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Crop circle debunking help needed

kittynh

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Some of you may know I work a lot with UFO and alien abductee believers.

One problem I have is with crop circles. WHen I talk about government conspiracy cover up (in regards to UFOs and aliens) I point out that with all the people involved, someone would talk. In fact lots of someones and honesty, can you see all the governments of the world cooperating on this "cover up"?

But eventually someone tells me that crop circles are REAL and done by aliens (they lose me hear, for all we know trolls could make crop circles). THey say "would all the poeple making these circles keep quiet?" I can point to the two nice old men that come forward, and some faked video, but for the number of circles I can't find much. I can find lots of explainations and lots of people that show how to make crop circles. But it seems that actual "I made THIS" confessions are few. Or maybe I don't know where to find reputable ones.


ALso, one lead I was following up (a member of a group that supposedly makes crop circles, though I never got a confession) told me "The reason you don't have more crop circle in the US is your farmers have more guns and aren't afraid to use them".

Any help is welcome. It seems if I can show "look anyone can make one" isn't the same as proving aliens didn't make them... sigh
 
relax....you can't prove aliens didn't make them. Even if you can prove they didn't make some of them by proving who did....

hey.....maybe some of them are made by aliens....wouldn't that be cool :)


but seriously.....the approach I normally take is to establish that they are really claiming its not possible to disprove aliens made them then go with the can't prove a negative angle......claim you did them yourself, then show how they can't disprove that either.
 
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kittynh said:
Any help is welcome. It seems if I can show "look anyone can make one" isn't the same as proving aliens didn't make them... sigh
Click to expand...

Of course. You cannot prove A did NOT do something simply by pointing out that B could have. That's not critical thinking.

It seems to me that the root of the aliens done it theory was that no explanation seemed to exist at the time (to some people that is). You can point this out and suggest that since a simple, logical alternative now exists that there's no point in sticking with the original theory.

I would then ask the person to "disprove" the theory that crop circles are created by unicorns driven by bigfoot beasts. I would have them compare and contrast that theory with the UFO theory. People can think critically when properly motivated.
 
I have a friend in Yorkshire to whom I sent a copy of my crop formation visit. As she pointed out in her reply, funny how there are none up north, inspite of there being many large fields of suitable crops!;)
 
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I think you should take the opposite tact and make them responsible for making a claim. There are a lot of untruths used as support for the Alien hypothesis, one of which is that no one has ever been arrested for making circles

so you can try
"If it was aliens why have none ever been caught by the police"
this should immediately bring the retort
"if it was humans why have none ever been caught by the police"
at which point you post this
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/police-unravel-mystery-of-the-crop-circle-621923.html
They have been a source of mystery and amusement to students of the bizarre for years, but yesterday crop circles attracted the attention of a new audience - the long arm of the law.


They have been a source of mystery and amusement to students of the bizarre for years, but yesterday crop circles attracted the attention of a new audience - the long arm of the law.

A 29-year-old Wiltshire man last night became what is believed to be the first person in Britain to be accused of the novel crime of raiding a field and creating patterns out of flattened wheat.

Matthew Williams, of Bishops Cannings, near Devizes, was arrested after photographs allegedly showing him working with another man were sent anonymously to detectives.

He will appear before Devizes magistrates on Monday charged with causing criminal damage to an unspecified area of pasture near Marlborough in July this year.

The case threatens to blow the lid on what has long been believed to be the prime cause of crop circles - well-equipped and highly-adept hoaxers.
Click to expand...
;)
 
Whenever someone claims that crop circles are made by aliens, I always point out the evolution of crop circles over the years. In the '70s, the first ones were just a single, simple circle. Then you started to see a large circle flanked by 2 to 4 smaller circles. Patterns got increasingly more complex as the hoaxers gained experience.

By the mid '80s, patterns based on fractals started to appear. This coincided with the appearance of personal computers that made generating fractals possible. By the '90s, people tired of making fractals and started making circles based on geometric shapes. Now you often see crop 'circles' that are recognizable images.

If these were made by aliens, why would there be such a clear evolution in the shape of these things? Are we to believe that creatures smart enough to travel between the stars needed to start with very simple crop circles before moving on to more complex ones. The only reasonable explanation is that as the hoaxers gained experience, they were able to make more complex designs.

Steve S
 
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Circle makers can and do 'confess' - they even have their own website.
The Wikipedia article on crop circles has references for further research (although somebody needs to refute their claim that "scientists" have proved that some circle have unexplainable biological anomalies).
 
You can also mention that the earliest crop circles were admitted hoaxes. Two guys named Doug Bower and Dave Chorley started it off in England and confessed they had been making them since 1978.
If some crop circles really are made by aliens, they stole the idea from us. Though this doesn't disprove anything, it seems kinda odd that aliens traveled all the way here and said "Hey! look what those humans are doing! Lets do that too!"
 
National Geographic did one of their "Is It Real" segments on crop circles, and interviewed some hoaxers. As well, they spent some time debunking the "circling lights" that supposedly made one such circle.
As pointed out, none of this disproves that some mischeivous alien might have done some...
But as Dawkins says in The God Delusion, you might approach this from the standpoint of probability.
Why would aliens cross the gulfs of space to draw silly patterns in corn fields?
 
During the break out of mad cow disease in the mid-90s, I remember there was a ban on people accessing the countryside, such as ramblers, etc. I think it was in 1996 or 1997, but frustratingly I can't find the dates for this. (edit: or was it foot and mouth? Does anyone else remember?)

If there was a drop in the number of crop circles at that time, wouldn't that point to the makers being humans, rather than aliens?
 
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When shown a classic crop circle, choose a known hoaxster and claim that they did it.
When shown a new one, claim that you did it.
If they attempt to argue with you, use the opportunity to demonstrate how hard it is to prove a negative -- show that they have no more evidence for aliens doing it than you have for you doing it, and ask why they believe one over the other.
 
sophia8 said:
Circle makers can and do 'confess' - they even have their own website.
The Wikipedia article on crop circles has references for further research (although somebody needs to refute their claim that "scientists" have proved that some circle have unexplainable biological anomalies).
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This.

I also, when somebody blabbers about them being too complicated to be made by humans, like to point to this (picture attached).

To make those letters, in the right font is extremely complicated. And it was made by humans, they even got paid for their trouble.

Hans
 

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oh thanks for all the information! Yeah my question is that there didn't seem to be many arrests and such. Are the farmers ok with this? Don't people go to the local pub and get drunk and brag?

So this is a specific area in the UK? I always point out that the aliens are pretty lame if they can't really get moving on crop circles in other areas. We get our rare crop circle here in the US, but nothing like the UK.

Arrests are great!

And I never thought of the evolution of the crop circles. I'm making a graphic (alien believers like almost comic book style explainations) of the "Evolution of Crop circles" I hardly think that any beings with the capability of reaching Earth needed to learn how to make "better" crop circles over time.
 
kittynh said:
oh thanks for all the information! Yeah my question is that there didn't seem to be many arrests and such. Are the farmers ok with this? Don't people go to the local pub and get drunk and brag?
.
Click to expand...

Hearsay evidence is rarely enough to bring a prosecution and as for the arrests, consider the number of policemen on duty versus the number of fields they would have to patrol. Policemen generally have better more urgent things to do than stand in a field all night hoping to arrest someone for a petty crime like criminal damage.

;)
 
Ersby said:
During the break out of mad cow disease in the mid-90s, I remember there was a ban on people accessing the countryside, such as ramblers, etc. I think it was in 1996 or 1997, but frustratingly I can't find the dates for this. (edit: or was it foot and mouth? Does anyone else remember?)

If there was a drop in the number of crop circles at that time, wouldn't that point to the makers being humans, rather than aliens?
Click to expand...
It was the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=974881#post974881
 
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