The crop circle evolves
Last summer, a 180-metre-long jellyfish surfaced in a barley field in Oxfordshire, UK. How it got there is unclear, but microwave radiation, Global Positioning System receivers and lasers have come under suspicion. This ‘crop circle’ was sculpted from countless stalks that were bent and oriented in ingenious ways.
Bewildering the British since the 1600s, the crop-circle phenomenon has spread to Europe, Russia, North America, Japan and India. The complexity of the designs — many of which have a mathematical basis — has escalated in the past two decades, reflecting a serious and science-literate artistic movement. A bumper crop of patterns is anticipated as the summer kicks off in the Northern Hemisphere.
The first formal scientific comment on crop circles was published in Nature in July 1880 by John Capron, who speculated that the “circular spots” were induced by cyclonic winds (J. R. Capron, Nature 22, 290–291; 1880). A century later, meteorologist Terence Meaden, then at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, refined Capron’s theory to explain more recent crop-circle appearances across southern England. He proposed in 1980 that the airflows induced by local hillsides stabilized the position of whirlwinds long enough to carve the circles.
There was a simpler explanation. Four years earlier, artists Douglas Bower and David Chorley began creating a series of circles in Hampshire’s barley and wheat fields after reading old news reports about a pattern imprinted on Australian marshlands, supposedly by a UFO. Their hopes of initiating a UFO hoax were frustrated by the interest in Meaden’s whirlwind theory. A battle of wits ensued.
Bower and Chorley increased the complexity of their patterns to show that they were not manifestations of the weather. But Meaden adapted his whirlwind theory accordingly: his electromagnetic–hydrodynamic “plasma vortex” explained the multi-circle designs as well as the dead tractor batteries and eerie lights that seemed to accompany their formation. The artists countered by including straight lines in a pictograph consisting of two circles and five rectangles. This convincingly ruled out natural causes, and represented an artistic leap. After ten years of competition, in 1991 the two announced their hoax to the press.
A second wave of crop artists then emerged, cultivating hundreds of increasingly sophisticated pictographs that have appeared annually around the globe. Mathematics is central to the modern designs, which incorporate symbols and fundamental constants such as ? — the ‘golden ratio’ — and ?, sometimes to an accuracy of ten digits. Thanks to increased computing power, iterative equations are used to generate shapes that repeat across many scales. Pictographs today can measure 300 metres across and can comprise up to 2,000 elements.
S. ALEXANDERThe jellyfish of bent barley in Oxfordshire last year.
The designs often integrate Euclidean shapes with fractal icons such as Koch curves and Mandelbrot sets. Over the past five years, such complexity has driven the emerging organic movement, which embeds the mathematical patterns within boundaries that are reminiscent of nature’s forms. This cumulated last year in representations of trilobites, dragonflies, caterpillars, birds and the jellyfish pictured. The seven circles in the jellyfish’s ‘tail’ demonstrate precision scaling and its head displays classic symmetry. The free-form tentacles add the organic quality.
As in all art movements, crop-circle artists follow rules laid down by their founders. Respecting the Bower–Chorley tradition, many create their pictographs anonymously during the short midsummer nights, leaving the scene free of human traces. Their challenge lies in creating the escalating designs within these cultural constraints. Modern construction methods have helped: today’s patterns are mapped out using computers, laser pointers and satellite equipment, and artists work in coordinated teams. Bower once used only a crude sight, consisting of a circular wire dangling from his cap, to guide his lines. Other traditionalists used wooden planks, string and garden rollers. Artists even used bar stools to vault over regions of undisturbed crop. But there are signs that modern techniques are reaching their limits: in 2009, for the first time, one pictograph was created over three nights, potentially compromising the secrecy tenet.
The time-consuming process of imprinting the patterns is slowed by the insistence that crop stalks be flattened rather than broken. Stalk orientation may vary between different parts of one pictograph, and weaving is used to create multiple layers with shadowy textures that change as the stalks move in response to the Sun.
Artists will seek faster methods to maintain the movement’s evolution. Intriguingly, biophysicists who investigated 250 recent pictographs found that the knuckle-like joints of bent stalks were longer than those on untouched stalks from the same field. The observed elongation and swelling of these joints has been replicated using microwaves to superheat the stalks, causing them to fall over. Some patterns may have been sculpted using microwave generators, such as masers or magnetrons from microwave ovens.
The covert nature of the crop-circle movement fuels a cat-and-mouse game between artist and researcher. To appreciate a pictograph’s intricacy, one must take to the air, sometimes photographing a pattern only minutes before it falls under the blades of a harvester. Each season’s designs are published in a catalogue and their artistic evolution is discussed by dedicated societies. The good news is that these modern mathematical artworks may soon be exhibited in a field near you.
Richard Taylor is professor of physics, psychology and art in the Department of Physics at the University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403, USA. rpt@uoregon.edu
Response to “The crop circle evolves” Nature 465, 693 (10 June 2010) | doi:10.1038/465693a; Published online 9 June 2010by Suzanne TaylorProducer/Director
What On Earth? Inside the Crop Circle Mystery
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No matter how these crop circles came about, they move me like no other art form ever has. TRUTH WILL EMERGE IN TIME. Meanwhile, thanks to the Intelligent Beings who have created them.
How sweet.
A+ would read again
You’re giving these people too much credit for disseminating info and then influencing people. The people who read, and write Nature and Yahoo News have already made up their minds. They are propagandists and liars with an agenda. Of course, they don’t want your comments. We mustn’t let them define the discussion. We have proof; they’re just talking jive. These are materialists who cannot see past ‘the scientific method’ and ‘practical approach’ to investigating anomalies, crop circles and other phenomena. These people have their limited uses in the material world, but they’re useless in trying to understand crop circles, or spirituality in general. They don’t have the mental perspective to see crop circles. They may well be stuck in the Christian mindset and be virtual morons as far as spirituality is concerned. Their ideas will not change. I see no reason to listen to these liars and give them validity. Time and history will prove them wrong and we’ll have wasted time talking to them instead of talking to people who can help this world by dealing with the ACTUAL, which, in this case, are crop circles. So, f ’em. Call ’em out, use contempt and ridicule to out them. There are so many others out there who do want to know. We have to remember that only about 20% of people are watching and thinking about the actual reality of Planet Earth. 80% are just told what to do.
Who should we be talking to? That’s the question.
I think we should talk to spiritualists, interested open scientists and mathematicians. Other publications must be contacted. Mostly, let’s remember that we’re correct and they’re using propaganda to lie. Let’s not have a conversation with old fools like Yahoo and Nature; let’s start a new conversation with new outlets about why they lie in the face of all this evidence. That’s the thread we should be pursuing. That’s also the essay I should be writing instead of comments, but it’s just not happening yet.
i enjoyed your written response to Nature. It’s about the opening of eyes long closed. Across so many facets of how we are living our lives. Nature. Community. Food. Service. Economics. Education.
We just read this astonishing Nature article and your concise comment to this gentleman. My husband is a ‘science guy’ – was professor of biochemistry for over 20 years and was published in Nature in the 70s. He and I are both open-mouthed at this article. There must be a real disinformation push coming from somewhere.
Anyway, the ‘coincidence’ of this is that we have a small summer home in Oregon, where we are currently at, that is only about 20 miles from the University in Eugene. Hummmmm. I am going to give this a big think and feel if there is anything I am to do. At the very least I could courteously hand deliver a stack of comments from others to this fellow! We will be here until early October. Please stay in touch. It’s a fascinating time.
Thanks Suzanne for your work.
If anyone actually tried to copy some of these crop designs on paper, they’d realize how hard it is to accomplish on a small scale, much less the size of a football field. And who is able to weave all those intricate designs into the larger pictures? Remember, the word “skeptic” actually means “to investigate”, not to stick your head in the sand and deny something is happening. Look around and experience the wonder and awe of a true mystery.
well, if anyone would like to give him an ear full, just write to his email address…
rpt@uoregon.edu
here’s his web page
http://www.uoregon.edu/~msiuo/taylor/taylor.html
a young guy, a professor, why would he write this drivel? was he paid… or delusional, who knows? but he is definitely lacking in even the basic academic research skills either way. and Nature mag. should be even more ashamed than Yahoo.
I’d like to direct the author of the Nature article to a wonderful book by Eltjo Haselhoff, The Deepening Complexity of Crop Circles
“>The Deepening Complexity of Crop Circles, which covers very well the honest scientific investigations into this phenomenon and not merely the here-say of local newspapers and gossip columnists. As you’ve said, there is nothing scientific about the article in Nature, it is pure gossip and fiction. Quite beneath their pretense of authenticity.
I have been twice to England to see the crop circles, in 2006 and in 2007. There is no way that the real ones, which are most of them, are made by people. If they were, someone would notice the people making them. The crop circles are the greatest mystery of our time and just because people can’t explain them does not mean that they are not significant. I love them. I love the art. It is clear when you actually visit them that they are not made by people.
Has anyone recorded the Yahoo clip? I cannot find it anymore and Yahoo is not able to retrieve it because they do not support requests regarding Toyota. I emailed Toyota but the seem to be not very supportive at the moment.
What the scientist wrote in Nature is the same, decade-old, boring stuff.
You are the go to person to correct these insidious articles full of conjured speculations and misleading information. I would think in such a journal that one such as a Professor would indeed have to back up his claims with scientific evidence. He claims the bending of the stalk joints are elongated from microwaving. Where and how in his wildest imaginings could this be done on such a large scale? I think that would make a worthy article for the Professor to write about. Thank you for being the great spokesperson that you are!!!
First of all – thank you for your wonderful work and the splendid video! Even my girlfriend, who does not understand much English, enjoyed it for the pure grandiosity of the circles.
Then: I am a scientist – biologist – myself and I never read (and did not read) “Nature”. You know why? ;-).
But: I can easily understand your arousal and anger. However, I totally agree with you that these marvellous crop circles are meant to “lift us higher” or pointing to higher truths. What could be the “highest truth”? The great consciousness (call it “God” if you like that more) created EVERYTHING in this entire universe: Galaxies, planets, crop circles (even though they may have been created by some enormously intelligent “entity”, who, of course, was created by that one consciousness), you, me, and that professor (even though he most likely wouldn´t agree to that). So, the “highest truth” is: we are ALL ONE. We all are mere – more or less formal – expressions of that ONE consciousness loving ALL of the forms it created. Even though it is probably difficult to embrace these other formal expressions of the ONE because our ego filters specific thoughts or viewpoints (of the ONE!) as “hostile”, the crop circles themselves might remind you of this highest truth: we are all ONE means it just doesn´t matter what you or I or this professor think about these marvellous circles: their beauty and outstanding circumstances connected with them make them unique, adorable and worth every bit of your valuable and indispensable work!