Dear skeptics: how can this “curved DNA” crop picture have been made using “rope and boards”, if there was no central “hole” for a “pole”? By Red Collie (Dr. Horace R. Drew, Caltech 1976-81, MRC LMB Cambridge 1982-86, CSIRO Australia 1987-2010)

Dear skeptics: how can this “curved DNA” crop picture have been made using “rope and boards”, if there was no central “hole” for a “pole”?

Appendix 1: Clear photographic evidence for “bent nodes” in certain (but not all) crop pictures

As the 2016 summer season approaches, I thought it might be useful to review the “skeptical” literature on “crop circles”. Why do some skeptics reach a negative conclusion, concerning the possible paranormal origin of “crop circles”, whereas some scientists (such as myself or others) reach a positive conclusion, after many years of careful study?

Without wishing to name individuals, the most common logic of skeptics seems to be:

If "A" is a "crop circle", and "B" is a "crop circle", and if we know that "A" was made using rope and boards, then we may infer that "B" was also made using rope and boards.

Can you, the reader, see any possible fallacy in their reasoning?

The most-widely quoted skeptic, Taner Edis, writes: “The crop circles we know all fall within the range of the sort of thing done in hoaxes. Nothing stands out as extraordinary.” Right away, any serious student of crop circles will recognize that such a broad claim is factually incorrect (see 12012016.html). Other skeptics insist that “all” crop circles are made using rope and boards. That is another broad claim which may be easily falsified (see 18012016.html).

Here we will add a third observation, which seems to further discount the theory of “rope and boards” as applied to “all” crop circles. According to the skeptics, someone must first drive a “large pole” into the ground, at the precise centre of any intended “crop circle”. Next someone must attach a “long rope” to that pole. Finally another person must hold onto that long rope, while they walk in a circular path to flatten the standing crop, some distance away. They flatten the crop supposedly by pressing down with their feet on a 1 to 2-meter long board (see Real-culprit-behind-crop-circles-Skeptics-point).

This “hole and pole” theory may again be easily falsified. In many well-studied crop pictures, there is no detectable evidence for a central “hole”, where a hypothetical “pole” was “driven into the ground”, to supposedly guide formation of the circle. Nor can we usually see any trace of damage to nearby crop from a taut “rope”, which is supposedly tied to that “pole”, then rotated at waist-height around the centre, while the circle is being formed.

A good instructional example is shown below, from August 28, 2002 near Crooked Soley:



There we can see a large, perfectly-circular centre of standing crop. There is no evidence for any central “hole”, where a “long pole” was hypothetically “inserted into the ground”. Indeed, no standing crop near the centre seems to have been damaged at all, for example by passing a “taut rope” around the circle at waist-high level.

England’s best rope-and-board artists were mystified by the clever construction of this crop picture! On September 3, 2002 they wrote (see www.circlemakers.org):

“Just as everybody thought the 2002 crop circle season was over, yet more crop circles were being discovered. This jaw-dropper was discovered at Crooked Soley in Wiltshire on 28^th August, as the combines crept toward it. It shows a massive ring, which houses what looks like a 360-degree, three-dimensional representation of a twisting DNA strand.

There are 1296 squares which make up the grid that the DNA is laid out on. The formation stretches for over 200 feet. Interestingly, the formation’s centre is located between tramlines in standing crop. As you can see from the aerial photos, there is no trace (of physical construction) in the crop. Now how did THEY do that?”

We can likewise ask the skeptics: “How did THEY do that?”

It was not made by “hole and pole”, nor by “rope and boards”. Nor does this spectacular “curved DNA” crop picture “fall within the range of the sort of thing done in hoaxes.” Most people say that it “stands out as extraordinary”.

Red Collie (Dr. Horace R. Drew, Caltech 1976-81, MRC LMB Cambridge 1982-86, CSIRO Australia 1987-2010)

Appendix 1. Clear photographic evidence for “bent nodes” in certain (but not all) crop pictures

Some skeptics dispute the existence of “bent nodes” in authentic, paranormal crop pictures. What happens here is that green stems of wheat, say in June or July, may “bend” by 45^o to 90^o in some of the fallen crop, at their first “node” which was located originally about six inches off the ground. Such a distortion seems analogous to “bending an iron bar” by intense heat, then letting it cool in a rigid but bent shape.

Several natural phenomena may also cause green stems of wheat to bend. For example, if we place green stems of wheat horizontal to the ground, and wait for a few days in sunny weather, some plant stems may “bend up towards the Sun” as a natural kind of phototropism. Thus in order to ensure that we are seeing a true paranormal effect, caused by rapid flattening of the green wheat with heat or radiation, rather than some slow natural effect, we have to study such “bent nodes” early in the morning after a new crop picture has been found, in some well-watched field, where we can be reasonably sure that it was not present on the day before.

These conditions seem to have been met by a small circular crop picture which appeared near the top of Etchilhampton Hill on July 12, 2012. It was first seen from the air early that morning, then was located on the ground by investigator Paul Jacobs an hour later. This small crop picture appeared in standing crop about 5 meters from the nearest tramline. There was no detectable foot-trail leading from that tramline into the crop picture, when it was first found (see Etchilhampton Hill groundshots), although many interested visitors tracked in later.

The entire lay of that small crop picture consisted of a “basket weave” on a fine scale. Furthermore, about 25% of those freshly-laid green stems showed “bent nodes”, versus only 1% in standing crop nearby. I counted all of those details, and took many close-up ground photographs around 10 or 11 AM, just after it was found.

Some of those early-morning, first-day ground photographs are shown below. Many “bent nodes” may be seen clearly within the fallen green stems of wheat. All affected plants bend “sideways to the ground”, rather than “upwards toward the sky” as for natural phototropism:

Many ground photographs of the “basket weave” were also taken, one of which is shown below:

Some crop pictures which appear in June or July may not show an abundance of “bent nodes”, even if they seem paranormal in other respects. Perhaps the high level of “bent nodes” in this particular crop picture correlated with its “basket weave”, or with the strength of energy used to flatten the crop? Certainly if many energies were swirling at 90^oangles with respect to one another, in order to create a large “basket weave”, then that may have encouraged some of the long wheat stems to bend.

Somewhat paradoxically, “bent nodes” in “crop circles” seem to be taken more seriously by mainstream academic scientists than by amateur skeptics! Five years ago, a series of comments were made on this subject by Richard Taylor from the University of Oregon, or Michio Kaku from the City College of New York (see www.iop.org or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jRo1PCwYXg). Those physicists hypothesized that local people in England were using “portable microwave ovens” to create “bent nodes” in the fallen crop. Certain impracticalities of that idea have been discussed elsewhere (see time2012al).

To conclude, there seems to be no possible explanation for these “bent nodes” or “basket weaves” in the context of a “rope and boards” or “mechanical roller” theory of human construction. If some skeptics refuse to include such anomalous data in their theories, then they are not doing “science” but something else.

As a long-term professional scientist, my task is to study the data and report the facts, as honestly as possible. If some phenomenon such as “crop circles” remains a partial mystery, so that we do not have all the answers at present, so be it. What seems clear is that we are receiving many pictorial images in the fields worldwide, from other friendly intelligences who are much more advanced than the (typically) simple-minded humans who live today on Earth. The senders of those messages also seem to be exceptionally skilled artists in an aesthetic sense. Concerning these general conclusions, there seems to be no doubt, although many details of the communication still remain unknown.