The MathMagicalMatrix
Updated Monday 7th August 2006
The MathMagicalMatrix
On the two days of the weekend of July 29 - 30 I directed the
construction of a crop formation in wheat, under broad daylight
below Woodborough Hill in Alton Priors (with the permission of
farmer Tim Carson). The design is similar to very early crop
circles, except it has a grid of a hundred two-digit numbers in the
middle. Many people are unwilling to believe that it was man-made
-- and I’m reluctant to say otherwise -- but here are the facts for
those who are interested.
The crop circle was made at the behest of Scott Flansburg, who is
in the Guinness book of world records as the fastest human
calculator. He has books/videos to help everyone understand numbers
and arithmetic in a new way. See:
www.humancalculator.com You can get T-shirts with the crop
formation on it at his website, too. He has written a book on math
tricks for children, and this “MathMagicalMatrix” is probably going
to be an illustration in the book -- as a way of getting the kids’
attention.
I conceived of the design for Scott in February, and when I got to
Wiltshire in July I arranged with some great crop artists to help me
create the formation with my associate, Simeon Hein Ph.D. (we call
ourselves Team Cosmos). There were numerous witnesses and video
shot on both days of construction.
CONSTRUCTION
So, a week ago Saturday (July 29) we started work on the geometry of
the formation in the early afternoon. We took our time and worked
carefully, with a break for sandwiches, and finished the geometry with
the blank grid for the numbers, around 6 o’clock in the evening.
At about 2 PM on Sunday, Simmie and I came back to the field with an
old friend of mine, “Ripley,” who has assisted me in the past on
several other paid-for circles, to make the numbers in
the grid. I had fabricated a jig with bamboo and coloured ribbons
which we could move around the grid square to define the limits of
each number. Making all those double-digit numbers was hard work for
my talented friend, but when I offered to take over, Ripley insisted
he do them all. Bravo, sir!
There was a tramline down the middle of the number grid which made it
pointless to try to put numbers along it -- something I knew from the
beginning of the design stage I would have to fill in with Photoshop
by copying and pasting numbers onto the aerial photos. Ripley did so
well everywhere else that I only had to fix a few of the other digits.
On the first days work no one interrupted us, but on the second day
word had gotten around, and it was necessary to restrict access to the
field, as something like 50 people came by in the next few hours. I
gave the Norwegian videographer, Terje Toftenes, unique permission to
film us at work, since it was not possible to work while answering
aggressive questions and posing for pictures for everybody else. I
almost had to throw an big Italian journalist out by force, when,
after several minutes, he simply would not leave when asked politely!
PHOTOGRAPHY
As soon as we were finished we went to the airfield to get shots of
the formation, despite the poor evening light. There was a strong
possibility that rabid fundamentalists might damage the formation
before a sunny shot could be taken. Indeed, the next day when our
partner, Ron Russell, flew to shoot 35mm picture under good light
someone had stomped one of the numbers flat, and other minor damage
had been done. But on the whole all was well, and here you see a few
of the best shots, including a close-up of the number grid before any
PhotoShop was done -- warts and all.
The day after that we decided to put up a sign explaining who the
formation had been made for and why. The sign was not very well
received, to say the least! Someone wrote “LIARS” across it with a
large felt marker, and there was with other graffiti. Not all of that
was negative, however -- we smiled to see hearts and some positive
comments, too.
I anticipated the high emotions -- I expected little less. The
belief by so many croppies that humans are incapable of such a feat
was however a bit of a surprise. I know if something like this had
appeared back when I was a Believer in the 1990s that I would have
been highly sceptical that the Angels/ETs would be using Arabic
numbers -- after all examples of alphabetical or numerical crop circle
are about as rare as hen’s teeth. The numbers 00 through 99 are
hardly earth shaking enough to justify such a radical change in policy
for our Martian friends to imprint them at Alton Barnes!
When Simmie and I were there the day after completing it we
encountered a group of Germans who politely challenged us that no one
could not have made such a complex crop circle. After much discussion
someone who had videoed us working on the numbers from up on
Woodborough Hill came forward and showed them his shots. Although
filmed from far away, one could plainly see
Ripley flattening the numbers. But the German who could speak English
best then shook his head in frustration and told me that he was
inclined to believe that that the video was computer animation
(!). [Those who know me well will appreciate the irony!!!]
My reply was that I feel it’s my job to tell the Truth, but if people
didn’t accept it I’m not going to put any energy into twisting folks’
arms to change their minds. I learned long ago that there is neither
love nor profit in wrestling with the Anointed! Let people believe
what they want. If you ask me my opinion, I’ll tell you, but I won’t
argue at length.
Since a some of the numbers are wrong, requiring Photoshop, someone
has asked: Do you really believe, that so many mistakes have been made
by an "expert team"?
This has me laughing -- since when are mistakes considered proof that
humans could NOT make crop circles?!
The same person asks: Why does Team Cosmos not show pictures from the
making? (Only a complete video can convince us) There should be
definite interest to document this process, since it is a very complex
circle and would bring a lot of new ground to the discussion
about crop circle making > in general.
Well, again, my experience is that there is never enough evidence to
prove what I am not all that interested in proving. When people prefer
to think that a half hour of computer graphics has been used to show
us making a crop circle, I don’t think that ANY amount of footage will
believed. And I certainly have no desire to bang my head against that
wall!
Some readers will accept my explanation, others will not. I really
hope perhaps they never do, because the crop circle phenomenon is so
much more subtle and complicated than what FLATTENS the
crop. Focusing on the ET/Angel/Human factor misses the point
entirely! (Please see my statement on my home page for my
philosophy.)
One of my “artsy” shots shows the formation from far away, with the
ghost of an ancient, henge-like, Neolithic ring causing discoloration
in the crop. This ring often can be seen over the course of the
decade (plus) that I have been filming this field. This ring is a
genuine wonder!
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