Crop circle debunking help needed

[chuck4842]

Its evidence that lodgeing can occur naturally, and that aliens wouldn't treat our planet any worse than it's mother.

 

[Stray Cat]

It doesn't explain the glaze. My previous post was a link showing MIT students failure to reproduce the glaze, yet you want me to dismiss it because Rob Irving shows up and says he tossed some iron fillings in the circle.

The MIT students were trying to recreate the glaze as it was reported to be.
The fact that it was inaccurately described and given properties that it did not have would make any reproduction of it impossible.
Poor Nancy T got all huffy about that MIT programme too.

But anyway, again, I'm not wanting you to dismiss anything. I'm wanting you to look and try to understand. In the H-Glaze case, we have two crop circle researchers who accidentally found some magnetic deposits in the remains of an already harvested crop circle (the circle was made a few weeks before harvest and the two researchers found the deposits a few days after the field was harvested, so any iron would have had plenty of time to go rusty.
Then we have one person who is claiming the deposits were meteorite dust and another claiming they were rusty iron filings.

The deposits look for all the world like rusty iron to me (from the photos I've seen), sadly there is no verified meteorite dust to compare them with.

Then later Rob produces a bottle of lab grade iron fillings (more like iron dust because they so finely ground) and offers to send a sample to Levengood so he can compare the two substances. Of course Rob is seen as a "hoaxer" and Levengood refuses Rob's offer.

Luckily Rodney Ashby who examined the H-Glaze years before when the story was new and agreed to an extent with BLT however, was more accommodating to Rob's request to look into the Rusty Iron Fillings theory. Upon being sent a sample from Rob's jar, Ashby compared what he had with what Rob had sent him. His conclusion was that the two substances were the same.

But taking the personalities and religious beliefs out of it and concentrating on the actual evidence... There is nothing to support the conclusion that the iron was meteorite dust and plenty to point towards it just being rusty iron fillings. And the people who are claiming to be doing science aren't doing a very good job if they are not trying to falsify their results.

 

[Frying Dutchmen]

Its evidence that lodgeing can occur naturally, and that aliens wouldn't treat our planet any worse than it's mother.

WOW just wow, are you serious? No, it means all the studies and people saying that crop circles are made via paranormal means that they are wrong.

 

[Aepervius]

But even though we humans can communicate quickly, we still draw paintings, build sculptures, make documentaries, and compose music. None of which is "real-time communication". The fact that some artist uses a spray can to paint symbols on a concrete wall doesn't mean that he is unable to communicate in any other way.

then we do not, as a matter of fact, know enough about them to say for certain that they'd have no reason to leave patterns on corn fields. It's probably a bad example, but the cargo cults of the Pacific didn't at all understand why the whites who were suddenly at their islands built antennae. A native coming across a cell phone tower would have no way to understand that it's used to transmit and receive cell phone signals. I suppose I'm rambling here, but you get my point, I hope.

When you travel light years (dozen, hundred, thousand....) you don't DOODLE or make an artistic rendition of human *product* on wheat. The point is that you would either wish to be completely utterly silent or properly communicate. Doodling is an entertaining form. Just like Hans I seriously doubt that alien are using doodling or entertainment to communicate among themselves the finest engineering point of space travel, or how to pack those "meat bag" to conserve them as food. (j/k). It is a question of speed of communication, of content, and of potential misudnerstanding.

ETA: or alternatively as somebody said, they are utterly bored to death and are just doodling. Really doodling.

 

[Aepervius]

In England, where most of the things are made, it is only dark for 4-6 hours on summer nights, and only pitch dark for about 3 hours (unless there is a moon). With good planning and proper instruments (laser pointers, camera tripods with angle calibrated panning heads, laser distance rules, GPS units, etc) how long does it take to flatten some grain?

Most of the refutations try to show how comples those patterns are to construct, and pretend that perpetrators have to do all that in a dark field. ... Nonsense, they can do the construction in broad daylight in a parking lot or soccer field taking all the time they need, then make string templates and bring to the field.

Hans

I got making a "mikey mouse" (3 circle outline only+2 start of circle to make it slightly oval) to about less than 20 minutes with 3 persons. We used 6 bit of cord attached to wood planks as trampler , 3 spike, and 2 length of cord to place correct the ears, and 2 length of cord to make the circle, well circle. That was only the outline. I guessestimate it would take for the smile and eye a lot more preparation, but but probably only not go above 1 hour for the actual doing. The trick is to prepare in advance with a bit of cord and a piece of paper what you will do , where to put spike, and what cord should do what movement. Once done, 1 person coordinate the other do, and you can do that very quickly. Note that we had the agreement of the farmer, and it wasn't wheat but some green plant with yellow flower about 70cm high. Might have been colza?

For the most complex piece I know of which are not advertising (font), but geometric, there is usually a trick in the preparation, or a Spirograph-like preparation (but with cord and spike) allowing them to be doable.

As for the one you presented with the digit of pi it is relatively easy to see how it was done.

Maybe next time there is a TAM, do it near a wheat field so that we can have "extra-curricular" fun... With the farmer authorization of course .

 

[chuck4842]

WOW just wow, are you serious? No, it means all the studies and people saying that crop circles are made via paranormal means that they are wrong.

Are you suggesting crop circles can be made without lodging? I didn't know anyone had denied that crops have been found laying down from a natural occurence, and if they did, I agree, they're an idiot. I'm still not getting the point obviously.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Latest crop circle decoded!

For the last time, answer this message or Earth will be destroyed!

 

[Stray Cat]

Are you suggesting crop circles can be made without lodging? I didn't know anyone had denied that crops have been found laying down from a natural occurence, and if they did, I agree, they're an idiot. I'm still not getting the point obviously.

The point is that 'Lodging' is the natural falling of crops due to poor soil, over fertilization, adverse weather. A crop circle is not a natural event (human made or otherwise) so is not described as 'Lodging'.

What BLT pointed out in the article mentioned above is that natural lodging has been found to contain the exact same effect that BLT ascribe to crop circles of unknown origin and as a result of this, they theorise that plasma energy has been used to make them. The fact that the exact same symptoms found in crop circles are regularly found in natural lodging, points towards the symptoms being nothing more than the natural recovery mechanisms of crops which have been knocked over regardless of how they were knocked over.

Does that make more sense to you?

 

[Pup]

WOW just wow, are you serious? No, it means all the studies and people saying that crop circles are made via paranormal means that they are wrong.

Exactly. This shows that those who want to believe crop circles were made by aliens are so fixed on that idea, they'll twist any evidence to support it.

Are you suggesting crop circles can be made without lodging? I didn't know anyone had denied that crops have been found laying down from a natural occurence, and if they did, I agree, they're an idiot. I'm still not getting the point obviously.

The point is that crop circles and natural lodging have the same characteristics.

Therefore, the "alien" attributes that sometimes occur in crop circles, really aren't special, because they sometimes occur in natural lodging too. It shows that the people who thought these things were a sign of something special in crop circles were mistaken.

Therefore, the logical conclusion is to reject the alien hypothesis for the creation of crop circles and conclude that both crop circles and natural lodging occur the same way, by mechanically bending over wheat, either with a board or other human means in the case of crop circles, or with wind, hail or rain in the case of natural lodging, or gravity if the wheat is over-fertilized and bears too much weight of grain for the stem.

 

[JimBenArm]

Crop Circles!!!

AHHHHH!!!!!!!

 

[MRC_Hans]

The point is that crop circles and natural lodging have the same characteristics.

I notice that this is the same problem in other woo areas. For instance chemtrailers: The sign that you see a chemtrail (as opposed to a contrail) is that it does not disperse in a few minutes.

Or ghosthunters: If you get chills and feel spooked in a moist old building, it is a sure sign of paranormal activity.

They take a perfectly normal phenomenon and declare it to be extraordinary, and presto! They have proof that something strange is going on.

Hans

 

[chuck4842]

Both involve a quite ordinary and simple series of steps (which nevertheless take quite a bit of skill and practice to do well) that can give the illusion of something extraordinary.

The magician announces a show at 7pm Friday, everybody goes woo, then goes home knowing he didn't really saw a woman in half. Except you, you're the only one who believed it was paranormal. Most cc's occur out of nowhere, without witnesses, like the one opposite the busy street of a popular tourist attraction , stone henge.

Then later Rob produces a bottle of lab grade iron fillings (more like iron dust because they so finely ground) and offers to send a sample to Levengood so he can compare the two substances. Of course Rob is seen as a "hoaxer" and Levengood refuses Rob's offer.

Is it possible Levengood rejected Rob's offer because Levengood already knew what finely ground iron fillings looked like? Besides I thought the glaze meant a sign of being heated.

What an inane rationalization. Breaking a post into sections to respond to specific points actually makes a response easier to parse, as I think I've demonstrated here. There's no shame in not knowing how to do something. There's not even any shame in not having the will or the wit to take five minutes to learn how to do something, It's when you get all huffy and defensive and attempt to make fairly lame excuses when the embarrassment really begins.

Thanks for the polite motivational speech.

 

[JohnG]

The magician announces a show at 7pm Friday, everybody goes woo, then goes home knowing he didn't really saw a woman in half. Except you, you're the only one who believed it was paranormal. Most cc's occur out of nowhere, without witnesses, like the one opposite the busy street of a popular tourist attraction , stone henge.

Well, not everybody goes "woo" I'm troubled by your tendency towards straw men building (even easier to build than crop circles) or at least your apparent inability to understand what others have written. Where in my last post did I indicate that I was taken in by a magician's performance? Again you seem to be (deliberately or not) missing the point of the analogy. The thing is, there really are magicians who try (and often succeed) at passing off mere illusions as paranormal feats. Uri Geller springs to mind, perhaps you've heard of him? Similarly, there are people who create crop circles, who sooner or later own up to them and even explain how they created them. Then there are others who create the circles and let people believe whatever they want about how the circles were created. Going back to my analogy, you are the one being taken in by an illusion, not me. You are the one who still believes that at least some of the "sawing a lady in half" tricks are actual evidence of the paranormal. Here's the thing, though and it may surprise you to read this, but for all I know, some people really do use paranormal powers to saw a lady in half, but since Occam's Razor points to a conventional (albeit clever) magic trick to explain the effect, I'll stick with that for the time being until someone can demonstrate in an unambiguous way that there is no trickery in achieving the effect.

In the interests of full disclosure I'll admit that from childhood into my early twenties I believed all sorts of nonsense. Possibly even stuff you'd roll your eyes at. I never however believed in a paranormal or extraterrestrial explanation for crop circles. I'm guessing that's simply because I had put away those sorts of childish things by the time the phenomenon became famous.

Thanks for the polite motivational speech.

You're entirely welcome. I'm proud of you. Now you just need to figure out how to include the username of the person you are responding to and you're there. In your last post you were responding to two different people but that wasn't obvious because of how you quoted the posts in question.

 

[chuck4842]

but I believe that the so-called "sawing a woman in half" trick is evidence of the paranormal!

Where in my last post did I indicate that I was taken in by a magician's performance?

Maybe I should've said that if you hypothetically believed it , you'd have been alone.

like the one opposite the busy street of a popular tourist attraction , stone henge.

Why not address this statement? the "julia set" I think its called. Was made across the street from Stone Henge . Isn't Stone Henge a tourist attraction. A pilot claims it was made in a short time because his first pass he didn't see it, and moments later on his way back, there it was. Now I know its possible the pilot may not have noticed it the first trip. But that was one brave hoaxter to say the least.

 

[Stray Cat]

Most cc's occur out of nowhere, without witnesses, like the one opposite the busy street of a popular tourist attraction , stone henge.

They don't occur out of nowhere, they take a bit of planning and organisation. just because you are not aware of it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
If we were playing Crop Circle Bingo, we'd be approaching a full house by now (though I'm guessing we still have to do Eastfield 07.07.07 and maybe even the Oliver's Castle video, Crabwood Alien and Milk Hill 2001 yet).

Stonehenge Julia Set 1996. You want to discuss it in detail or are you happy enough just mentioning it casually in passing?
If you do fancy discussing it, you could start by explaining exactly how anyone at Stonehenge was expected to see a crop circle that was not actually visible from Stonehenge unless you were sitting on top of the stones (which isn't allowed BTW). So it's no surprise that there were no witnesses.

Is it possible Levengood rejected Rob's offer because Levengood already knew what finely ground iron fillings looked like?

As Levengood was claiming it was something he didn't know what it should look like, it seems sensible to me to examine all possibilities offered. Besides, not all iron filling do look the same. The lab grade one's given to Rob by Jim Schnabel certainly weren't like the one's you'd see in a metal workshop.

Besides I thought the glaze meant a sign of being heated.

That's what Levengood would like people to believe yes. Sadly it's not accurate, much like how he calls little stress fractures in nodes "expulsion cavities" so that people get the impression that something is 'expulsed' under pressure, when in reality nothing could be further from the truth.

 

[Stray Cat]

Why not address this statement? the "julia set" I think its called. Was made across the street from Stone Henge . Isn't Stone Henge a tourist attraction. A pilot claims it was made in a short time because his first pass he didn't see it, and moments later on his way back, there it was. Now I know its possible the pilot may not have noticed it the first trip. But that was one brave hoaxter to say the least.

Why would the team who made it need to be "brave"?

The pilot story is never reported accurately BTW.
He flew over Stonehenge with a passenger who wanted to photograph the monument. Then later in the day he was driving home past Stonehenge and noticed some people looking into the field. This story is solely from Busty Taylor who refuses to talk about it to anyone nowadays because he has been misquoted so many times. The pilot has said he will deny anything about it and his passenger wishes to remain anonymous.

 

[JohnG]

Maybe I should've said that if you hypothetically believed it , you'd have been alone.

Good thing you didn't, because that would have been silly. In any case I was being facetious, which you seemed to pick up on, judging by your reaction to the post in question.

Don't worry about it. Based on personal experience anyway, big life changing philosophical epiphanies are rare. There was no specific moment when I went from a believer to a skeptic. My beliefs just sort of slowly evaporated away over the course of years. There does come a point though where you have to ask yourself "do I believe in X because it's cool/comforting/reinforces previously held beliefs or do I believe in X because there is actual evidence for it?".

BTW, have you ever seen this quite interesting crop circle?

 

[Stray Cat]

I like this very short crop circle clip.



NSFW! (mild language)

 

[SusanB-M1]

Why not address this statement? the "julia set" I think its called. Was made across the street from Stone Henge . Isn't Stone Henge a tourist attraction. A pilot claims it was made in a short time because his first pass he didn't see it, and moments later on his way back, there it was. Now I know its possible the pilot may not have noticed it the first trip. But that was one brave hoaxter to say the least.

If you accept that the circle was made in a very short time in daylight, who were the makers do you think? If they were extra-terrestrials, why would they come from - well, who knows where - to do that? How do you rationalise it in your mind?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Why not address this statement? the "julia set" I think its called. Was made across the street from Stone Henge . Isn't Stone Henge a tourist attraction. A pilot claims it was made in a short time because his first pass he didn't see it, and moments later on his way back, there it was. Now I know its possible the pilot may not have noticed it the first trip. But that was one brave hoaxter to say the least.

The simple answer is that it wasn't made in daylight, it just wasn't noticed until the daytime: http://www.circlemakers.org/la.html

And, for the record, there is one person who claims to have witnessed it: http://www.colinandrews.net/JuliaSetStory.html

It seems like everybody other than Colin Andrews and Lucy Pringles take this story as seriously as it deserves.