Apart from a few deluded New Age hippy types, everyone just knows that crop circles are human made hoaxes. That’s despite all the obvious logistical problems in creating perfect, yet massive geometric patterns in near total darkness. That’s despite the fact that hardly anyone has ever been caught in the act. That’s despite the fact that sometimes the overnight weather was wet with rain (this is England after all). Still, what else could they be? But even one exception breaks the ‘everyone knows it’s a hoax’ rule. Consider the 1996 Julia Set.
While crop circles have been reported from around the world, in the main they tend to be associated with the English countryside in the warmer months when crops are high and agricultural graffiti artists can strut their stuff. Just who these ‘artists’ are hasn’t been proven in any sort of scientific (or legal) court, but in the same way we all know ‘the butler did it’, well it’s obvious the whodunit here is from the same species as the butler. We have to believe that, because if the butler didn’t do it, we got a major mystery on our collective hands that most of us would rather not acknowledge. Here’s part of the reason the butler didn’t do it.
Most crop circles are discovered in the morning by farmers or farm hands that are up early and out and about to start their day’s work in the field(s), though some discoveries are by motorists, passersby, sometimes pilots. Still, the discoveries tend to be made sooner in the day rather than later in the day. 900 foot crop circle formations are rather hard to miss, even from the ground, and some are way bigger than that.
Translated, that suggests that this agricultural graffiti was constructed and produced overnight, under cover of darkness, the obvious implication being human hoaxers operating in the dark thus avoiding detection.
Despite the fact there are massive problems with that theory – it’s like trying to make then assemble a one thousand piece jigsaw puzzle using just starlight and complete it perfectly in a few hours; no flashlights allowed giving your position away. What isn’t reported to the police isn’t of concern to the hoaxer(s). Still, you’d have to have a few screws loose, tramping around in a muddy field in the dark of night, carting around all sorts of equipment, planks and rollers and ropes for hours on end, just to produce something for which you can’t ever receive public recognition for – least you get paid a visit by the police for trespassing and willful criminal damage.
” + AB_cat_channel + AB_unit_channel;
google_language = “en”;
google_ad_region = ‘test’;
John Prytz -
About the Author:
Science librarian; retired.
