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1995-10-20
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From: dona@bilver.uucp (Don Allen)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.conspiracy,sci.skeptic
Subject: FILE: MUFON article - Field of Schemes - Crop circles
Message-ID: <1993Feb11.040414.7851@bilver.uucp>
Date: 11 Feb 93 04:04:14 GMT
Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL
Lines: 860
(7063) Fri 29 Jan 93 18:18
By: John Komar
To: All
Re: HUFON/CROPS 1/9
St: 7174>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@MSGID: 1:123/26 0e924992
MUFONET-BBS GROUP - MUFONET-BBS NETWORK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
COORDINATED INFORMATION EXCHANGE - HOUSTON UFO NETWORK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following article originally appeared in the January '93
HUFON Report, the newsletter of the Houston UFO Network.
Article provided by HUFON for posting by The MufoNet-BBS
Network.
------------------------------------------------------------
Crop Circle Update - FIELD OF SCHEMES I
By Bill Eatwell
In the November 1992 issue of the Mufon UFO Journal, there
is an article by Jim Schnabel titled, "Confessions Of A Crop
Circle Spy". Well, as always, there is more to this story
than is being published. For one thing, there are alleged
inaccuracies in Schnabel's telling of his side of an
a recorded telephone interview that was to be published in
the journal of the Centre For Crop Circle Studies known as
The Circular which is edited by George Wingfield. The
interview was mysteriously pulled from the magazine before
distribution.
In October, while attending George Wingfield's Dallas, Texas
lecture (see HUFON Report, Nov., 1992 issue), George gave
me, in strict confidence, a copy of the Schnabel interview
that had been pulled. George told me that his publisher in
England, Michael Green, had pulled the interview from
publication while he was on his lecture tour here in
America.
I was told to "sit" on my copy unless given the go ahead to
publish the suppressed interview in the HUFON Report if
George was unable to resolve the problem when he returned to
England. On Saturday,(12/5) I received a call from a friend
alerting me that a new publication in Dallas, the Texas
Mufon Newsletter, had just published George's suppressed
interview.
I immediately called George in England and asked permission
to reprint the same article in HUFON Report. I not only
got the OK, but received the next day, by fax a copy of
George's soon to be published reply to the above Journal
article by Schnabel. Since not all HUFON members subscribe
to the Mufon UFO Journal, I will carefully summarize
Schnabel's article below. Included in this Crop Circle
Update are both the suppressed interview, and George's faxed
reply to Schnabel's article which should appear in the
December Mufon UFO Journal. According to George, the
following (suppressed) interview was made and recorded by
Dr. Armen Victorian (AKA: Henry Azadehdel, Dr. Alan Jones,
and for this interview, Cassava Ntumba). George says that
there was no time lapse between Victorian's prior call to a
Robert Irving, and Jim Schnabel. Why is this important?
Because, Schnabel claims that Irving called him to warn of
Victorian's question line and the two of them conspired to
lead Victorian, as Ntumba, down the old proverbial false
disinformation trail.
George also told me that someone (he knows who) sent a copy
of the "pulled" interview to Schnabel so he could fashion a
quick cover story and, somehow, persuade the Mufon UFO
Journal to print it. After you have read the following, I
will have more at the end.....
THE SUPPRESSED CIRCULAR INTERVIEW
Subject of The Circular interview in this issue is Jim
Schnabel. He has written several newspaper articles on the
circles beginning with an item in the Washington Post last
year which espoused the cause of orthodox Meadenism. More
recently he collaborated with Robert Irving to produce a
piece for the Independent Magazine in which it was implied
that many of the major pictograms in the mid-Wiltshire area
were hoaxed by the UBI group. Although UBI has faked a few
minor formations (of which CCCS has full details)
suggestions of major hoaxing by them --at, say, Alton
Barnes--are known to be untrue and this article can only be
seen as part of Schnabel and Irving's campaign to make
people think that the pictograms are all hoaxes and promote
the highly dubious claims of Doug & Dave.
Unlike Doug & Dave, Schnabel is an accomplished circlefaker
and in July he came second in The Cerealogist's Circlemaking
Competition at West described then as the "Master of
Grapeshot," he did not deny having had previous circlemaking
experience.
Ostensibly Schnabel is a student doing a post-graduate
course in sociology at Bath University. Despite this his
telephone number is on the Oxford exchange and his address
in Bath (where Robert Irving lives) is secret. He usually
gives his address as c/o Lincoln College, Oxford, although
at the beginning of l992 Lincoln College stated that
Schnabel no longer had any connection with them.
Continued.....
--- FMail 0.92
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(7054) Fri 29 Jan 93 18:19
By: John Komar
To: All
Re: HUFON/CROPS, 2/9
St: 7055>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@MSGID: 1:123/26 0e924993
In the following candid interview Schnabel reveals his role
as a paid disinformation agent working for an unnamed
western inrelligence organisation. From what he says, one
is made aware of the extent and determination of the
continuing campaign to rubbish the circles and discredit the
researchers. This campaign is but a continuation of the Doug
& Dave scam with different faces, different players.
The "interviewer" in this case is Armen Victorian, who has
written for The Circular previously and who introduces
himself as Kasaba Ntumba. Unaware of Ntumba's true
identity, Schnabel gradually opens up to this apparently
sympnthetic caller.
It is only fair to say that Schnabel now denies everything
which is contained herein and telephoned me some days later
in a state of scarcely suppressed agitation to claim that he
had just been ~winding up ~ Victorian (whom he had never met
or talked to, apart from a very brief introductory phone
call a short while before on the same day). Readers of The
Circular will have to judge for themselves whether or not
this is the case.
One may justifiably ask why someone would ever reveal well-
hidden secrets to a total stranger at such short notice. I
can only say that Victorian has achieved similar coups time
and again in speaking, by telephone to top intelligence
officers in the U.S.A., in South Africa and in other
countries and these people have frequently regretted what
they have let slip. If Schnabel had been "winding up"
Victorian, it is inconceivable that he would then ring me up
and come clean. Apart from anything else he never normally
calls me, and of all the hoaxes I 've known --not just
circular ones-- no hoaxer has ever once sprung forward
saying "it's all a hoax, don't believe a word I just said."
Double bluff? Well, if you believe that, you'll believe
anything !
The acid test, of course, is the tape recording itself
rather than the transcript. Listen to this and, as with the
recent "Dianagate" tapes, one soon discards the notion that
the responses are contrived or false. It is to be regretted
that information has been obtained in this way but in the
face of a ruthless and sustained campaign to deceive the
public and CCCS this is amply justified.
For people who scoff at the idea that intelligence agencies
have any interests in the circles phenomerlon, I can only
say that when in Washington, D. C., last April I was taken
specifically tomeet four charming gentlemen from the CIA who
made no secret about their profession and also their
interest in the circles and the UFO phenomenon. This is
entirely consistent with the content of this interview.
Continued.....
--- FMail 0.92
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@PATH: 123/26
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(7055) Fri 29 Jan 93 18:20
By: John Komar
To: All
Re: HUFON/CROPS, 3/9
St: 7054<>7056
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@MSGID: 1:123/26 0e924994
[Telephone rings]
Sch: Hello.
Vic: Mr Schnabel?
Sch: Yes.
Vic: This is Mr Ntumba.
Sch: Oh, hi. Hallo.
Vic: I'm sorry to bother you at Ihis time of the night. I
was...now then, I was speaking to your friend.
Sch: Sorry?
Vic: I was, I was speaking to your friend a few hours ago,
Mr Robert Irving.
Sch: Oh yeah, Rob Irving, yeah.
Vic: Thal's right; and I understand that you won the second
prize in proving that, eventually, these, eh, circles
are not reaily what the others think are made by 7-feet
green men. And they are very much in an earth bound
situation.
Sch: Yes, yes, I wouldn't have to prove anything really.
Vic: My congratulations - [laughs] - you did a good job.
Sch: Thank you very much, thank you very much.
Vic: Have you published anything?
Sch: Yes, eh, I have published a few things....
Vic: In magazines or newspapers - or private or.. ?
Sch: Well, yeah, I published something just this past
weekend.
Vic: Ah!
Sch: In the Independent Magazine - that was a collaboration
with....
Vic: Hey! You have an American accent!
Sch: Sorry?
Vic: You have an American accent.
Sch: Yes, I'm originally from the States, that's true.
Vic: Which part?
Sch: I'm from the East Coast.
Vic: East Coast. New York part?
Sch: In Virginia.
Vic: Virginia, a beautiful part of the country.
Sch: Yes it is, thank you very much.
Vic: Beautiful part of the country. One thing. . . One thing
that Mr Irving said to me that I was a bit puzzled. He
said that he works at a group of intelligence . . ., or
something like that.
Sch: Oh, he did?
Vic: He did.
Sch: [Laughs] He, um...
Vic: When?
Sch: He sometimes, eh. . ., says things that he shouldn't
say, but, eh...
Vic: What? Did he work genuinely with an intelligence...
Sch: Sorry - say that again.
Vic: Did he actually work with intelligence in the past?
Sch: Well, I really couldn't comment on anything like that.
I mean I think you'd have to ask him.
Vic: ' Cos he was saying to me that - you know...What did he
say to me?... It was something that mystified me, to
be perfectly honest with you. Eh, you know, he said
that it pays, you know, that exactly what, you know, he
said to me, to do what he is doing, and he works with a
western intelligence... , he said to me.
Sch: Yeah.
Vic: And he said that man doesn't live on bread alone.
Sch: Yeah, well, you know, I really couldn't comment on any
of that, I mean, ...eh....
Vic: Do you know, if that's the case that he is actually
working with.. ?
Sch: Well, I wouldn't want to say anything on the record
obviously.
Vic: [Laughs.] Well I don't blame you, can I? But I mean is
he. .? What I'm trying to say is you know....Look,
you've handled these cases for several....sometimes
people say things, as you've said yourself. Is it
saying it in order to create credence and mystery or
you know this....? because if it is the case, it
backfires doesn't it, because that makes the man...you
know what I'm trying to say.
Sch: No, I'm not clear
Vic: All I'm saying is....if that's not the case, the man
doesn't work,.so why is he making all this, you
know...statements, you see what I'm saying, it makes
him look, you know, a person who doesn't have any
credit in his opinion - do you see what I'm trying to
say?
Continued.....
--- FMail 0.92
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(7056) Fri 29 Jan 93 18:21
By: John Komar
To: All
Re: HUFON/CROPS, 4/9
St: 7055<>7057
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@MSGID: 1:123/26 0e924995
Sch: Well....
Vic: It's like me saying I'm the king.....
Sch: Well, I don't know....
Vic: Well, it's like me claiming....
Sch: I don't know what he has said but I mean he does have
some connections in....l don't know, but I don't think
thats something that either of us want to talk about.
Vic: But you know - there is a story...
Sch: I don't quite know who you are, so I don't want to talk
about it in too much detail.
Vic: No, but I've been reading some of these magazines they
have issued about groups and these articles about the
7-feet green men... groups put out that's there's
intelligence in it, etc., etc., and now Mr Irving says
that to me. You see I was a bit taken back. Is there
any interest from the intelligence ,part in it as well?
Sch: Sorry, intelligence....?
Vic: Any interest from the intelligence part in the
phenomenon?
Sch: Well, does he have an interest in the intelligence? ...
I'm not sure quite what...
Vic: What I'm trying to tell.... it's my bad English, I'm
sorry.
Sch: About M15, or are you talking about UFOs?
Vic: Anything...any government intelligence group....
Sch: No, no, it's clear to me now. Yes, well I mean....off
the record, I mean I think a number of agencies
throughout the world have taken an interest in this.
Vic: Well, that we've heard, haven't we?
Sch: It is potentially a very explosine phenomenon.
Vic: I mean, can they exploit it, how can they exploit the
phenomenon?
Sch: Well, I mean, I think...l think some of us are
concerned that the phenomenon may - it's difficult to
explain, but....
Vic: Try me!
Sch: We believe there is certainly something very sinister
about what's going on - eh..., I don't know whether
you're a Christian man or not....?
Vic: Christian... of course I am.
Sch: But some of us feel quite....
Vic: I'm a Catholic.
Sch: Well, yes, yes, so am I. And some of us feel concerned
that, eh....
Vic: Some arms of the government are doing something...
psychological warfare, or psychotronic weaponry, you
know.
Sch: We think that sometimes that a little bit of intrigue .
. sometimes is necessary in cases as serious as this,
um, and sometimes measures have to be taken, but I
think, I mean, overall, I think that the phenomenon is
something which we think will disappear very shortly.
Vic: [Bated breath!!] How, how, how, how, how, how? I mean,
I'm sorry, but I'm just curious - it's mind-boggling
what you're saying! But how, how do you know that will
happen?
Sch: [Sigh] Well, we think that it, that people will no
longer take notice of it, I mean, it may continue but,
eh, it....
Vic: But why do you say phenomenon? You proved that this is
man-made, if it's a man-made... how could it be a
phenomena? Or am I in the dark, or I've missed
something somewhere?
Sch: Well, I'm, I'm, I think some of them are definitely
man-made; I mean definately.
Vic: But, so, but so, we are suggesting that there's also a
part to it that is genuine?
Sch: I think there is a part which is entirely sinister and
I'm not sure how genuine it is or whether it's made by
people but it's something very sinister and I think
it's something that....
Vic: Are we talking about mugic, dark powers?
Sch: Possibly, yes.. and I think that it...hang on, I'm
getting a bit. . .
Vic: It' s intriguing, when we say dark powers arewe talking
about... sort of Satan and that sort of thing, or are
we talking about actually....?
Sch: AbsolutelY!
Vic: I see, I see, so there isn't any sort of military
implication or the test of, of weaponry or anything of
that sort, which is sinister?
Sch: Oh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that.. l think it's a
very complex issue though.......
Vic: Are we talking about the part of the military wing
who's under the brainwashing, or whatever, of the
sinister forces who are doing this - you know, making
it a bit more complex?
Sch: Well, well it's very difficult to explain to vou -
to explain the structure of some of these
organisations, but......
Continued.....
--- FMail 0.92
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(7057) Fri 29 Jan 93 18:21
By: John Komar
To: All
Re: HUFON/CROPS, 5/9
St: 7056<>7058
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@MSGID: 1:123/26 0e924996
Vic: For example? Give me an example.
Sch: Why? I couldn't go into detail but, eh, basically
it's something which is concerning people worldwide
and have pooled their resources, worldwide, and are
involved.....
Vic: How about the British Government? Are they also... ?
Sch: Well, yes. The German Government, the American
government, the Vatican as well.
Vic: How about Robert? Does Robert have anything with any of
this to help them along with it, to determine what is
going on?
Sch: I wouldn't want to comment on the record or anything
like that.
Vic: Of course not.
Sch: Definitely, you know....as you seem to be sympathetic
to what we're saying.....
Vic: Of course! What you're saying makes me worried.
He is definitely on the good side
Sch: He is.... he is one of our best people, yes.
Vic: And he's helping the governments to determine which
faction is doing this?
Sch: Yes, it's very... extremely sensitive, sensitive work
as you can probably imagine.....
Vic: Is it...eh...now, let's see, are we talking about
military, or are we talking about intelligence, are we
talking about the negative side, you see what I ' m
trying to say?
Sch: It's not quite a military thing but there are elements
of military intelligence which have loaned resources.
Vic. Ahhhh! ! We are talking about people who have had a
career, they've left their career, they have
corporations, etc., etc., they are developing some kind
of weaponry and these are the testing ground.
Sch: No, no, no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go into that, it's
much more of a spiritual warfare type of magic, I
think....
Vic: And they trying to exploit the populus, I mean, what
are they trying to achieve? This is what I'm trying to
determine.
Sch: I think they are trying to bring about changes in world
consciousness and for evil; for, for, you know, not for
good and, eh, there are some of us who are concerned
about this, and would like to see this new trend
stopped.
Vic: Is there any positive element in the government
who are supporting people like yourself or Robert or
anybody else for that mattter?
Sch: We have support, yes, we have support at the highest
levels.
Vic: That's marvelous -is it British government ....or...
forgive me, I'm not trying to be a nosy parker.
Sch: It involves several countries and as I say.....
Vic: Are we talking NATO allies or are we talking
about........... ? Sch: NATO ?...it's not at the
NATO level, but it's Germany involved, and this
country, and the United States... the Vatican as well.
Vic: I see...I... are we talking about...?
Sch: It's actually, it in volves a supernational
organisation which I will not name.
Vic: [Gasp]Supernational !!!
Sch: Supernational organisation.
Vic: Oh, good God !
Sch: Which is....?
Vic. This is above my head.
Sch: Which has ties to these countries, and organisations.
Vic: Are we talking, for example trilateral, that sort
of thing?
Sch: I wouldn't want to get into any specifics.
Vic: Do you have any information...'? I'm speculating...
Sch: It's something that is very dangerous to talk about,
and I hope, you will, you know...
Vic: I appreciate it, I appreciate it...I mean, is it a
mission that you volunteered or is it something that
you actually commission people ....I mean how do
they...?
Sch: It's...we are quite committed to it,
put it that way. It's not a sense of duty but it's
also.....
Vic: How about the other religions, does that come into it
or is it only Christian religion or just Christians
committed to it? eh, I mean Buddhism, or Judaism or
Islam .... you know?
Sch: I don't have a high enough overview of the whole
situation to know. There may be some others involved.
Vic: And the information that you gather is passed on to the
higher-ups in order to be filtered out and deductions
have to be taken, obviously; that should be the case?
Sch: Yes, yes.. we are not just feeding information, we
are taking active measures.
Vic: I hope they pay for what you've done, for the time and
all the things that you put in to it.
Sch: Well, yes...it's only natural that one should be
reimbursed.
Vic: That goes without saying.
Sch: One has to live, you know.
Vic: That is absolutely true. How many are there? Is there
any way I can get, sort of, you know, involved?
Sch: Well, I'll tell you, if you can, um, give me some
information, I understand you would probably want to do
it on a very confidential level... some information
or...I could have someone possibly give you a call or
visit you or something.
Continued.....
--- FMail 0.92
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(7058) Fri 29 Jan 93 18:22
By: John Komar
To: All
Re: HUFON/CROPS, 6/9
St: 7057<>7059
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@MSGID: 1:123/26 0e924997
Vic: Who, who? Is it Mr. Irving who would visit me?
Sch: Oh no, it would not be Mr. Irving, it would not be Mr.
Irving. You know ...possibly...
Vic: Are you sure your telephone is not tapped?
Sch: My telephone? [laughs] No,no, my telephone would not be
tapped! My telephone is a secure phone.
Vic: Give me your address, Mr. Schnabel, please.
Sch: Um, well, ...[hesitation]... all right,
it's, it's, um.... you can reach me, care of... I have
to give you a sort of a safe, a safe box...
Vic: Of course!
Sch: . . . because I don't actually live here,
but it's: c/o Lincoln College.
Vic: LincolnCollege? OK,which school in Lincoln!
Sch: Lincoln College, Oxford.
Vic: Oxford ? Ah ha!
Sch: That's all you need to do, just: care
of...To Jim Schnabel, c/o Lincoln College, Oxford.
Vic: I would be able to reach you there?
Sch: Yes.
Vic: OK. And if I actually wanted to put anything in it
I would be hopefully visited by somebody?
Sch: Sorry?
Vic: I would be briefed about how I can start, you know,
etc., etc.?
Sch: Yes, I mean... if you give me some information........
[This section is intentionally omitted.]
A second call is then made on the following day:
Vic: Mr Schnabel?
Sch: Yes.
Vic: Hello, this is Ntumba speaking. I put something into
the post for you today.
Sch: Ah, good, good.
Vic: It will be with you if all goes well, hopefully by
Tuesday - you know how well your mail works...
Sch: No, I think today is a bank holiday,
so there won't be any mail through.
Vic: Well, I had first class stamps so I did that... Now,
I remember when this, eh, ******* came here, who...you
know when you said to me... has been a very good
source..
there was another man...
Sch: Excuse me, just let me pull the phone into my room here
to be private.
Vic: OK, of course.
[ Very long pause ensues]
Sch: Yes, right.
Vic: Is it better?
Sch: Yes.
Vic: OK. You remember last time when we were speaking you
said that, you know, ******* has been a good source
with regard to promoting the cause.
Sch: Yes, yes.
Vic: I remember that when ******* came here there was also
another person.
Sch: Yes.
Vic: Do you know who he was?
Sch: His name is #####.
Vic: Ahhhh! He was very quiet. Is he also working in the
same way?
Sch: I wouldn't want to speak about further things, I mean
it's extremely sensitive, I really shouldn't have told
you all that I've told you already...and unfortunately
at the moment I'm quite busy with some things, but um,
do send the material and perhaps... l'll tell you
here's um, a ...I'm trying to think. Will you ...
[massive hesitation]l...oh, no, no, if you send the
material to Lincoln College; send some indication of
where you can be reached.
Vic: O.K.
Sch: We can discuss things further, someone else will
contact you, and eh, it won't be me, it will be a much
more senior person in the organisation and then
subsequently, eh, you know, if things work out well and
more information can be shared with you.
Vic: The reason that I mentioned about that gentleman ...
because he was talking almost on a similar line, you
know, that you were talking in many ways... do you see
what I'm saying?
Sch: I really couldn't comment further on him, I wouldn't
want to compromise his position.
Vic: I see ! Well, I hope that, you know...that the mission
will be acomplished and that, you know, after all this
time. Has there been any good witness.. ?
Sch: We have no doubt of success.
Vic: Well I'm delighted to hear that. Now, about the
payment. How do we claim for the expenses, etc., you
know, how do we go about this usually? I mean, how do
you go about that?
Continued.....
--- FMail 0.92
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(7059) Fri 29 Jan 93 18:23
By: John Komar
To: All
Re: HUFON/CROPS, 7/9
St: 7058<>7060
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@MSGID: 1:123/26 0e924998
Sch: Well, that will be arranged and explained to you if,
if, if...[mumble, mumble]
Vic: Is it on a monthly basis?
Sch: If you are found to be a suitable candidate -- it's
extremely generous, don't worry about that.
Vic: OK. You know there is a great deal of travelling
backward and forward, you know, as you are involved in
this...
Sch: You will be expected to travel internationally.
Vic: Oh, what .... that's fascinating, that is absolutely
fascinating. What sort of data, you know, they would
be expecting from my side to be gathered, to be
collected for the cause? Sch: It woutd be not only
gathering data but also taking active measures,
possibly conducting disinformation campaigns and other
measures.
Vlc: In order to safeguard the initial whatever it is, isn't
it, the ultimate goal.
Sch: Yes. it's extremely complex, I mean I think you were...
you touched upon it briefly last night when you
mentioned the weapon...
Vic: I was very much impressed.....
Sch: The weapons systems, I mean there's the element of the
weapons testing and there's the second element of the,
eh, attempt to use the phenomenon of the circles to
discredit the New Age movement and other such
movements.
Vic: Ahhhh ! I see.
Sch: It's extremely complex and much more will be explained
to you if it's appropriate at a further time.
Vic: Of course, of course..... Sch: Don't worry about
payment, I mean, it's very generous.....
Vic: No, that's not my worry......
Sch: It's extremely strenuous work and...the organisation
realises that, um, you know, sometimes people become
burned out after a few years but usually they've made
enough money that they are able to retire - you know,
after a few years anyway.... it's very generous.
VIC: That's facscinating...and the gentleman, or the person
rather, who would be meeting me should my you know,
whatever become serious, would he be, or would she be,
an American or would she be English or different... you
know?
Sch: I'm not sure yet which organisation, I mean, that's not
my decision - which person in the organisation, I mean,
that's not my decision. It could be someone from
almost.
Vic: But, but, I mean what is the organisation that I would
be dealing with?
Sch: Well, I think that will all be explained to you.
Vic: Oh, I see. When, if and when, I'm taken in.
Sch: Yes.
[Break]
Vic: How about Colin Andrews' group - do you have any
section with a remit in Colin Andrews' group or not?
Sch: We have, eh...we have people in every group.
Vic: Fascinating, fascinating, that's absolutely, you know,
it's interesting to hear. As I said earlier, the
machinery is already into the post so the best thing is
I wait to hear further from you.
Sch: Yes, OK, good
Vic: OK. Thank you very much indeed for your time again.
Sch: God bless.
Vic: God bless you too. Bye bye.
The following summary of "Confession Of A Crop Circle Spy"
by James Schnabel is very brief as the original document in
the November 1992 Mufon UFO Journal is five pages long.
Dennis Stacy, the Journal's Editor, begins the article with
a half page introduction. Stacy's comments center around the
thought process regarding both UFO's and crop circles and
how they are perceived and possible related. Also, he notes
the lessons to be learned when hoaxing, fear of government
agents and conspiracies and, as this article painfully
illuminates, a wide spread paranoia begins to grip all those
individuals who are intimately, and publicly, involved with
both phenomena.
( Note that James Schnabel, by himself, won 2nd prize in the
circle making competition in England, at West Wycome, July
11-12, 1992...He also wrote an article on "The Art of
Circular Science" for The Cerealogist, No. 7, Harvest 1992,
which will be available from the HUFON library in Jan. 93.)
Continued......
--- FMail 0.92
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(7060) Fri 29 Jan 93 18:23
By: John Komar
To: All
Re: HUFON/CROPS, 8/9
St: 7059<>7061
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@MSGID: 1:123/26 0e924999
James Schnabel begins his article by describing numerous
unnamed crop circle researchers as "vociferous spycriers".
The story that follows is what Schnabel claims happened when
in a light-hearted moment he suggested to an inquirer,
"Cassave Ntumba", that "yes, it was all true, he was indeed
a spy". The phone interviews actually began with Ntumba
calling Rob Irving, a photographer who had worked with
Schnabel on a London newspaper article about one of the
circle-making groups active in Wiltshire. Schnabel says that
Irving recognized Ntumba as Henry Azadehdel, recalling Henry
as the person who authored a story last year about Doug
Bower and Dave Chorley being spies.(remember the Doug and
Dave scam?) Irving reportedly recorded the conversation, and
immediately afterwards called Schnabel and a "spy-chase"
plan was conceived. There were several lengthy phone
conversations between Irving and Ntumba, and Schnabel and
Ntumba. Schnabel summarizes most of these but adds something
to the first conversation that I could not find in the
suppressed interview. The "Plan", as Schnabel outlines to
Ntumba, "was meant (a) to divert attention from the ultra-
secret Stars Wars weapons testing which caused the circles".
Unless I missed something, this was not in the original text
of the Circular Interview. As Schnabel unfolds his story,
he begins using single letter references to various
individuals leaving the reader to only "guess" as to their
identity. One example is: "So I telephoned W and asked him
to relay to the elusive zadehdel that the whole thing had
been a send up. I hope-I said-that you have enough sense of
humor to see that this was all done in fun. To which W
responded: well I'm not sure I do, Jim. I mean, I wouldn't
be in the lease bit surprised if you were a spy". Other
lettered identities in the story are: R, E, G, F, T, D, U, M
and G, C and his good friend B. The "Plan", as Schnabel
calls it, received much notoriety following the Ntumba
interview. The worst unmasking according to Schnabel
occurred at the UFO meet at the Leeds Civic Theater, in
England, where Armen Victorian (aka: Ntumba) was to present
taped conversations of international debunkers. The taped
interview between Victorian and Schnabel was played causing
a confrontation in which Schnabel says he attempted to
convince the audience that it had all been a put-on, a sham.
Schnabel narrates only a portion of the recording in his
story. When I compared the two recorded conversations, some
sentences were not word for word. This indicates editing by
one or the other writer. Nothing important appeared missing
in the two recorded dialogs. The story ends with Schnabel
stating his personal feelings of the events, his believed
vindication, and his relief that W's article had been pulled
from the printers, and the article detailing The Plan
removed. However, Irving and Schnabel believe that there
still remains a "hint of unsolved mystery" to their acts as
one question still remains with the cerealogists: "How had
we known so much?"
As you can tell, the crop circle hoaxing issue is about to
come to a nasty head. Personally, I believe that there needs
to be more articles published on those persons doing valid
crop circle research and less on those interfering with the
phenomenon.
I spoke with our new contributor, Rosemary Ellen Guiley and
discovered that she had moved again. A copy of her Center's
report will be sent to me as soon as it is completed.
Meanwhile, Rosemary faxed the following comments for our
latest column. Her new address, phone and fax numbers are
included for publication per her request.
Center For North American Crop Circle Studies
Director: Rosemary Ellen Guiley
Address: P.O. Box 4766, Lutherville, MD 21094
Phone: 410-628-1522 / Fax: 410-628-1524
December 7, 1992
Rosemary writes:
Far too much attention was devoted this summer in crop
circle circles to allegations concerning disinformation,
conspiracy and hoaxing. Individuals alleged to be the
masterminds of a plot to debunk circles were given more
credit than they deserved by noise made by some
cereologists. The unfortunate result was to shift attention
away from solving the mystery of the phenomenon to focus on
personalities and name calling.
As for the circles themselves, in England they manifested in
as mysterious shapes as before, with the signature of
Goddess stronger than ever: snails, crescent moons, the knot
of Isis (resembling and alpha) and the mu-at, a dumbbell
with crescent that is also a sign of Isis. Overall, the
activity was more low-key than the previous year, with the
media paying scant attention to anything beyond the hoaxing
contest done in July for the amusement of humans.
Continued.....
--- FMail 0.92
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@PATH: 123/26
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(7061) Fri 29 Jan 93 18:24
By: John Komar
To: All
Re: HUFON/CROPS, 9/9
St: <7060
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@MSGID: 1:123/26 0e92499a
In the U.S., reported activity also was less that last year,
though reports continue to trickle in to the Center for
North American Crop Circle Studies (CNACCS). Illinois was
once again one of the more active states. The most dramatic
formation was a dumbbell in alfalfa near Fergus Falls,
Minnesota. More detailed reports will be available soon from
CNACCS and the North American Institute for Crop Circle
Research in Winnepeg.
In closing, one final comment. An unusual bit of movement
has occurred with two of the original English crop circle
researchers. It is being called the "grain drain" by
Rosemary Ellen Guiley. Seems that both Colin Andrews and
Richard Andrews (no relation) have moved their crop circle
business to America. Do they know something no one else
knows?
Stay tuned.
=END=
--- FMail 0.92
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--
<*> Don Allen <*> 1:363/81.1 - Fidonet #1 - Homebody BBS
dona@bilver.uucp - Internet 1:363/29.8 - Fidonet #2 - Gourmet Delight
88:4205/1.1 - MUFON Network 1:3607/20.2 -- Odyssey - Alabama UFO Net
NSA grep food: Aviary, Ed Dames, Los Alamos - Majestic - Jason - RIIA - UN
From dona@bilver.uucp Tue Jun 18 20:32:01 1991
From: dona@bilver.uucp (Don Allen)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranormal,alt.conspiracy,sci.skeptic,talk.religion.newage,misc.headlines,misc.misc
Subject: CROP CIRCLES: Michael Chorost MUFON Symposium Paper
Keywords: Follow-ups to alt.alien.visitors
Date: 17 Jun 91 19:14:41 GMT
Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This information is presented for your persusal and is a continuation
of my policy of informing the public what is currently available. As
usual my *disclaimer* is simply to present the data and let you form
your own opinion(s). Please feel free to agree,disagree,discuss or
ponder :-)
As I do not have a great amount of time available to pursue follow-ups
exclusively, comments to me should be directed to dona@bilver.uucp
in mail.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The following text comes from the MUFONET BBS (1-901-785-4943):
----Begin Included Text ---------------------------------------------
Thesis for a Pre-Paradigm Science: Cereology
Michael Chorost
Written March 1991; published July 1991
1. Cereology as a Pre-Paradigm Science
2. Non-Human Intelligence?
3. The Problem with "Intelligence"
4. A Guess: Are the Crop Circles A Symbol System?
5. About Unconvincing Guesses
6. The Future Looks Back on the Present: A Hopeful Guess
Appendix: Colin Andrews' Catalog of Formations, with Annotations by
Michael Chorost (not included in electronic version)
I'm writing this paper in March 1991, well before the start of the
next crop circles season. I anticipate that by July, there will be new
developments I will want to talk about, instead of reading a paper written
months before. Thus I have not designed this paper to be read aloud.
However, since it is oriented toward grounding cereology as a theoretical
discipline, I am likely to presume many of its points in my talk. I will be
happy to entertain questions about it in Chicago.
1. Cereology as a Pre-Paradigm Science
In this first of six sections, I want to talk about cereology as a
discipline, and acquaint readers with some of its complexities and prob-
lems. In the remaining sections, I will explore one particular problem in
detail: are the circles a language? And if so, how might we figure it out?
The crop circles phenomenon is much more complex than it appears
at first glance, so it follows that cereology, the study of the phenomenon,
needs to think ways which will encompass that complexity. So it is impor-
tant to establish right off that the phenomenon has aspects which make
naive "the aliens have started talking to us" theories difficult to uphold.
The evidence leads in contradictory directions. For example, researchers
(primarily meteorologists) have gathered eyewitness reports of circles from
as far back as 1918, and have found written texts describing what may be
crop circles from as far back as 1590. One 17th-century text describes
an event in 1633, where a school curate saw, while walking at night in a
Wiltshire field, "innumerable quantitie of pigmies or very small people
dancing rounde and rounde, and singing and making all manner of small
odd noyses." He heard "a sorte of quick humming noyse all the time" and
"when the sun rose he found himself exactly in the midst of one of these
faery dances."1 Such "quick humming noyses" have been heard in
present-day crop circles,2 and have been captured on tape by the BBC
and other observers. The curate's story seems to fit, because modern
crop circles are believed to form very rapidly, as this one apparently did,
and the "pigmies...dancing rounde" could have been a 17th-century
observer's way of interpreting a spinning, possibly glowing force field.
Another text, authored by Robert Plott in 1686, discusses an appar-
ently similar event in 1590 and theorizes that such artifacts are made by
lightning. An illustration theorizes that cone-shaped "lightning strikes"
are responsible for the rings and, astonishingly, rings containing squares.
David J. Reynolds notes that Plott describes "'imperfect segments', rings
within rings, squares (?!), 'Semicircles, Quadrants and Sextants' being
formed by combinations of multiple strokes, differing angles of descent
and variations in lightning strength across a stroke" (p. 348, italics in
originals.)3 Unfortunately, Plott does not give enough information to make
it clear whether he is observing "fairy rings", which are fungal infections
in the soil which blight plants in slowly spreading circular areas, or crop
circles. In fact, much of his discussion points away from crop circles.
Not once does he mention that the plants are flattened in spiral patterns,
nor does he talk about the intricate braiding often seen in crop circles.
And when he digs under one formation, he discovers that the soil "was
much looser and dryer than ordinary, and the parts interspersed with a
white hoar or vinew much like that in mouldy bread, of a musty rancid
smell."4 This is a finding entirely consistent with fairy rings. And yet,
as Reynolds notes, Plott is quite explicit about the existence of non-circu-
lar formations like quadrants and hollow squares, going so far as to
provide diagrams of them. To my knowledge, there is no such thing as a
fairy square. Thus we cannot eliminate the possibility that Plott saw what
we think of as crop circles. Of course, it's also possible that he saw
something which was neither fairy rings nor crop circles, but something
else altogether.
Plott's discussion anticipates parts of the modern debate with
remarkable fidelity. He devotes considerable attention to rumors of pos-
sessed satanic dancers, but ultimately concludes that such "hoaxes" could
only account for a particular subset of the phenomenon: "If I must needs
allow [dancers] to cause some few of these Rings, I must also restrain
them to those of the first kind, that are bare at many places like a path-
way; for to both the others more natural causes may be probably as-
signed" (14.) It appears that Plott anticipated the meteorological theory
by roughly 300 years.
These observations have to make any alien-intelligence theorist stop
and think. Plott talks about events which happened in 1590. The
curate's anomalous sighting happened a decade after the publication of
Shakespeare's First Folio. If they are true crop circles, and if they're by
aliens who have been trying to get our attention for four centuries, there
is at least one species in the galaxy which is remarkably dumb (and it's
not necessarily us.) The finders of these texts subscribe to the meteoro-
logical theory, so they interpret the reports as evidence of a naturally
occurring plasma-vortex phenomenon. The reader may not accept that
theory, but whatever he or she does accept has to take these astonishing
writings into account.
The 17th-century texts are not the only example of fractious data.
For every eyewitness report of a glowing object or alien spacecraft
making a crop circle at night, there is another eyewitness report of a
violent wind which flattens out a circle in broad daylight.5 And there are
now numerous articles claiming that the phenomenon is generated by
"earth energies" which determine the location and shape of each crop
circle. The theory relies on dowsing results. Nonsense? Possibly; but
Terence Meaden, the arch-enemy of intelligence-oriented theories, has
begun using dowsing himself, theorizing that "the metal-rod movement of
the dowser may be related to a reaction to the minor changes in the local
magnetic field of the soil induced by the plasma vortices and their fast-
spinning fields."6 Whatever the validity of such claims (and they need to
be tested!), they add further complications to cereology.
I hope these examples have served to shred the belief that all the
evidence points in one direction. Hoax theorists point to the Bratton
hoax, an embarrassing but quickly detected hoax perpetuated on one of
1990's surveillance groups; alien-intelligence theorists point to eyewitness
reports and the humming noises; vortex theorists point to other eyewit-
ness reports, and the humming noises; earth-energy theorists point to
dowsing results, and the humming noises; and everyone points to every-
one else as terrible examples of interpretation of data.
So we have a complex situation. That's nothing new; it's life. But
there is an illuminating way to describe the kind of complexity that reigns
now. I borrow from Thomas Kuhn's well-known work The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions7 in suggesting that cereology is a pre-paradigm
science. Kuhn defines a "paradigm" as an "implicit body of intertwined
theoretical and methodological belief that permits selection, evaluation, and
criticism" (17). More briefly, a paradigm is a way of thinking which
unifies a scientific discipline. So far, that's exactly what cereology lacks.
It consists of a mass of disparate observations and a few theories, none
of which explain very much. The absence of a paradigm is beautifully
illustrated by two very different interpretations of what may be an eye-
witness report of a quintuplet formation being made. On July 13, 1988,
according to Circular Evidence, a woman saw "a large, golden, disc-shaped
object within [a] cloud" which emitted "a bright white parallel beam...from
the bottom of the disc at an angle of roughly 65o [which] shone across
the sky towards Silbury Hill" (p. 115.) Delgado and Andrews imply that
an alien spacecraft used an energy beam to inscribe the formation.
Terence Meaden, on the other hand, writes, "On 13th July 1988, a lady
was eyewitness to a hollow pencil-shaped tube (not a beam) of light which
reached from cloud to ground for an observed period of a couple of
minutes. A huge volume of the cloud, which was at 4000 feet, appeared
electrified."8 One event, one witness; two interpreters, two "facts"; no
paradigm.
So how are cereologists to conduct pre-paradigm science? Kuhn
writes, "In the absences of a paradigm or some candidate for a paradigm,
all of the facts that could possibly pertain...are likely to seem equally
relevant. As a result, fact-gathering is a far more nearly random activity
than the one that subsequent scientific development makes familiar." (15)
This accurately describes how matters stand as of this writing. The
sensible thing to do is to repeat history, i.e. gather as many observations
as possible, omnivorously, excluding nothing. There should be routine
data collection with IR cameras, geiger counters, magnetometers, plant DNA
assays, weather stations, and so on. Good photos and accurate measure-
ments need to be taken; even dowsing results and unusual physical sensa-
tions should be assiduously recorded. And everything should be pub-
lished. Some sets of observations may not be deemed relevant in the
future--that is the risk of pre-paradigm science--but we owe it to future
researchers and historians to bequeath them as rich a storehouse of data
as we can.
We could be doing better on this score. As of this writing, meas-
urements and positional data of both English and North American forma-
tions are both scarce and of uneven quality. Instrumental experiments
are rarely performed. In addition, poor organization and political battles
impede the release of what data does exist. Michael Green is sadly right
when he notes that "inordinate professional jealousy and commercial rival-
ry...has unfortunately marked the study of the subject to date, and has
led to a hoarding of essential information."9 For example, the meteorolo-
gists are sitting on their data, partly because they're unwilling to let
their opponents have it. The alien-intelligence theorists are also sitting
on their data, partly because they feel reluctant to give away the product
of many hours of hard work. Neither concern is justified. Researchers
are responsible only for the quality of their data, not for what others do
with it. It seems to me that anybody who thinks his data will help his
opponents more than it will help him is in an unenviable position, as far
as his theory is concerned. And to sit on data is effectively to waste the
work that went into its collection. The CCCS (Centre for Crop Circle
Studies) is trying to overcome these problems, and we should wish them
the best of luck. Steady but polite pressure from Americans may help,
too.
Two things are necessary, over and above performing the research:
a smoothly functioning network funneling data toward publication, and the
attitude that information should be shared with the community to promote
further research. Secrecy and mercantile considerations serve only to
gum up the works, especially at this fragile stage. It would be best if
history could record that information was freely and generously shared in
these difficult early days. A 1991 report by Chris Rutkowski and other
members of the NAICCR (North American Institute for Crop Circles Re-
search) beautifully exemplifies this attitude. It lists 46 cases of ground
markings in 1990, about thirty of which appear to be English-style crop
circles. It provides formation types, lay rotations, dates, sizes, and
approximate locations. (I am now writing a review of it, which I anticipate
will appear in the May 1991 issue of the Mufon UFO Journal.) I hope
other cereologists will consider its example well.
After obtaining data, cereologists will just have to theorize as
carefully and responsibly as they can, and dare to be wrong. Francis
Bacon writes, "Truth emerges more readily from error than from confu-
sion."10 This maxim strikes me with particular force when I contemplate
the meteorologists' corpus of research. I think its basic thesis is in
error, yet even the few the scraps of data the meteorologists publish are
more useful than the typically haphazard observations offered by people
whom I think are closer to the mark. Organized error can be re-organ-
ized into truth.
2. Non-Human Intelligence?
2001: A Space Odyssey seems less science-fictional than it did in
1968, now that artificial constructions of an anomalous nature are appear-
ing repeatedly around the world. Most of the major researchers in cere-
ology are convinced that human beings are not making them, because they
cannot figure out what human device, however sophisticated, could pro-
duce all of the observed effects and remain undetected for so long. I am
inclined to agree with them, though I would add that it is always risky to
underestimate the ingenuity of our own species. I suspect that the
possibility of a fabulously intricate hoax, however slight, keeps a lot of
cereologists awake at nights. Perhaps worrying about the hoax theory is
one way of worrying about the implications of the circles not being hoax-
es.
Some researchers, primarily the meteorologists, believe that the
circles are produced by a natural phenomenon that we have only now
begun to notice. Many people find this unconvincing. Nature can indeed
produce fabulously intricate structures, like us, but I have never seen it
do so both overnight and on such a vast scale. And I find it difficult to
ascribe the rapidly increasing complexity of the shapes to natural forces,
which typically change slowly when they change at all.
By elimination, I have become sympathetic to non-human intelligence
theories--as I suspect many of my readers will be also. There is some
slight anecdotal evidence for such theories; NAICCR's report on ground
markings notes, for instance, that 4 of its 46 listed cases have UFO sight-
ings associated with them. Anecdotal evidence is notoriously difficult to
use, however, so I will not appeal to it in my analysis.
Let us suppose--it is still more or less an outright guess--that the
crop circles are the products of a non-human intelligence, and explore the
implications of that thesis. It will be fun to do so, if nothing else. The
rest of this essay will be devoted to that undertaking.
It is possible, as I have remarked elsewhere,11 that the formations
are the visible side-effect of some deliberately directed physical process,
the way tire tracks and footprints are. At present, there is virtually
nothing that can be said about this important theory. Discussion only
becomes possible when one hypothesizes that the formations are supposed
to mean something, either to their creators or to ourselves. And it is to
this possibility that I will devote most of my attention.
If we want to try to decode the circles, we are faced with gigantic
problems at the very outset. Typically, when we receive messages from
human intelligences, we have some amount of shared background to draw
upon in decoding them. Shared language is obviously the most useful
background; but if that is absent, there are usually others, such as
shared physical environment, shared needs, shared knowledge of history,
shared interests, shared physiologies. Not knowing Arabic, I can still
guess that an Arab with me in a souk is hungry if he looks at me and
mimics the act of eating.
But we may share nothing with an alien intelligence. At any rate,
we can presume nothing.12 We cannot presume similar sensory equipment
or physical needs; we cannot presume similar evolutionary conditions; we
cannot even presume corporeal bodies or a sense of self. I could go on
and on about the radical uncertainty involved. To cut a long discussion
short, it comes down to this: we must guess, just plain guess, that they
are like us in some ways, and proceed accordingly. In writing about
decoding a hypothetical alien message, Lewis White Beck argues that "we
must guess that it is a message, guess what it says, and then try to see
if the signal can convey that message."13 For example, we could guess
that the dimensions of the circles encode mathematical relationships such
as pi and e, and search to see if such numbers can be found in a sys-
tematic way. Or we could guess that certain logical relationships are
being implied, and search for the most basic ones, such as transitivity
and hierarchy. Or it could be posited that the spatial locations of the
circles relative to each other are related to spatial distances elsewhere,
such as between stars. The chances of picking the wrong message are
high, but Bacon's dictum about truth still applies.
3. The Problem with "Intelligence"
I will dare to be wrong later in this essay, but I want to make a
remark about "intelligence" first. The debate over the crop circles can
all too easily polarize into two camps, intelligent versus non-intelligent
causation. But the entire debate could be off the mark. The
phenomenon's cause may not be "blind nature", but it may not be intelli-
gence the way we know it, either. If it's aliens, they might be far smart-
er than us in some ways, but dumb as bricks in others. Or suppose the
circlemaker is Gaia--an intelligence resulting from complex interactions in
the biosphere of the planet? Or, the combined psychic interactions of the
human race? Or a natural phenomenon which is being manipulated by
such psychic interactions? Farfetched ideas, to be sure, but so is the
phenomenon. As my colleague Dennis Stacy has repeatedly warned me in
correspondence, thinking along rigid "p or not-p" lines can overlook
fruitful areas of inquiry. An arrow flying in a straight line can still miss
the target.
Also, it is well to remember that all of the words denoting "intelli-
gent beings" in English were designed to refer to exactly one species:
Homo sapiens of Earth. All English words denoting "intelligent non-human
beings" are negatives: "alien" is rooted in the Sanskrit antara, which
means merely "other", and "extra-terrestrial" means "not from Earth." In
terms of thinking about alien intelligence, our language is as limited as
the counting system which calls all quantities above five "many."
However, I will guess an intelligence not altogether different from
ours, simply because it is the easiest for us to think about. It is as
reasonable a place to start as any.
Of course, the problem of decoding would still be daunting. To
manage it, we can make more guesses: perhaps the circlemakers have
already observed us and know something about us. They may have
guessed that our minds will leap to certain guesses, and attempted to play
to our predilections. (Such double-guessing could someday tell us quite a
bit about them.) As Cipher A. Deavours points out, aliens ought to have
some interest in developing codes designed to reveal rather than conceal
information.14 Decoding could be orders of magnitude easier if the cir-
clemakers have taken our ways of decoding into account. We may be
seeing our humanness being filtered through alien consciousness and
played back at us.
Of course, the simplest way of communicating with us would have
been to use our own symbols, or to use something readily comprehensible
to us, like groups of circles corresponding to the prime numbers. The
fact that we have not readily understood the circles suggests a number of
possibilities: we have not really tried yet; there is no message; there is a
message, but one whose content is not directed at us; the entities are so
profoundly different from us that they cannot figure out what we would
find easily accessible; they have more subtle motives than straightforward
communication; they have decided to dispense with easy formalities and
want us to think hard, perhaps with the implied lure that the reward will
be worth the effort. I find the first the most preferable, since so little
has been done by way of attempts at decoding. In any case, it's reason-
able to guess that something complex and multileveled is either happening
or being communicated.
4. A Guess: Are the Crop Circles A Symbol System?
All this said, I will now risk being wrong in a major way. I will
argue that we are indeed looking at a symbol system. The shapes seem to
have a certain "symbolicity" (see Colin Andrews' catalog, Appendix I.) I
don't necessarily mean that they are a phonetic alphabet like English; I
mean something more like pictorial codes or schematics. However, I shall
have to be rather vague about what I mean by the word "symbol." The
most specific definition I can offer is "a mark which means something to a
group of people, by convention." For there can be many different kinds
of symbols. A symbol can be a mark with exactly one referent; for exam-
ple, there is a certain schematic which signifies exactly one kind of tran-
sistor. Or it can be a mark amenable to different interpretations, like the
color red in the Soviet flag (it means revolutionary political possibilities
to some, raw tyranny to others.) Or it can be a mark which functions in
a language, meaning little in itself but contributing to a total meaning.
For example, the physical mark "key" contributes in a certain way to the
sentence "Where are my car keys?" and in a different way to "The key to
the treasure is there." It seems to me that the circles could be symbols
in any of these ways (and there are many more possible ways.) I tend to
gravitate toward the third, language-oriented kind of symbolicity, but I
don't wish to exclude the others. My intention is to spark a rich debate
by opening up possibilities, not to truncate debate by closing them off.
To a lot of people, the formations "feel" like a symbol system. And
they do have broad structural elements in common with human symbol
systems (which, it must be pointed out, may not be much of a basis for
comparison.) Like many human symbol systems, they can be broken down
into certain recurring basic shapes--the circle the line, the rectangle, the
ring, the curved arc, and so on. These elements are their "strokes." If
the formations are complex, they are complex by the accumulation of pre-
existing elements, not the creation of new elements (though each summer
does bring some new elements.)
Like human symbol systems, the crop circles present enough variety
to suggest the possibility of reference to a large number of objects or
ideas. If we saw only three formations repeated over and over, we would
probably be more inclined to think them artistic or cultural icons, or
natural artifacts, rather than members of a linguistic or representational
system.
Like human symbols, their variety remains within limits; of 1990's
numerous single and double dumbbells, no two are alike, but all are
recognizably part of a class. It's a bit like the way the English letters
b,d,p,q,c, and o form a recognizable class. The Egyptian hieroglyph for
"bird" would stick out and look very strange in that class, and indeed it
would not belong anywhere in the alphabet. As would the letter "b" look
very odd, if claimed to be a Chinese ideogram.
The "variety within limits" argument is important for another rea-
son. The appearance of "scrolls", rectangles, and triangles suggests that
there is no physical limitation to the kind of shapes that can be created.
If a short rectangle can be made, so can long ones to form lines, and the
scrolls suggest that irregular lines can be drawn "freehand", as it were.
The fact that the formations seem to vary within boundaries seems to
suggest a defined and ordered system.
Of course, there are problems with the argument, such as that the
formations bear little obvious spatial relationship to each other the way
human symbols usually do. One is also hard-pressed to group the weirdly
curvy "scroll" formations as belonging to the same system as the highly
angular double-dumbbells; perhaps the scrolls really are mistakes or
doodles. Or perhaps the only message being conveyed is "Watch this
space, and be here next summer." Humorists have also suggested alien
art galleries and alien advertising. My guesses may more wrong than I
can imagine. But for all that, I think it is not crazy to guess that we are
looking at a symbol system, not random squiggles.
It just may be possible to start grouping 1990's new formations into
classes. Such attempts are highly arbitrary by their nature, conditioned
by the viewer's predispositions (as are readings of Rorschach inkblots),
but the attempt is worth making. It would be interesting to see what
groupings other people make. Colin Andrews' catalog (see Appendix A)
lists 65 formation types (one is a known hoax, so I don't count it.) I can
derive the following classes from studying Colin's catalogue:
(Numbers refer to the formation number in the catalog)
Single dumbbells (21, 22, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 36, 55)
Double-dumbbells (34, 35, 54)
Thetas (40, 41, 49, 50)
Plain circles with satellites (3, 5, 6, 17, 43, 52)
Ringed circles (10, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 38, 64)
Saturns (7, 8, 11, 32, 37, 46)
Rings (44)
Scrolls (45, 48, 65)
Triangles (47, 63)
Sports (unique formations, i.e. 26, 39, 53, 58, 59, 62)
To explain my nomenclature: I call the "thetas" so because their split
central circle reminds me of the Greek letter "O" (I imply no actual con-
nection to Greek.) The "saturns" remind me of Saturn with its moons
(again, no connection to the planet implied, though it's not impossible that
there be one.) I take the name "scroll" from The Crop Circle Enigma
(which shows pictures of them on p. 156.) I name the "sports" so be-
cause a "sport" in biology is a unique object.
Interestingly enough, it may be that the formation types are also
roughly contiguous in space. The hand-drawn map reproduced in Issue 2
of The Cereologist (p. 3) shows that all three double-dumbbells appeared
quite close to each other, in fact within an area five kilometers long and
two kilometers wide, just north of Alton Barnes. At least six of the ten
single dumbbells appeared in the Longwood Estate area, just southwest of
Winchester. The four thetas may fall in a line (it will take much better
data to verify this.) Two of the scrolls are quite close to each other, at
Beckhampton.
The spatial-relationships idea is being pursued vigorously by
Harvey Lunenfeld of East Northport, New York. We've been trying to
obtain positional data for as many of the formations as possible, in order
to create a computerized database. Harvey and his son Randy are now
configuring sophisticated mapping software which will facilitate the search
for spatial relationships, and also for correlations with other types of
data. So far we've been obtaining our positional data from thumbnail
deduction from photographs and other available evidence. The job will
become much easier once we gain access to satellite imagery good enough
to show exactly where the formations are. Access to some of the English
databases would also help greatly, of course.
Allow me to call attention to the fact that certain elements recur in
different contexts. The triangle's "F" is much like the shapes jutting out
>from all three double dumbbells. (Could it be significant that none of the
single dumbbells have such shapes?) The other triangle's flanking shapes
are very much like the double rectangles on many of the single dumbbells
(and, note, none of the double dumbbells.) One simple circle has a three-
fingered shape jutting out of it which looks almost exactly like the one
attached to the Allington Down (more precisely, East Kennett) double
dumbbell. Some of the single dumbbells and the theta formations have
partial arcs as components. The saturns are a combination of plain circles
with satellites and ringed circles. This evident combination and recombi-
nation of elements makes it plausible to suppose that there is some form
of "grammar" ruling their placement.
It may be possible to work out the properties of the grammar
without understanding the meaning of the symbols. One way to do this is
to compare groups of symbols to each other, isolating consistent statistical
similarities and differences. For example, if the ratios of the areas of the
two circles in single dumbells compares in some consistent way to the
ratios of the lengths of the forks to their circles, that might indicate a
meaningful element of language. This particular example is mathematically
oriented, but other strategies are feasible, too: one could compare the
spatial orientation of the thetas to that of all of the other groups, or
compare the length of formations to their compass orientations. It is an
encouraging fact that cryptographers are frequently able to decode
messages whose plaintext is written in a language they do not know very
well. Deavours writes,
It is of interest that codes can often be solved where
the underlying language of the plaintext is not known
for certain. One can also gain an immense knowledge of
the structure and character of a communication without
understanding a single thought expressed therein. For
intergalactic communication, this offers much hope that
we may succeed in deciphering what is received (203-
204.)
As evidence that meaning is not crucial to decipherment, Deavours men-
tions that
the great French cryptanalyst, Georges Painvain, of
World War I fame, solved many complex ciphers of the
German General Staff but possessed so little knowledge
of German that he was unable to translate the deci-
phered text after solution (209).
Not knowing the language need not impede understanding its shape and
general characteristics. Such research could yield one great practical
benefit down the road: upon receiving a Rosetta Stone, we would then be
able to learn and read the language that much more quickly, perhaps well
enough to begin using it ourselves. In the touchy and uncertain days
immediately following alien contact, such an advantage might be very
welcome indeed. This makes it all the more imperative to facilitate re-
search with an effective network of data distribution.
Figuring out what the grammar's shapes represent (if grammar it is,
of course) will be tough, because the formations appear to lack all social
context. There is no "Rosetta Stone" permitting them to be compared to a
known symbol system; there are no objects helpfully put next to them to
show what they depict or schematize; there are no appreciative alien enti-
ties in view admiring them as art. Quite the contrary, they are placed
wordlessly (so to speak) on this planet's largest equivalent of a blank,
lined sheet of paper. But we should try. We can attempt to restore the
context, or at least make one. Our guesses might be correct.
But a worrying philosophical issue intrudes here. Let us say we
guess a message--a meaning--and find out that the circles transmit it.
Can we be sure that we have truly decoded the circles? Perhaps not.
Humans are infinitely resourceful at seeing patterns that are not there.
Edward R. Tufte, in his engaging book "Envisioning Information", reprints
a picture of a rock in southern Massachusetts which is covered with
ancient hieroglyphs.15 Next to the picture he reproduces ten hand-drawn
sketches of the markings, made between 1680 and 1854. Not only are the
sketches strikingly different, but different scholars have triumphantly
adduced totally different origins for the glyphs: Scythian, Phoenician,
Runic, Viking, and Algonquin, to name a few. Tufte cheerfully damns this
as "scholarship of wishful thinking" (73). I am not sure if there is any
way to solve the problem, other than asking the circlemakers what they
mean (and even that might not help as much as we think it would.) My
reaction is just to say, "Let us see what we can guess and find, then see
which guess convinces the most people, and deal with the philosophical
problems as they arise."
The lack of context is significant in another way. It is a truism
that symbols mean something only in a social context. If these shapes
have a concrete and socially-based meaning to their creators, how are
they changed by being engraved on fields on another planet? Suppose
that the magnificent Fawley Down pictogram (a "theta" formation) refers to
a Rigellian action which human physiologies cannot duplicate? If we know
nothing of Rigellian physiology, we'll never figure that out, will we? And,
more importantly, how does the meaning of the symbol change when it is
stamped, without context or explanation, in a field of wheat near Winches-
ter, England? What does the symbol mean at that particular place and
time, if anything? Not, I feel sure, just to tell us what Rigellians do.
What would a glowing Coca-Cola advertisement mean in a Brazilian rainfor-
est where Coke is not available? Anything but "Buy Coke." Perhaps it
would be (meant as, read as) an ironic statement on the extravagance of
modern advertising. But if a picture of that advertisement in the rainfor-
est was reproduced as an advertisement by Coke, the sign would again
mean "Buy Coke"--but also something more, like "Coke is, or should be,
available literally everywhere." Meaning is an event with multiple layers,
most if not all of which are radically and subtly dependent on context.
It is attractive to suppose that the formations are a sort of logical
puzzle, like an IQ test. This would seem to make their context internal
rather than external; the shapes would define their own context. But this
argument is misleading. If one was presented with an IQ test without
knowing what it was, or being shown how to work with the shapes pre-
sented, it would be meaningless. The very idea of the logical puzzle is
socially constructed. The Soviet psychologist A. R. Luria has shown that
it is almost impossible to convey the idea of the syllogism to normally
intelligent but nonliterate people. When Russian peasants were given the
syllogistic puzzle In the Far North, where there is snow, all bears are
white. Novaya Zembla is in the Far North and there is always snow there.
What color are the bears?, a typical response was, "I don't know. I've
seen a black bear. I've never seen any others. Each locality has its own
animals." From their point of view, it was absurd to try to figure out the
color of bears with logic, since bear coats are something you see, not
deduce.16 The ideas of the logical puzzle and the transitive relationship
are evidently learned, not inherent to human intelligence. If there is a
logical pattern, it would be nothing simple to figure out, for the first
thing we would have to do is figure out what has to be figured out. And
that would almost certainly require the discovery of some external context,
like an alien culture's way of thinking and reasoning. Unless, of course,
the circlemakers have tried to use some human mode of reasoning.
There are an enormous number of possibilities. A reading of the
circles will not come easily. A lot will depend on the ability to make
inspired guesses, and convince other people that they are right. The
rest will depend on good data, good analytical tools, and vast amounts of
hard work. But the potential payoff ought to make any linguist salivate.
The field has ample room for the next Chompollon.
5. About Unconvincing Guesses
Having put forward a guess (of a sort), let me say something about
unconvincing guesses. I have seen quite a few articles purporting to
decode individual formations to reveal some definite meaning, like "Kha-
wah" ("life giver")17 or "This is a dangerous place to camp."18 The
typical move in such guesses is to declare that the formation contains
letters in an ancient language or elements from an obscure symbol system,
and decode it by translating those letters/elements into English. I find
these kinds of guesses uniformly unconvincing. If you compare the cir-
cles to any language or symbol system, you'll score a number of hits.
Compare them to English, and you'll find F's, O's, C's, Q's, I's, M's, and
W's. Compare them to American traffic symbols, and you can find resem-
blances to stoplights (i.e. three circles in a row), dashed lines on the
road, and "no entry" signs. This second example is deliberately ludi-
crous, but it illustrates the "Rorschach" quality of the phenomenon: one
can see almost anything in it. Simple resemblance alone, let alone highly
approximate resemblance, is a very shaky ground for decoding.
It is also very common for such arguments to ignore the fact that
the supposed "letters" and 'symbols" are stuck onto unrelated shapes,
and otherwise distorted and garbled. It doesn't make sense to use an
alphabet or symbol system by making it nearly unrecognizable. Finding a
highly resemblant set of symbols could change the whole game, but to my
knowledge, no one has accomplished this, not even Michael Green in his
ambitious attempt to link the circles to designs on ancient Roman and
Celtic stone carvings.19 Green finds several interesting similarities
between ancient carvings and modern crop circles, but it's not enough to
establish a meaningful link, since hundreds of formations have appeared
in the last few years, and there are hundreds of Roman/Celtic shapes
which look nothing like any known crop circle. More problematically, the
Roman/Celtic shapes are typically combinations of circles, so the probabili-
ty of a few rough matches by pure chance is very high. And, of course,
even if the Celts were imitating crop circles seen thousands of years ago,
their interpretations of them ("cosmic egg", "sun god", etc.) cannot be
known to be the same as the intentions of the entities who generated
them. They could be completely off the mark, as far as the circlemakers
are concerned. The historical link would be exciting and valuable if
Green could establish it more strongly, but it would be of little direct
assistance in interpretative efforts.
In sum, most would-be "decoders" look at a few formations, ignoring
all the rest; they make no attempt to resolve diverse shapes into a sys-
tem; they fail to consider disconfirming evidence. Instead, they Rorschach
their theories into a small part of the phenomenon, and find exactly what
they want to find.
Of course, no one can avoid Rorschaching into the circles. I myself
have read my hopes, beliefs, and professional biases into them. But one
must at least try to consider the whole phenomenon and think about it
systematically. Error may then be productive error. Anything else is
only confusion.
6. The Future Looks Back on the Present: A Hopeful Guess
There is far more that could be said, but I am probably pushing
the limits of Mufon's printing budget with a paper of this size, and the
patience of my readers as well. I will close, then, by offering a hopeful
look at the present from the viewpoint of the future. Someday, there may
be a paradigm which explains the crop circles to everybody's satisfaction.
Then it will be difficult for people to see this strange and beautiful
phenomenon any other way. But historians will be fascinated by the pre-
paradigm writings of this era. To them our ways of seeing will look
untutored and naive, but also fresh and new--the words of children
seeing things for the first time. Despite their superior knowledge, they
may envy us, we who have the extraordinary opportunity of first sight.
Naivete is a rare gift. Let us use it well.
Notes
(1) R.M. Skinner, "A Seventeenth-Century Report of an Encounter with an
Ionized Vortex?" Journal of Meteorology, November 1990, p. 346. The
source is John Aubrey's Natural History of Wiltshire (publication date not
given.)
(2) John Haddington reports hearing and recording "a strange and beauti-
ful trilling noise" in a circle at Bishops Canning, 1990. See his "The
Wansdyke Watch", The Cereologist, issue 1 (Summer 1990), p. 15.
(3) David J. Reynolds, "Possibility of a Crop Circle from 1590." Journal of
Meteorology, November 1990, pp. 347-352. The text is Robert Plott's The
Natural History of Stafford-shire, Oxford, 1686.
(4) Plott, p. 15 (italics in original.) I am grateful to Carl Carpenter for
sending me a xerox of the relevant chapter of the book, pages 7-21.
(5) For examples of the former, see Delgado and Andrews' Circular Evidence
(Bloomsbury Press, 1989), pp. 179-190. For examples of the latter, see
Terence Meaden, The Circles Effect and its Mysteries (Artetech, 1989)
especially chapter 2.
(6) Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Circles Effect
(held at Oxford Polytechnic, June 23, 1990), p. 50. This has been reprint-
ed as Circles From the Sky. The April 1991 issue of the Mufon UFO
Journal contains a large bibliography which includes ordering information
for most of the books cited in this paper.
(7) University of Chicago Press, 1962.
(8) Proceedings, p. 39. The event is also discussed in The Circles Effect
and its Mysteries, p. 55.
(9) Michael Green, "The Rings of Time: The Symbolism of the Crop Circles."
In The Crop Circle Enigma (Gateway Books, 1990, ed. Ralph Noyes) p. 139.
(10) Quoted in Kuhn, p. 18.
(11) Michael Chorost and Colin Andrews, "The Summer 1990 Crop Circles",
Mufon UFO Journal, December 1990, pp. 3-14.
(12) Some people have tried to define what we can presume. Gregory
Benford: "The most extreme view one can take is to reject any category of
knowledge of the alien, declaring them all to be inherently anthropomor-
phic or anthropocentric, and flatly declare that the alien is fundamentally
unknowable" (26). Benford later goes on to suggest, though, that we may
be able to expand our categories to include alien ways of knowing: "We
can make ourselves greater. We can ingest the alien" (27). ("Aliens and
Unknowability: A Scientist's Perspective", in Starship, vol. 43, Winter-
Spring 1982-3, pp. 25-27.) On the other hand, Marvin Minsky argues that
alien intelligence is likely to resemble ours, because "every evolving intel-
ligence will eventually encounter certain very special ideas--e.g. about
arithmetic, causal reasoning, and economics--because these particular ideas
are very much simpler than other ideas with similar uses" (127). (Byte,
April 1985, pp. 127-138.) Speculation is useful for defining the problem,
but it's rather like Robinson Crusoe trying to do sociology.
(13) Lewis White Beck, "Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life." In Extraterrestri-
als: Science and Alien Intelligence, edited by Edward Regis, Jr. Cam-
bridge University Press, 1985.
(14) Cipher A. Deavours, "Extraterrestrial Communication: A Cryptologic
Perspective", in Extraterrestrials: Science and Alien Intelligence. pp. 201-
214. (Interestingly enough, the author's name is not a joke.)
(15) Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning Information. Graphics Press, Cheshire,
Connecticut, 1990.
(16) Luria's finding is discussed in Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The
Technologizing of the Word (New York: Methuen, 1982), pp. 52-53.
(17) Letter by Ernest P. Moyer, reprinted in Focus (Dec. 31, 1990), p. 16.
(18) Jon Erik Beckjord, broadside sheet, February 1991.
(19) Michael Green, "The Rings of Time: The Symbolism of the Crop Circles."
In The Crop Circles Enigma, Gateway Books, 1990, pp. 137-171.
About the Author
Michael Chorost was educated at Brown and the University of Texas at
Austin, and is now at Duke, working toward his Ph.D. in Renaissance liter-
ature and philosophy of language. His first article on the subject, "The
Summer 1990 Crop Circles", was coauthored with Colin Andrews and was
published in December 1990's Mufon UFO Journal. He has also authored
a bibliography of the phenomenon.
The author may be contacted at:
North American Circle
P.O. Box 61144
Durham, NC 27705-1144
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
EOF
--
-* Don Allen *- InterNet: dona@bilver.UUCP // Amiga..for the rest of us.
USnail: 1818G Landing Dr, Sanford Fl 32771 \X/ Why use anything else? :^)
UUCP: ..uunet!tarpit!bilver!vicstoy!dona 0110 0110 0110 Just say NO!
Illuminati < MJ-12|Grudge|TLC|CFR|FED|EEC|Bush > WAR = "New World Order"
From dona@bilver.uucp Tue Jun 18 20:31:32 1991
From: dona@bilver.uucp (Don Allen)
Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranormal,sci.skeptic,alt.conspiracy,talk.religion.newage,misc.headlines,misc.misc
Subject: CROP CIRCLES: Bibliographical Update On CROP CIRCLES
Keywords: follow-ups to alt.alien.visitors
Date: 17 Jun 91 19:09:52 GMT
Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This information is presented for your persusal and is a continuation
of my policy of informing the public what is currently available. As
usual my *disclaimer* is simply to present the data and let you form
your own opinion(s). Please feel free to agree,disagree,discuss or
ponder :-)
As I do not have a great amount of time available to pursue follow-ups
exclusively, comments to me should be directed to dona@bilver.uucp
in mail.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The following text comes from the MUFONET BBS (1-901-785-4943):
------Begin Included Text -------------------------------------------
Circles of Note: Bibliography on the Crop Circles
Updated June 9, 1991
Michael Chorost
Bibliographies always look rather dry. However, a careful reader
can learn much from this one, since many of the entries have parentheti-
cal summaries attached to them. Also, a close look at the topics will
reveal the diversity of the crop circles phenomenon and the responses it
has gathered. Finally, the sections on books, magazines, and studies
include price and ordering information, where known.
I should note two sets of exclusions. First, I have not indexed
articles from journals devoted to cerealogy. Much of the best information
has been printed in their pages; back numbers can often be obtained by
writing to the editors. Second, I have tended to include newspaper arti-
cles only of particular interest or informativeness, such as ones reporting
circles in detail, non-English circles, or noteworthy points of view.
Inclusion in this bibliography does not imply endorsement.
I am indebted to my contacts and colleagues in England, Canada,
and the United States, who generously sent me many of the articles listed
here. I would be grateful to receive any corrections and additions, which
will be included in future updates. Contact me at:
Michael Chorost
North American Circle
P.O. Box 61144
Durham, NC 27715-1144
All items listed alphabetically by author.
Books
Circular Evidence. Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews. London: Bloomsbury
Press, 1989. 190 pp. US price $29.95 hardcover, $14.95 softcover. At
least three sources: (1) Phanes Press, P.O. Box 6114, Grand Rapids, MI
49516, tel. (800) 678-0392. (2) Arcturus Book Services, P.O. Box 831383,
Stone Mountain, Georgia, 30083-0023, tel. (404) 297-4624. (3) Trafalgar
Square, Vermont, NY, tel. (802) 457-1911.
Crop Circles: The Latest Evidence. Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews.
London: Bloomsbury Press, 1990. 80 pp. UK L5.99, US $13.95. Ordering
information as above.
The Controversy of the Circles. Paul Fuller and Jenny Randles. UK
L4.20. BUFORA, 103 Hove Avenue, Walthamstow, London.
Crop Circles: A Mystery Solved. Paul Fuller and Jenny Randles. London:
Robert Hale Ltd, 1990, 250 pp. UK L13.95, US $30.95 (from Arcturus Books,
see entry for Circular Evidence above.)
The UFO Report 1990. Edited by Timothy Good. Sidgwick & Jackson,
1990. See "The Celtic Cross", p. 91-94.
The Circles Effect and Its Mysteries. George Terence Meaden. Bradford-
on-Avon: Artetech Publishing Company, April 1990 (2nd ed.) 116 pp. UK
L11.95. Order from Artetech, 54 Frome Road, Bradford-on-Avon, BA15 1LD;
tel. 02216 2482.
Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Circles Effect.
Edited by George Terence Meaden and Derek Elsom. Copyright TORRO-
CERES (Tornado and Storm Research Organization-Circles Effect Research
Group). 134pp. Conference held at Oxford Polytechnic on June 23, 1990.
Available from Artetech (see previous item) at UK L10.
Circles From The Sky. Edited by George Terence Meaden. The expanded,
hardcover edition of the Proceedings (see previous item.) 208 pp. UK
L14.99 from Souvenir Press, 43 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3PA.
The Crop Circle Enigma. Edited by Ralph Noyes. Bath: Gateway Books,
1990. 192 pp. $29.95 (note price increase.) At least four sources: (1)
The Great Tradition, 11270 Clayton Creek Road, P.O. Box 108, Lower Lake,
CA 95457, tel. (707) 995-3906. (2) New Leaf Book Distributing Co, 5425
Tulane Drive SW, Atlanta, GA 30336-2323, tel. (404) 691-6996. (3) Inland
Book Co, P.O. Box 261, East Haven, CT 06512, tel. (203) 467-4257. (4)
Bookpeople, 2929 Fifth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710, tel. (415) 549-3030.
Physical Traces Associated With UFO Sightings. Compiled by Ted Phillips,
edited by Mimi Hynek. Northfield, Illinois: Center for UFO Studies, 1975.
The Natural History of Stafford-shire. Robert Plott (spelled "Plot" on title
page.) Oxford, 1686. (Pages 7-21 describe what may be 17th-century
fairy rings or crop circles.)
Passport to Magonia. Jacques Vallee. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co, 1969.
(See "Rings In The Moonlight", pp. 31-39, on "UFO nests.")
Periodicals
Circles Phenomenon Research (CPR) Newsletter. Editor: Pat Delgado. 1-
year subscription (4 issues) $24.00 (but price may be reduced; write for
current information.) CPR Satellite Office, 117 Ashland Lane, Aurora, OH
44202. Make checks payable to D.S. Rulison. (Sympathetic to theories of
non-human intelligence.)
UFO Newsclipping Service. Editor: Lucius Farish. 1-year subscription (12
issues) $55. Route 1, Box 220, Plumerville, Arkansas 72127. (Excellent
source for newspaper reports of crop circles worldwide.)
The Crop Watcher. Editor: Paul Fuller. 1-year subscription (6 issues) UK
L13.00 (overseas airmail price.) 3 Selborne Court, Tavistock Close, Romsey,
Hampshire SO51 7TY, England. (Sympathetic to the meteorological theory.)
The Circular. Editor: Bob Kingsley. 1-year subscription (4 issues) in-
cluded with membership in CCCS (Centre for Crop Circle Studies.) Over-
seas membership UK L15, US $33. Payable Visa/Access/Mastercard/Euro-
card. Write to Specialist Knowledge Services, St. Aldhelm, 20 Paul Street,
Frome, Somerset BA 11 1DX, U.K., or call (0373) 51777.
Journal of Meteorology. Editor: George Terence Meaden. 1-year overseas
subscription (10 issues) UK L55 surface, L65 airmail. 54 Frome Road,
Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, BA15 1LD, England. (The bastion of the
meteorological theory.)
The Cerealogist. Editor: John Michell. 1-year subscription (3 issues)
L7.50, US $18.00. Payable Visa/Access/Mastercard/Eurocard. Write to
Specialist Knowledge Services, St. Aldhelm, 20 Paul Street, Frome, Somerset
BA 11 1DX, U.K., or call (0373) 51777. (Closely associated with the CCCS.
Eclectic approach.)
The Swamp Gas Journal. Editor: Chris Rutkowski. For subscription
information, write to the editor at Box 1918, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
R3C 3R2. (Loosely associated with NAICCR--see "Studies"; runs stories on
Canadian crop circles.)
Mufon UFO Journal. Editor: Dennis Stacy. 1-year subscription (12 issues)
$25. 103 Oldtowne Road, Seguin, Texas 78155-4099. (Frequently runs
articles on crop circles, particularly North American ones.)
Articles
"Midwest Crop Circles." Erich A. Aggen, Jr. Mufon UFO Journal, no. 272
(December 1990), pp. 15-16. (Irregular crop circles near Odessa,
Missouri.)
"Circular Evidence." Colin Andrews. Mufon UFO Journal, no. 243 (July
1988), pp. 11-13. (Discussion of several 1987 formations.)
"Major Increase in Mystery Circles." Colin Andrews. Kindred Spirit (UK)
vol 1 no. 5 (Winter 1988-89) pp. 27-28.
"Crop Circles Appear in the U.S.S.R." Walt Andrus. Mufon UFO Journal,
no. 270 (October 1990), p. 13. (Oval, 35 by 45 meters; Krasnodar region.)
"The Thumb Prints of the Gods?" Anonymous. U.S. News & World Report,
Sept. 11, 1989. (Short item.)
"Prepare to Meet Thy Drought." Anonymous. Today, July 20, 1990.
(Suggests the multiple pictograms resemble the Sumerian language or
weather-map symbols.)
"Mystery Circles in Fukuoka." Anonymous. Asahi Evening News (Tokyo),
Sept. 28, 1990. (Two circles 12 km. E of Fukuoka City, Japan, found Sept.
17, 1990.)
"More Circular Evidence." Richard Beaumont. Kindred Spirit, vol. 1, no.
8, pp. 25-28. (Interview with Colin Andrews. Discusses electrical, psy-
chic, and historical events associated with the circles.)
"Crop Circles: The Mystery Deepens." Richard Beaumont. Kindred Spirit,
vol. 1, no. 12, pp. 32-37. (Summary of the key developments of the
Summer 1990 season, with aerial photos.)
"The English 'Circles' Mystery." Jon Erik Beckjord. UFO vol. 5, no. 6
(probably late 1990), pp. 9-13, 39. (Discusses personal visit to several
formations.)
"Possible Physical Mechanism for Producing Crop Circles." John Branden-
burg. Mufon UFO Journal, no. 276 (April 1991), pp. 10-11. (Suggests
microwave beams are responsible for flattening plants.)
"UFO Report to Farmers." George Brandsberg. Farm Profit, July-August
1975. (Discusses scorched patches and long swathes of sliced-off corn.)
"The Summer 1990 Crop Circles." Michael Chorost and Colin Andrews.
Mufon UFO Journal, no. 272 (December 1990), pp. 3-14. (Layering of
crops, EM effects, possibility of language. 10 photos, 3 diagrams.)
"Circles of Note: A Continuing Bibliography." Michael Chorost. Mufon UFO
Journal, no. 276 (April 1991), pp. 14-17. (This bibliography, as of April
1991.)
"Theses for a Pre-Paradigm Science: Cereology." Michael Chorost. To be
published in Mufon conference proceedings, July 1991. (Current state of
cereology; further theorizing on language hypothesis.)
"Erasmus Darwin on Cropfield Circles in 1789?: The Fairy-Ring
Connection." Mark Chorvinsky. Strange Magazine no. 6 (date unknown;
probably late 1990), p. 32. (Reprints Darwin's discussion of odd fairy-
rings; it is quite similar to Plott's account--see "Books.")
"UFO Mania Hits Odessa: Circles In Field Create Media Interest." Carol
Conrow. The Odessan (Odessa, Missouri), September 20, 1990, pp. 2-3.
(Discussion of Odessa crop circle in a field of sorghum.)
"Circles in Lowe Fields Stir Interest Across Nation." Carol Conrow. The
Odessan (Odessa, Missouri), September 27, 1990.
"The Whippingham Ground Effects." Leonard G. Cramp. Flying Saucer
Review, vol. 14, no. 3 (May/June 1968). (Extensive documentation of
straight and circular plant flattenings correlated with a reported UFO
sighting on July 10, 1967, near Newport, Isle of Wight.)
"The Circles: England's Greatest Unsolved Mystery." Sean Devney. UFO
Universe, July 1990, pp. 30-59. (Discussion of possible relationship to
Stonehenge.)
"Around and Around in Circles." Sally B. Donnelly. Time Magazine. Sept.
18, 1989, p.50. Letters of response in Oct. 9th issue, p. 14. (Overview of
the phenomenon; three color pictures.)
"Ever-Increasing Circles." Elisabeth Dunn. Telegraph Weekend Magazine
(UK), July 8, 1989, pp. 24-28. (Basic overview; good photographs.)
"Magical Mystery Tour." John Eccles. Sussex Express (UK), August 3,
1990. (Formation on Milton Street Farm, near Wilmington Priory.)
"Logic Flattens 'Corn Circle' Theories." James Erlichmann. Guardian (UK),
July 6, 1990, p. 24. (Reports Robert Cory's theory: "The phenomenon is
caused by the old-fashioned circular irrigation machine.")
"El Enigma Que Cayo Del Cielo." Hilary Evans. Ano Cero no. 2 (September
1990), pp. 50-55.
"Mysterious Circles in British Fields Spook the Populace." Craig Forman.
Wall Street Journal, Aug 28, 1989, p. A1. (Basic overview.)
"Squaring The Circles of Alien Visitors." Nigel Fountain. Guardian (UK),
August 1, 1990, p. 36. (Humor: "Stuff fluid dynamics, I want some
aliens.")
"Mystery Circles: Myth in the Making." Paul Fuller. International UFO
Reporter, May/June 1988, p. 4-8. (Supports meteorological theory;
presents two eyewitness cases of whirlwinds.)
"Weird Circles Puzzle Britons." Jacqui Goddard. The High Plains Journal
(Dodge City, Kansas), September 11, 1989, p. B1. (Basic overview.)
"Circles Run Rings Around Experts." Timothy Good. Hampshire Chronicle
(UK), Aug. 4, 1989. (Basic overview.)
"Circles in the fields inspire talk of UFO's." Maria Goodavage. USA Today,
November 15, 1990, p. 6A. (Short discussion of double-dumbbells.)
"Daylight Close Encounter." Stan Gordon. MUFON UFO Journal, July 1989,
pp. 18-21. (Discusses Pennsylvania UFO sighting and related circular
landing trace.)
"Retrospective Investigation of a Possible Trace at Mt. Garnet". Holly
Goriss and Russell Boundy. UFO Research Australia Newsletter, March-
April 1981 (Vol 2. No. 2) pp. 4-6. (Investigates a 1977 ground marking
which looks like a crude quintuplet.)
"Farmer's Amazing Find in Cornfield." Richard Green. Chase Post (Lich-
field, UK), Aug. 9, 1990. (Chorley, Lichfield "cross" formation.)
"Crop Circles Create Rounds of Confusion." Wendy Grossman. Skeptical
Inquirer, vol. 14 no. 2 (Winter 1990), pp. 117-118. ("A genuine modern
mystery.")
"The Year of the Vajra." John Haddington. Link Up, Sept-Nov. 1990, p.
4-13. (Suggests dumbbells are Buddhist symbols; discussion of camera
failures.)
"If It Can't Be Explained, Women Ready To Listen." Bill Harlan. Rapid
City Journal (South Dakota), March 10, 1991. (Report circles in area to
Davina Ryszka of Custer, S.D., (605) 673-2818.)
"Round and Round They Go: New Crop of Oddities Has British Going in
Circles." Timothy Harper. The Detroit News, Oct. 2, 1989, p. 3A. (Basic
overview.)
"Going Round in Circles." Andrew Hewitt. Huddersfield Examiner (UK),
August 7, 1990. (Supports vortex theory, dismisses hoax theory.)
"Taking A Turn Around The Circles." George Hill. The Times (UK), July
27, 1990, p. 16. (Attack on uncritical media approaches to phenomenon.)
"Beware of the Supernatural." Juliet Hughes. Wiltshire Gazette (UK),
August 9, 1990. ("If the crop circles prove to be meteorological phenome-
na, then all the more glory to God.")
"England's Puzzling Crop Circles: The Shape of a Mystery." J. Antonio
Huneeus. New York City Tribune, 2 parts: May 3 and 10, 1990 ("Science"
section.) (Discusses history, and hoax and meteorological theories.)
"A Sighting in Saskatchewan." J. Allen Hynek and Jacques Vallee, in The
Edge of Reality (Appendix A). The Henry Regnery Co., 1975. (Discusses
Canadian UFO sighting and related circular flattened areas.)
"Experts Can't Square Explanations of Circles." Gregory Jensen. Wash-
ington Times, July 27, 1990. Page A1. (Reports the Blackbird hoax inci-
dent. Photo of one of the pictograms.)
"Round and Round in Circles." Dianne Kenny. Global Link Up, December
1988/Feb. 1989, pp. 4-7. (Overview, theories.)
"Corn Circles and an Artful Explanation." Miles Kington. The Independ-
ent (UK), Sept. 5, 1990, p. 20. (Humor: "I would surmise that Wiltshire is
a very out-of-town gallery for some galaxy.")
"A Rare Circle for Skeptics." Marek Kohn. Weekend Guardian (UK), Aug.
18, 1990, p. 17. (Skeptical discussion of the phenomenon.)
"The Corn Circles Riddle." Idina Le Geyt. Share International vol 9, no.
3 (April 1990), pp. 17-19. (Focuses on paranormal events associated with
the circles.)
"Spherical Sounds? Zounds!" Eugenia Macer-Story. Mufon UFO Journal,
April 1991, pp. 12-13.
"Strange Sighting at Silbury Hill." Richard Martin. Kindred Spirit (UK),
vol 1 no. 5 (Winter 1988-89), pp. 26-27. (Glowing lights associated with
circles.)
"Mysterious Ring in Field Gets Plenty of Attention." Tom McCoag.
Chronicle Herald (Halifax, Canada), April 22, 1991, p. A1. (Early 1991
formation in Amherst, Nova Scotia; 30-foot dia. ring, 12 inches wide.)
"More Puzzling Circles Found in Fields." Donna McGuire and Eric Adler.
Kansas City Star, September 21, 1990, p A1. (Map locates seven circles in
Kansas City region; discusses microburst theory.)
"Circles in the corn." Terence Meaden. New Scientist, June 23, 1990, 47-
9. (Argues for the plasma vortex theory.)
"The Beckhampton 'Scroll-Type' Circles, The Beckhampton 'Triangle', and
Strange Attractors." G. Terence Meaden, Journal of Meteorology (Trow-
bridge, U.K.), October 1990, pp. 317-320. ("The triangle is nothing other
than an imperfect circle." Useful for discussion of luminous tubes and
diagram of a scroll.)
"Crop Circles Explained???" Ernest P. Moyer. Insight, Sept. 24, 1990;
reprinted in Focus, December 31, 1990, p. 16. (Translates one double-
dumbbell to mean "Khawah", or "Eve, the life-giver.")
"And Now...Cornfield Circles in Australia!" Paul Norman. Flying Saucer
Review, vol. 35, no. 1 (March Quarter, 1990), pp. 7-8. (Briefly discusses
nine 1980's crop circles in Beulah, Victoria, between 3 and 16 feet in
diameter.)
"And More Cornfield Circles in Canada." Paul Norman. Flying Saucer
Review, vol. 35, no. 1 (March Quarter, 1990), pp. 8-9. (Briefly discusses
1989 circles between 6 and 24 meters in diameter in Manitoba; 2 photos.)
"Crop Revolution 10 Years On." Ralph Noyes. Country Life, July 6, 1989,
pp. 102-103. (Discusses White Crow, 1989's surveillance experiment.)
"Circular Arguments." Ralph Noyes. Mufon UFO Journal no. 258 (October
1989), pp. 16-18. (Discusses books, meteorological theory.)
"Farmers Fear Mysterious Vicious Circle." Nick Nuttall. The London
Times, June 23, 1990, p. 4. (Oxford Polytechnic conference.)
"L10,000 Reward." Terry O'Hanlon. Sunday Mirror (UK), July 22, 1990.
(Mirror offers reward for solution of mystery.)
"Mysterious Circles." Andrew Phillips. Macleans, Aug. 13, 1990, pp. 46-47.
(Short overview.)
"The Hertfordshire 'Mowing Devil' Woodcut: A 17th Century Circle Report?"
Jenny Randles. UFO Times, no. 5 (January 1990), pp. 30-32. (Presents a
1678 woodcut showing a devil "mowing" a pattern which Randles suggests
may be a crop circle.)
"Shedding New Light on Mystery Crop Circles." Ross Reyburn. Birming-
ham Post (UK), August 16, 1990. (Interview with Jenny Randles.)
"Scientist Tells How He Squared A Corn Circle." Amit Roy. The Sunday
Times (UK), July 1, 1990, p. 4. (Discussion of meteorological theory.)
"Swirled Landing Trace?" Carol and Rex Salisberry. MUFON UFO Journal,
no. 264 (April 1990), pp. 3-7. (A Gulf Breeze crop circle.)
"Measuring the Circles." Michael T. Shoemaker. Strange Magazine no. 6
(date unknown; probably late 1990), pp. 34-35, 56-57. (Critical review of
current theories.)
"Did They Have Visitors?" Richard Simon. Fate, vol. 44, no. 2 (February
1991), pp. 66-69. (46-foot circle in shallow grass, Millersburg, Ohio.)
"The Crop Circle Mystery." A. Robert Smith. Venture Inward, Jan/Feb
1991, pp. 12-16.
"Unidentified Farm Object Shakes State." Wes Smith. Chicago Tribune,
October 28, 1990, p.1. Reprinted as "Illinois Aflutter Over Unidentified
Farm Object" in Austin American-Statesman (Austin, Texas), November 14,
1990, p. D10. (Discusses 1990 crop circle in Milan, Illinois.)
"Field Of Dreams?" Dava Sobel. Omni, December 1990, pp. 59-67,121-128.
(Extended overview, slanted toward meteorological theory; many photo-
graphs.)
"Graffiti of the Gods?" Dennis Stacy. New Age Journal, Jan/Feb. 1991,
pp. 38-44, 103. (Extended overview, more balanced than Omni article;
many photographs.)
"River, Lake, and Creek." Michael Strainic. Mufon UFO Journal, March
1990, pp. 10-14. (Circles and UFO reports in British Columbia.)
"Corn Circle Experts in Plea for Action." Chris Tate. Salisbury Journal
(UK), July 27, 1989, p. 4. (British government not discussing the phe-
nomenon.)
"Hoping Some Furry Little Creatures Crop Up." Calvin Trillin. Syndicat-
ed newspaper column, August 13, 1990. (A humorous look at the circles.)
"Did a UFO Visit This Farm?" Lon Tonneson. Dakota Farmer, October
1990, p. 9. (Early Aug. 1990 "reversed question mark" in Leola, S.D.)
"Anatomy of a Corny Hoax." Simon Trump and Bill Mouland. Today (UK),
July 26, 1990, pp. 24-25. (Chronology of the Blackbird hoax.)
"Proposed Physical Measurements of Crop Circles." Michael Wales. Mufon
UFO Journal, March 1991, pp. 15, 23. (Suggestions for instrumented re-
search.)
Multiple stories, multiple authors, Fortean Times, issues 53 (Winter
1989/90) and 55 (sorry, date not known.) Issue 53 is entirely devoted to
the phenomenon, with articles by Bob Skinner, John Michell, Ralph Noyes,
G. Terence Meaden, Hilary Evans, and Bob Rickard. Issue 55 contains an
update, pp. 7-13, on 1989-1990 formations outside of Wiltshire.
"Das Ratsel im Roggen." Stern, #38 (Sept/Oct 1989), p. 250-1.
"Ein Phanomen Zieht Kreise." Esotera, December 12, 1989, p. 52-57.
"Los misteriosos y polemicos circulos aparecidos en los campos del Sur de
Inglaterra." !Hola!, date ?, p. 134-140.
Reviews
"Crop Circles in North America: The NAICCR Report." Michael Chorost.
Mufon UFO Journal, June 1991.
"A Crop of Circles." Circular Evidence and The Circles Effect and its
Mysteries. Derek Elsom. New Scientist, July 29, 1989, p. 58.
"They Never Yet Could Find My Measure." The Crop Circle Enigma.
Wendy Grossman. New Scientist, December 1, 1990, pp. 61-2.
Crop Circles: The Latest Evidence. Jerrold R. Johnson. Mufon UFO
Journal, March 1991, pp. 17-18, 23.
The Circles Effect and Its Mysteries, Circular Evidence, and Controversy
of the Circles. Ralph Noyes. Journal of the Society for Psychical Re-
search, vol. 56, no. 820 (July 1990), pp. 235-237.
The Crop Circle Enigma. Dennis Stacy. Mufon UFO Journal, March 1991,
pp. 16-17.
"Field Events." Circular Evidence. Alexander Urquhart. Times Literary
Supplement, August 4, 1989, p. 845.
Studies
"Circles Investigation." Colin Andrews. Released 1986. 19 pp. Presents
some data for the years 1975-1986, primarily dates and approximate loca-
tions. Discusses hoax theory and circles' relationship to tramlines. Cir-
cles Phenomenon Research, 57 Salisbury Road, Andover, Hampshire SP10
2LL, UK.
"A Sample Survey of the Incidence of Geometrically-Shaped Crop Damage."
Paul Fuller. Copyright 1988. 41 pp. Commissioned by BUFORA and
TORRO.
"North American Crop Circles and Related Physical Traces in 1990." Re-
leased February 1991. 18pp. Conducted by NAICCR (North American Insti-
tute for Crop Circle Research.) Presents data for 45 North American cases
in 1990, about 30 of which appear to be English-style crop circles.
NAICCR, 649 Silverstone Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2V8, Canada.
Television
(My thanks to Richard Benham and Paul Hicks for this information.)
Good Morning America--May 9, July 24, July 25, July 26 (all 1990). Cover-
age of the Blackbird surveillance operation and the hoax of July 24, 1990.
ABC Evening News--July 19, 1990. Coverage of double-dumbbells.
CBS Evening News--July 25, 1990. Coverage of Blackbird hoax.
Unsolved Mysteries--January 31, 1990. Overview of phenomenon and 1989
events. Reshown with update on September 12, 1990.
A Current Affair--August 27 and September 14, 1990. Latter show dis-
cusses Canadian crop circles and interviews Whitley Streiber about them.
Inside Edition--March 5, 1990.
20/20--September 21, 1990; 10-minute segment.
Miscellaneous
The Skyland bulletin board (Asheville, N.C.) has inaugurated an NACIRCLE
conference (#14.) Contains an online version of Mufon's December 1990
article by Chorost and Andrews, and a copy of this bibliography (which
will be updated regularly.) Sysop: Michael Havelin. Telephone (704) 254-
7800. 2400 baud, N-8-1. No charge.
"Out of the Prairie Comes Proof that a Higher Level of Communication Has
Arrived." Advertisement for Procomm Plus 2.0 (Datastorm Technologies
Inc.) Clever depiction of a crop circle shaped like a computer diskette.
Designer: Stephen Monaco. Ran in computer magazines starting Feb-Mar.
1991.
A recent Led Zeppelin album cover contains a photograph of the first
Alton Barnes double-dumbbell with a zeppelin's shadow over it.
The Koestler Foundation is offering a reward of L5000 for a documented
explanation of the crop circles. For information, write to The Koestler
Foundation, 484 King's Road, London SW10 OLF. Include a stamped ad-
dressed envelope.
CD-ROM bibliographic sources are beginning to index articles under "crop
circles.
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EOF
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