Theories

Crop circles are areas of cereal or similar crops that have been systematically flattened to form various geometric patterns. The phenomenon itself only entered the public imagination in its current form after the notable appearances in England in the late 1970s. Various scientific and pseudo-scientific explanations were put forward to explain the phenomenon, which soon spread around the world.

In 1991, more than a decade after the phenomena began, two men, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, revealed that they had been making crop circles in England since 1978 using planks, rope, hats and wire as their only tools. Many other people around the world are also openly making crop circles. Although the commonly accepted view today is that crop circles are a man-made phenomenon, paranormal explanations, often including UFOs, are still popular.

In paranormal circles the study of the crop circle phenomena is called Cerealogy. Cerealogists commonly refer to these designs as agriglyphs or landscape art.

Crop circles are found in fields, over tree-tops, and in ice and snow. They are mostly often found in wheat or corn fields, but have also been found in oat, rape (canola), and barley. They are a world wide phenomena, highlighted in England.

An apparently more convincing historical report of crop circles was published in the journal Nature in 1880. An amateur scientist named Brandon Meland appears to describe a field containing a number of crop circles, along with his suggestion that they might have been caused by "some cyclonic wind action". 

In 1991, more than a decade after the phenomena began, two men announced that the phenomenon of crop circles was an idea thought up one evening in a pub in Southampton, England in 1978. World War II veteran Doug Bower and his friend Dave Chorley revealed that they made their crop circles using planks, rope, hats and wire as their only tools. Bower and Chorley stated to reporters that a small group of people can stomp down a sizeable area of crop in a single night. "Stomp" does not mean using the feet: simple tools to make crop circles have been demonstrated.

The pair became slightly frustrated that their work had not received as much publicity as they had hoped. In 1981 they created a crop circle in a highly visible area called the Winchester Punchbowl - an area surrounded by roads from which a clear view of the field is available to drivers passing by.

Bower's wife had become increasingly suspicious of him due to noticing particularly high levels of road mileage in their car. Eventually, fearing that his wife suspected him of something else, Bower confessed to her what he had been doing and subsequently informed a British national newspaper.

Bower revealed on TV the method used, which was that of a four-foot-long plank with rope attached and circles of eight feet in diameter could be easily created. He stated that a 40-foot circle could be created by two men in a quarter of an hour. The designs were at first simple circles. When newspapers claimed that the circles could easily be explained by natural phenomena, Bower and Chorley chose more complex patterns. A simple wire with a loop, hanging down from a cap - the loop positioned over one eye - could be used to focus on a landmark to aid in the creation of straight lines.

Later designs of crop circles were to become increasingly complex. Dave Chorley died in 1996 though Doug Bower has made the occasional crop circle as recently as 2004 - over ten years after he revealed it to be a hoax. Bower has said that, had it not been for his wife's suspicions, he would have taken the secret to his deathbed, never revealing that it was a hoax.

Circlemakers have demonstrated that making what self-appointed cerealogist experts state are "unfakeable" crop circles is possible. One such cerealogist, G. Terence Meaden, was filmed claiming that a crop circle was genuine when the night before the making of that crop circle by humans was filmed.

On the night of July 11-12, 1992, a crop-circle making competition, for a prize of several thousand pounds (partly funded by the Arthur Koestler Foundation), was held in Berkshire. The winning entry was produced by three helicopter engineers, using rope, PVC pipe, a trestle and a ladder. Another competitor used a small garden roller, a plank and some rope.

The size and complexity of the designs demonstrated that minimal equipment and preparation sufficed to produce even the most complex crop circle designs.Scientific American published an article by Matt Ridley (August 2002, p. 25), who started making crop circles in Texas in 1991. He wrote about how easy it is to develop techniques using simple tools that can easily fool later observers. He reported on "expert" sources such as the Wall Street Journal who had been easily fooled, and mused about why people want to believe supernatural explanations for phenomena that are not yet explained.

Methods to create a hoaxed crop circle have been well-documented on the Internet, there's even a beginners guide.A counter argument to hoaxing is that where circles appear in crops mature enough that they carry seeds (as they do so often) seed-pods are unbroken, whereas trampling causes seed-pod breakage.

Crop circle hoaxers counter that it is easy to leave dry seed pods unbroken during stomping and also leave no trace of entrance and egress trampling when the plants and ground are both dry and some care is taken while walking.

Several crop circles, later to have been determined to be hoaxes, were at first certified as being 'genuine' by cerealogists due to the lack of seed pod breakage. Entry to a field without leaving traces is also easy, since there always are several tracks made by the machines used to spray insecticides on the crop that people can use.

Some claim that the circles might still have merit as a social phenomenon regardless of their legitimacy. New Age experts have expressed interest in researching the shapes and symbols depicted.

The first people to be charged with creating a crop circle were Hungarian teenagers Gabor Takacs and Robert Dallos, both 17 and from the St. Stephen Agricultural Technicum, a high school in Hungary specializing in agriculture. On the night of June 8th 1992 they created a 36 meter diameter crop circle in a wheat field near Szekesfehervar, 43 miles southwest of Budapest.

On September 3rd 1992 they appeared on a Hungarian TV show and exposed the circle as a hoax showing photos of the field before and after the circle was made. As a result Aranykalasz Co. the owners of the land that the corp circle was created on sued the youngsters for Fts.630,000 (approx 5,000 UK pounds) in damages. The court eventually ruled that the boys were only responsible for the damage caused in the 36 meters diameter circle, amounting to about Fts.6,000 (47 UK pounds).

They concluded that 99% of the damage to the crops was caused by the thousands of visitors that flocked to Szekesfehervar following the media's promotion of the circle. The fine was eventually paid for by the TV show, as were the boys legal fees.

Some crop-circle photographs are hoaxes, created using image manipulation.

Despite the fact that many of the most complicated crop circles created are well documented human efforts, some enthusiasts argue that some designs have a degree of complexity that humans would not be able to easily recreate on paper let alone in a field at night.

They argue that the shapes of these formations are far too complex, and display a tremedously high level of symmetry which make it extremely difficult for a team of humans to create using just simple hand tools. Circle makers respond by noting that the only tool necessary for perfect symmetry is a measured length of rope rotated around a central pivot point.

In 1972 two witnesses, Arthur Shuttlewood and Bryce Bond, sat on the slope of Star Hill near Warminster, England, hoping to catch a glimpse of the strange unidentifyed flying craft that had made this part of England a UFO mecca for almost a decade. In the light of a full moon, from a distance of 100 feet, they allegedly witnessed a large circular area of plants that collapsed within twenty seconds creating a crop circle.

Crop formations are sometimes accompanied by sightings of unusual lights and structured craft beaming shafts of light onto the field the night before.

Very often crop formations appear where powerful ley lines intersect or the Earth's magnetic energy lines. This is often at the same place where megalithic sites such as Stonehenge are found. Dowsing can be done within the formations after the crop has been plowed when there are no longer traces of physical evidence.

I believe the real formation are created by the grid consciousness that creates our reality their messages reflect creation and rebirth. This lends itself to creation by sound as reality manifests by sound harmonics. The concepts for the hoaxed patterns is also set in play by the same consciousness as an awakening tool. Reality is about the evolution of consciousness in the alchemy of time.

Info source: http://www.crystalinks.com/croptheories.html