Crop Circle Theories

Plasma Vortex

Various researches were conducted in this phenomenon and a number of observations have also been made over the years that finally seem to indicate that there are particular characteristics that "genuine" (or non-mandmade) formations appear to exhibit.

Research has been conducted over a ten year period with samples and thorough laboratory testing carried out by the biophysicist Dr. Levengood, Nancy Talbott, and John Burks -- the BLT Research Team, and a small army of volunteers worldwide. Their findings include from samples taken within the crop formations in contrast to the control samples taken from outside the circles.

Levengood studied biophysics at the University of Michigan in the late 1960s and holds several patents on his inventions to increase seed growth and vigor. He has studied biochemical and biophysical changes in crop formation seeds and plants for over a decade.

He has found out that the plants from more than 95% of the sampled events revealed either single or multiple anomalous and readily apparent structural alterations at the macroscopic level. In general, these consisted of significant enlargements of the cell walls, expulsion cavities in the nodes of the plant stalks, significantly extended node lengths, and changes to the soil composition (ie. vastly higher level of magnetite concentration) Significant changes in seed germination and development were also found. Affected plants also have characteristics suggesting the involvement of transient high temperatures. Not one of these clearly anomalous plant alterations had been mentioned – much less explained – by the proponents of the croppies theory, nor can they be accounted for by the supposed methods employed to create crop formations through claims made by the circle makers.

Levengood thinks what is creating the crop circle is a complex energy system that he describes as a "spinning plasma vortex" of ions with microwave frequencies that rapidly heat water in plants, causing them to collapse to the ground with stems not cracked or broken. Further, the microwave frequencies can heat up water in the plant's growth nodes which burst out, creating small holes that have often been found in extraordinary crop patterns. Those complex energies can also affect the seeds.

The affected plants have components which suggest the involvement of rapid air movement, ionization, electric fields and transient high temperatures combined with an oxidizing atmosphere. One naturally occurring and organized force incorporating each of these features is an ion plasma vortex, one very high energy example being a lightning discharge.

Atmospheric-associated plasma formations may plausibly originate in regions where there are clear indications of energy exchange between the ionosphere (60-100 km) and electrical storms in the upper atmosphere (Franz et al. 1990). Currently under consideration are ion plasma vortices which form in unstable regions and act as heat and angular momentum transporters. In fluid dynamics, gases, including air, are considered as having liquid properties (Prandtl and Tietjens 1957). In such a scheme the descent of a vortex through a liquid produces unstable secondary products which form complex, symmetrical patterns such as circles, rings, triangles, double lines and ovals with tubes or 'paths' extending from them (Levenoood 1958). In its descent to the crop surface the shaping of these features of vortex instability would be guided by variations in the Earth's magnetic field (Rossi and Jastrow 1961). At the crop surface the heat, ionization, associated electric fields and angular momentum would be transferred to the living plants. Taken as a whole, ionized air plasmas are electrically neutral, although internally, charge separation takes place and they can have high concentrations of positive ions and free electrons (Lehnert 1961), which in contact with plant tissue might produce transient heating and account for a number of the plant transformations.

The croppies

In 1991 two retired lanscape painters Englishmen, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, proclaimed they were responsible for all the crop circles in England since 1978, starting as a joke to make people think UFOs were landing.

They demonstrated their technique for the cameras with a 1.2-metre board attached to a rope they hung around their necks. One held one end of a string in the centre to determine the radius while the other held the other end and stomped down the plants with the board. Newspapers and TV stations around the world trumpeted the solution to the crop circle mystery.

Since Doug and Dave's "retirement" in 1991, another generation of hoaxers has appeared. The only group to go public calls itself the Circlemakers (http://www.circlemakers.com). They have not taken credit for any one formation in particular, except a few commercial exhibitions (Mitsubishi, Weetabix) and a couple of television programs (History Channel, …), saying that revealing which circles they've created would ruin the mystery and appreciation for what they call their "land art." To date, they have not responded to numerous challenges to reproduce any of the complex formations in front of witnesses.

John Lundberg leader of the Circlemakers, considers their practice an art. Lundberg estimates that there are three or four dedicated crop circle art groups operating in the United Kingdom today, and numerous other small groups that make one or two circles a year more or less as a lark.
Two phenomena appear to be pushing the evolving art.

To combat a widely promulgated theory that the circles were the result of wind vortices—essentially mini-whirlwinds—crop artists felt compelled to produce ever more elaborate designs, some with straight lines to show that the circles were not a natural phenomenon, said Lundberg. The other impetus is true of all art forms: Artists influence one another, and designs evolve in response to what has been done before.

The crop circle season extends from roughly April to harvesting in September, although the best time to make a circle is in mid to late June. When still immature, wheat rises back toward the sun, making a circle look brushed rather than flattened, said Lundberg.

While the relationship between crop artists and cereologists is uneasy, the relationship between artists and farmers is mutually beneficial. Farmers provide the canvas, the artists bring in the tourists. The circles are a major tourist attraction, spawning bus tours, daily helicopter tours, T-shirts, books, and other trinkets. The circles draw people who believe the formations have a unique energy. They visit the formations as a sort of spiritual Mecca, to meditate, pray, dance, and commune with worldly spirits. Farmers frequently charge a small fee or have a donation box for people who want to enter the circles. In 1996 a circle appeared near Stonehenge and the farmer set up a booth and charged a fee, collecting 30,000 pounds (U.S. $47,000) in four weeks. The value of the crop had it been harvested was probably about 150 pounds ($235).

How to make crop circle?

Anybody can make a crop circle with simple tools. The only tools you need are rope, boards or metal pipes and a willing crew. Here is a common way of making crop circles.

1 A stake is hammered into the field at the center of the area where the circle will be created.

2 A rope is tied to the stake and stretched to the edge of the circle.

3 A crew member at the end of the rope makes a perimeter by walking in a circle around the stake.

4 Boards or heavy pipes are then dragged over the crop to flatten plants within the space.

5 Outside the new circle, rings can be made by leaving sections of the crop undamaged.

The Electro-magnetic field theory

According to Dr Colin Andrews, who has studied crop circles for 17 years, about 20% are caused by eddie currents in the earth's magnetic field - a mysterious shift in the electro-magnetic field creates a current that flattens the crops in its path.

That could probably explain the numerous reports of electronic equipment failing in crop circles and compasses spinning out of control in and over the crop circles (even when flying over in aircraft).

The UFO theory

Crop circle formation is similar to alleged UFO landing site reports where a circular swirling pattern is formed in grass, the grass remains unharmed, and is in inaccessible locations for vehicles.

Channelers and ufologists pretend that crop circles are not symbols intended as a 'message to man.' These deliberately created pictographs are signposts, or reference marks produced by aliens moving in space and time (back and forth/in and out), who are monitoring the course of event trajectories. The pictographs serve primarily as reference markings and for 'event line' orientation and are deliberately embedded in a short-lived, perishable medium so that man's attention would not be attracted to specific locations.

Production of the circles occurs via two primary mechanisms:

• Macroscale: external area effects; heat and overpressure
• Microscale: internal plant stem effects; pressure changes and cellular damage.

Ultrasonics are produced as gasses escape the plant stem. The concominent drop in turgor pressure within the stem causes the plant to bend over. there is a gentle 'swish swish' sound as this effect is induced, en masse.

Some craft halt in the vicinity of the circles for what appears to be communications checks. On occasion, craft temporarily stop and conduct exploratory probing/testing in the vicinity of the circles.

It must be added that circles have given rise historically to various beliefs connected with the supernatural. for instance, the circles inspired the idea of the 'elves' green rings. The Nazca lines and, most noteworthy, Navajo sand paintings, were ideas born of attempts to copy the 'marks of the Gods', so as to evoke a visitation or response.

The Whirlwind theory


The official government explanation is that whirlwinds, created by heat thermals, are the true cause of the crop circle anomaly. But whirlwinds or Mini-tornadoes are not static, they travel around and it is very unlikely that they would create such intricate and symmetrical patterns.

Natural Music

Hawkins observed that the circle patterns embodied geometric theorems that expressed specific relationships among the areas of the various circles, triangles, and other shapes. These patterns displayed "exact numerical relationships" (i.e., diatonic ratios) similar to those found in a scale of musical notes. For example, if a circle within a formation is 90 degrees and another is 80 degrees, the ratio is 9/8 which is the same ratio between the notes C and D, C being the eighth note of the diatonic scale and D being the ninth. These are the same ratios that are found in popular music, or in playing the white notes on the piano.

According to Stephen J. Smith, a paranormal investigator and amateur composer, these ratios are not the result of chance "because the numbers have to be very precise in order to be a diatonic ratio. This is why music sounds like music instead of noise, because it is built on precise ratios."

To derive music from the crop circles, Smith used a fractal music-generating computer program. He entered photographs of the formations into the computer, which ëreadí the photographs and generated music from the photos, using the crop circle scales to play it back.

Curiously, not all crop circles embody diatonic rations in their formations. Hence, some do not have musical qualities. Possibly, Smith says, the real circles have diatonic ratios, and the faked ones do not. Further, diatonic ratios may be only a part of the overall geometry of the formations.