NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/sci/math/14907

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-13 | 1.7 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!inmos!wraxall.inmos.co.uk!dyrham.inmos.co.uk!cath
Newsgroups: sci.math
From: [e-mail] (Catherine Barnaby)
Subject: Re: Bozos Synonymous
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: INMOS architecture group
References: <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 12:14:25 GMT
Lines: 30

There was a program on british television about crop circles
recently. I'll try and summarise...

Crop circles are not new, they have been noted way back, but
are only "trendy" recently. They are also a lot more common
than they used to be. There is a physicist who has done a lot
of work on them, and believes them to be due to the effects of
wind. There are lots of people who wander round with dousing
rods twitching, and others who feel the energies and colours
(not sure of the collective here). There are also a
number of people who go round faking them, and farmers who
make quite a bit of money charging #1 a person to go into
their field if it has one.

Crop circles are somewhat different to fairy rings: evidently
there are specific ways that the crop is laid down, with
the "swirls" and pretty patterns thus made being very important.
Forging a crop circle was described as being not-as-easy as one
might think.

The physicist came over as believing that the straightforward
circle, and the circle-with-a-number-of-smaller-circles-round-it
were the "natural" phenomena, with the wierder patterns being
fakes. However, all of the groups (physicist, dowsers, colour-
spotters...) diagnosed a circle as "real" when it had been
specially faked the night before by a group of faking experts.

Corn circles are big business!

catherine