Cropcircles...

[MHS]

Some time ago I spoke to a friend of mine over the phone and he started talking about a book he was reading about cropcircles. So I tried to tell him in a polite way that I don't believe in the whole conspiracy around that. He just told me to get the book and read it. Afterwards I would think differently about it, he assured me. Well, more to prove him wrong than out of my own interest, I got the book and started reading it. I haven't finished it yet, but I came across a pretty nice example of bad astronomy already.

In the beginning of the book the writer starts describing how the first cropcircles that appeared looked like. They were still very basic shapes, like a single circle or one circle with some more around it. Because the shapes were still simple, some people thought that they were caused by some kind of local tornado. This already sounds stupid, but it gets better. He continues to write that al cropcircles in the northern hemisphere are rotated clockwise. Then he writes that this really makes sence, because the coriolis effect causes winds to rotate clockwise on the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise on the souther hemisphere. Uhm... wrong! It's actually the other way around.

I think that th fact that a whole theory was based on a wrong statement tells something about the credibility of such a study.

[gethen]

It's hard to believe that there are people who still buy the crop circle thing after all the programs on t.v. debunking them. Have you seen any of these in the Netherlands? They include interviews with people who have made crop circles and demonstrations of how they were done. But, if someone is determined to believe, well, you can't confuse them with facts.
It's also amazing what gets credited to the coriolis effect. :roll:

[g99]

[crop circle believer]" but they are soooo complicated that nobody human can make them in one night!"[/crop circle believer]

Then i answer "so how did they make the complex ones for the movie signs? Did hollywood make a call to the Zetas?."

Also there is the fact that several of the outlieing parts of farmers fields can go several days without beeing seen by a human, so they have lots of time. Or the farmer could pay the crop circle maker to make on in his field so he can get the tourist money from crop circle fanatics.

[MHS]

Well they do mention things like a difference in radiation between crops from a cropcircle made by humans and one that isn't (or at least they think it isn't). But I really know to little about plants to base my opinion on cropcircles on that. So still a non-believer .

[Ba Witda]

Foolish mortals! When will they realize that crop circles are the work of the priests of Ba?

[tjm220]

Foolish mortals! When will they realize that crop circles are the work of the priests of Ba?

[dogbert voice]Ba![/dogbert voice]

[SeanF]

Foolish mortals! When will they realize that crop circles are the work of the priests of Ba?

[dogbert voice]Ba![/dogbert voice]

Sounds more like a Sheepbert voice to me . . .

[tracer]

Well they do mention things like a difference in radiation between crops from a cropcircle made by humans and one that isn't (or at least they think it isn't).

Yeah, and I remember hearing about one crop circle where Orgone Energy was supposedly detected. (Perhaps they used an orgone field meter.)

[beskeptical]

There goes tracer with his orgone stuff again.

I have yet to see any of the supposed measurements of 'real' crop circle differences compared to a control. It's the same with all those ghost measuring devices. Who the heck decided that whatever they were detecting had any meaning?

[irony]

As the - erm - author ops: - of a couple of the things, reports of crop circles are always highly amusing to me... especially when coupled with weird theories about anything but bored college students on road trips.

[honestmonkey]

I saw a TV show once (it was fairly well done, maybe Discovery Channel?) that talked about Crop Circles. They had one guy who could detect the difference between human made and "alien" made ones. They took him out to a site and he wandered around a while taking measurements. "Yes indeed, not humans. The energy shows this was made by aliens." Then they showed him the video taken with infrared camera showing the two or three guys that went out and made that particular circle the night before. Guy got mad and stalked off.

[Chuck]

Crop circles are made by time machines, not UFOs. That's why nothing is ever seen coming nor going. And why, you might ask, are the patterns so weird? Obviously, people in the future have pictures of the circles and design their time machines to match in order to avoid changing history.

[spaceditto]

Ok I am fuming here , I know that most of you (or all) don't believe in crop circles to be made by aliens but what is not understandable is that you assume that others who believe are bluntly speaking out of their minds but each to their own opinion so my piece to this topic is that I am quite convinced that there is a realtion between aliens and the formation of crop circles!!!!!

Anyways my reasons are not really explainable sooo....... :roll:
I will restrain from blabbing nonesense.

[tracer]

Ok I am fuming here , I know that most of you (or all) don't believe in crop circles to be made by aliens but what is not understandable is that you assume that others who believe are bluntly speaking out of their minds but each to their own opinion so my piece to this topic is that I am quite convinced that there is a realtion between aliens and the formation of crop circles!!!!!

Anyways my reasons are not really explainable sooo....... :roll:

[underlining mine]

The way you talk about it, your "belief" sounds more like a religious conviction than a conclusion reached from judging the evidence.

(When once asked "Do you believe in UFOs?", Carl Sagan answered, "That's the wrong question. Belief shouldn't even enter into it. You should be asking, 'What is the evidence that UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft?'.")

In many ways, "alien UFOs" are like a modern-day religion. We have angels (aliens) send from the Lord (the aliens' advanced society) to save us from ourselves so that we may enter paradise. We have demons (other aliens) who sneak into our beds in the night, walking through walls sometimes, to perform unspeakable acts upon us. We have T-shirts with pictures of aliens on them that display the caption "I want to believe," as though the belief in and of itself would carry its own rewards. We have people that grasp at the flimsiest of straws to use as vindication for their alien beliefs. We even have nutball cults like Heaven's Gate who take the idea to extremes. C'mon, try and tell me that Nancy doesn't worship the Zetans that she claims to receive divine messages from!

[CJSF]

Then he writes that this really makes sence, because the coriolis effect causes winds to rotate clockwise on the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise on the souther hemisphere. Uhm... wrong! It's actually the other way around.

I think that th fact that a whole theory was based on a wrong statement tells something about the credibility of such a study.

Point of correction: Winds DO go clockwise in the northern hemisphere due to the coriolis force - around high pressure systems.

What the coriolis force does is deflect winds to the right in the northern hemisphere. A low pressure system has winds moving toward it. Deflect that motion to the right and you have a counter-clockwise flow. High pressure systems have the wind going away from it. Deflect that motion to the right and you have clockwise flow.

CJSF

[Tito_Muerte]

no no no....crop circles are obviously caused my PLANET X....


...oh..wait..sorry, wrong forum... ops:

[spaceditto]

It's actually funny but i do believe (don't know what other word to use) in crop circles because it's more of a logical thing for me (don't ask why it's personal) :P but as said to each there on belifs or "beliefs" on evidence because we all of different opinions and values since we come from different backgrounds. (shrugs)

[Byrd]

There's no real evidence that crop circles are made by anything other than hoaxers.

Think about it... an alien civilization, highly sophisticated, monitoring the planet for years, and the ONLY way they can think of to communicate with us is not via our own communications systems or anything else (for surely they've learned our languages by now) -- it's to drop in the middle of a field in the dark of night and doodle in our crops?

And why were the early crop circles made by these sophisticates just simple geometric designs and after a known group of hoaxers did a more complex design -- why did the aliens suddenly start doing more complex designs?

They can design spaceships but not art?

They can't print flyers and drop them all over the place (like we do?)

They can't just land near an observatory and walk in and say "hi"?

[Tito_Muerte]

yeah, you tell'em Byrd...! :wink:

[snowcelt]

If I believed that there were Santa Clauses, Were Wolves, and Crop Circle Constructing Aliens etc, I'd be all over the planet checking it out! Manifestations such as these would be profound. But instead I sharpen Occam's razer, slice away the irrelevant, and ponder mundane things like evolution, cosmology, and geology. Maybe to the credulous the mundane is boring; but frankly, I think they just have not looked close enough at the real world to see how profound reality really is. My advice to the credulous: look at your cat/dog and realise how amazing such a beast like that can be what it is, take a good look at a sunrise and think about it, walk through a canyon and marval upon its construction. These are the things that are truly amazing and worthy of our time. Leave santa claus for the children, and the rest for science fiction and fantasy writers. Sorry for preaching I feel much better now ops:

[Tito_Muerte]

yeah...you tell'em snowcelt.....

[kucharek]

Crapcircles. I never understood why people make such a fuzz about some land-art. Why we have so few trust in human ingeniousness that many people always shout "aliens" as soon as they can't figure out within 10 minutes how something is done? I mean, most people don't understand how a microwave oven is working... How many men know, how women think?

Harald

[Tito_Muerte]

Herald....are you implying what I think you're implying???

THAT WOMEN ARE ALIENS!!!!!!!!!


AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[kucharek]

Well, may be. Or, better said: If there is a remote chance, that crapcircles are done by aliens, then women ARE aliens.

Or, can you explain why women always go in pairs to the restroom? :-)

Harald

[gethen]

Women go in pairs to the restroom?

[Tito_Muerte]

well...I guess it depends on the woman....or..rather...the ALIEN!

But ok, while we're on the topic of crop circles...who else thought signs was an awesome movie? I'm sorry to say, but I quite enjoyed it. I mean, it was so pretty and methodic (very M. Knight), how could one not like it.

(and did anyone else's girlfriend make fun of them for liking the Sines/Signs joke Phil made?) ops:

[tracer]

And did anyone who liked the sines/signs joke actually have a girlfriend? (Ow! Stop hitting!)

I remember catching a similar kind of joke in Buckaroo Bonzai Across The Eighth Dimension. While they were ramping up for the first test of the trans-dimensional car, an oscilloscope in the background showed a sinusoindal wave and the word "SINED" next to it. Cut away, cut back, and now the oscilloscope said "SEALED". Cut away and cut back again, and now the oscilloscope said "DELIVERED".

[Tito_Muerte]

heh heh...they made a funny

[g99]

(and did anyone else's girlfriend make fun of them for liking the Sines/Signs joke Phil made?) ops:

What joke?

[tracer]

You know? "Sines"? "Signs"? Get it? Laugh, darn you, it's funny!