The six crop circles discovered by a pilot September
6 about five kilometres from Vanderhoof airport have added to the growing
mystery of these unexplained formations.
I drove out to see the circles last week. I came away with the conclusion
that they were probably not made by pranksters, although they're not as
impressive as the ones that appeared the night of August 27, 1998.
The original 11 circles, located in a field about three kilometres from
where the latest ones have been found, had clearly been formed by an
energy force of some kind. Near the centre of one of the circles, the oats
held a peculiar twisted form as if they had been heat-molded into that
shape.
That wasn't so obvious with the grain in the latest circles nor were the
new circles as well defined as the original formations. In both cases
there were neither indications of tracks into the circles nor any
footprints that would have been caused by pranksters using boards to
flatten the grain.
In any case, the theory that the crop formations are caused by pranksters
has been pretty well debunked. Some crop circles have been man-made, but
the latest formations, most of which have been discovered in Britain, are
so huge and elaborate and appeared so rapidly that it would be impossible
for pranksters to create them.
But if pranksters aren't creating them, what are they?
Who made them? What were they made for?
The answers to those questions are legion. A laboratory report from the
BLT Research Centre in Massachusetts revealed an increase in the amount of
magnetic materials in the soil as well as an increase in free radical
concentrations in the twisted oat plants.
Crop formations have been growing increasingly elaborate over the years
culminating last month in two peculiar crop formations near the Chilbolton
radio telescope in Hampshire, United Kingdom. Both consisted of a large
number of small "pixels", which form recognizable shapes when viewed from
the air.
One was a human like face and the other resembled a radio transmission
sent from the Arecibo radio telescope, Puerto Rico, in 1974. The Arecibo
radio message, aimed at a cluster of stars named M13, was an attempt to
contact extra terrestrial life. However, because M13 is 25,000 light years
away, the message won't arrive for another 250 centuries, and the odds
that the message would hit another solar system are thousands to one.
Scientists from SET! (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence
Institute), the organization that sent the message, debunk the idea that
the formation is a reply to their message.
Nonetheless, the uncanny resemblance of the two messages is provoking all
kinds of ideas. Some interpret the human like face formation found near
the SETI-like message as an indication that extra-terrestrial life
resembles man. SET! scientists also debunk that idea.
One reader from Kitimat asked whether military research with satellites in
outer space might be responsible for the formations.
Ralph Thomsen of Dawson Creek told me that he discovered a crop circle
about 9.4 metres in diameter just outside his farm house in the fall of
1990 and a similar circle was found in Williams Lake about the same time.
He believes it could have been the landing of an unidentified object.
Dr. William Levengood, a plant biophysicist who heads the BLT Research
Centre believes the crop formations are caused by swirling masses of
highly energized particles settling to earth.
I believe that the formations are a natural phenomena caused by forces we
don't understand yet. What do you think?
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