. Some works were known to have been agreed with the owners of the fields. The agreed making of crop circles, the marketing and the claim that the circle is "real" is not punishable. ∎
Doctorate for Ufology
There are also providers on the Internet that provide doctoral degrees in ufology. Don't wait long, → Buy Doctorate in Ufology.
