Mushroom Crop Circle

[MORG]

Who else loves crop circles?!

This one is from this week. 24th June.

http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2009/ro...ghhill2009.html

If anyone says anything about aliens I'll bite your face off.

Edited June 26, 2009 by MORG

[Chiral]

Okay I have to say something about crop circles..when I was in the UK I ran a psychedelic store in the Camden lock markets...okay so the thing is it attracted all kinds of freaks and weirdo's and conspiracy theory nuts as all the artwork and books etc was of, and about Aliens etc...anyways some of the people were really interesting some not so...well a couple of guys came in one day and shoved a small pink booklet in front of me and said read this man...I read it and they claimed that they were responsible for 90% of all crop circles in west country of England..they went under the name of F26 ..something like that..I still have the booklet somewhere I'll dig it out when I get a chance...they had pics of all the famous ones they had done...the technique they use relies on them using lengths of board like planks and rope and swinging them whilst standing on the other end...so they stand on a plank and pull the rope up so the plank lifts slightly and then swing say clockwise till a circle is formed...they have different sized planks etc for different shapes and sizes...they are all well educated Uni students who are maths whizzes etc...I found it to be quite an art form and they would come into my store quite often...now how it came that I was able to believe them was they would tell me what circle would appear soon and sure enough there it was a few weeks later and they would rock up at my store and with sly grins and say hey, now do you believe us...well how could I not...like others I was amazed by the crop circles in the 90's as they were so intricate and beautiful and otherworldly...they do however claim they have not done a fair few of them and they think that another copy cat group may be responsible for the others...some say the orbs of light frequently captured on video around the area are responsible for them but as yet no proof has ever been brought to light.

H.

[Legba]

They have Wallaby's in Rough Hill, nr Winterbourne Bassett, Wiltshire.

[Fenris]

Alternative mushroom crop circles, for the full article see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_ring

A fairy ring, also known as fairy circle, elf circle or pixie ring, is a naturally occurring ring or arc of mushrooms. The rings may grow over ten meters in diameter and become stable over time as the fungus grows and seeks food underground. They are found mainly in forested areas, but also appear in grasslands or rangelands. Fairy rings are not only detectable by sporocarps in rings or arcs, but also by a necrotic zone (dead grass) or a ring of dark green grass. If these manifestations are visible a fairy fungus mycelium is likely present in the ring or arc underneath.

Fairy rings also occupy a prominent place in European folklore as the location of gateways into elfin kingdoms, or places where elves gather and dance.

Genesis

There are two theories regarding the process involved in creating fairy rings. One states that fairy ring is begun by a spore from the sporocarpus. The underground presence of the fungus can also cause withering or varying colour or growth of the grass above. Many fairy rings are believed to be coenocytic, meaning that an entire ring is just one large cell with multiple nuclei.

The second theory, which is presented in the investigations of Japanese scientists on the Tricholoma matsutake species, shows that fairy rings could be established by connecting neighbouring oval genets of these mushrooms. If they make an arc or a ring, they continuously grow about the centre of this object.

Necrotic or rapid growth zones

One of the three manifestations is a necrotic zone, or area in which grass or other plant life has withered or died. These are caused by the mycelia, which during a very dry year coat the roots of grasses and other herbs in meadows. After some time they are removed by biotic factors from the ground, at which stage we can see a zone on the surface soil. Patterns other than the basic ring or arc are also possible: circles, doubled arcs, sickle-shaped arcs, and other complicated formations are also formed by this process. Fungi can deplete the soil of readily available nutrients like nitrogen, causing plant growing within the circle to be stressed which leads to plant discoloration. Some fungi also produce chemicals that act like hormones called gibberellins, which affects plant growth, causing rapid luxuriant growth.

Types

There are two generally recognised types of fairy ring fungus. Those found in the woods are called tethered, because they are formed by mycorrhizal fungi living in commensalism with trees. Meadow fairy rings are called free, because they are not connected with other organisms. These mushrooms are saprotrophic. The effects on the grass depend on the type of fungus that is growing; when Calvatia cyathiformis is growing in the area grass will grow more abundantly; however, Clitocybe gigantea will cause the grass to wither.[1]

[Chiral]

Okay I have found the booklet..it wasn't pink it was cream coloured....anyways it's called "a beginners guide to crop circle making" with assistance from Fe3...okay so inside it says the nocturnal pastime of crop circle making was made popular by the work of 2 Hampshire- based artists Doug Bower and Dave Chorley...I'll skip to the equipment section...it says..

the tools you will need are a relatively unsophisticated; a 30 meters surveyors tape - this is preferable to string which tends to tangle easily...a 1-2 meter board or plank with a rope attached to each end to form a loop - this is known as a stork stomper...dowsing rods - these should be made of copper and purchased from an expensive new age shop or in an emergency a couple of bent coat hangers will do...a plastic garden roller, a luminous watch is also useful as a summer night can be surprisingly brief...the booklet then goes on to explain how to create your crop circles in great detail.....at the very end of this booklet it shows the design that is soon to come...

[MORG]

I know who you speak of Hunab. Cool to have met those guys. They have a website somewhere.

I saw them on a doco sometime ago.

I find crop circles a very curious study of humanity. The fact that hundreds of people, completely blind to this plausible, rational explanation and admission of responsibility refused to believe. Instead they became more fervent in their paranormal explanations for the circles and those beliefs persist til today.

As well as being beautiful for their mathematics and symbolism, they embody one of the more distasteful parts of the human psyche.

[eexpee]

There was also some doco I saw about crop circles and that 'genuine' ones actually have particular minerals at the site that aren't contained around the circle. It is also supposed to be done in less than 2 hrs (some say seconds). Some Uni students tried to replicated it as accurately as possible and almost did it. I duno, i'm undecided.

[ThunderIdeal]

i've heard that most are not consistent with the man-made efforts but whatever, either way they're pretty awesome unless the crop belongs to you.

[Chiral]

I know who you speak of Hunab. Cool to have met those guys. They have a website somewhere.

I saw them on a doco sometime ago.

I find crop circles a very curious study of humanity. The fact that hundreds of people, completely blind to this plausible, rational explanation and admission of responsibility refused to believe. Instead they became more fervent in their paranormal explanations for the circles and those beliefs persist til today.

As well as being beautiful for their mathematics and symbolism, they embody one of the more distasteful parts of the human psyche.

Not to mention the fact the farmers really hate their crops being vandalised...!!

But it is remarkable how even when admission of such an event is pleaded, that the few will still insist and pursue the paranormal explanation...why is that...?

Although I admit that one must keep an open mind ... not everything can be explained so rationally.

H.

[ThunderIdeal]

"But it is remarkable how even when admission of such an event is pleaded, that the few will still insist and pursue the paranormal explanation...why is that...?"

ummmmm probably the result of different explanations in circulations, like the aforementioned claims that man-made crop art differs from the most common type (in which stalks are inexplicably curved at the base rather than being snapped, as though the cell walls on one side of the stalk were exploded or something). maybe it's good info, maybe not, it's enough that i don't consider it "case closed".

it's like i say about the myth-busters tv show, sometimes they prove something to be possible, they've never exhaustively proven that something is impossible.

[Chiral]

here is the famous ORBS making a crop circle video....this one has had people baffled for many years..

 

and here is the website for Fe3 http://www.circlemakers.org/guide.html

H.

[Chiral]

From circle makers site...some of the best but these two are incredible...

[eexpee]

Those two show distinctly human made characteristics. Im a skeptic about both sides. Like ThunderIdeal said, I don't think it's "case closed"

[MORG]

 

Great video of Norwegian crop circle fetishists who are blown away by the experience of standing on a fresh circle... created for the BBC TV program QI.

[Zen Peddler]

No!!! Dont ruin my beliefs! LOL.

Actually the maker of the orb video as you probably know admitted he made it on his computer. LOL.

I remember reading an article about bending at hte nodes or something and some radioactive shit but i cant recall.

if these guys really did them and they are now admitting it they suck. Ruining the mystery... Still I dont actually believe they are doing them all, the Juliet Set as an example formed on summer solstice.

[nabraxas]

(in which stalks are inexplicably curved at the base rather than being snapped, as though the cell walls on one side of the stalk were exploded or something).

there are four scientifically-documented visible plant changes which are hallmarks of genuine crop circles -- and all of these, if present, are (a) thought to be caused by the exposure of the plants to the heating component (most likely microwave radiation) of a plasma energy discharge which our work indicates is involved in the creation of many crop circles, and (cool.gif except for the inhibited seed/seed-head development, the other three will be present immediately after a formation occurs:

1.

elongation or stretching of the apical nodes (the first node beneath the seed-head), as compared to the control nodes.

2.

expulsion cavities (holes blown out at the nodes, usually found in the 2nd and/or 3rd nodes beneath the seed-head), as compared to control plants at various distances away from the formation, (but not along the tramlines).

3.

distinct bending of the plant stems at the nodes, which can occur at any or all of the nodes -- this parameter is useful only if one knows both the growth-stage of the crop when the circle occurred and how much time has elapsed since then, because young and vigorously-growing plants will produce nodal bending within days of being flattened (so long as they are not crushed), as they begin to reorient themselves to the sun and to gravity (phototropism and gravitropism. Mature crop which has begun to dry down does not have the energy required for these natural recovery processes and, so, marked node bending in circles which occur in this later growth-stage is much easier to recognize as significant.

4.

inhibited seed-head development, which is usually only apparent in crop formations which have occurred fairly early in the season but are being examined at least 3-4 weeks later. In early genuine formations the seed-heads in the flattened crop will usually be visibly smaller and less well-developed 3-4 weeks later, and in many cases the glumes have been found to contain no seeds at all.

There is a fifth visible plant alteration -- bending at the base of the plant -- which can be also be highly significant but, as in the case of nodal bending, it's significance is dependent upon both the type of plant involved and the age of the crop at the time the formation has appeared. Young cereal plants are quite flexible and when flattened mechanically will often bend at the base rather than break; however, marked bending at the base in certain plants (such as canola, which has a thick stalk which breaks easily) or in older crop, particularly if it has reached the drying stage, is quite likely to be highly significant (since mechanical flattening at this stage will crush, not bend, the plant base).

In addition to the visible changes discussed above the BLT Team has always (if attempting to determine "authenticity" of a specific crop circle) taken into consideration additional parameters which require lab analysis to estabish. These are (a) marked germination abnormalities in the crop circle seeds; (cool.gif the presence of node-length changes which correlate with the well-known law of physics (the Beer-Lambert principle) which predicts the effect of exposure to EM energies on matter; © the presence and distribution patterns of microscopic, magnetized iron spherules in the soils; and (d) after the completion of the x-ray diffraction study in 2002, the increased ordering of the crystalline structure of specific clay minerals in crop circle soils.

http://www.bltresearch.com/fieldreports/uk2009.php

http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/anasazi/WHAT%20DO%20MODERN%20CROP%20PICTURES%20MEAN.html

[ThunderIdeal]

thanks. in an arm chair speculator kind of way, that has empowered me to imagine ways high tech ways that authentic crop art may be formed. perhaps crops are used because the plants are all at very similar developmental stages, which allows them to be precisely manipulated. the length of the stalk and the number of nodes may be factors that the artists base their calculations on.

"the presence and distribution patterns of microscopic, magnetized iron spherules in the soils; and (d) after the completion of the x-ray diffraction study in 2002, the increased ordering of the crystalline structure of specific clay minerals in crop circle soils"

in particular i'd like to know more about the distribution patterns of the iron spheres and how they correlate to the pattern formed!! for instance, if we have an area with all of the stalks facing the same direction, do we find that they are pointing to/away from the iron deposites?

[ref1ect1ons]

Great work Nabraxas, I am really glad both explanations have been credited here. I am actually a believer myself, in that I dont say aliens or men, I say I believe in the mystery; an explanation that acknowledges the high technology that is sometimes evident in crop circles without saying who, cause I have yet to figure this out.