From: keith@cco.caltech.edu (Keith Allan Schneider)
Subject: Re: Crop Circles?
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 20:03:12 GMT

rutkows@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Chris Rutkowski) writes:

>In <3293@bcstec.ca.boeing.com> kuryakin@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Rick Pavek) writes:

>>Now one of my contentions is that people on the net are trying to 
>>debunk the phenomena by debunking the USENET messages.  Let's try
>>a different tack.

>>According to _Circular Evidence_ by Pat Delgado & Colin Andrews,
>>Phanes Press 1989 (yep, pre hoaxters) crop circles have been around
>>since the 1950's in Australia.  The hoaxters used a technique known
>>to break the stalks as the stalks don't bend.  Yet the stalks are
>>quite bent, permanently so.  They continue to grow that way.  They
>>don't straighten, and they lie in regular patterns.  There are
>>a variety of patterns, and (that's the patterns in the cereal, NOT
>>the shape of the circle...) a variety of theories are examined.

>>If you care to examine the book, and read it, you'll have a lot
>>more information.  If you base your knowledge on what you read on
>>the net, or in newspapers (or on just one book...) then you're
>>biased.  

>>If you read the book, drop me a note and we'll pick this discussion up
>>where we left off...


>Just a minute - don't be =too= hard on him, Rick.

>Colin Andrews is hardly the ultimate authority on crop circles.  He was
>caught along with all the other cerealogists by ploclaiming hoax
>circles genuine.  The trouble is that if you read only books about crop
>circles written by cerealogists with a particular theory or viewpoint,
>you'll get biased information or miss out on other information.

>The trouble is that in order to understand crop circle phenomena, you
>have to look at them from the perspective that they are special cases
>of the broader category of UGMs (unusual ground markings), including
>"burn marks", "tripod marks", holes, "saucer nests", etc.  Ted
>Phillips' excellent Catalogue of Physical Traces contains references to
>numerous UGMs INCLUDING crop circles, from hundreds of years ago, and
>around the world.

>What is unusual is that the popular version of crop circles that people
>are familiar with and grace the nice, glossy coffee table books is so
>predominant in southern England.  Serious researchers thought most
>circles and formations were hoaxes long before the Bower/Chorley hoax
>admissions, and long before Andrews and Meaden got burned.

>I agree with the lamentations that there is very litle accurate
>information on the subject being published, but that's because that's
>not what people want to hear or read.  Glossy pictures of "mysteries"
>are much more interesting than statistical analyses or quantifiable
>data about crop circles and other UGMs.

>Furthermore, there is good information available in the NET, but you
>have to look for it.  Sure, there's junk posted, too, but that's part
>of the phenomenon.  You have to use good judgement to sort out the
>wheat from the chaff (pun in context intended).
>  
I still say that all you have to do to convince everyone that aliens are making
these circles is to just catch the aliens in the act.  This shouldn't be
too hard, should it?  *I'll* be waiting for your videotape...

keith

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