Crop Circles

Hoaxes: Unless you are very new to the phenomena of crop circles you must realize that most if not all of the current rash of crop circles are done by hoaxers. These circle makers have appeared on numerous television programs, as well as other media, and clearly demonstrated how a small team can create quite complex patterns overnight without leaving any evidence that they were ever there. Many still doubt that there could be that many people out there willing to put that amount of time into doing these massive works. Although I have never done a circle myself, trust me if someone has artistic inclination and a canvas that huge available to them, they will come. Given human nature to be expressive and to expand upon what has come before I would rule out all complex patterns as man made. This would leave simple circles as the more likely candidates for non-hoaxes. Of course the fact that novice circle makers might indeed start out making a single circle to get the technique down has to be considered. So with all the hoaxes going on how can we hope to evaluate a true circle? Well let's look to the past.

Circle history:

Fairy Circles: Many stories in medieval literature make reference to pixie circles, elf circles or more commonly fairy circles. These circles are generally described as rings of heavy grass, mushrooms, or circles where nothing will grow where various “magical things” happen. Crop circle enthusiasts have pointed to these as being obvious examples of the crop circle phenomena. If we look beyond the fanciful stories we find out that fairy circles are a naturally occurring manifestation. Pictured below are true “fairy circles”.

Fairy circles are caused by a growth of fungus in the soil that expands in a circular pattern growing from a few inches to 60 feet across over a period of years. The fungus colony itself is not visible but its effects are. Accelerated growth of surface plants at the edges of the colony are often seen do to the release of nutrients, the opposite effect is usually found in the middle of the circle do to the lack of nutrients. At certain times of the year mushrooms sprout at the edge of the circle in order to spread spores to allow the colony to expand.

Mowing Devil: Generally considered to be the earliest documented case of a crop circle is the “mowing devil” pamphlet of 1678. The text describes “the Crop of Oat shew'd as if it had been all of a flame: but next Morning appear'd so neatly mow'd by the Devil or some Infernal Spirit, that no Mortal Man was able to do the like.” and includes the illustration below.

On the face this would appear to be a clear cut documented case of a crop circle and is usually depicted as such. If one is to look at the entire text of the document some other points can be made. The illustration does indeed show two concentric ovals being cut in the crop, but no mention of circles or any kind of pattern in the crop is mentioned in the text, only that it was “so neatly mow'd by the Devil or some Infernal Spirit, that no Mortal Man was able to do the like.”. Also the first half of the text focuses on a dispute between a crop mower and a farmer over the cost to cut the crop. When the farmer doesn’t like the price quoted by the mower,“the Farmer swore That the Devil should Mow it rather than He.” It is not clear who is behind the pamphlet, but it seems likely to be more about the dispute between the farmer and mower than what might have happened in the field.

Photographic history: The earliest crop circle photographs I could find, with few exceptions, seem to start around 1978. Photography has its roots in daguerreotypes invented in 1839 and the first affordable camera the Kodak “Brownie” was widely available by 1910. So what is the reason for the 60-120 year gap in the photographic evidence? Crop circle enthusiasts point out that crop circles are very hard to discover unless you walk right into them or view them from far above. Ok so with powered flights origin in 1903, and commercial and private flights being common by the 1930’s it seems like quite a gap to ignore.

Along the same lines as the strange gap in photographic evidence is the complete lack of crop circles appearing in artworks prior to the modern craze. It certainly would be an interesting enough subject for someone to witness and later paint. Again it could be claimed that crop circles are very hard to discover but think beyond viewing fields from aircraft. People have been going up in hot air balloons since 1783 and plenty of fields can be viewed from hills, mountains, castles and towers. So with literally thousands of years of artistic history at our fingertips no one has ever included a crop circle in a pastoral scene? So if crop circles are only products of the last 25 years and widespread hoaxing is a given, how can one hope to look at these occurrences objectively?

Well, you could investigate the phenomena yourself with these fine DVDs, books or just show your support with a T-shirt. And while you are gaining enlightenment you are helping MutantNation at the same, what could be better?