Psience Quest

Animal Reactions to Crop Circles

Lucy Pringle

Quote:You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. . . . The Sky is round, and I have heard that the Earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. . . . Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.

Black Elk (Oglala) (1863–1950)

No matter how dismissive skeptics may be about the volume of human and electrical anomalies, animal reactions and behavior are more difficult if not impossible to ignore, and so their behavior is critical to research into crop circles.

We know from the effects on pilots’ instruments that there is a vertical field of “energy” that extends to an unknown height above a crop circle; therefore it comes as no surprise that birds are affected. “Whilst sitting enjoying the food and the view of the stones of Avebury, a wood pigeon flew across the field from an easterly direction. Just outside the formation it seemed to almost hit a wall, making it veer suddenly, around the formation, to the north (it didn’t overfly it at all) and then it continued to fly to the west after its detour.”

Crop circles still seem bizarre to me. They seem needlessly destructive and disrespectful. I tend Howard's the idea that they're meant to signal to other aliens rather than humans. I tend to see most of the ufo phenomena as evidence that any aliens don't have any interest in respecting humanity. Some disagree with me but that's how I see it for the moment.

Do people here really think crop circles are genuine?

(2019-05-21, 07:03 AM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]Do people here really think crop circles are genuine?

I looked into the phenomenon when it first came into public awareness. Then there were theories of circles caused by vortices, unusual wind-conditions, and just possibly some mysterious intervention. I soon lost interest. Certainly in the UK these tend to appear close to locations such as Glastonbury or Avebury, places which attract people, and to me are just part of the ornamentation, the same as the window-dressing in the trinket-shops in such places.

Don't get me wrong. I love those places, and enjoy the festival atmosphere created by the gathering of people with a particular mindset. But as for crop circles - whatever the original phenomenon might have possibly been, nowadays it doesn't seem relevant, it is simply a cultural feature, the same as music festivals are a cultural feature.

I might add that Avebury is a site rather less spoiled than Stonehenge, and in this context has a particular feature, Silbury Hill which is a very ancient man-made mound, though it is fenced off, from the top one gains a view of surrounding fields, from which vantage-point one might admire the crop-circles should they appear.

(2019-05-21, 07:03 AM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]Do people here really think crop circles are genuine?

Some appear to be more real than others. Although I'm not super into it there's apparently certain aspects that exist in rel ones than fake ones. One of those being that fake ones are just grass or straw or whatever that's been crushed down wholesale as if something ran them over where as "rel" ones have each stalk bent in teh middle which is much more difficult to explain by simple things like people going out there with planks or vehicles. Animal effects are apparently another and supposedly strange radiation levels and/or scorch marks sometimes appear. But like I said I don't know the details that deeply though I do think some of them are likely real.

(2019-05-21, 05:45 PM)Mediochre Wrote: [ -> ]Some appear to be more real than others. Although I'm not super into it there's apparently certain aspects that exist in rel ones than fake ones. One of those being that fake ones are just grass or straw or whatever that's been crushed down wholesale as if something ran them over where as "rel" ones have each stalk bent in teh middle which is much more difficult to explain by simple things like people going out there with planks or vehicles. Animal effects are apparently another and supposedly strange radiation levels and/or scorch marks sometimes appear. But like I said I don't know the details that deeply though I do think some of them are likely real.

What evidence is any of that based on, though?

(2019-05-21, 09:06 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]What evidence is any of that based on, though?

To be honest I couldn't really tell you, I haven't researched it deeply myself, it's largely what I've heard from other compilation sources that I used to follow. I'd have to do a bunch of digging to find the individual mentions and citations I'm not really willing to do that right now.

(2019-05-21, 10:31 PM)Mediochre Wrote: [ -> ]To be honest I couldn't really tell you

Thanks.

(2019-05-21, 10:58 PM)Chris Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks.

Well as much as I can't help but think that's probably a bit of a dig I guess that's what happens when you express opinions without all your sources lined up and ready to go. I won't deny that I don't know any of it for sure, but I still have the opinion that it's not all fake either.

I don't think any are genuine after looking into it a few years ago on Skeptiko, but there seems nevertheless to be anomalous experiences connected to them, whatever the cause is. I think that's the consensus of psi-inclined folk who have studied the phenomenon.