Pictures Of Crop Circles

Going against the grain

Ever since Doug Bower and Dave Chorley took credit for staging the UK’s crop circle hoaxes 20 years ago , the media pretty much went away and left it for roadkill. But the science continued. At least for awhile. And no one is more frustrated by the impasse than Nancy Talbot of Cambridge, Mass.

Talbot is the director of the BLT Research Team, or rather, what’s left of it. Beginning in the Nineties, scientists led by biophysicist W.C. Levengood attempted to look beyond the sprawling geometric patterns and into what was happening to the targeted flora themselves. BLT got decent financing, most notably from philanthropist Laurance Rockefeller, whose interest in UFOs was no secret.

The result: Three articles in peer-reviewed journals , two in Physiologia Plantarum and another in the Journal of Scientific Exploration. All identified dramatic heat-related physiological alterations in grain samples gathered from Europe and North America that couldn’t be explained by pranksters pressing simple wooden boards into the fields.

In many cases, plants were exposed to temperatures so intense, super-heated internal moisture blew seams through the stalk-joint nodes. Effects varied according to the type of plant, its age, distance from the center of the circle, etc. But Dr. Robert Reynolds, the former president of the Clay Minerals Society and Dartmouth College professor emeritus of geology and mineralogy, was utterly stumped by the transformation of crystalline structures in the surface soil beneath the stricken crops. The changes he observed would’ve required temps of between 1,500 and 1,800 degrees F, sustained over a period of hours. But that type of heat should’ve incinerated the plants.

Germination rates varied as well. But the most fascinating observations on BLT’s Web site involve this specific category :

“… When crop circles occur in mature plants with fully formed seeds, these seeds often exhibit a statistically significant, massive increase in growth rate and vigor, with growth-rate up to five times the rate of the control seeds. Further, these seedlings can tolerate extreme stress (lack of water and/or light) for considerable periods of time without apparent harm.”

You might want to re-read that.

At one point, Reynolds was shepherding this material toward a juried forum. But he died in 2004. So did Rockefeller. Levengood is in his mid 80s and slowing down. Money is tight. So let’s roll ahead to 2011.

New Crop Cirlce « 2012 Indy Info

This formation has arrived as “a blink of an eye” in regard of the one that was cut yesterday late morning or early afternoon in Allington too. I am surprised that with all the people that have been flying yesterday in the area it has not been spotted because it is just behind Allington along the canal. Unless the formation has appeared in the afternoon?

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