Crop circles - eyewitness evidence in!

[FramerDave]

Dust devils(USA), Willy, Willies(Australia), tornadoes(USA & UK), are all forms of natural atmospheric vortexes. Other natural phenomena caused by charged particles are also quite common in certain conditions, a combination of the two therefore are not beyond credibility as your misplaced skepticism in this particular case, is concerned.

While they're not everyday events, they are all fairly common occurences. Has anyone ever recorded evidence of tornadoes or their bretheren producing a crop circle, or anything remotely like a crop circle?

Has anyone ever recorded evidence of charged particles acting in concert with tornadoes or other vortices in any way? Through what mechanism might this produce a crop circle?

Unless you can propose something you're just engaging in useless speculation.

 

[Locknar]

While they're not everyday events, they are all fairly common occurences. Has anyone ever recorded evidence of tornadoes or their bretheren producing a crop circle, or anything remotely like a crop circle?

Has anyone ever recorded evidence of charged particles acting in concert with tornadoes or other vortices in any way? Through what mechanism might this produce a crop circle?

Unless you can propose something you're just engaging in useless speculation.

Tornadoes (and similar "brethren") have NEVER produced anything remotely resembling crop circles. It IS beyond credibility that these natural atmospheric vortexes could in any way be responsible for crop circles.

 

[Mongrel]

Living in Iowa, in the middle of endless fields of corn mostly, I'm given to wonder why there are no crop circles around here.

I'm going to go with "Farmers have easier access to lethal weaponry then in the UK"

 

[kerikiwi]

I'm going to go with "Farmers have easier access to lethal weaponry then in the UK"

Or they have less appreciation of performance art.

 

[RichardR]

If you're interested, I just made a blog post about these new crop circles.

 

[Tez]

"The 'possible 'explanation you offer is laughable."

Quite frankly, I find that insulting. Why is it "laughable"?

"The most likely explanation is that the description of being blown over and having hair standing on end is untrue, whether from deliberate lies or self-deception." (They were not blown over incidently, you have misquoted the report)

Why is your explanation any more likely?

Why is the possible real experience of natural but extreme atmospheric phenomena any less likely than self-deception or telling lies(for no apparent reason or gain). Why is a possible inconsistency in any given report not attributable to an error in sense of time and sequence?

OK, you may very well be right, but no righter than I, or any less "laughable", until proven otherwise.

There are many other things we would expect to see if it were a natural phenomenon. For instance, we'd expect it not to care about crops per se - there'd be "bush circles", "dusty flats circles", "wild grass circles" and so on. Have you ever seen one of these circles in the crops right by the side of a road, such that only half the circle gets formed? Strange how that never happens - maybe the vortices don't like being watched by passing motorists...

So in my mind the "natural phenomena" explanation is "laughable".

 

[BillC]

Sort of like how there were no good reports of flying saucers until the rise of science fiction in the mid 20th century. It falls under that category of "If I didn't believe it, I never would have seen it."

I think it was Darat who told me this similar one.

Prior to the mid nineteenth century, while there are many stories of ghosts and depictions in art, there are no accounts of ghosts being transparent. It was only with the advent of photography that ghosts 'became' transparent. I think we can guess why this is so.
​

I have been unable to find a citation for it, so if anyone could oblige, I would be grateful.

 

[Explorer]

While they're not everyday events, they are all fairly common occurences. Has anyone ever recorded evidence of tornadoes or their bretheren producing a crop circle, or anything remotely like a crop circle?

Has anyone ever recorded evidence of charged particles acting in concert with tornadoes or other vortices in any way? Through what mechanism might this produce a crop circle?

Unless you can propose something you're just engaging in useless speculation.

"useless speculation"?

One man's "useless speculation" is another man's scientific hypothesising.

There is a world of difference between citing paranormal causes and natural causes, if you cannot see this difference, then let us just leave it at that.

My "proposal" that you seek was already implicit in my original post where I related the report. However, if you missed it, here is what I was implying.

Static charges in the atmosphere could have been responsible for the woman's husband's hair standing on end. Does the atmosphere produce static charges? Yes! Does a static charge cause hair to lift? Yes!

If there is a natural cause of some of the crop circles, as opposed to those that are a deliberate hoax, then what natural force that could create a simple swirling effect in growing corn, are already known to us? One possible answer is a vortex in the atmosphere touching down on the crop.

It does indeed seem that no one has ever seen this working in real time, unless you accept the report of the two witnesses I posted, at face value. However, just because it hasn't been observed directly, doesn't automatically rule out this as a possible cause.

If you are saying that NO circles are, or have ever been, natural, then we are arguing about two different issues here, and I suggest we call a halt to this rather fruitless debate.

 

[Explorer]

There are many other things we would expect to see if it were a natural phenomenon. For instance, we'd expect it not to care about crops per se - there'd be "bush circles", "dusty flats circles", "wild grass circles" and so on. Have you ever seen one of these circles in the crops right by the side of a road, such that only half the circle gets formed? Strange how that never happens - maybe the vortices don't like being watched by passing motorists...

So in my mind the "natural phenomena" explanation is "laughable".

To take your first point. If you had done a little research then you would have known that the "crop" is not always corn. There is a photograph taken of a circle in a rape seed crop in South Wonston(UK), in 1987, reported by Pat Goddard. Not so spectacular as a corn circle which has more definition, but nevertheless, perfectly visible.

To take your second point, crop circles have been observed and photographed overlapping into hedge banks and ditches along the side of fields. One case is a single simple circle discovered in Corhampton, near Southampton (UK), again in June of 1987, and again formed in a rape seed crop, reported by farmer Colin Hall.

Now the above examples still do not preclude hoaxes, but do invalidate your two points above which prompted you to use the description "laughable".

 

[Tez]

To take your first point. If you had done a little research then you would have known that the "crop" is not always corn. There is a photograph taken of a circle in a rape seed crop in South Wonston(UK), in 1987, reported by Pat Goddard. Not so spectacular as a corn circle which has more definition, but nevertheless, perfectly visible.

To take your second point, crop circles have been observed and photographed overlapping into hedge banks and ditches along the side of fields. One case is a single simple circle discovered in Corhampton, near Southampton (UK), again in June of 1987, and again formed in a rape seed crop, reported by farmer Colin Hall.

Now the above examples still do not preclude hoaxes, but do invalidate your two points above which prompted you to use the description "laughable".

Where the heck did I say corn????

Once, when I'd been asked to appear in a TV debate on this stuff (soon after some movie about crop circles) I read the supposed scientific papers by some twits who take samples of crops from circles they think are genuine (from some sort of weather vortices), and compare them (in particular how fast seeds from them grow) with crop from outside of the circle. They were completely trash science, with no blinding and ridiculous equivocation (sometimes the circle seeds grow faster/higher and sometimes they grew slower/lower. Of course never with statistical significance. And on a finite sample, yes, they will be either higher or lower!)

I also read a bunch of proposed physical explanations of the vortices (which displayed laughable knowledge of physics). So yeah, I have no interest in this idea.

I'd like to see some of the pics/reports of circles in things other than crops if you have easy links available.

 

[Cuddles]

"OK, so there is a lot we still don't understand about the weather. However, we know enough to say that localised tornadoes making perfect geometric shapes in crops but are never observed happening anywhere other than the middle of fields at night are entirely laughable. Attributing crop circles to the weather is just as silly as claiming it was aliens."

Well, I agreed with all that, and then you went and spoiled it all by making that last ridiculous statement.

Equating the reporting of aliens with unusual weather phenomena is rather "silly", I hasten to add!.

How can you possibly agree with the first part and not the last part? It is not possible for tornadoes, or any other weather, to make perfect geometric patterns. It is not possible for them to happen only in the middle of fields and not anywhere else. It is not possible for them to happen only in the middle of the night when no-one is watching. You say you agree with this. How can you agree with that andstill fail to see just how ridiculous it is to pretend that the weather is any kind of explanation?

 

[EHocking]

"useless speculation"?

One man's "useless speculation" is another man's scientific hypothesising.

There is a world of difference between citing paranormal causes and natural causes, if you cannot see this difference, then let us just leave it at that.

You are presupposing that they are not man made.
Not a scientific approach to hypothesising.

My "proposal" that you seek was already implicit in my original post where I related the report. However, if you missed it, here is what I was implying.

Static charges in the atmosphere could have been responsible for the woman's husband's hair standing on end. Does the atmosphere produce static charges? Yes! Does a static charge cause hair to lift? Yes!

If there is a natural cause of some of the crop circles, as opposed to those that are a deliberate hoax, then what natural force that could create a simple swirling effect in growing corn, are already known to us? One possible answer is a vortex in the atmosphere touching down on the crop.

Looking through Paul Vigay's crop circle database (www.ccdb.co.uk) there are only 3 instances of circle reports being just wind damage - out of 1795 reports. NONE of these report that the marking in the crop created by wind are circular. The SPECULATE about vortices etc creating crop circles but there is no evidence anywhere that supports the hypothesis, whereas there is a great deal of evidence supporting the fact that crop circles are man made.

It does indeed seem that no one has ever seen this working in real time, unless you accept the report of the two witnesses I posted, at face value. However, just because it hasn't been observed directly, doesn't automatically rule out this as a possible cause.

If you are saying that NO circles are, or have ever been, natural, then we are arguing about two different issues here, and I suggest we call a halt to this rather fruitless debate.

The fact is that practically every country's agricultural department has reports on wind damage to crops, but this damage is always quite irregular and does not resemble circles in the least, even croppies acknowledge this. Unless you have evidence of circles created by downbursts of wind etc, it IS just fruitless speculation.

 

[EHocking]

To take your first point. If you had done a little research then you would have known that the "crop" is not always corn. There is a photograph taken of a circle in a rape seed crop in South Wonston(UK), in 1987, reported by Pat Goddard. Not so spectacular as a corn circle which has more definition, but nevertheless, perfectly visible.

To take your second point, crop circles have been observed and photographed overlapping into hedge banks and ditches along the side of fields. One case is a single simple circle discovered in Corhampton, near Southampton (UK), again in June of 1987, and again formed in a rape seed crop, reported by farmer Colin Hall.

Do you have a cite for this? Paul Vigay's fairly comprehensive circle database (www.ccdb.co.uk) only has one circle in June for 1987 and it is described "It was unusual in being a perfect circle, which most are not."

I quote this merely because of your previous challenge to "do the research".

Now the above examples still do not preclude hoaxes, but do invalidate your two points above which prompted you to use the description "laughable".

No, this is merely semantics.

Why are you derailing your own thread on the recent crop circle "formed in 90 minutes" with 20 year old examples.

 

[EHocking]

Why are you derailing your own thread on the recent crop circle "formed in 90 minutes" with 20 year old examples.

Oops - Explorer wasn't the OP. But it still stands. Why derail this thread with unconnected examples from 1987?

 

[Locknar]

If there is a natural cause of some of the crop circles, as opposed to those that are a deliberate hoax, then what natural force that could create a simple swirling effect in growing corn, are already known to us? One possible answer is a vortex in the atmosphere touching down on the crop.

If you are saying that NO circles are, or have ever been, natural, then we are arguing about two different issues here, and I suggest we call a halt to this rather fruitless debate.

There are NO natural causes of crop circles; to suggest atmospheric static charges in combination with vortex’s is simply silly.

What you are left with is fairly straight forward – ie. the dreaded MAN.

 

[EHocking]

If you're interested, I just made a blog post about these new crop circles.

Further to the points you raise in your blog, let's look at this report a little further.
They claim that there were 5 cameras recording at the time.
The five cameras on the hill that are discussed in the report are:

One was a Sony digital still camera.
Another was a Sony VX2100, which he told me is much more sensitive to light than the human eye.
He also had an image-enhancing camera, which was hooked up to a JVC D-700 recorder, so that every time he scanned the field with the image enhancer, it would record what was scanned.

In addition he had two on the roof of a jeep:
infrared - model and specs unknown
visible light capacity - model and specs unknown
Both hooked up to VHS/VCRs

Claim 1.

1:35 am 7/7/07

He picked up his image-enhancing camera and scanned around the East Field which we could see very clearly through his equipment. We could see the tramlines. He scanned across (the wheat) and we could see there was a field of rapeseed next to (the wheat) and we could see the road and everything very clearly. That was recorded and indexed at 1:35 AM, Saturday, July 7, 2007.

First things first. Which camera was it? They claim the image-enhancing camera, so from the quote above this is NOT the VX2100. Ah, but later in the article after Terje Toftenes has been interviewed the article claims:

However, if you start with:
- the 1:35 AM Sony light-sensitive videotape that Win Keech shot while panning the East Field that was so dark in the frames above;

So which is it, the image-enhancing camera, or the Sony light-sensitive camera?

Are they confusing the two? Misremembering? Lying?

Continuing.

Terje Toftenes, Video Producer and Managing Director, Strat and Toftenes, Sandvika, Norway:

"At 1:35 AM, (July 7, 2007) it was so dark, so totally black in the field. The only thing you can see from the video recording was the horizon and some lights from houses in the distance in the horizon. But in the field, it was totally black and I’ve tried to enhance, or amplify, the video frames. But all I get is recording noise from the recording device.

OK. The "proof" given, combined with the conclusion above is from the Sony DCR-VX2100. Let's examine that.

1. Anyone who has owned a camcorder and has shot in low light will know that the CCD records a clearer and brighter picture than that which you can see in either the viewfinder or the LCD display.

They claim that they could see "everything very clearly" in the fields - yet nothing but black is recorded by the camera.

The specs on the VX2100 give the CCD (recording) as being capable of 400,000 pixels. The LCD as 2100,000 and the viewfinder as 1800,000. IF, as they claim, they were able to see "everything very clearly" while scanning with this camera, it should have recorded EVEN BETTER than their "live" view.

Yet their "proof" is a totally black recording of the field.
If they saw this in either the viewfinder or the LCD screen, the camera WILL HAVE RECORDED SOMETHING.

Again, there is something very fishy with both the claim and the proof.

2. It may well be a lapse of concentration, but this Norwegian expert still has a bit of confusion with the technology used.

This quote after the 3am "flash".

Win took the most light-sensitive camera he had (Sony VX2100) which was on a tripod at the top of Knap Hill and this again was connected to a camcorder, so it was recorded on mini-DVD tape.

OK, three things.

1. Terje claims there was an infrared AND a starscope camera. Either of these should have better low-light resolution than the VX2100 (only 1 lux), yet he claims the Sony is the most light-sensitive? Fishy.

2. Later, when discussing the 3.20am photos/video, Terje states,

After that, they could also see with their naked eyes that there was a shadow there and took a picture with the digital still camera. Then they could see that the formation was there. From that point, the (light-sensitive) Sony video camera was also able to pick it out as well.

Sorry? Can I read that again?

"From that point, the (light-sensitive) Sony video camera was also able to pick it out as well"

So. He contradicts himself. The Sony video camera was NOT the most sensitive, the digital still was. Fishier. Which is it Terje? The Sony video or the digital still?

Or is it the infrared (by definition more sensitive than the visible light-sensitive Sony video)?

Who knows, even though there were FOUR cameras running at the time,

So, from 3:20 AM (July 7, 2007), you’ve got the crop formation there.
[q]DID THEY VIDEOTAPE AT THAT MOMENT IN INFRARED OR STARSCOPE?[/q]
They videotaped with the normal, light-sensitive Sony camera and also the infrared camera was running. So, we have that on three different sources. Also from the Sony digital still camera. So, actually four of the cameras were working at that time.

, we're only given two photos, AFTER DAWN, of the crop circle.

3. The VX2100 is connected to a CAMCORDER?? It IS a camcorder! It records to Hi8 DV cassettes. Why would you hook it up to a camcorder for recording purposes? Fishier and fishier.

Oh, here it is. Why was it hooked up to another camcorder?
"so it was recorded in mini-DVD tape.".

WHAT?! Let's just expand that acronym, shall we?
"so it was recorded on mini-Digital Versatile Disc Tape".

Some expert...

On to the infrared and "starscope" cameras.

Claim 2

YOUR IMPLICATION IS THAT IF THERE HAD BEEN ANYBODY HIDING IN THE FIELD OR TRYING TO WALK THE TRAMLINES OR EVEN HAD A HIDDEN FLASHLIGHT, THE INFRARED AND STARSCOPE CAMERAS WOULD HAVE SHOWED THAT VERY CLEARLY?
Oh, yes. Any lights would be visible on those recordings and we have examined them back and forth during the 1:35 AM time period and there is absolutely no sign of any lights or people or activity in the black parts of the East Field where the formation appeared later.

These are the cameras mounted on the roof of Keech's jeep.

1. According to the map in the article, Knapp Hill is a mile from East field. Consumer available infrared does not have this range, they are more in the range of a couple of hundred metres MAXIMUM. So this claim is quite bogus. Unless they are talking about a thermal imaging camera. Then it's quite feasible that an image could be made of the field.

Why would an imaging expert such as Terje make this mistake though?

2. Rather moot actually, because no usefull IR footage is presented in the report. Only a few frames, post-"flash", showing some tape noise. Why not a before shot? It is claimed that the IR tape ran out 2 seconds AFTER the flash,
"It was the infrared camera that just shows the EMP pulse.",
"Terje and Winston discovered only two frames in the infrared camera had recorded an electromagnetic pulse of some kind that left a 4 milliseconds trace of what Terje thinks are the trees atop Woodborough Hill in the distance, but nothing else from the East Field itself."

Yet no evidence of this claim is given, only the post-flash tape noise obfuscation.

3. He claims that the Sony video camera is the most sensitive of all the cameras - yet it merely records black.

So which is it? The IR camera recording trees "atop Woodborough Hill" or the Sony VX2100 only being able to record "...the horizon and some lights from houses in the distance in the horizon. But in the field, it was totally black".

No trees shot with the Sony VX2100, yet he claims it was the "most light-sensitive camera he has".

Oh, before nits are picked? IR is still light, and a "starscope" is most certainly light sensitive.

Our expert should know that but seems quite confused by the technology.

 

[RichardR]

Nice work EHocking. You obviously know more about these types of cameras than I do so thanks for the analysis. Whatever they did, the only evidence the showed on the web site (the one with the "incredible" information) was a black photo that showed nothing.

 

[tbm]

tbm, if you're interested in the development of "earth mysteries" you might like to have a look at "Ley Lines in Question" by Tom Williamson and Liz Bellamy, which takes an in-depth look at the work of the Bords and other promoters of woo. The book has been out of print for years but you can pick up a copy very cheaply on Amazon.

I'm not so much interested in "earth mysteries" as I am interested in ancient Irish history and myths of early British and Irish history. I personally think Ley Lines are very much a mix of fantasy, fancy, and coincidence of alignments. I must admit that the Bords' book did pique my interest in ancient stone and other monuments early in my life. Thank you for the book recommendation.

tbm

 

[Explorer]

Where the heck did I say corn????

Once, when I'd been asked to appear in a TV debate on this stuff (soon after some movie about crop circles) I read the supposed scientific papers by some twits who take samples of crops from circles they think are genuine (from some sort of weather vortices), and compare them (in particular how fast seeds from them grow) with crop from outside of the circle. They were completely trash science, with no blinding and ridiculous equivocation (sometimes the circle seeds grow faster/higher and sometimes they grew slower/lower. Of course never with statistical significance. And on a finite sample, yes, they will be either higher or lower!)

I also read a bunch of proposed physical explanations of the vortices (which displayed laughable knowledge of physics). So yeah, I have no interest in this idea.

I'd like to see some of the pics/reports of circles in things other than crops if you have easy links available.

I was simply making the point that other crops which make less spectacular circles, like rape seed, have been recorded. "Bush circles" might be a problem as the memory in the rigidness of the stems would not hold the shape. "Dusty flats" whatever that is, presumably marks made in a dusty surface would quickly erode away in the wind, and "wild grass", well yes that could be a candidate, but it would have to be uncontaminated by other species of plants that may be shorter or stick like and not so amenable to retaining the memory of the force.

Your point about the pseudo science relating to seed inside and outside the circle is well made and we can agree on that, but that is quite a different issue.

The only reason to cite atmospheric vortexes as a possible explanation is that they do have characteristics that could account for the patterns made in simple single circles. The complex circles are all undoubtedly hoaxes, so we can discard them for the purpose of this debate.

In the UK we have more tornadoes than the US, albeit most of them are much less violent than yours. We have the phenomena of funnel clouds where a touchdown never takes place. Perhaps a light single touchdown of a UK type mini funnel cloud, could create a simple single circle. This is speculation I know, but it would probably be a rare event and difficult to observe by design.

I have no pics of circles other than crops.

 

[Explorer]

How can you possibly agree with the first part and not the last part? It is not possible for tornadoes, or any other weather, to make perfect geometric patterns. It is not possible for them to happen only in the middle of fields and not anywhere else. It is not possible for them to happen only in the middle of the night when no-one is watching. You say you agree with this. How can you agree with that andstill fail to see just how ridiculous it is to pretend that the weather is any kind of explanation?

"perfect geometric patterns" are probably derived from hoaxes, and for me, these are beyond the scope of my interest in this subject. If you read my last post, you will read an example of a circle not in the middle of a field, but overlapping the hedge bank and ditch.

If you accept that a percentage of the single circles are naturally formed, then atmospherics is one likely candidate for the cause. If you don't accept this, and you feel that ALL circles are man-made, then we can only have a fruitless discussion.