Amazing Crop Circles
Crop circles are large patterns that appear in fields of wheat, rye, barley and similar crops. The patterns can be intricate geometric, circular or abstract and are usually formed when the stems of the crop are broken at ground level or at node points and flattened to the ground in the same direction.
While some crop circles can be explained, others remain a mystery. The crop circles that cannot be proven to be man-made often exhibit peculiar characteristics that are difficult or impossible to duplicate.
A crop circle is a sizable pattern created by the flattening of a crop such as wheat, barley, rye, or maize. The term crop circle entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1990. In 1991, self-professed pranksters Doug Bower and Dave Chorley stated that they started the crop-circle phenomenon in 1978. Even after the disclosure of the prank, paranormal enthusiasts, ufologists, and anomalistic investigators continue to offer alternative explanations, which are criticized by skeptical groups like the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Crop circles have become a significant source of tourism for Wiltshire, England.
Since appearing in the media in the 1970s, crop circles have become the subject of speculation by various paranormal, ufological, and anomalistic investigators ranging from proposals that they were created by freak meteorological phenomena to messages from extraterrestrials. The location of many crop circles near ancient sites such as Stonehenge, barrows, and chalk horses has led to many New Age belief systems incorporating crop circles, including the beliefs that they are formed in relation to ley lines and that they give off energy that can be detected through dowsing. The main criticism of alleged non-human creation of crop circles is that while evidence of these origins, besides eyewitness testimonies, is essentially absent, some are definitely known to be the work of human pranksters and others can be adequately explained as such. There have been cases in which researchers declared crop circles to be "the real thing", only to be confronted with the people who created the circle and documented the fraud.
The First Crop Circles: Work of the Devil
The earliest recorded account of a crop circle was in the 17th century. A woodcut image portrays a devil cutting circles in a field with a scythe. The accompanying pamphlet explained that the farmer was furious with the price the mower was charging for his work and said he would rather have “the devil himself” do the mowing. As the story goes, that night the crop lit up as if it were on fire. In the morning there was a crop circle, courtesy of Satan.
As time went on, people started seeing lights in the sky that they could not explain. Finally Satan was cleared of the crop circle mischief and the blame was placed squarely on aliens and their spaceships. To this day, crop circles are often associated with UFO sightings. In 1966, in Tully, Queensland, Australia, a farmer said he saw a flying saucer rise 30 to 40 feet up from a swamp. When the craft was gone, the spot where it had landed had reeds woven clockwise on top of the water.The video above purports to be raw footage of UFOs creating crop circles. The camera is shaky right up until the action begins and it lines up perfectly to film a focused clips of flying saucers zapping fields. Judge the authenticity for yourself. UFO hoaxes are incredibly common.
Many of those who believe flying saucers created crop circles also believe that the patterns in the fields are actually messages from an intelligent life form – perhaps a warning about the environment and the fate of the planet we call home.
The Phenomenon Spreads
In the 1970s many crop circles popped up across the English countryside. By the 1980s the phenomenon became more widely publicized and crop circles appeared around the world.
Early crop circles were generally simple circular patterns. However, as time passed the designs became more intricate and symetrical and some even have 3-D effects from a bird’s eye view.
See Some Amazing Crop Circles, Alien Crop Circles:
