by Arjun Walia

This massive 780-foot (238 meters) crop circle appeared in a remote area (Milk Hill) of Wiltshire, England back in 2001. It was an extremely complex and elaborate design, composed of exactly 409 circles that form what is known as a triskelion – a motif consisting of three interlocking spirals.

Source – Collective Evolution

The symbol has been seen throughout history and across multiple cultures dating back thousands of years.

You may be skeptical, but this did in fact happen, making major headlines and eliciting the scrutiny of many researchers and scientists.

Footage To Verify Existence

There is some great footage of it in the documentary “Crop Circles: quest for truth,” by academy award winning director William Gazecki. You can view that here.

“It was so large that it took us half an hour to find the center.”

 (quote taken from video link above)

There are some more great images of it in this YouTube video. You can also see a helicopter flying over it from the documentary “Thrive” in this video (at the 26.16 minute mark) or check out various articles on it, like this one.

It is one of thousands of complex, highly detailed, and precise formations that have had researchers and scientists baffled for decades.

Theories And Explanations

Although a relationship between crop circles and unidentified flying objects (UFOs) has been postulated, there have as of yet been no proven sightings (or credible witnesses) of actual UFOs in connection to the formation of these patterns.

Sometimes, military helicopters have been captured examining the circles as well, there are a couple videos floating around on the the internet that allude to this, you can check some of them out here.

That being said, most of these formations are a little sloppy and, for the most part, the result of clever hoaxes, like this recent one in California. But some are so intricate, meaningful, and precisely designed that their execution would require an enormous amount of time, effort and technology – not the the work of a single night. Again, these complex patterns have appeared thousands of times throughout the world, though they are more predominant in the UK.

The crop circle at Milk Hill (see cover photo) is a perfect example of this. Again, keep in mind however, that there have been many impressive and very believable circles created by hoaxers, and as many have suggested, such circle makers could indeed create beautiful works of art overnight.

The problem is, nobody has ever come forward and nobody has been caught in the act.

“Some of these formations are so immense and complex as to defy reason. And after all these decades, none of the perpetrators have been caught in the act of making any of the truly extraordinary formations.”

– Richard Dolan, historian, academic, author, and one of the world’s leading UFO researchers (1)

The truth is, many of the complex formations are completely unexplained, and riddled with oddities that lend even more mystery to the already confusing equation.

One of these oddities is the fact that some formations, for example, have crops that were completely pushed down without ever having been broken.  In some cases they’ve been bent just inches above the ground.

Traditional hoaxers have used wooden planks in the past, but in some cases, it’s clear that this method could not be behind the resulting circles.

Some of these designs are so mysterious and complex that they’ve been studied in a laboratory setting, and some have indicated that the nodes of some of the stalks were blasted out on one side. It’s not conclusively known how this was done, but the effect has been replicated by highly localized microwave heating. This type of technique causes water inside to vaporize and dislodge. As a result, the stock flops completely over to one side. (1)

“If something like this caused the formations, then we are clearly talking about a highly sophisticated agency behind the phenomenon.”

– Richard Dolan (1)

blown

This is a well known, perplexing phenomenon. Are crop circle hoaxers really blasting these stalks with highly localized microwave heating, or something that would produce the same results?

According to University of Oregon physicist Richard Taylor, yes, they are. He believes this is the only possible explanation, and has suggested that crop circle artists are using GPS devices, lasers, and microwaves to create these astonishing patterns of geometric forms.

This is what he wrote in an August 2011 issue of Physics World:

“Crop circle artists are not going to give up their secrets easily. This summer, unknown artists will venture into the countryside close to your homes and carry out their craft, safe in the knowledge that they are continuing the legacy of the most science-oriented art movement in history.” 

(source)

He also expressed this same belief in some work of his that was published in the Journal Nature in 2010. (source)

Just as the Richard Dolan quote points out (above the picture), if something like this caused these formations, the people responsible must have a tremendous amount of resources, people, and money at their disposal, not to mention the skills necessary to make such a large and mathematically perfect design. It would indeed, as Taylor suggests, be the most science-oriented art movement in history, if done by humans.

Another interesting oddity regarding crop circles is that the electromagnetic field over the area where the crop has been laid down to create the image is often elecrostatically charged.

“There is a mounting body of evidence that suggests that a rare form of electromagnetic energy called an ionised plasma vortex (generally known as ball lighting) is involved.”

– Greg Jefferys, historian.  (source)

This explanation was originally offered by physicist Dr. Terence Meadon, who believed that these patterns were the result of atmospheric phenomena.  He suggested that wind currents and ionized plasmas are the culprit. This type of theory does have validity, as several investigators believe that some kind of light energy is key in creating these circles. (2)(3)

The crop circle phenomenon is very interesting. Understandably, one might be quick to instantly dismiss the idea that some of these designs could be the work of some unknown entity. Many reasons to further ponder these wonders of the world exist.

Foster Gamble, heir to Proctor Gamble Corporation, and great-great-grandson to James Gamble, illustrates in his film Thrive that the extremely complex circles are also littered with strange magnetic particles.

“The patterns of the formations themselves have been studied endlessly. Aside from being supremely beautiful, many seem to be messages in one form or another, often with cosmological implications. None seem ominous or evil. If one receives any sense or feeling from them, it is benevolence. If it were to be the case that these formations are created by an extraterrestrial or non-human intelligence, we may conclude that at least one of the groups here might in fact care about us and wish to help us.”

– Richard Dolan (1)

Ask yourself, could hoaxers have created all of these (thousands) of patterns? Why is this a phenomenon that dates back (according to some) thousands of years? Even the science JournalNature published an article about them in 1880.

Could a few people have created something as complex as this one? In the dead of night, leaving no traces, marks, or footprints?

Sources:

(1) Dolan, Richard. UFOs For the 21st Century Mind: New York: Richard Dolan Press, 2014

(2) Dolan, Richard. UFOs And The National Security State, Volume 2: New York: Richard Dolan Press, 2009.

(3) Hussey, Brian, “Theories on the Formation of Crop Circles.”

http://www.iop.org/news/11/aug/page_51614.html

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7299/full/465693a.html

All other sources are highlighted throughout the article