What about this crop circle?

[Stray Cat]

You have made many accusations against various researchers. Do you have any evidence to support accusations of contrivance?

Yes, just read back through this thread.
If you wanted more I could also go into the famous cases of the Stonehenge Julia Set formation being made in broad daylight in 20 minutes lie,
or the Oliver's Castle UFO's being videoed making a crop circle hoax,
or the 07.07.07 Eastfield filmed a crop circle forming in 15 minutes lie.
The Gerald Hawkins Geometric Theorems lie,
the misrepresentations of Doug & Dave's actual words by the crop circle community,
the failure of William Levengood of BLT to do sound scientific research and rule out experimenter bias by not double blinding his samples,
The fact that Levengood pretended he was a Dr. when he hadn't (and still hasn't) a qualification which allows him to use that title.
Levengood claiming that meteorite dust was found in a crop circle when it was nothing more than rusty iron filings in the fe3 H-Glaze case,
Colin Andrews saying he was a Government Operative, when he was an electrician for the local council...
The established facts that every claimed 'anomaly' found in bent plant stems also occur in naturally downed crop (lodging) and there is nothing special about it. Agricultural experts fully understand the process of phototropism, and the black mould which is commonly reported as 'burning' in crop circles.

The list is quite endless and tiresome.

 

[Stray Cat]

I would falsify it the same way, if I had the contacts you have. But since I can't do that I don't know how I would falsify it.

So, if you had the contacts, you'd do what every other crop circle researcher does... take some notes if something weird happened?
Only you'd do it from the inside?

I suggest you really need to read The Field Guide (by Rob Irving and John Lundberg). I've linked it twice now so wont do it again.

 

[Limbo]

Yes, just read back through this thread.
If you wanted more I could also go into the famous cases of the Stonehenge Julia Set formation being made in broad daylight in 20 minutes lie,
or the Oliver's Castle UFO's being videoed making a crop circle hoax,
or the 07.07.07 Eastfield filmed a crop circle forming in 15 minutes lie.
The Gerald Hawkins Geometric Theorems lie,
the misrepresentations of Doug & Dave's actual words by the crop circle community,
the failure of William Levengood of BLT to do sound scientific research and rule out experimenter bias by not double blinding his samples,
The fact that Levengood pretended he was a Dr. when he hadn't (and still hasn't) a qualification which allows him to use that title.
Levengood claiming that meteorite dust was found in a crop circle when it was nothing more than rusty iron filings in the fe3 H-Glaze case,
Colin Andrews saying he was a Government Operative, when he was an electrician for the local council...
The established facts that every claimed 'anomaly' found in bent plant stems also occur in naturally downed crop (lodging) and there is nothing special about it. Agricultural experts fully understand the process of phototropism, and the black mould which is commonly reported as 'burning' in crop circles.

The list is quite endless and tiresome.

Even if all you say is true, I'm not sure it really proves anything. Well, maybe it proves ET isn't involved. But how does it prove that the 'trickster archetype' so to speak isn't involved? All that looks like the work of the trickster to me.

Tangling With the Trickster: Myth, Magic and the UFO

[...]

In The Trickster and the Paranormal, George Hansen argues that science and reason can only go so far toward helping us understand UFOs and the paranormal. According to Hansen, the “correct understanding” of these realms has “massive implications for how we understand the world”. Here’s his thesis in a nutshell.

The supernatural, the paranormal, psi/psychic phenomena and UFOs are all associated with processes of destructuring. For the purposes of his argument, ghosts, Bigfoot, etc. are considered as categories of the paranormal. Animal mutilations and crop circles fall under the UFO rubric. The qualities of destructuring include: change, transition, disorder, marginality, the ephemeral and the blurring of boundaries.

[...]

Trickster figures have much in common with UFOs and their “occupants”. Tricksters are the definitive shape-shifters. They teleport effortlessly between the earth and the heavens, Their evasions and chicanery are legendary. They have no regard for linear time and have the ability to “dissolve” or alter time (missing time). Trickster communications alternate between profound wisdom and total nonsense. Tricksters abduct people and animals at will. These encounters frequently involve sexual contact and interbreeding. Tricksters taunt humanity’s political, scientific and military hierarchies. They even mock our methods of investigation. Trickster lore is replete with macabre shenanigans like stealing and killing cattle and other livestock, eviscerating animals and coring their rectums. They have also been known to lay down circular patterns or nests in crops and vegetation. Dennis Stillings has noted that the ‘mystery helicopters’ sometimes associated with UFOs and animal mutilations have more in common with the shape-shifting trickster than with human-made technology.

For Hansen, the trickster is the pre-eminent embodiment of all the paranormal, preternatural and anti-structural forces that the rationalisation process is attempting to stamp out. Hansen offers words of warning: “When the supernatural and irrational are banished from consciousness, they are not destroyed, rather they become exceedingly dangerous.” He also has words of caution for UFO and paranormal researchers who might be frivolously tempted to tangle with the trickster and his domain, warning of personal destabilisation, a loss of critical judgement, wrecked careers, ruined marriages and general “trickster-induced irrationality”. Ouch!

[...]

 

[Sledge]

Let's try it this way: what are you seeing in crop circles that couldn't be done by people, Limbo?

 

[aggle-rithm]

For Hansen, the trickster is the pre-eminent embodiment of all the paranormal, preternatural and anti-structural forces that the rationalisation process is attempting to stamp out. Hansen offers words of warning: “When the supernatural and irrational are banished from consciousness, they are not destroyed, rather they become exceedingly dangerous.” He also has words of caution for UFO and paranormal researchers who might be frivolously tempted to tangle with the trickster and his domain, warning of personal destabilisation, a loss of critical judgement, wrecked careers, ruined marriages and general “trickster-induced irrationality”. Ouch!

[...]

Oh, great. Now we're bringing Jungian psychology into this.

Two whacky ideas for the price of one!

As for "the rationalisation process is attempting to stamp out" paranormal forces...is that what you call asking someone making claims of extraordinary abilities to demonstrate that he can, in fact, do what he says he can? Or asking him to show evidence of the magical things he claims exist?

 

[aggle-rithm]

Let's try it this way: what are you seeing in crop circles that couldn't be done by people, Limbo?

I thought he made it clear! People have to poop, which is messy, and whoever made the crop circles clearly aren't messy.

Case closed!

 

[Limbo]

Hey Stray Cat, I was just looking through ICCRA reports, and I came across an interesting claim. I was wondering if you know of any evidence to contradict it.

ICCRA Report – Beloit, Mitchell County, Kansas Crop Circle, Sept. 9, 2006

[...]

ICCRA – Beloit, Kansas – Growth Node Elongation Analysis

The primary identification test for determining the difference between mechanically man-made (hoaxed) and non-man made (authentic) crop circles remains the growth node elongation analysis test developed by biophysicist W.C. Levengood and published in the peer reviewed science journal Physiologia Plantarum (“Anatomical anomalies in crop formation plants”, Physiologia Plantarum 92:356-363).

The ICCRA uses this node elongation test (where applicable) in the crop circles it investigates. Simply put, the “L-NEAT” (Levengood Node Elongation Analysis Test) that the ICCRA conducts collects a statistically-significant number of plant samples from a crop circle formation and compares them to a comparable amount of “control” plants taken at some distance away from the crop circle but in the same field. We measure the growth nodes on these plants and compare the two populations to determine if any difference exists.
Since Levengood published his original paper, well over 200 crop circle formations have been tested in this fashion by Levengood, Dr. Eltjo Hasselhoff of the Netherlands (The Deepening Complexity of Crop Circles, 2002), the ICCRA, and others.

No tested mechanically man-made formations have ever exhibited any change to the growth nodes of flattened plants using any of the typical hoaxer methods from a variety of crops. Authentic crop circles, on the other hand, do exhibit anomalous growth node elongation which can range from 15%-300% elongation to the nodes, depending upon the crop, moisture content of the plants, and time of the growing season.

In the Beloit, Kansas crop circle, every node group comparison resulted in overwhelming statistical evidence that the growth nodes measured from plants inside the Beloit, Kansas crop circle were elongated as compared to measured growth nodes from control plants gathered from standing plants in the same field. This evidence of plant changes shows that the Beloit, Kansas crop circle was not mechanically man-made, as these plant changes cannot be produced by typical hoaxer mechanical-flattening methods (i.e. using a board, garden roller, rope, or feet as tools for flattening the plants). As shown in the chart below, the formation plants’ growth nodes were elongated between 54%-78% more than the standing control plants."

[...]

ICCRA – Beloit, Kansas – Conclusions

The Beloit, Mitchell County, Kansas single crop circle in Sorghum-Sudan grass was one of the largest, single crop circles ever recorded in the United States. The growth nodes measured on the flattened plants inside the crop circle were 55%-78% elongated as compared to the plants left standing in the field. This primary measurement is considered by the ICCRA to be “L-NEAT” positive, and determines this crop circle to be “Authentic” (not mechanically man-made). Additional secondary characteristics, including geological, meteorological, and forensic evidence also support this conclusion.

[...]

Stray Cat, what do you think of the elongation analysis and the conclusion? Have you ever witnessed a difference between plants you have flattened with your stomperboard and plants just outside the formation? Have you ever made one that didn't have a tram line leading to it? Ever heard of one with double or triple centers?

 

[RayG]

Stray Cat did the circlemakers who made this have a mathematical genius on their team, do you think?

Was the quiltmaker who made these a mathematical genius?

How about this one?

RayG

 

[Stray Cat]

Even if all you say is true, I'm not sure it really proves anything. Well, maybe it proves ET isn't involved. But how does it prove that the 'trickster archetype' so to speak isn't involved? All that looks like the work of the trickster to me.

But I see a world of difference between the bold statements you make regarding the physical lack of human ability to make crop circles and then the wishy washy psychology driven explanation you claim to support.
The physical evidence does not match your explanation for it.

Yes, the trickster is at work. It is exploited by the circlemakers who understand the mechanism within human psychology in relation to 'belief' but the trickster is a human concept, not an external entity.

 

[Stray Cat]

Hey Stray Cat, I was just looking through ICCRA reports, and I came across an interesting claim. I was wondering if you know of any evidence to contradict it.

BLT flat refuse to look at samples from known man made crop circles (willful ignorance), so probably no evidence that comes from a source you'd trust no.

But a few years ago here in the UK after many calls for crop circle researchers to make detailed examinations of known man made crop circles (commissioned advertising ones) so that they could develop a better understanding of what human capabilities were, it was eventually down to one of the circlemakers to re-visit the Olympic Rings formation made for the Sun newspaper:

He collected samples from within the circle and cataloged bent and exploded nodes and showed the evidence to researchers, who simply dismissed it because he was a known circlemaker.

Bent nodes in situ

Expanded bent nodes

Exploded nodes

All of the above photos are of samples from a known, witnessed man made crop circle.

However, yes, if you look back through BLT's research, you will find a few examples of samples they have found anomalous that have since transpired to have been admitted to, by circlemakers... Of course that doesn't prove anything to the bleevers because they don't bleeve the circlemakers.

ETA: Also in a very strange twist and illogical leap, when BLT discovered the exact same 'anomalies' in naturally downed crop (lodging due to adverse weather, poor fertilisation or water logging damage), instead of concluding that these 'anomalies' were most likely a very natural response to plant damage, they made an announcement that the same mysterious force (usually cited as some form of mystery plasma) was also responsible for the weather, the fertiliser and the poor drainage on farmland.

"Non-Geometrically downed crop. An important final note regarding these changes to crop circle plants is the fact that non-geometrically-downed crop -- usually called "lodging" by farmers and attributed to over-fertilization of the field and/or subsequent weather damage -- has sometimes been found to show these same changes (see Non-Geometric Crop Formations). This more randomly-downed, or chaotically-downed crop is often observed in the same fields in which "geometric" crop circles occur, but is also found in fields where no geometric crop circle exists. In some cases it is thought that this chaotically-downed crop is due to weather damage alone. However, testing has revealed that in many instances the same energetic situation involved in the geometric events is also involved in these non-geometrically downed areas. A control study carried out in 1997 did not reveal any of the typical plant anomalies in 100% over-fertilized wheat grown for commercial harvest."

From BLT's website here: http://www.bltresearch.com/plantab.php

 

[Ersby]

re. node length. An interesting paper:

Balls of Light: The Questionable Science of Crop Circles
Grassi, Cocheo, Russo
Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 159-170, 2005

We conclude that the claims about the involvement of some kind of
electromagnetic radiation in the creation of crop circles are not supported by the
available evidence. In particular, the 1/r2 symmetry exists only as a consequence
of the unjustified exclusion of unwanted data; even in this favourable condition,
the suggested model does not fit the data as well as a simple "best fit" straight
line. Even if a l/r2 trend were found, it should not, anyway, be related to a point
source radiating the exposed crop field, because this implies a complete
transparency of the plants to the striking radiation, so avoiding the absorption of
energy. Moreover, the BOL model was selectively applied only to circular
imprints, while all other geometric crop formations with rectangular or more
complex patterns were deliberately ignored because they cannot fit the BOL
hypothesis. The total evidence discussed in this critical review demonstrates
nothing but a mere difference in the stem elongation between the flattened plants
lying inside the circles and those standing outside it, as we should expect when
whatever kind of mechanical force flattens the plants, rope and wood plank
included.

 

[Stray Cat]

re. node length. An interesting paper:

Indeed the publication Physiologia Plantarum also made a statement to the effect that it regretted publishing the faulty research of Levengood.

The report which is being discussed above from the Journal of Scientific Exploration is the 'H-Glaze' that I mentioned earlier in the thread. Here is an examination done by Rodney Ashby a few years after the BLT paper had been published and after Rob Irving had contacted him to look into it a bit further:
http://www.xstreamscience.org/H_Glaze/H_Glaze_0.htm

 

[Limbo]

But I see a world of difference between the bold statements you make regarding the physical lack of human ability to make crop circles and then the wishy washy psychology driven explanation you claim to support.
The physical evidence does not match your explanation for it.

Yes, the trickster is at work. It is exploited by the circlemakers who understand the mechanism within human psychology in relation to 'belief' but the trickster is a human concept, not an external entity.

Archetypes are patterns in the psyche. Archetypes are both an inner reality and an outer reality as well, because consciousness is non-local in space and time - which is how psi is possible.

Inevitably, our minds defend our ego belief system. One of the ways it does that is with psi. Even if we don't believe in psi! Our minds can and do use psi without us even knowing it. Our minds can even use psi, unconsciously, to re-enforce the belief that there is no such thing as psi. The trickster archetype at work! So to speak.

In the lab, goats (people who reject psi) unknowingly use unconscious psi to get poor scores, lower than statistically possible. Unconscious psi can act retro-causally, it can act on probability, matter, energy in the service of a conscious belief system. Whatever it takes, psi doesn't care. Psi is goal-oriented.

In the lab, sheep (people who accept psi) unknowingly use unconscious psi to get good scores, higher than statistically possible.

The unconscious sheep-goat effect is present in the crop circle phenomenon as well, and I think it compromises or disguises the evidence. So I don't think it's as simple as man-made this and physical evidence that. That's why a man-made circle can be "genuine", and a "genuine" circle can turn out to be a "hoax". Reversals and paradox are a tricksters delight, so to speak.

Physical evidence is vulnerable to the unconscious mind-over-matter and retro-causal manipulations of a global sheep-goat effect. IOW, the trickster archetype.

 

[Toke]

Inevitably, our minds defend our ego belief system. One of the ways it does that is with psi. Even if we don't believe in psi! Our minds can use psi without us even knowing it. Our minds can even use psi, unconsciously, to re-enforce the belief that there is no such thing as psi. The trickster archetype at work! So to speak.

Are you sure it is not FSM's noodly appendage?

Or to put it clearer, your psi need a lot of contortionist to avoid detection.

 

[fls]

Archetypes are patterns in the psyche. Archetypes are both an inner reality and an outer reality as well, because consciousness is non-local in space and time - which is how psi is possible.

Inevitably, our minds defend our ego belief system. One of the ways it does that is with psi. Even if we don't believe in psi! Our minds can and do use psi without us even knowing it. Our minds can even use psi, unconsciously, to re-enforce the belief that there is no such thing as psi. The trickster archetype at work! So to speak.

In the lab, goats (people who reject psi) unknowingly use unconscious psi to get poor scores, lower than statistically possible. Unconscious psi can act retro-causally, it can act on probability, matter, energy in the service of a conscious belief system. Whatever it takes, psi doesn't care. Psi is goal-oriented.

In the lab, sheep (people who accept psi) unknowingly use unconscious psi to get good scores, higher than statistically possible.

The unconscious sheep-goat effect is present in the crop circle phenomenon as well, and I think it compromises or disguises the evidence. So I don't think it's as simple as man-made this and physical evidence that. That's why a man-made circle can be "genuine", and a "genuine" circle can turn out to be a "hoax". Reversals and paradox are a tricksters delight, so to speak.

Physical evidence is vulnerable to the unconscious mind-over-matter and retro-causal manipulations of a global sheep-goat effect. IOW, the trickster archetype.

In other words, believers have carefully crafted a set of excuses which can be applied to any information after the fact, but not before (to do so beforehand would imply falsifiable hypotheses) to exclude the information which disproves their beliefs. Skeptics also recognize the "sheep-goat effect" and the "trickster archetype". However, their names for these phenomena are "regression to the mean", "experimental bias", and "cognitive biases", as well as "characteristics of human cognition".

Linda

 

[Limbo]

Are you sure it is not FSM's noodly appendage?

Or to put it clearer, your psi need a lot of contortionist to avoid detection.

Avoid detection by who? Our ego-self? That part of us is a relatively small and weak part. There is a deep collective part of us that is right under our noses, so to speak. That's where our psi comes from.

 

[Toke]

Avoid detection by who? Our ego-self? That part of us is a relatively small and weak part. There is a deep collective part of us that is right under our noses, so to speak. That's where our psi comes from.

By the people saying "what psi, prove it".

The way you describe it it could just as well not be there, not unlike aliens.

 

[cyborg]

If you don't demonstrate psi then that's because you're using psi without knowing it to undermine the evidence for the existence of psi.

How convenient.

 

[Limbo]

In other words, believers have carefully crafted a set of excuses which can be applied to any information after the fact, but not before (to do so beforehand would imply falsifiable hypotheses) to exclude the information which disproves their beliefs.

Carefully crafted? You make it sound premeditated. "Today, I'm going to carefully craft a set of excuses." Is that what you think Gertrude Schmeidler did? Did she carefully craft the sheep-goat effect for that purpose?

"The data convinced me. Repeatedly, average ESP scores of subjects who rejected any possibility of ESP success (whom I called goats) were lower than average ESP scores of all other subjects (whom I called sheep). This was inexplicable by the physical laws we knew; it implied unexplored processes in the universe, an exciting new field for research. From then on, naturally, my primary research interest was parapsychology." -Gertrude Schmeidler

So Linda, was the sheep-goat effect born from data or born from an agenda?

 

[gambling_cruiser]

Edited by Professor Yaffle: 

Edited to remove personal attack