"Above all keep your sense of wonder in these strange
occurrences of the late twentieth century. They may possibly
mean more than any of us can yet divine."
Ralph Noyes, former Ministry of Defence employee
"The full phenomenon is yet to be seen. The grand finale will be a manifestation of a kind that no man will doubt. What's coming out of the noise, will be a manifestation of a physical kind that will, I hope, unite all mankind in knowing and accepting ... his place in the universal and natural... order. At that point, we will have truly reached the New Age. The turning of the key will have been accomplished. That is why it is so important to humanity that we study and participate, that we share this tremendous time when the signs have arrived."
Colin Andrews, "Undeniable Evidence" ( documentary )
The signs have arrived
Interview with Colin Andrews by Monte Leach
Colin Andrews is an electrical engineer and former senior officer with local government in West Hampshire, England. He is founder of Circles Phenomenon Research, an international organization dedicated to the investigation of the crop formations. His 1989 international best-selling book Circular Evidence, co-authored with Pat Delgado, brought widespread attention to the phenomenon, and has been translated into Japanese, German, Spanish, and Italian. A more recent book, The Latest Evidence, was published in 1990. Monte Leach interviewed him for Share International.
Share International: What is the latest update on the crop circle phenomenon?
Colin Andrews: We have been showing evidence, arrived at by a German distillation process at HSC laboratory, at Stroud in Gloucestershire, that there had been a change in the crystalline structure of the [crop circle] plants. This is an unconventional process that's worried a lot of scientists, who were concerned that we were travelling up the wrong road in our research.
I disagreed, and continue to disagree. But because it was an unconventional approach, we had to find a laboratory prepared and equipped to undertake more conventional analytical processes. Dr W.C. Levengood, a biophysicist and plant expert in Michigan, took up the challenge. He already has secured two major discoveries. One is that the cells at the nodal point, the point at which the plants bend, about a half to one inch above ground level, have fractured and scarred. That cannot occur by the trampling of feet, or whirlwinds, or the other processes that we hear about. Dr Levengood is not able to state precisely what causes that to happen, but is suggesting that it is due to a rapid increase in temperature within the plant. This fracturing and scarring of the cell structure supports the HSC Laboratory results.
ML: What was the other important finding?
CA: Dr Levengood planted the seeds from the cereal crops involved in this phenomenon (those that were involved last year) and germinated them in environmentally-sound conditions. He found that the date at which the plants germinated was consistent with the controls, the plants outside of the crop circle area. What he then found, and this is consistent with what we have been looking at over the years, is that the plant growth is positive. That is to say, the plants, once they've germinated, grew at a very much more accelerated rate above ground level [than the control samples]. The root structure was also much more extensive and healthy below ground level, as compared with the control samples - indeed many-fold healthier and more productive. That, too, is a very important discovery. The plants were taken from three sites in the world - Australia, America, and Great Britain. We're looking at a consistency here. Again, comparing that with wind damage, hoaxing, and trampling by human feet, it isn't an effect than can be replicated.
ML: Will these results be published in any way?
CA: Yes, they will be. In fact, in a limited way, they have already been published recently.*
ML: Are there any other developments with the scientific research?
CA: Yes, the work of Gerald Hawkins, the respected scientist in Washington, DC, who has written books on the geometry of Stonehenge.
SI: What has he found with the crop circles?
CA: It's looking very exciting indeed. Prior to the launch of Circular Evidence, we had an 'uncontaminated' period, a period during which - I would pretty well put my life on it - we were not receiving any hoaxes at all. Since the book was launched, the public became aware that something unusual was going on, and of course now we have a high number of claims of hoaxes and indeed physical hoaxes as well.
But in the crop formations of that pre-contaminated period prior to 1989, what Gerald Hawkins has proven is that, well beyond a chance of over 90 per cent, we are looking at diatonic ratios within the crop circles. And perhaps we're looking at ancient geometry which could relate to sound itself, because these are the same ratios which underlie the diatonic scale in music. It's an extremely significant development. What's for sure is that I doubt if there is any hoaxer in the world who would begin to even know what it is we're talking about, let alone calculate his handiwork to compare ancient diatonic ratios of that kind.
The Gulf Breeze incident
SI: Anything that we can look forward to in the coming months?
CA: Early this summer, there's going to be a surveillance operation. It will be similar to what happened when I planned Operation Blackbird with the British Army, but it will involve no media whatsoever. It will be confidential. A site has been chosen. It's in central-southern England, and it will be at a site where the ground markings have appeared regularly, and also where aerial phenomena are occurring regularly.
We're interested in those two particular elements because of a major development which took place in Gulf Breeze, Florida, on 13 March this year.
SI: This is your work with Steven Greer?
CA: We've been working with Dr Steven Greer, a physician here in the US. He's now heading his own SETI project [Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence], and has worked out over a period of 18 months a protocol for interaction with an airborne object. He took his team of 33 observers to Gulf Breeze, opposite the Pensacola military establishment there.
On 13 March, his team of 33 observers established their position. Using powerful one million candle-watt search beams they formed a triangle of light in the sky. Within seconds five white lights with orange balls on the under side appeared, moved across the sky and took up position at the triangle's apex. They maintained this position.
In the next stage Steven flashed the search beam at a pre-determined rate onto one of the objects. Meanwhile, everything was being filmed on video camaras. There were, I believe, another 20 or so members of the public observing this from six other locations around Gulf Breeze. The team then traced a course with a beam from above the five objects down onto the beach, suggesting to the objects that they move along this line to ground level. Two objects broke away from the five, and moved along that beam. But they stopped, took up a hovering position directly over the observers there. They maintained their position for quite some while, and at that point, through binoculars, all of them, Steven included, could see the structural detail of those objects. At this point, the objects gave out two flashes of white light, and all of them, the two and the remaining three, just simply disappeared.
A CBS television film crew was there on the following Tuesday filming something quite different. Some of Steven's team were still in the area. I don't know how they made contact with one another, but apparently they suggested to CBS that they should stay and that Steven's team would have a second try at this. They did, and the television crew filmed two UFOs, which responded similarly. Quite an extraordinary case.
If it is as reported, we have something here of great importance. Steven and his team will be coming over to Britain, and carrying on that particular process over the fields where these markings have appeared. I have a very positive feeling about this, as Steven does himself. We may well be entering a critical phase.
Response to a sick molecule
SI: Could you talk a bit about what you believe the crop circles mean?
CA: We are entering a very crucial and important phase in our evolution. The crop markings are only a part of a major shift in the consciousness of mankind, and moving us forward, probably the biggest leap forward in our evolution in history.
In terms of this planet, I believe that we are looking at a single, living molecule. The Gaia theory makes perfect sense to me, that we are indeed looking at a living planet, a living organism. It's what the indigenous peoples have always tried to tell us. They have survived only because they have understood how to interact with nature. They found their place in nature. We are here in a material way, and are on a course to folly. We have a limited time to put things right. It's 10 seconds to midnight. Unless we learn to harmonize, to interact with all living things, I'm afraid we are going to see the closing down of a living organism on which we rely. This message is also coming from those who are working in pure science right now. We have a big problem. The planet has a big problem. The evidence is there.
I believe that the crop circles are graphic markings that have within them, in their entirety, a meaning. That meaning, and the response to that visual intake, is automatic, because it's within our blueprint. It is within us subconsciously to recognize them. Many people feel this, but they are unable to establish where they've seen them before.
It is, I believe, part of the change of consciousness. There are high levels of energy which are being intelligently placed into position in critical parts of the planet. These, if you like, are probably the chakra points, to give it a term, important energy points of the living organism. They are not random, and they have never been random. They are at specific points, and they recur at those locations. I believe that they are occurring literally at the interface between this dimension of the world that we know quite a lot about and those other dimensions of which we know so very little. We are beginning to see that we can interact in a limited way, directly with other dimensions.
We are seeing, I think, the reaction of the brain end of the universe, the thinking end, which is automatically responding to a very sick molecule. If you were to cut your finger, the brain end of your universe, your head, would react subconsciously to that. You certainly wouldn't be saying, "Send me haemoglobin and white corpuscles." But the brain end automatically responds. If we could watch the processes going on within your framed universe, what we would see in a microscope is white blood corpuscles moving to that point and interacting. The behavioural tendency would be the equivalent of the UFO. That would be the UFO response from the brain-end of the universe to this planet. That's the analogy.
The manifestation to come
SI: In the video "Undeniable Evidence" you say that this crop circle phenomenon is leading to a manifestation of some type. What do you think is going to happen?
CA: I have felt for quite some years that we are certainly going to experience something of great magnitude. It is going to be very soon. We are going to encounter something here which I don't think any man or woman is going to doubt.
This coming few months is going to see one or two events which are going to shake the world. It is going to focus our attention and the reality of knowing we are not the only thinking components of this living planet. We are going to be stunned into accepting that we have much more to consider.
SI: Do you have a bottom line? Do you know what it's going to be, but hesitate to make it known in public?
CA: I do, because I still feel it is most important at this juncture, as it has been for the last 10 years, that this research, this effort at disseminating what we already know about this phenomenon, must be kept rational.
SI: You believe this event will take place soon, and will leave no doubt that we are not alone here. Is that the main purpose of these events?
CA: It is indeed. We will be receiving assistance of new knowledge, new abilities, because we will be working at a different level. We will see manifestations of the Fatima** type. That is the picture that is in my mind. It is a very clear picture. I see certainly a Fatima-type experience occurring. I believe it will be in the vicinity of Silbury Hill, Stonehenge, Avebury in southern England, because that's where the focus of attention is. There has to be a reason why this is happening right there. Having said that, I believe that will be the door opener. The whole world is going to experience something of tremendous importance.
Close to a Golden Age
SI: What you are saying correlates in some ways with Benjamin Creme's message.
CA: I would like to say on the record that I have great respect for Benjamin Creme's work. Indeed, I hope to meet him. I have read a fair bit of your magazine, in fact.
The thinking end, the brain end of the universe is the way I have been putting it in recent times. We could easily fall out with society here because there is potential for great difficulty when we are talking about the thinking component of the universe. That could be Jesus. It could be God. It could be extraterrestrial. It could be high nature. I don't feel that we have time to fall out over that. We have something which has thought, something which is intelligently interacting with us, and providing us with proof of its existence.
SI: I believe that all of these phenomena are very much connected. I think the appearance of the Teacher, the crop circles, the UFOs, are all working together to raise the consciousness of humanity. That's my opinion.
CA: It's one that I share totally. We are living in special times. There is no doubt that at this time next year, the world is going to be very different. We are living very close to a Golden Age. I really feel that. But equally, one has to say a word of warning, that always there are equal quantities of blackness right alongside. It's as easy to get it wrong as it is to get it right. We have to put out that white light, to put out there positive thinking, with sincerity and good heart. At the end of the day, we'll be doing all we possibly can for humanity.
It is also worth bearing in mind the Hopi Indian prophecy. We have reached a stage at the very end of the evolutionary path where the Hopi are awaiting the white man who left their land to return with the missing piece of a tablet on which there will be the signs. I would suggest to you that if we can focus our attention on the crop circles and the interaction with the UFO, in the very near future we will appreciate that the signs have arrived. As the Hopi prophecy shows, we are about to hold and shake the hand of the Spirit, the very Spirit that started us on this path.
( Published July-August 1992 )
*Linda Moulton Howe, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and a UFO researcher, has helped to co-ordinate Dr Levengood's work. Howe had these comments at a recent conference in San Francisco:
"Dr Levengood has found under microscopic examination that in the plants that were affected, the cell pits - the tiny holes in cells of plants where fluid moves back and forth, and keep the plants growing and healthy - have been expanded. The only way that Dr Levengood could duplicate this cell pit separation was to put plants inside of a microwave for up to 30 seconds. He's not saying that it's microwave radiation that did it. He's saying that rapid heating was the only way he could duplicate the cell pit separation in the plants.
"Further, a nuclear design engineer in Tennessee has done preliminary work on some soil samples and has found that there were three different types of isotope changes that were found in the soil underneath at least two crop formations. That work is now considered to be tentative. They need many more soil samples from many more formations to make any kind of definitive scientific presentation. But at least the preliminary findings are intriguing because they suggest that some kind of energy is being applied in the formation of these crop circles that is not understood."
**Three children in Fatima, Portugal, reported a series of visions of the Virgin Mary in 1917. The experiences culminated in October of that year in a manifestation which included miraculous phenomena witnessed by thousands.
Scientific Evidence
At the centre of scientific research on plants from crop circles is biophysicist W.C. Levengood of the Pinelandia Biophysical lab in Michigan. Here we summarise some of his findings :
Consistent cell pit changes
In July 1992 a night watch, at Woodborough Hill, England was organised in an attempt to contact the intelligence behind the crop circle formations. UFO activity was witnessed by the participants, and a crop circle was found nearby.
Dr Levengood examined wheat samples collected from inside and outside the Woodborough Hill formation. Based on 30 samples, he found a 21 per cent average and consistent increase in cell pit diameters compared to normal control cells. ( Cell pits are small holes in plant cells that allow fluid to flow up and down plant stalks. )
Over the past two years, Dr Levengood has measured a consistent 23 per cent mean average increase in cell pit diameters. He has also discovered a gradual gradation increasing in cell pit size from the edge of the plant leaf to the center and from the outer edge of formations to the centers. If a plant is stepped on, the physical pressure of impact will force fluid in the stem to expand rapidly. Consequently, cell pits will enlarge. But in that situation the expansion is randomly distributed. So far, the only way Levengood has been able to reproduce a consistent cell pit change in control plants was to place them in a microwave oven.
Rapid heating
After 30 seconds of microwave exposure, the cell pits were enlarged 14 per cent by the expanding heated water in the plant cells. If heated longer than 30 seconds, the plant cells shriveled from dehydration, which has not been seen in formation plant samples. Given the dehydration factor, Dr Levengood concludes that whatever energy creates the formations, "the heating must occur at a rapid rate, not more than 30 seconds."
Dr Levengood also found evidence of rapid heating in corn seeds from a Medina, New York, circle in October 1991. Those seeds were sent to a scientist who used a scanning electron microscope. She said: "I found unusual crystals, like seeds heated by microwave."
Changes in seed growth
Some crop formations have occurred as early as April. In early-growing spring plants, Dr Levengood finds a complete lack of seed development, "no embryogenesis at all". Normally, one would find developing seeds in spring plants. In later, more mature plants from July on, he finds whole and healthy seeds that germinate at a growth rate 87 per cent faster than control plants. Agriculture seed experts say if they can produce a 5 per cent increase in growth rate, they are doing well. "Eighty-seven per cent is astonishing," says Levengood.
Node cracking and reorientation
Bruce Rideout, a psychologist with a biology degree who teaches at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, studied plants from Linfield and Limerick, Pennsylvania, formations northwest of Philadelphia in May 1992. Dr Rideout discovered node splitting or cracking in affected plants and a peculiar and angled reorientation of the growth nodes - the places on plants where leaves and stems branch. Dr Levengood has observed those same changes in reproductive and germination tissue from England crops.
Grass circles
In Troy, Illinois, circles in sweet flag grass have occurred in the same two spots in June 1991 and 1992. Dr Levengood found that the cell pits in these circles were expanded 50 per cent larger than normal. He also found that the edges of the leaves were wrinkled oddly, a bit like crepe paper wrinkles when stretched on one side (see photograph on page 19). He said the only way he could reproduce those changes would be by applying a rapid burst of heat in a microwave oven. "There is no way a hoaxer can do this," he said.
Sherry Yarkosky, a chemist trained in plant physiology who works for Alvey Labs in Belleville, Illinois, said the affected plants in Troy showed sodium levels twice as high as unaffected plants and a 5 per cent decrease in nitrogen content. This might be the result of dehydration, but Yarkosky said she did not know the cause.
Potato-field circle
As recently as 8 September 1992 a perfect 600-foot wide circle was found in the middle of a 160-acre potato field in Clark, South Dakota. Both plants and potatoes were shipped to Dr Levengood's lab in Michigan.
Dr Levengood reports that in these naturally flat-growing vine plants, he found cell pit enlargement ranging from 19.1 per cent to 27.9 per cent and a striking difference between potatoes from inside the circle compared with potatoes from outside. The normal control 'potatoes' were smooth, red, no blemishes. Samples from inside the circle had yellow streaks along the surface and cracks in the outer epidermis. He found no difference in the internal tissues of control and sample potatoes.
Rectangles in sweet-corn
One week earlier, on 30 August, in Austinberg, Ohio, four different rectangles were found in young, growing sweetcorn. The rectangles varied in size from 8 by 25 feet to 15 by 25 feet. All the corn stalks were bent down in one direction. Connie Sistek, an investigator in Ashtabula, gathered plant and ear samples from inside the rectangles and outside for controls and sent them to Dr Levengood.
He found that tassels from the young control plants were tightly closed as they should have been. But in the formation plants, the tassels were completely opened up, suggesting accelerated growth of the affected plants after or during the rectangles' creation.
Further Information
This summary is based on a 1992 article by Linda Moulton Howe. For more information about crop circle science and videotapes about the phenomenon, please contact Linda Moulton Howe Productions, PO Box 300, Jamison, PA18929-0300, USA. Fax (215) 491-9842
Dr Levengood has also published a portion of his findings in a peer-review journal, Physiologia Plantarum ( vol. 92, Issue 2, 1994 ). In the Journal of Scientific Exploration, June 1995, he published a second article on a "magnetic glaze" found deposited on plants within a crop circle in 1993.
More information is also available from the Centre for Crop Circle
Studies, P O Box 1732, Port Angeles, WA 98362, USA; phone: 360-452-9673;
fax: 360-452-0849.
Websites
Crop Circle Central
CCC Links
Stuart's Photo File ( massive collection )
Crop Circles of 1996
1996 video clip of a crop circle being formed with UFO's overhead
Art Bell - Crop Circles
Linda Howe webpage
WWW Virtual Library - Crop Circle Gallery
Articles
Interview with Gerald S. Hawkins by Monte Leach
"The riddle of the crop circles"
An article by Idina Le Geyt on some of the UFO sightings that have accompanied the discovery of crop circles.