Several friends of mine are getting terribly excited about a new crop circle formation in England (shown above) that apparently couldn’t possibly have been produced by human hoaxers. You can read the details and eye witness reports online. Part One gives the meat of the claims regarding this new circle while Part Two focuses on the rather hysterical claims of “black helicopters” seen over the circles a few days later. I’m going to focus on the part one commentary, as this is the only section that contains any actual evidence (and I’m being generous) about the formation of these circles.
This New Circle
From the above link, this is what we know happened:
Several crop circle enthusiasts went to Knap Hill in England to do a “night watch” – ie look out for crop circles being formed.
They had a number of cameras, including some they claim were “light sensitive” (aren’t all cameras “light sensitive”?), and one they claim was infra-red.
No record is given of what time they got there, but the following picture was taken with the “light sensitive” camera at 1:35 am.
Nothing can be seen in this “light sensitive” picture. Nothing. And by that I mean there is no way to tell if there is a circle there already or not, or if people are there or not. (Note: this picture is not a joke. It is the actual picture published on the website I linked, that supposedly proves there was no circle in the field at 1:35am. Seriously.)
There is no record of anything that might have taken place in the field before this 1:35am totally black photo.
There is no record of anything photographed with the infra-red camera, at any time.
At 3:08 am (approximately 90 minutes after the completely black photo), there is a big flash – presumably lightning.
There is no evidence at all that the lightning flash had anything to do with producing the circle.
At shortly some time after 3:20am the above photo was taken, showing an outline of the circle formation in the field. There is no similar photo taken earlier without the circle formation – just the totally black picture. Consequently we have no idea when this circle was produced, other than that (presumably) it was produced since sunset the previous day. Consequently we have no accurate idea of how long it took – and we certainly can’t conclude it was produced in under 90 minutes.
That’s it. That is the “incredible” information I was sent. Pretty underwhelming.
Further Nonsense
I want to highlight two other nonsensical claims made for this circle. The first is this:
[The crop stems] were just gently bent and people who have been doing crop circle research over the years, they have found this is how it usually is in genuine formations – that the stems are not broken.
They are referring to the pseudoscientific work of W.C Levengood (he’s the “L” in the crop circle research group BLT), who claims that only the stalks in “genuine” circles (ie those not produced by human hoaxers) show “abnormalities” not present in those produced by humans. How does he know which stalks come from “genuine” circles? Because they are the ones with the abnormalities only found in genuine circles. How does he know the abnormalities are only found in genuine circles? Because only genuine circles have the anomalies. How does he know….. er, you get the picture. Classic circular reasoning. (Make your own jokes.) For more, read Joe Nickell on problems with Levengood's Crop-Circle Plant Research.
The second nonsensical claim is this:
The East Field is not a totally flat pancake field. It actually curves up and down. When you look at the formation from up above from an aerial photo, you see that the circles are absolutely 100% correct circles. To make circles look 100% from the air in a field that has up and down hills, you cannot create 100% perfect circles on the ground. You have to create ovals. And that’s the case here. All the circles that are lying on a hill more than flat surface, they are ovals. To construct 100% correct oval in total darkness – everything you do is extremely difficult because you can’t see anything.
Really? From an aerial photo, “you see that the circles are absolutely 100% correct circles”? Really? Well I took the “aerial photo” from the website and cropped one of the bigger circles to a rectangular shape and got this:
Note: it’s rectangular. I’m pretty sure an “absolutely 100% correct circle” would be cropped by a perfect square, not a rectangle. Take a ruler and measure the sides of the rectangle above if you don’t believe me – it contains nowhere near a perfect circle. Of course the believers might state that this picture isn’t directly above the circle and so wouldn’t show a perfect circle, but that’s not really my fault is it? If they’re claiming it’s a perfect circle from the air it’s really up to them to show an aerial photo that demonstrates a perfect circle. In reality, the field (as you can see from the early morning picture above) is close enough to flat that I doubt it makes any difference.
Flawed Logic
Crop circle believers the world over are all making the same logical mistake when they claim circles were not produced by humans. The logical fallacy can be demonstrated by this quote:
Under those dark conditions, I would consider that impossible and everyone I have spoken to among the researchers down here and also civil engineers who are used to land surveys – they say that to do that under those conditions and also within that limited time frame (90 minutes), they regard it as absolutely impossible for humans to do.
Here is the anatomy of their argument. The believers don’t know how this circle was made in the time, and so they draw the conclusion it couldn’t possibly have been made by humans. The flaw in this way of thinking is this – you can’t draw any conclusion from a lack of knowledge. All we know is that these believers can’t figure out how it was done. But we can’t conclude from that that no one could have figured it out and done it. It’s the old Argument From Ignorance fallacy - the same fallacy employed by Intelligent Design proponents who claim something is too “irreducibly complex” to have evolved. But just because they can’t figure out how it evolved doesn’t mean it didn’t evolve. I’m sure some people do “regard it as absolutely impossible for humans” to have made this circle, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible for humans to have made it.
Here’s the thing: if you want to show that something other than humans produced these circles, you have to actually show some evidence that something other than humans actually produced these circles. It’s a pretty simple concept. Of course, for the believers to be able to do this they have to (1) have some idea (or hypothesis) of what produced them and how, and (2) find a way to falsify this hypothesis – test it in such a way that if their hypothesis is false it would fail the test. That’s how real science is done. Until they do that they’re just humans who aren’t smart enough to figure out what a different group of humans have actually done. And that’s true whether this circle was really made in 90 minutes, or not.
I’ve about done with this subject, but I wanted to quote the opinions of one of the credulous people interviewed in the report, to give you an idea of the mindset of these people and the beliefs that continue to fuel this crop circle nonsense:
I think there are other intelligences in this universe visiting and monitoring us. And I have a very strong feeling that our governments know a lot more about this than they will tell us. So, I think it is either something projected on the ground from an alien source. Or it is projected on the ground from an inter-dimensional source that we are not able to perceive with our senses. But definitely, this source has decided to present itself in a way that is so beautiful and that is not hostile that creates the most thrilling feelings within us and invite us to explore the unknown and invite us to start discussions about realities, consciousness … and it is an invitation to start growing as people again because we have for so long been stuck in our materialistic world view and it’s probably time to take the next step in the evolution of humankind. That’s my opinion.
This is what he’s saying. There are super intelligent aliens telling us we need to “grow” in unspecified ways and for unspecified reasons. Also, we need to abandon our “materialistic world view” (for no logical reason I can ascertain) and “evolve” to some unspecified higher level (although this is not how evolution works). Everything is being covered up by the government. And all this is being revealed in a way that only these crop circle believers (and the government, presumably) can understand. I hope that isn’t what is happening, because if it is, these aliens aren’t nearly as smart as people think.
Some references
CSI Special Report by Joe Nickel
Crop Circle Confession in Scientific American
Levengood's Crop-Circle Plant Research by Joe Nickel
CircleMakers – the website of some of England’s actual crop circle makers – and they’re not aliens (as far as I know).
Note: photographs shown above are by Winston Keech and Lucy Pringle.
Your picture-cropping test would only work if the picture was taken from the center of the circle. Since it's pretty clearly taken from an angle, you can't make a judgment about how circular it is (unless you have more information, like the exact angle of the shot).
Not that I disagree with the overall conclusion, but sloppy evidence is sloppy evidence.
Posted by: Colin Slater | July 22, 2007 at 09:55 PM
Colin – I agree. It was the photo they supplied to back up their claim.
Posted by: Skeptico | July 22, 2007 at 11:18 PM
Let's imagine that there is something- a soul or whatever- that exists "outside" our "materialistic world-view".
There are two possibilities- it either, at some point, interacts with the physical world, or it does not. If it does not, we have no way of knowing about it, measuring it or experiencing it. It would not create crop circles, nor could it inspire a sense of awe and wonder in the credulous. It would, for all intents and purposes, not exist.
If it does interact with the physical world, we can measure those effects. We can quantify and witness them. This leaves us with two options- either it interacts with the Universe in a predictable, rational fashion, or it does not. If it does not, we're looking at a chaotic noisy force that is uninterpretable and meaningless. If it does behave in a predictable fashion- even one that is incredibly complex- we can create laws and theories to explain its behavior.
So really, I don't see what these people are complaining about. Either their "spirit realm" doesn't exist, is chaotic and meaningless, or obeys comprehensible laws like everything else. Given that, you'd almost think they don't want to muster the intellectual fortitude required to render the complex comprehensible. That they are more interested in feeling good than finding truth.
Posted by: t3knomanser | July 23, 2007 at 06:16 AM
So, aliens come light years just to make pretty artwork for us.
Do they laser-cut detailed galactic maps on granite rock faces? Do they leave photo-perfect images of famous aliens on the walls of public buildings? Do they leave plans of their marvellous craft on indestructible plastic sheets?
No, they all leave abstract patterns in cornfields, made out of basic circles. Gosh, gotta admire those alien Picassos, but they do seem a bit limited in their schools of art. I guess this is some cereal analogue of pointilism.
Posted by: Big Al | July 23, 2007 at 09:09 AM
The way these are done is by securing a rope at one point, and then walking along to sweep out the larger circular boundaries. It seems that the three larger circular boundaries were initially created, then dozens of smaller circles were swept out along these boundaries.
So, it's no coincidence that the centers of the larger circular boundaries happen to fall exactly along the rows pre-flattened by tractor tires. These pre-flattened rows are used by the pranksters to traverse back and forth without flattening any other stalks.
Posted by: deltapunch | July 23, 2007 at 09:30 AM
I love, love, LOVE that 'this black square proves there was no circle there' bit...
Just think what else we can do with this approach:
1) Yes, I know, people have been on and on and on and on about the 'grassy knoll' in Dallas for well on forty years now... But guess what?
(Holds up black square)
See? There was no one there.
2) However, as you can see from this (holds up black square) photo taken from inside his coffin, Elvis is not there. The King lives!
Thankya. Thankyaverramuch.
3) Finally: So you say you believe in a god, huh?
Well, we regret to inform you:
(Holds up black square...)
Posted by: AJ Milne | July 23, 2007 at 05:06 PM
Oh, I love that, AJ.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | July 23, 2007 at 05:36 PM
oh, bloody hell, not these stupid wankers again...
i can tell you, in some pub down South overlooking a cornfield, there's a whole bunch of ornery prankers with poles and ropes, laughing their arses off.
"...even put it in the fucking papers! I owe you a pint, Jerry..."
Lepht
(ashamed of its national press)
Posted by: Lepht | July 24, 2007 at 03:47 AM
Nothing can be seen in this “light sensitive” picture. Nothing. And by that I mean there is no way to tell if there is a circle there already or not, or if people are there or not.
I think what they may have been trying to get at(albeit rather poorly,) was that hoaxters couldn't have possibly been involved, as no telltale flashlight/lantern-like light source was present to give them away.
...Or not. With the way some of these people reason, anything is possible.
Posted by: Brother Dave Thompson | July 24, 2007 at 12:20 PM
This is ludricrous without some kind of daytime photo prior to this. How do we know the circles weren't there at sunset the prior day? Where's the photo?
Posted by: American Idle | July 24, 2007 at 07:10 PM
Sure, unless the hoaxers had night vision goggles (which is what I think the "watchers" meant by light sensitive). Even without NVGs, the human eye is sensitive enough to see by starlight. Especially if someone spends an hour or so in complete darkness, like the back of a van taking them there.
If they were going to do it right, a starlight scope hooked up to a video camera with a sensitive microphone would have helped. Taking a picture that only shows little points of light from what seems to be a town in the background is crap.
By the way, I love your reasoning, AJ. LOL
Posted by: Berlzebub | July 25, 2007 at 08:55 AM
Even if the hoaxers had flashlights you wouldn't expect them to be recorded by a camera without some very specialised equipment, certainly not as dots on a landscape.
As for infra red, i guess they mean a camera with infra red film or a digital camera that is sensitive to infra red light. To record a picture these will both need an infra red source just as normal film needs a visible light source. The sources will be the same: flash or the sun. Infra red gives some interesting effects but it doesn't allow you to see in the dark (unless you use a flash with an infra red filter but that wont work for landscape photos either).
Posted by: JC | July 26, 2007 at 08:13 AM
You stuck up skeptics won't be laughing when the aliens realize we haven't gotten the monumentally important message they're trying to pass on to us and come back to conquer us with their superior rope tied to a 2x4 technology.
Posted by: Jeremy | July 26, 2007 at 06:30 PM
I'm a photographer with 20+ years of experience with film and 10+ with digital. I've done plenty of night shots using cameras mounted on tripods for lengthy exposures.
The "all black" picture is a joke. It has to be. Anyone who knew anything (even beginner-level) about photography would have been able to register something on the camera unless the night was utterly black. You can get fairly beautiful images with just star-light, if you use 30-40 minute exposures with the aperture wide open.
The other image - well, how was that produced? If it was from the same light as the first picture it would be all black, too. Or did the "photographer" shooting that take his lens-cap off?
In fact, it would be very cool if a crop circle did "magically form" while you were doing a long exposure. You'd have PROOF because you wouldn't get blurry edge effects as the exposure built where the guys were bending over the stalks. Of course that would be easily faked with a double exposure.
Lastly - infrared cameras tend to be fairly slow; that's the last thing you'd want to be shooting with in the dark unless you were planning on illuminating the scene with infrared lights. (A very cool trick, BTW, with the new I/R LEDs you can buy)
This is a complete crock, just from a photographic standpoint. If these hoaxers are going to bring cameras they should learn a bit about how they work.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 26, 2007 at 08:56 PM
Now, if you had a military thermal-imaging scope on a tripod, hooked up to a camera, and did time-lapses of the field... That would be cool. You'd capture the little blobbies of the circle-makers going round and round... it'd look pretty cool if you animated it all together.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | July 26, 2007 at 09:01 PM
I'm a VERY amateur photographer and even I know more about night shooting than these guys!
"Light sensitive camera", my arse! I wonder if they used a sound-sensitive microphone into the bargain?
Posted by: Big Al | July 27, 2007 at 03:47 AM
Marcus Ranum, spot on there. The infra red bit is funny. Anyone who has an infra red setting on their camcorder will know that it needs shine an infra red light onto the subject for it to be detected. They would have needed an enormous infra red light source to illuminate the whole field from that distance. What a bunch of pricks. If these people are for real and not part of the hoax themselves then their photography knowledge considerably reinforces their barkingness. (is that a word?)
Posted by: pv | July 27, 2007 at 09:50 AM
Note on Infrared: There's more than one kind: Near, mid, and far/thermal.
Near and mid typically have to be reflected: Living things with a solid cell structure (healthy vegetation, especially) reflect near. Moisture reflects mid.
Far/thermal infrared is different in that anything warm emits far IR. This has lead to a misconception that all IR = heat.
If I had to guess: These guys had a near IR camera (which would pick up a lot of dark at night) and thought it was far IR "Predator" vision.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | July 27, 2007 at 10:04 AM
My guess (if anyone cares)...
The people who made the crop circle are the same ones who made the post.
Posted by: Techskeptic | July 27, 2007 at 10:57 AM
I agree with you, TS, the inefficient "crop circle wake" was part of the hoax.
Posted by: _Arthur | July 28, 2007 at 07:51 AM
The set of circle on the left looks collectively like an abstract human form. The other doesn't look too much like anything.
At first I thought that it looked like a logo, or emblem, for a prescription drug, but I have a "theory" (the vernacular and not scientific term): It's an abstract representation of a human making a crop circle. If that's the case, then the figure is also laughing at gullible cereologists and other paranormalists.
Posted by: RMH | July 28, 2007 at 11:51 AM
Looks like Dame Ednas glasses is she/he promoting a new series?
Posted by: ally | August 01, 2007 at 07:07 AM
My favourite part in all of this is the whole concept of the 'night watch' in the first place. These guys camp out in front of one field in the WHOLE OF THE UK and it just so happens that a crop circle appears there on that night. Hmm, my chin-scratching has gone into overdrive.
Posted by: Paul A | August 02, 2007 at 03:23 AM
"I think what they may have been trying to get at(albeit rather poorly,) was that hoaxters couldn't have possibly been involved, as no telltale flashlight/lantern-like light source was present to give them away"
I watched a program on National Geographic Channel just a few nights ago, and it showed a crew of artist making one of these things in the dark, with just the moonlight. I'm sure the same can be done by starlight.
Straw Man indeed!
Posted by: American Scot | August 03, 2007 at 10:01 AM
I have serious doubts about the timing of the second photo. It is claimed to have been taken at 3:20 am in England just a couple weeks ago. I live near Philadelphia, which is further south than England. I leave for work at 4 in the morning, and it is still pitch black. That photo shows pre-dawn light, and I would estimate it was taken at about 5 am.
Posted by: NobbyNobbs | August 03, 2007 at 11:17 AM
NobbyNobbs: I think you've got it the wrong way around. Between spring and autumn equinox in the northern hemisphere, the day is longer the further north you go.
Using the sunrise/sunset calculator at http://www.sunrisesunset.com/, I got the following data for Philly, USA and Bristol, UK (closest city to circle site):
Philly:
Twi: 05:15
Sunrise: 05:47
Bristol:
Twi: 04:31
Sunrise: 05:15
(All times in local DST, according to the website)
The 'twilight' listed is what the site calls 'civil twilight', which roughly translates to 'you can still see stuff'.
My conclusion, based on the above: A camera on a tripod, with a fairly long exposure time, could perfectly well have taken that picture on that day at 03:20. The article specifies that tripods were used, and that one of the cameras was: "[...] much more sensitive to light than the human eye".
Posted by: Skjaeve | August 03, 2007 at 01:58 PM
who did it, and why? VERY SIMPLE, out of work thatchers guild members, sworn to secrecy! Oh yeah, and why? I don't know and obviously you don't either, but wow do you ever revere SCIENCE.
Posted by: eric swan | August 05, 2007 at 06:38 PM
Posted by: Tom Foss | August 05, 2007 at 07:49 PM
People do crazy things.
Some people make these things as art. Or advertising. Or for the hell of it. Or to mess with the minds of people who think that humans are universally stupid and incapable of handling the equivalent of a compass and straight edge. Circlemakers.org.
And ya gotta laugh at the line about revering science. What it amounts to is eric making fun of us for looking.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | August 05, 2007 at 10:29 PM
Personally, I don't trust a so-called advanced civilization that apparently only communicates by destroying someone's lower 40. Just seems rude to me. We do have email, for cryin' out loud.
Posted by: Matt T. | August 14, 2007 at 06:07 PM
Let me get this straight. They went out, at night, with the hope of witnessing a crop circle event and lo and behold one happened right in front of them, right where they had their hyper-sensitive, tripod-mounted camera focused.
Damn, they're good.
Posted by: AndyD | April 27, 2008 at 07:10 AM