Crop Circles - Hoax Or Hex?
On my recent trip to New Mexico to help out with the Mirage Men feature, Co-Producer Mark Pilkington reiterated his contention that all (yes ALL) crop circles are made by humans using boards, rope and surveyor’s tools. I am willing to take his expert opinion (he has made hundreds and knows others who have done the same) at face value, and consider it just that. He did add, however that the most simple circles (including the very early ones) may have a paranormal source.
He explained the anomalous aspects of the circles (interwoven stalks, exploded “nodes,” electromagnetic effects, etc.) as products of wishful thinking amongst researchers. This I found difficult to agree with, but I can put these aside for now.
One thing he did say was that there are documented examples of strangeness associated with the hoxed circles. He would not elaborate, but suggested that the act of making the circles might be an act bordering on something like evocational magick. In other words, the creation of the intricate patterns in ripe crops all over England over the past 3 decades may have had more than the desired effect of making art and befuddling belilevers - it may have called up something from the “symbolic realm,” as I call it.
An essay by Joesph Capp over at UFO Media Matters makes this point in another way. He reports (along with a very strange and barely-believable story about a mysterious levitating “metal cone”) that circle hoaxers have occasionally seen strange lights in the night sky while working late at night. Have the circle makers opened something up with their outlandish work? Has the worldwide awareness of the supposedly mysterious formations and the certain mark it has made on the collective unconscious actually awakened something the hoaxers were trying to lampoon?
It’s this kind of thing that often makes me get up in the morning.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, June 21st, 2007 at 11:01 pm and is filed under Crop Circles, Hoaxes, UFOlogy, Wake Up Down There. You can follow responses via RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.
del.icio.us Digg Reddit Ma.gnolia Technorati Help
- Related News Stories:
- Where are the Circles? »
- Continuing Crop Circles »
- The BBC on Crop Circles »
- March of the Crop Circles »
- Circular News »
|
Jun 21 2007 
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:17 am
Hi Greg,
Probably worth mentioning that Mark and John (in association with Rob Irving) last year published a must-have book on the crop circle ‘phenomenon’: The Field Guide (see the Strange Attractor website - http://strangeattractor.co.uk/fieldguide/)
I reviewed the book on the Daily Grail (http://dailygrail.com/node/3918).
Also, it’s worth mentioning the brilliant DVD documentary Circlespeak - one of the best summaries of the history and people involved (again, my review: http://dailygrail.com/node/3465).
Kind regards,
Greg
June 22nd, 2007 at 6:19 am
As with all ’strange’ matters people will want to gravitate to supposed normalcy. However, until I see some video showing the creation of one of the really big designs I’ll keep an open mind.
I’m surprised no one has set up any form of surveillance to try and figure this out. Its not like trying to get a UFO on video because there are known areas where this happens. Expensive, though, I imagine…?
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:02 am
Greg (Taylor):
Circlespeak is not “one of the best summaries” it is THE best summary! LOL.
That film should be watched by everyone with an interest in Crop Circles.
Greg (Bishop):
Mark is right re the human-made Circles and anomalous phenomena. I did a big interview with Matthew Williams (the world’s only ever arrested, charged and convicted circle maker) a couple of years ago for “UFO Mag” and we went into this at length.
I intend doing a post on all this for the blog (hopefully next week, as this debate has got me going), as there are indeed some interesting aspects.
As you know, I have been involved in ritual magic for a long time, and will relate some interesting stories concerning weird phenomena linked to specifically human-made circles; as well as the facts pertaining to certain circle makers who believe that their actions are “guided” by these aforementioned weird phenomena.
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:00 am
Having studied the crop circle phenomena from the beginning, I can say with assurance that there is no way that many of these circles were created by people on the ground, due to the time constraints involved. That’s not to say that they are extra-terrestrial. They are probably manmade, from the sky. From satellites programmed by military men interested in evoking magick… There is a long history of British intelligence calling upon the dark side, from John Dee to Aleister Crowley. This is the more or less what Jacques Vallee has intimated, and I agree with him. The 2003 Eye of Horus crop circle near the Serpent Mound in Ohio, which I visited, was timed to appear 100 years (almost to the day), of Crowley’s 1903 Horus ritual.
-Andy Colvin
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:58 am
I’m with Andy on this one. Is Mark going to show his videos’ of him making any of these famous crop creations. I’d also guess if anyone even laid in the fields all night you’d have a better chance of seeing strange lights. Then of course if your running around in circles stomping on a board, I think a visit to you know where has all the magick these crop crunchers need. Regarding the fake exploded nodes of wheat being wishful thinking,this guy appears to have a few straws missing.Anyway good luck making your mark, Mark the fields await you…do it and they will come.
June 22nd, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Guys
You may want to check out these designs and photos:
They were made in New Zealand in 2002 by my good friend Matthew Williams (and the only person arrested, charged and convicted for making a Crop Circle - the actual charge was damage to the field) for Japanese TV.
And yes, Matthew *was* filmed as he was making them, thus proving he created them.
Matt is a very capable and skilled Circle maker and he too has had a series of very weird experiences in man-made circles.
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Nick
Sorry guys guess the straw is in my mouth now. Yet, I guess if you are a circle maker it would be hard to believe that aliens, mysterious forces or even military lazer guns are the other forces of competition to the circle mystery. What would ones purpose be to make over a hundred so called circles then say that the popped nodes are wishfull thinking then say that the earlier circles were done by a paranormal source. Sounds like someones being controlled and stomping circles to long. Nice circle jobs anyway the aliens’ would be proud for art’s sake.
June 22nd, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Williams did a good job on the pictured crop circles, however I would like to know how long they took, and if they include the microwaved “blown” nodes. The circle he describes as taking only 2 hours is not pictured (I think). I think it is great that he can do what he does, but it doesn’t negate the fact that some elaborate circles have developed in time frames too short for secretive groundwork, and too early in the history of the phenomenon to be explained in any way other than from a military satellite’s computerized laser. The development of the crop circle phenomenon exactly parallels the great increases in “Star Wars” budgets imposed by Reagan/Bush/Thatcher. One would expect that military occultists knew that a major offensive was set for the new millenia (9/11 and the year 2000 renegotiations of the 1925 oil treaty for Exxon/Mobil) and these circles may have been part of that magickal power buildup. The fact that Mothman experiencers were seeing visions of 9/11 decades ago gives some hint that these plans have long been in the works.
-Andy Colvin
June 22nd, 2007 at 11:44 pm
I think it important to consider the co-opting of the term “Crop Circle”, historically also described as “Saucer Nest” or what are supposed to be the remnants of impressions made by a landed circular craft. These have a much longer history than the recent (latter 20th century) elaborate designs (rarely a simple circle and -never- representing the original definition) we call Crop Circles today. Here is an interesting story FWIW.
One of the earliest reported Crop Circles occurred in the 17th century England and was is know as the “Mowing Devil”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing-Devil
What is intriguing is the date of this particular incident, occurring on or around August 22nd, 1678. I have mentioned the case of 17th century mystic/theosophist/abductee Jane Leade here before. The following is her diary entry for August 25th, 1678.
“The Sun-Stone rising out of the Earth.
THIS Morning as I was waiting, I did find such a deep Immersement with the Fountain-Light, into which my Spirit was drawn, and carried to see a place where there was much Earth, but it was cleared away, and an hollow Place or Vault like to a Cave. Into which I was call’d to follow one, that was my Guide. At first it seemed to be dark and dismal: But after I was in, there sprung out a bright Fiery-Stone, the shine of which did lighten that dark Place: it was as Sparkling and Glorious as the Sun. But the Earth covered it by some shakings, that often fell upon it, and quenched the Lustre thereof, so as it did not give forth its Light: but after a little season, it broke through again, and overcame the Darkness. And it was thus opened unto me, That this was a Similitude to shew to us our own Internal State, how Obnoxious the pure and flaming Stone was to the Earth’s showering down upon it. And this Word came to me, There is no other way, but to bind the loose Earth, that so the Light may shine free.”
http://www.passtheword.org/Jane-Lead/fount-of-gardens-vol3-1-d.htm
The following is Leades drawing of what she described as a “flaming eye” in the sky from her experience of July 16, 1676.
http://www.passtheword.org/Jane-Lead/p264.jpg
Leade lived northeast of London at this time of her life (I think). Would be interesting to pinpoint the distance between these two events, separated in time by only by a few days.
My point here is that the original definition of Crop Circle (or Saucer Nest) has a very, very long history. And while the intricate designs imprinted into the fields are interesting and fun to look at, they should not be confused with Crop Circles as originally defined.
At least in my opinion.
~Jonah
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:00 am
Here we go… the great globalist Bush regime is so complicated, competent and evil that they managed to perform an inside job 9/11 attack on the U.S. (without a single leak) and they are using orbital satellite lasers to carve magical symbols in the crops of the brit countryside for the purposes of putting BIG OIL in dominance of the world marketplace. The upshot of which is that they can charge a dollar more per gallon of gas and BIG OIL will be astronomically richer than everyone else (they werent already?) They did all this even though they can’t seem to handle even one PR fiasco or even fire a few prosecutors without the whole house of cards collapsing.
That just makes so much goddam sense I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself. Since there is NO WAY anything other than a military satellite did this I just want to know, how are these orbital crop burning lasers powered and why don’t we have that shit on our armor vehicles? Don’t you think a ground platform would be easier to power than a satellite? (most of which use solar power)
I think I just blew a node. That’s a suggestive reference if ever I heard one.
Jess
June 23rd, 2007 at 3:18 am
Well this topic is ranging far afield.
mothphotographer: In regard to, ” . . . a long history of British intelligence calling upon the dark side, from John Dee to Aleister Crowley. . . ” I don’t know about John Dee but there doesn’t seem to have been too much call on Crowley to employ the black arts of high magic in the service of HMG during WWII. Instead, at least as far as open sources go, there are some traces of the wartime work of Crowley and other ‘occultists’ like Dennis Wheatley. But those traces reveal an involvement in the only slightly less arcane black arts of propaganda and disinformation. For example, in the book The First Year of War and After (from memory published in 1940)the theme was to present an astrological accounting for the progress of Nazi Germany’s war and a (bleak)horoscope for German leaders. Naturally, the attempt was to manipulate the thinking of a leadership that had revealed itself to be prone to astrological prognosticatiion and the esoteric influence of the Thule society.
Although I had been impressed & mystified by the geometrical artistry and beauty of some of the genuine ‘crop circles’, I had no idea that some of the hoaxers had been subject to some quite weird events and phenomena. Thanks for that link to the UFO Media Matters site. This is one for the books - hoaxers getting spooked and arguably being subjected to methods of control by elements of the very phenomenon that their activity is designed to debunk. The irony, oh, the irony!
Uther P Snapdragon
June 24th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Hey Nick — speaking of “ceremonial magic” and paranormal effects. What’s your take on Vincent Bridge’s expose of the Cassiopean Channeling Cult? He cites “When Prophecy Fails” — the U of MN study whereby psychologists created paranormal effects just be “pretending” to channel….
http://cassiopaeacult.com/universalseduction.php
June 24th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Greg,
They told me about that book. I thought that it wasn’t out yet. I’ll read your reviews.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
sasdave/ Andy,
What I’d like to see is a control stalk of grain, a stalk from a hoaxed circle, and one from a “real” circle for comparison.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Jonah,
That drawing looks like a sun dog or some such ice crystal phenomenon as described in Richard Corliss’ Sourcebook project volumes.
The description of the cave encounter sounds like something right out of Whitley Strieber!
June 24th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Jess,
I think at this point I have to invoke the conspiracy community’s canard that things are often 10-20 years ahead of where we think they are. When Vallee first proposed his microwave theory I was so enamored of it that it stuck until I talked to Mark.
What may be going on here (this is a THEORY) is 80-90% hoaxers, 5-15% black ops and about 5% truly unexplained occurrences, all of which may have grabbed the attention of the intelligences from “another realm.”
June 24th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Snappy,
John Dee was (for awhile) Queen Elizabeth I’s court astrologer and general “scientist” who was consulted about the propitious times and circumstances for state or military actions.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Nick,
I’ll be looking forward to your expose!
June 25th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Dingo:
What you call the globalist Bush regime has been around since oil was discovered in the 1850s in the Ohio Valley. The Bushes actually are a subset of the Rockefeller syndicate and yes, this syndicate has pulled off most of the great capers, from the Bolsheviks to Pearl Harbor to (probably) 9/11. There is a multitude of evidence for these things in the muckraking books of the mid-20th century by Josephson and others. Totally documented and in fact, so out in the open as to be ignored by the media they control. To say that there are no leaks with regard to 9/11 is like saying there were no leaks with regard to JFK. Several hundred JFK whistleblowers were found dead in mysterious circumstances, and anyone who watches Loose Change or any of the other 9/11 films can easily see that job was so sloppy that long films can be made documenting the many “leaks.” I never said it was just military satellites making crop circles, just that that is the most common way it has been done. Laurance Rockefeller was the biggest donor to mind control research in the history of mankind, and both the Rockefeller’s and the Bush’s close work with Nazi occultists is well documented. Bush, Sr. was the main proponent of Star Wars. So it is actually quite plausible that they are involved in crop circle manipulation.
June 25th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Gregg,
Point well taken.
Mothphotographer,
I’ll agree to disagree. Somtimes it is the simplist explaination. That being said, please excuse my invective.
Jess
June 26th, 2007 at 6:29 am
If one wants to get a paranormal blur mixed with the human-agency paradigm of the crop circles, why not consider that the “hoaxers” (?) are perhaps “compelled” to do their fieldwork under some kind of CONTROL (”Obsession”? “Possession?) external to themselves…and more powerful than themselves. As though they have not been given “…an OFFER they can’t refuse”, but, rather, “a sub-counscious mental DIRECTIVE they can’t refuse”…rather like Richard Dreyfuss’s
compulsive Devil’s Tower model building in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and his subsequent lemming-like drawing to the real place.
Were Doug and Dave and all others doing all this for “kicks”? Or were they unknowingly made to do it by some alien super-intelligence in a mind control gambit that makes any MK/ULTRA project looks like child’s play by comparison.
Who knows? And is this what I think personally? Hell, I don’t have a clue.
I just conjured (pardon the pun) this notion up out of the bits and pieces of ideas people were kicking around. Shows how ridiculously easy it is to conjure some kind of conspiracy up out of near thin air.
All this stuff works like a variation on “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”. You can think up multitudes of conspiracy theories just by assembling bits and pieces of “facts” (but, mostly, sheer
agenda-driven conjectures) into jigsaw mosaic of “truths” that will surely resonate with somebody somewhere.
June 27th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Having debated people for years, it has become apparent that the most common way other ghetto-ize “conspiracy” theories is that they continue to limit what you are saying no matter how many times you repeat that your theory includes more possibilities than theirs. My theory is that there is a real paranormal phenomenon as well as a synthetic one. This appears to be true of UFOs and abductions, as well as crop circles. With crop circles, you have centuries of history of fairly simple events that appear to be paranormal. Suddenly, they grew exponentially in detail and intensity. That growth was exactly concurrent to defense spending and national security secrecy, of which the Rockefellers and Big Oil were the main architects.
Unfortunately, logic seems turned upside down in the paranormal world. In the paranormal world, attempts are made to make the simplest explanation (that the growth in the phenomenon is synthetic, or synthetically triggered), seem like the most convoluted one. If you polled everyone on earth (especially if it could be absent TV’s constant drone about extraterrestrials), you would probably find that the simplest explanation for most people would be that the elites governing them either knew about, or were responsible for, suddenly-appearing phenomena such as crop circles or UFOs. Attempting to discuss this phenomenon while poo poo-ing anything about the Rockefellers is like doing a documentary on prisons without interviewing, or even considering, the role of the guards and warden (or the society at large that created the prison). The fact is that the scuttlebutt on crop circles for 20 years has been that they were being amped up in order to create a new religion. The idea that board-using circlemakers would be “driven” to do it is not a last-minute conjuration by Hancock, but an old idea. And this idea is not a combination of convoluted bits and pieces, but the simplest explanation. Perfectly in tune with those who spend millions on mind control, and perhaps also need to test some raygun weaponry, as alluded to by Keel, Brussell, and others. Anyone who takes the time to study the history of the Rockefellers will find that the evidence is indisputable. They would therefore probably not be inclined to call other Rockefeller researchers “agenda driven.” An individual doing personal in their basement has very little agenda. A global conglomerate obviously bent on economically dominating the world does have an agenda.
But I realize that everything is turned upside here, so…
March 19th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Given that there have been centuries of crop circles showing up, it is not totally inconceivable that they could be made by extraterrestrials or some other force. Below is a link to an interesting article talking about how old crop circles are and the various places they have popped up.
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/h/history_of_crop_circles_the.html