Speaker 1: Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast, where I help
Speaker 1: you drift off one fact at a time. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Benjamin Boster, and today's episode is about crop circles. A
Speaker 1: crop circle, crop formation, or corn circle is a pattern
Speaker 1: created by flattening a crop, usually a serial. The term
Speaker 1: was coined in the early nineteen eighties. Crop circles have
Speaker 1: been described as all falling within the range of the
Speaker 1: sort of thing done in hoaxes by Tanner Edis, Professor
Speaker 1: of physics at Truman State University. Although obscure natural causes
Speaker 1: or alien origins of crop circles are suggested did by
Speaker 1: fringe theorists, there's no scientific evidence for such explanations, and
Speaker 1: all crop circles are consistent with human causation. In nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one, two hoaxers, Doug Bauer and Dave Chorley, took
Speaker 1: credit for having created over two hundred crop circles throughout
Speaker 1: England and widely reported interviews. The number of reports of
Speaker 1: crop circles increase substantially after interviews with them. In the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom. Reported circles are not distributed randomly across the landscape,
Speaker 1: but appear near roads areas of medium to dense population
Speaker 1: and cultural heritage monuments such as Stonehenge or Avebury. They
Speaker 1: usually appear overnight. Nearly half of all crop circles found
Speaker 1: in the UK in two thousand three were located within
Speaker 1: a fifteen kilometer radius of the Avebury stone circles. In
Speaker 1: contrast to crop circles or crop formations, archaeological remains can
Speaker 1: cause crop marks in the fields in the shapes of
Speaker 1: circles and squares, but these do not appear overnight and
Speaker 1: are always in the same place every year. A sixteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight news pamphlet The Mowing Devil or Strange News
Speaker 1: out of Hartfordshire describes a crop whose stocks were cut
Speaker 1: rather than bend. In sixteen eighty six, in English, naturalist
Speaker 1: Robert Plott reported on rings or arcs of mushrooms in
Speaker 1: the natural History of Staffordshire, proposing air flows from the
Speaker 1: sky as a cause. In nineteen ninety one, meteorologist Terence
Speaker 1: Meden linked this report with modern crop circles, a claim
Speaker 1: that has been compared with those made by Eric Phondennikin
Speaker 1: an eighteen eighty letter to the editor of Nature by
Speaker 1: amateur scientist John Rand Capron describes how several circles of
Speaker 1: flattened crops in a field were formed under suspicious circumstances
Speaker 1: and possibly caused by cyclonic wind action, stating as viewed
Speaker 1: from a distance, circular spots, they all presented much the
Speaker 1: same character, namely of few standing stocks as a center,
Speaker 1: some prostrate stocks with their heads arranged pretty evenly in
Speaker 1: a direction, forming a circle round the center, and outside
Speaker 1: there a circular wall of stocks which had not suffered.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty two, archaeologist E. C. Kerwin observed four
Speaker 1: dark rings in a field that stoutened down near Chichester,
Speaker 1: but could examine only one, a circle in which the
Speaker 1: barley was lodged or beaten down, while the interior area
Speaker 1: was very slightly mounded up. In fourteen times, David Wood
Speaker 1: reported that in nineteen forty he made crop circles near
Speaker 1: Gloucestershire using ropes. In nineteen sixty three, Patrick Moore described
Speaker 1: a crater in a potato field in Wiltshire that he
Speaker 1: considered was probably caused by an unknown meteoric body. In
Speaker 1: nearby wheat fields there were several circular and elliptical areas
Speaker 1: where the wheat had been flattened. There was evidence of
Speaker 1: spiral flattening. He thought they could be caused by air
Speaker 1: currents from the impact, since they led towards the crater.
Speaker 1: Astronomer Hugh Ernest Butler observed similar craters and said they
Speaker 1: were likely caused by lightning strikes. During the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: there were many reports of UFO sidings and circular formations
Speaker 1: and swampreeds and sugar cane fields in totally Queensland, Australia,
Speaker 1: and in Canada. For example, on August eighth, nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: three circles were found in a field and to Hanmel Alberta, Canada.
Speaker 1: Department of National Defense investigators concluded that it was artificial,
Speaker 1: but couldn't say who made them or how. The most
Speaker 1: famous case is the nineteen sixty six Toley Saucer nest,
Speaker 1: when a farmer said he witnessed a saucer shaped craft
Speaker 1: rise nine or twelve meters from a swamp and then
Speaker 1: fly away. On investigating, he found a nearly circular area
Speaker 1: ten meters long by eight meters wide, where the grass
Speaker 1: was flattened in clockwise curves to water level within the circle,
Speaker 1: and the reeds had been uprooted from the mud. The
Speaker 1: local police officer, the Royal Australian Air Force and the
Speaker 1: University of Queensland concluded that it was most probably caused
Speaker 1: by natural causes a downdraft, a Williewillie test devil or
Speaker 1: a water spout. In nineteen seventy three, G. J. Adgers,
Speaker 1: director of Public Relations, Department of Defense Air Office, wrote
Speaker 1: to a journalist that the saucer was probably debris lifted
Speaker 1: by a williwilly. After the nineteen sixties, there was a
Speaker 1: surge of uithologists in Wiltshire and there were rumors of
Speaker 1: saucer nests appearing in the area, but they were never photographed.
Speaker 1: There are other pre nineteen seventies reports of circular formations,
Speaker 1: especially in Australia and Canada, but they were always simple
Speaker 1: circles which could have been caused by whirlwinds. British pranksters
Speaker 1: Doug Bauer and Dave Chorley reported they started creating crop
Speaker 1: circles in British cornfields in nineteen seventy eight, inspired by
Speaker 1: the Tully saucernest case. The first film to depict a
Speaker 1: geometric crop circle, in this case created by superintelligent ants,
Speaker 1: was the nineteen seventy four Science fiction film Phase four.
Speaker 1: The film has been cited as a possible inspiration or
Speaker 1: influence on the pranksters who started this phenomenon. The majority
Speaker 1: of reports of crop circles have appeared and spread since
Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies, as many circles began appearing throughout
Speaker 1: the English countryside. Around this time, researcher Colin Andrews began
Speaker 1: documenting the phenomenon, and in nineteen eighty nine he co
Speaker 1: authored Circular Evidence with Pat Delgado, a work that compiled
Speaker 1: reports and photographs of early formations. The phenomenon became widely
Speaker 1: known in the late nineteen eighties after the media started
Speaker 1: to report crop circles in Hampshire and Wiltshire. After Bauer
Speaker 1: and Chorley gave interviews in nineteen ninety one about how
Speaker 1: they had made crop circles, circles started appearing all over
Speaker 1: the world. By two thousand one, approximately ten thousand crop
Speaker 1: circles have been reported internationally from locations such as the
Speaker 1: former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, the U S
Speaker 1: and Canada. Researchers have noted a correlation between crop circles,
Speaker 1: recent media coverage and the absence of fencing and or
Speaker 1: anti trespassing legislation. Although farmers expressed concern that the damage
Speaker 1: caused to their crops, local response to the appearance of
Speaker 1: crop circles was often enthusiastic, with locals taking advantage of
Speaker 1: the increase of tourism and visits from scientists, crop circle researchers,
Speaker 1: and individuals seeking spiritual experiences. The market for crop circle
Speaker 1: interests consequently generated bus or helicopter tours of circle sites,
Speaker 1: walking tours, t shirts, and book sales. Since the start
Speaker 1: of the twenty first century, crop formations have increased in
Speaker 1: size and complexity, with some featuring as many as two
Speaker 1: thousand different shapes and some incorporating complex mathematics and scientific characteristics.
Speaker 1: The researcher Jeremy Northcott found that crop circles in the
Speaker 1: UK in two thousand two were not spread randomly across
Speaker 1: the landscape. They tended to appear near roads, areas of
Speaker 1: medium to dense population, and cultural heritage monuments such as
Speaker 1: Stonehenge and Avebury. He found that they always appeared in
Speaker 1: areas that were easy to access. This suggests strongly that
Speaker 1: these crop circles were more likely to be caused by
Speaker 1: intentional human action than by paranormal activity. Another strong indication
Speaker 1: of that theory was that inhabitants of the zone with
Speaker 1: the most circles had a historical tendency for making large
Speaker 1: scale formations, including stone circles such as stonehenge, earth and
Speaker 1: mounds such as Silbury Hill, long barrows such as West
Speaker 1: Kenneth Long Barrow, and white horses in chalk hills. In
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, two self professed branksters, Doug Bauer and
Speaker 1: Dave Chorlie, made headlines by saying they had started the
Speaker 1: crop circle phenomenon in nineteen seventy eight, using simple tools
Speaker 1: consisting of a plank of wood, rope and a baseball
Speaker 1: cap fitted with a loop of wire to help them
Speaker 1: walk in straight lines. To prove their case, they made
Speaker 1: a circle in front of a journalist. A seriologist advocate
Speaker 1: of paranormal explanations of crop circles, Pad Delgado, examined the
Speaker 1: circle and declared it authentic before was revealed that it
Speaker 1: was a hoax. Inspired by Australian crop circle accounts from
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, Bauer and Chorley claimed to be responsible
Speaker 1: for all circles made prior to nineteen eighty seven and
Speaker 1: for more than two hundred crop circles in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: eight to nineteen ninety one, with one thousand other circles
Speaker 1: not being made by them. Writing in Physics World, Richard
Speaker 1: Daylor of the University of Oregon said that the pictographs
Speaker 1: they created inspired a second wave of crop artists. Far
Speaker 1: from fizzling out, crop circles have evolved into an international phenomenon,
Speaker 1: with hundreds of sophisticated pictographs now appearing annually around the globe.
Speaker 1: After reports of simple circles in the nineteen seventies, increasingly
Speaker 1: complex geometric designs have been created by anonymous artists, in
Speaker 1: some cases to attract tourists to an area. Since the
Speaker 1: early nineteen nineties, the UK arts collective Circle Makers, founded
Speaker 1: by Rod Dickinson and John Lundberg and subsequently including Will
Speaker 1: Russell and Rob Irving, has been creating crop circles in
Speaker 1: the UK and around the world as part of its
Speaker 1: art practice and also for commercial clients. The led Zeppelin
Speaker 1: Box Said that was released on September seventh, nineteen ninety,
Speaker 1: along with the remasters of the first Box Said, as
Speaker 1: well as the second Box Said, all feature an image
Speaker 1: of a crop circle that appeared in Eastfield in Alton, Barnes, Wiltshire.
Speaker 1: On the night of July eleventh to the twelfth, nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two, a crop circle making competition with a prize
Speaker 1: of three thousand pounds, funded in part by the Arthur
Speaker 1: Kessler Foundation, was held in Berkshire. The winning entry was
Speaker 1: produced by three Westland helicopter engineers using rope, PVC pipe,
Speaker 1: a plank string, a telescope device and two step ladders.
Speaker 1: According to Rupert Sheldrake, the competition was organized by him
Speaker 1: and John Mitchell and co sponsored by The Guardian and
Speaker 1: The Seriologist. The prize money came from PM, a German magazine.
Speaker 1: Sheldrake wrote that the experiment was conclusive humans could indeed
Speaker 1: make all the features of state of the art crop formations.
Speaker 1: At the time. Eleven of the twelve teams made more
Speaker 1: or less impressive formations that followed the set design. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, Discovery Channel commission five aeronautics and
Speaker 1: astronautics graduate students from MIT to create crop circles of
Speaker 1: their own, aiming to duplicate some of the features claimed
Speaker 1: to distinguish real crop circles from the known fakes, such
Speaker 1: as those created by Bauer and Chorley. The creation was
Speaker 1: recorded and used in the Discovery Channel documentary Crop Circles
Speaker 1: Mysteries in the Field. In two thousand and nine, The
Speaker 1: Guardian reported that crop circle activity had been waning around Wiltshire,
Speaker 1: in part because makers preferred creating promotional crop circles for
Speaker 1: companies that paid well for their efforts. A video sequence
Speaker 1: used in connection with the opening of the twenty twelve
Speaker 1: Summer Olympics in London showed two crop circles in the
Speaker 1: shape of the Olympic Rings. Another Olympic crop circle was
Speaker 1: visible to passengers landing at nearby Heathrow Airport before and
Speaker 1: during the Games. A three hector or seven acres crop
Speaker 1: circle depicting the emblem of the Star Wars Rebel Alliance
Speaker 1: was created in California in December twenty seventeen by a
Speaker 1: father and his eleven year old son as a spaceport
Speaker 1: for X wing fighters. The scientific consensus on crop circles
Speaker 1: is that they are constructed by human beings as hoaxes, advertising,
Speaker 1: or art. The most widely known method for a person
Speaker 1: or group to construct a crop formation is to tie
Speaker 1: one end of a robe to an anchor point and
Speaker 1: the other end to a board, which is used to
Speaker 1: crush the plants. It is also possible to bend grass
Speaker 1: without breaking it if it is recently rained, a method
Speaker 1: that was used to create crop circles in Hungary in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two. Skeptics of the paranormal point out that
Speaker 1: all characteristics of crop circles are fully compatible with their
Speaker 1: being made by hoaxers. Bauer and Chorely confessed in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one to making the first crop circles in southern England.
Speaker 1: When some people refuse to believe them, they deliberately added
Speaker 1: straight lines and squares to show that they could not
Speaker 1: have natural causes in a copycat effect. Increasingly, complex circles
Speaker 1: started appearing in many countries around the world, including fractal figures.
Speaker 1: Physicists have suggested that the most complex formations might be
Speaker 1: made with the help of GPS and lasers. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, a circle formation was made over the
Speaker 1: course of three consecutive nights and was apparently left unfinished,
Speaker 1: with some half made circles. The main criticism of alleged
Speaker 1: non human creation of crop circles is that while evidence
Speaker 1: of these origins, besides eyewitness testimonies is absent, Many are
Speaker 1: definitely known to be the work of human pranksters, and
Speaker 1: others can be adequately explained as such. There have been
Speaker 1: cases in which researchers declared crop circles to be the
Speaker 1: real sing, only to be confronted was the people who
Speaker 1: created the circle and documented the fraud, such as Bower
Speaker 1: and Chorli and Tabloid Today hoaxing, Pad Delgado, the Wessex Skeptics,
Speaker 1: and Channel four's Equinox hoaxing Terence Meaden or a friend
Speaker 1: of a Canadian farmer hoaxing a field researcher of the
Speaker 1: Canadian Crop Circle Research Network. In his nineteen ninety five
Speaker 1: book The Demon Haunted World Science Says a Candle in
Speaker 1: the Dark, Carl Sagan concludes that crop circles were created
Speaker 1: by Bower and Chorley and their copycats, and speculates that
Speaker 1: eupologists willingly ignored the evidence for hoaxing so they can
Speaker 1: keep believing in an extraterrestrial origin of the circles. Many
Speaker 1: others have demonstrated how complex crop circles can be created.
Speaker 1: Scientific American published and article by Matt Ridley, who started
Speaker 1: making crop circles in Northern England. In nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: he wrote about how easy it is to develop techniques
Speaker 1: using simple tools that can easily fool later observers. He
Speaker 1: reported on expert sources such as The Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: who had been easily fooled, and used about why people
Speaker 1: want to believe supernatural explanations for phenomena that are not
Speaker 1: yet explained. Methods of creating a crop circle are now
Speaker 1: well documented on the Internet. Some crop formations are paid
Speaker 1: for by companies who use them as advertising. Many crop
Speaker 1: circles show human symbols like the hard and arrows symbol
Speaker 1: of love, and stereotyped alien faces. Foaxers have been caught
Speaker 1: in the process of making new circles, such as in
Speaker 1: two thousand four in the Netherlands. It has been suggested
Speaker 1: that crop circles may be the result of extraordinary meteorological phenomena,
Speaker 1: ranging from freak tornadoes to ball lightning, but there is
Speaker 1: no evidence of any crop circle being created by any
Speaker 1: of these causes. In eighteen eighty an amateur scientist John
Speaker 1: Rand Capron wrote a letter to the editor of journal
Speaker 1: Nature about some circles and crops and blame them on
Speaker 1: a recent storm saying their shape was suggestive of some
Speaker 1: cyclonic wind action. In nineteen eighty, Terence Meaden, a meteorologist
Speaker 1: and physicist, propose that the circles were caused by whirlwinds
Speaker 1: whose course was effected by southern England hills. As circles
Speaker 1: became more complex, herons had to create increasingly complex theories,
Speaker 1: blaming an electromagneto hydrodynamic plasma vortex. The meteorological theory became popular,
Speaker 1: and it was even referenced in nineteen ninety one by
Speaker 1: physicist Stephen Hawking, who said that corn circles are either
Speaker 1: hoaxes or formed by vortex movement of air. The weather
Speaker 1: theories suffered a serious blow in nineteen ninety one, but
Speaker 1: Hawking's point about hoaxes was supported when Bower and Surely
Speaker 1: stated that they had been responsible for making all those circles.
Speaker 1: By the end of nineteen ninety one, Maiden conceded that
Speaker 1: those circles that had complex designs were made by hoaxers.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, the Attorney General for the
Speaker 1: island state of Tasmania stated that Australian wallabies had been founded,
Speaker 1: creating crop circles and fields of opium poppies, which are
Speaker 1: grown legally for medicinal use, after consuming some of the
Speaker 1: opiate laden poppies and running in circles. In science magazines
Speaker 1: from the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, for example, Science Illustrated,
Speaker 1: one could read reports suggesting that the plants were bent
Speaker 1: by something that could be microwave radiation rather than broken
Speaker 1: by physical impact. The magazines also contained serious reports of
Speaker 1: the absence of human influence and measurement of unusual radiation. Today,
Speaker 1: this is considered to be pseudoscience, while at the time
Speaker 1: it was subject of serious research. At that time, it
Speaker 1: was also more likely that an unknown factor was behind
Speaker 1: the incidents, not least seeing in light of the fact
Speaker 1: that GPS was not available to the public. Since becoming
Speaker 1: the focus of widespread media attention in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: crop circles have been the subject of speculation by various paranormal, euphological,
Speaker 1: and anomalistic investigators, ranging from proposals that they were created
Speaker 1: by bizarre meteorological phenomena the messages from extraterrestrial beings. There
Speaker 1: has also been speculation that crop circles have a relation
Speaker 1: to lay lines. Some paranormal advocates think that crop circles
Speaker 1: are caused by ball lightning and that the patterns are
Speaker 1: so complex that they have to be controlled by some entity.
Speaker 1: Some proposed entities are Gaya asking to stop global warming
Speaker 1: and human pollution, God supernatural beings for example, Indian divas,
Speaker 1: the collective minds of humanity through proposed quantum field and
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial beings. Responding to local beliefs that extraterrestrial beings in
Speaker 1: UFOs were responsible for crop circles appearing, the Indonesian National
Speaker 1: Institute of Aeronautics and Space described crop circles as man made.
Speaker 1: Thomas Jamaluddin, research Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at LAPPIN stated,
Speaker 1: we have come to agree that this thing cannot be
Speaker 1: scientifically proven. Among others, paranormal enthusiasts, eufologists, and anomalistic investigators
Speaker 1: have offered hypothetical explanations that have been criticized as pseudo
Speaker 1: scientific by skeptical groups and scientists, including the Committee for
Speaker 1: Skeptical Inquiry. No credible evidence for extraterrestrial origin has been
Speaker 1: presented a small number of scientists, physicist el t Yo Hazelhoff,
Speaker 1: the late biophysicist William Levenwood have claimed to obscure differences
Speaker 1: between the crops inside the circles and outside them, citing
Speaker 1: this as evidence they were not man made. Levin Goood
Speaker 1: published papers in journal Physiologia Planetarum in nineteen ninety four
Speaker 1: and nineteen ninety nine. In his nineteen ninety four paper,
Speaker 1: he found that certain deformities in the grain inside the
Speaker 1: circles were correlated to the position of the grain inside
Speaker 1: the circle. In nineteen ninety six, Joe Nicol objected that
Speaker 1: correlation is not causation, raising several objections to Levin Goood's
Speaker 1: methods and assumptions, and said until this work is independently
Speaker 1: replicated by qualified scientists doing double blind studies and otherwise
Speaker 1: following stringent scientific protocols, there seems no need to take
Speaker 1: seriously the main dubious claims that Levin Goood makes, including
Speaker 1: his similar ones involving plants that alleged cattle mutilely sites.
Speaker 1: Nicol also criticized Levin Goood for using circular logic, stating
Speaker 1: there is in fact no satisfactory evidence that a single
Speaker 1: genuine I E. Vortex produced crop circle exists, so Levin
Speaker 1: Goood's reasoning is circular. Although there are no guaranteed genuine
Speaker 1: formations on which to conduct research. The research supposedly proves
Speaker 1: the genuineness of the formations. Advocates of non human causes
Speaker 1: discount on site evidence of human involvement as attempts to
Speaker 1: discredit the phenomena. When Ridley wrote negative articles and newspapers,
Speaker 1: he was accused of spreading government disinformation and of working
Speaker 1: for the UK military Intelligence Service m I five. Ridley
Speaker 1: responded by noting that many seriologists make good livings from
Speaker 1: selling books and providing high priced personal tours through crop fields,
Speaker 1: and he claimed that they have vested interests in rejecting
Speaker 1: what is by far the most likely explanation for the circles.
Speaker 1: Patterns similar to crop circles can also be made in
Speaker 1: snow by using skis, snow shoes, or just walking with
Speaker 1: ordinary shoes. Images can be made in forests by cutting trees,
Speaker 1: especially in areas with snow. Celebrating the Olympic Games in Lillehama, Norway,
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four, a three hundred and sixty meter
Speaker 1: tall stylized image of an Olympic torch runner was made
Speaker 1: in a forest close to one of the arenas Researchers
Speaker 1: of crop circles have linked modern crop circles to old
Speaker 1: folkloric tales to support the claim that they are not
Speaker 1: artificially produced. Crop circles are culture dependent. They appear mostly
Speaker 1: in developed and secularized Western countries where people are receptive
Speaker 1: to New Age beliefs, including Japan, but they do not
Speaker 1: appear at all in other zones, such as Muslim countries.
Speaker 1: Fungi can cause circular areas of crop to die, probably
Speaker 1: the origin of tales of fairy rings. Tales also mention
Speaker 1: balls of light many times, but never in relation to
Speaker 1: crop circles. In nineteen forty eight German story dietzvo Schwene
Speaker 1: The Twelve Swans, a farmer every morning finds a circle
Speaker 1: ring of flattened grain in its field. After several attempts,
Speaker 1: his son seized twelve princesses disguised as swans, who take
Speaker 1: off their disguises and dance in the field. Crop rings
Speaker 1: produced by fungi may have inspired such tales, since folklore
Speaker 1: considers that these rings are created by dancing wolves or fairies,