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Two crop circles in Hoeven in Holland in 1999 were used for studies by Dr. Eltjo Haselhoff, variously concluding, depending on his writings, that these circles could be made by balls of lights or where "scientifically proven" to have been made by balls of lights.
In a previous article, I showed that the effects allotted to a ball of light can actually be very real, but that the ball of light in question could be nothing more extraordinary than: the sun.
Here, I approach a very different angle of the affair, but just as fatal to the allegedly convincing value of these two crop cricles: the nature, and the value, of the testimonial material attached to the case.
I began by collecting the information of this kind from the proponent sources.
The most known source in most countries about these two formations is a general public book by Dr. Eltjo Haselhoff on the subject of the crop circles: "Les Cercles des Blés et Leurs Mystères", published in French in 2002, Havre SA publishers - a book published in several other countries, in English, Italian etc. Eltjo Haselhoff is precisely the person claiming to have scientifically proven that both crop circles of Hoeven in 1999 were not made by men, but by "balls of light".
In the book, the testimonial information is as follows, distributed in pages 91 to 97 in the French edition. It should be noted that there is no there formal investigation report nor verbatim quotation of witnesses, only specific and scattered information in the course of a chapter intended at showing that a lengthening of the nodes of the wehat stems in the two formations can be only be proof that the crop circles were created by one or more "balls of light". This testimonial information is provided as if it was reliable and certain, with no examination at all.
This information is:
This information poses a whole series of problems that a qualified ufologist must be able to identify readily.
One notes that picture 19, supposed to be the circle of June 7, 1999 by this witness, is captioned as being a circle appeared on June 7, 1998, one year before, with "a witness", not specified, who would allegedly said it was "created by" a luminous ball. A misprint, or a sign of a real problem?
A class of problems is that of the lack of data. There is no precise location, by no precise hour, no precise date for the second sighting, no angular size, no situation plan, no ufological investigation at all of the assertions of the witness, anonymous, of "young" age not specified, of unknown psychological background. A ufologist knows for example that by night, statement that a light is "at a height of three meters approximately" is nothing that should be trusted to be accurate, especially if it is the say of a child. On the other hand, Haselhoff provides a source to read for more information, this is of course to check for concordancy with the presentation by Haselhoff and if it really provides the missing information; I do just this in the continuation of this article.
The obvious error here is that of the argumentation post hoc ergo propter hoc: a succession of one event and another is considered without justification as being a causality. Because there is something abnormal - according to Haselhoff - with the stem nodes of the plants, Haselhoff decides, confusing succession and causality, that the alleged luminous phenomena are real, and that they are cause of these anomalies of the plants. Whereas it would be advisable to verify the allegation and look for explanations as of these lights, and Haselhoff does indicate he is conscious that numerous commonplace explanation could exist, from classical misinterperetations to pure invention, it is on the sole post hoc fallacy that he rejects those. This is a serious scientific error.
It is also noted that at the beginning of the presentation, there is no question of a boy who witnesses the apparition of a crop circle, but only a boy who discovers a finished crop circle when entering the field. That was then distorted a few pages further in a staement where Haselhoff writes that the crop circle "appeared" to the boy, as if the boy witnessed the very creation of crop circles. This is a very important point, omitted by Haselhoff in other considerations on these crop circles: the date of discovery of a crop circle should not be assumed to be the date of its creation.
In addition to what he says of the case in his book, Eltjo Haselhoff had previously circulatet an article about it.
In this article, Dr. Haselhoff affirms about the testimony:
"An eye witness claimed that this crop circle was created in a matter of seconds, while a "ball of light" was floating in the air, right above the centre of the circle [4]."
[...]
(4) See, for example, N.P. Talbott,
http:/www.labyrinthina.com/crop.htm, or N.P. Talbott, http://www.crystalinks.com/crop1999.2.html.
No other information on the witness or the way in which the testimony was checked, or not, is given. There is a reference "4", one towards a web page that disappeared since and the other towards what is indeed the version of the affair by Nancy Tablot - it will be discussed in this article.
It can be seen that the information is extremely thin, below the acceptable from the point of view of a UFO investigator: no name, no investigation report, sources of the "web page" with one that disappeared meanwhile, and the other, we will see it, not being an investigation report at all.
But especially, by comparison with other sources, including those referenced here, one will note that the testimony is extremely different, since Dr. Haselhoff states here that according to the witness the crop circle has been "created in a matter of seconds," while the other versions state only that he saw a luminous phenomenon, then got dressed, came out of his bedroom, went into the field, and found the crop circle!
This one can be found at http://archiv.fgk.org/99/Berichte/Hoeven99/index.shtml
We learn the date of the discovery of the second crop circle: June 12, 1999. Haselhoff does not give the name of the witness, saying only that he knows the name. There is actually no information on the witness.
Haselhoff indicates that the witness was standing in his bedroom, looking at the field behind his house, he saw a light like a bright star, but it moved and "seemed" to be "quite near". Suddenly in a few seconds it became an elliptic form, and the witness said that the air around started to tremble, as by heat, and that the light weakened and disappeared. He ran into the field, and found a circle of flattened plants, with the air and the ground seeming hot to him.
As can be seen, in this version, the witness does not witness a "creation of the crop circle in a matter of seconds by the light."
The next day he finds a second circle beside the first, 60 cm in diameter.
On June 12, 1999, at 1 a.m. approximately, he sees a short flash "like a camera flash", downwards, slightly bluish, coming "from a specific place" above the same field. When he inspects the field - it is not known when - he finds the second crop circle, which also seems "hot".
It should be noted that at no time does Eltjo Haselhoff consider that people could have made this circle and that the flash would have been simply indeed people taking a night photograph of of their creation, or the curious taking such a photograph. He prefers to give reason for thinking that this flash made the crop circle! As of the "heat" in the crop circle, it is perfectly natural: these plants, flattened, "attacked", heat naturally. Those who want to check this like I did can do just that.
Indicated as source of reference by Eltjo Haselhoff in its book on page 90, as being at
www.cropcircleconnector.com/archive/inter99/hoeven99a.html, the page in question is not there on July 5, 2008 when I write these lines.
This obviously shows the pseudo-scientific nature of the affair.
A study that is supposedly a scientific study cannot absolutely rest on volatile references. It must include a perennial documentation, which must remain available with no limitation of date nor difficulty of access, and not some "Error 404 - page not found" document.
It is certainly obvious that Eltjo Haselhoff did not intend to propose his book as being a scientific study in itself, but it is unfortunately regularly presented as such by convinced readers.
It happens that I ensured the survival of the page by a private copy when it was available, and a crop circle website published a copy which is still available as of July 5, 2008 at http://www.crystalinks.com/crop1999.2.html - this is the web page mentioned as source in Dr. Haselhoff's article discussed previously.
Here is this text:
"This event is in southern Holland - and it's concerning again this boy, Robert van den Broeke, who has the ability somehow to know when these things are getting ready to happen and who has been in the middle of a formation when it occurred - this was a couple of years ago. And subsequently, there has been a lot of crop circle activity around where he lives. And Sunday night - actually for several days - the entire weekend, he was having these anxiety feelings that he gets, pacing back and forth, feeling unwell physically which is a phenomenon that occurs prior to one of these situations. And his parents insisted that he go to bed finally Sunday evening, which he did. They in fact checked on him before they went to bed and he was sound asleep.
But what happened is that at 12:15, he woke up and knew to go to the window. He opened the curtains and looked out. His window overlooks this little garden out back and this huge farm field which is directly behind their garden. And what he saw is just incredible! He describes a small, misty, pinkish-purple light - not a sphere, more football shaped - and a little bit smaller than a football, which was coming in over the field at a height of about 10 feet, maybe 12 feet over the field from quite a distance away. It's quite an enormous field. He watched it as it came closer and closer and closer to this spot that is about 50 meters behind his house. And this is where one of the snow circles occurred a couple of years ago. There was a circle in mustard seed there last spring. He's had a couple of circles in other crops in that general area. came right back to this area and stopped - the word he used was "hanging" - just stopped in the air and hung over this spot. Then, it started to elongate, spread out is the easiest way to describe it - and it apparently spread out and spread out becoming thinner and thinner looking like a disc, was then how he described it.
When it was about 30 feet in diameter, again, still hanging there - not moving at all except for this expanding motion - then he observed what he calls (Nancy makes sh, sh, sh sound) in Dutch for electrical discharge. He and I have these signals we give back and forth because he doesn't speak English too well and I don't speak Dutch at all. And what he means is that he watched electrical discharges coming from the underside of this disc-shaped, misty, pinkish-purple cloud or ball of light for -- I would gather -- it sounded like six or seven, eight, maybe ten seconds immediately over the field.
Then the light phenomenon simply dissipated, was gone. He was very excited, threw on some clothes and went running out the back and squeaked through the hedge and into the field and lo' and behold, right smack where that thing had been was a 30 foot diameter circle - I think it's wheat. They say grain and I'm not sure which kind of grain they mean. And a 10 foot circle very near by, both of which had not been there at 10 o'clock PM when he went to bed. It's still light in Holland at 10 and you can see out whether it was there and it wasn't. And here they were.
Q. Did it disappear, fade out or what?
As best as I could get it, the electrical activity stopped and then it just like poof!
Q. And now what's the time lapse between that poofing out and their discovering the circles?
Well, he went immediately - he literally took about 5 minutes to throw on some clothes. He was in the field within 10 minutes, I would say, and there it was. He said he could see it from his window after this light had gone. He could see there was at least one circle, and he thought there were two - and they were in fact there. And it looks like the whole situation - as it was coming in from way in the distance - that might have taken a minute or so to get up near his windows. But once it was there, everything that happened subsequently didn't take longer than another minute - the spreading out and then the discharge of whatever this was, and the whole thing happening.
Q. Did he hear any sound whatsoever as this transforming took place?
He didn't comment on sound. I think he would have commented if he heard anything, but he didn't mention. What he did say was that when he got in it, he felt this very strong energy and it was very positive, he said. "love, love, love!"
Q. In the circles?
In the circles. This wonderful surge of energy and his parents told me that he came to wake them up after he had been in the circles - he just sort of sat in this big one, I think, for awhile and then he went to tell his parents because he was so excited. They went and looked at it and they said it was remarkable because every time it happens with this kid, he feels very ill. He is not a happy camper at all several days prior to the event. And it was a transformation -- he was full of beans and feeling great and energized and all the illness forgotten completely -- which they've seen happen before.
This is very interesting. he was very clear that it was not a UFO. It was a light, a misty, foggy light, and it apparently retained that character, even when it became disc-like looking. In his opinion, it did not look metallic or solid the way I know many of these reports are. In his mind, or to his eyes, it retained this sort of misty character, even when it became disc-shaped rather than football-shaped.
Q. So it remained the pink, glowing?
Yeah, and he said he had never seen a color quite like that -- it was amazing to him. Pinkish-purple.
Q. Did he ever feel at that point that he got any images in his mind as if there was any kind of telepathic communication?
He didn't say anything about that either, although he has had encounters in the past - this time when he was in the field and these small, sort of grapefruit-sized whitish balls were in the field - that was a daytime encounter, two years ago now, and he was simply riding in the field on his bike and had stopped off in this one field that he particularly likes. And observed hundreds of these grapefruit and tennis ball-sized white - milky white sort of opaquish balls, some of which approached him and began circling around him. At which point, he became unconscious and when he woke up he was in the middle of this crop circle - a brand new one.
At that time, he also saw an entity - a form - that he perceived as female and it did transmit information to him, or he had the impression of that. And that figure has returned at least one more time - I think two more times - once to the garden out back of his house and once in his bedroom actually. He has a name for it. He thinks he knows its name which iIbelieve he prefers to keep private. He has a name for it he prefers to keep quiet. And it does transmit some sort of telepathic communication about the crop circles being very important for mankind to be paying attention to and he thinks that it has something to do with the environment and deceit - that the crop circles are somehow or other an antidote or there is something about the crop circles that is to fight deceit.
Q. To fight deceit as lying and hiding?
Yes, in humankind generally. That something like that - he doesn't understand it all. It's not clear. And he has no idea why he himself is involved, but as a parallel to all this - what has happened with him is that he has developed this incredible apparent healing abilities and he has people coming - he makes appointments all day long - now they've limited it to, I think, three days a week - where people come with all sorts of physical and mental problems and he has some ability that he doesn't understand at all to identify what their trouble is and often to heal them. In fact, apparently in the majority of cases, they become well after a session with Robert. And that happened - all this came about after he started getting involved with the crop circles.
Q. It's interesting that he would say that they might have something to do with fighting deceit because the thing that has struck all of us over the past decade is they are worldwide, they are right there in front of you, and it is as if something has been trying to do signaling or communication outside of the restricted paradigms of political systems.
Yeah. I have to say, I know this boy pretty well. I know his family pretty well. These are very straight, middle-class Dutch hardworking people. There is nothing flamboyant, there is nothing foolish about these people at all. And they have questioned and questioned all this up until fairly recently. And now they have just accepted that it's happening and are doing their best to cope with whatever it means. But I am about as sure as I can be that Robert is simply telling exactly what he saw to the best of his ability. And he himself is trying like crazy to understand why it happens where he is, what he's supposed to do about all of this, and then just proceed.
Nancy Talbot is the director of the BLT (Burke, Levengood & Talbot) crop circle research team in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has worked with biophysicist W.C. Levengood in Michigan for the past several years to analyze plants from formations in Europe, Israel, Australia, Canada and the U.S.
Levengood hypothesizes that plants in some sampled formations were affected by a spinning plasma vortex that contains microwave energies. The microwaves heat plant cells, softening and collapsing the stems into the fluid patterns we have come to associate with genuinely mysterious formations. But Levengood does not know the source of the spinning plasma vortex. This eyewitness in Holland has now seen two different phenomena associated with the creation of fresh formations which suggests there might be different mechanisms for different patterns.
The BLT Research Team Inc. is a non-profit, tax-exempt U.S. corporation whose purpose is the scientific examination of plants, soils and associated materials sampled at crop formation sites around the world. The BLT team is headed by Michigan biophysicist, Wm. C. Levengood, who has been examining crop circle plants and soils since 1989 and includes American colleagues Nancy Talbott and John Burke, as well as hundreds of field personnel in many different countries.
To-date three papers presenting the research findings have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, as well as more than 100 lab reports on individual crop formations in the U.S., Canada, England, The Netherlands, Germany, Australia and Israel. These scientific papers and laboratory reports outline the physical abnormalities discovered so far in the plants and soils, clearly indicating a causative agency other than human-directed mechanical flattening of the plants, suggesting instead an energy system which emits microwaves and associated unusual electrical and magnetic fields.
For further information, or to volunteer to help in the field-collection of plants and/or soils at crop circle sites, please call, write or fax the BLT office:
Nancy Talbott Field Research Coordinator BLT Research Team Inc. PO Box 400127 Cambridge, MA 02140 USA Tel: 617/492-0415, Fax: 617/492-0414
Let's pass on the very clumsy writing of this text, which apparently is some transcription of some article appeared somewhere undetermined, apparently an oral interview, in which it is not even clear who asks questions and who answers. Is this Nancy Talbot? Who puts out the questions, who answers? Who is the person who "gives" the testimony of the boy? A neighbor, Nancy Talbot?
It will be obviously noted that these remarks of second hand accompanied by speculations are in no manner a ufological investigation of the alleged sightings. This is a general trait of the crop circles literature: "phenomena", yes, investigations, no.
This text shows a story on the "witness" of a very different order than what Eltjo Haselhoff let appear.
An ordinary boy? An ordinary witness? Certainly not!
Actually, we have as witness a "boy" who meets with entities in the fields, in his bedroom, communicates with these entites by telepathy... who says he is a psychic, knowing in advance when crop circles will "appear". Better, he exerts as psychic healer, having a "power" whose source is claimed to be the crop circles!
What a stark contrast with the presentation by Eltjo Haselhoff. From simple witness of light discovering crop circles where the lights were, from what could have been assumed an "ordinary witness" case, that could have been assumed to be "unprepared" to any "phenomenon", we have, what a suprise, a repeater witness, who is an alleged psychic healer, with "powers" from "mysterious energies" of crop circles... How reliable can this be, when is is a matter of fact that many alleged mediums and psychic healer of course capitalize on crop circles, supernatural entities, aliens? Not reliable at all! The "misuse" of the UFO topic and the crop circles as "sources" of alleged "powers" is netiher proof of authenticity of the allegedly seen UFOs, nor proof of the authenticity of the alleged "psychic powers". The misuse is almost a constant in the assertions of such people.
But, one might argue, what if the boy was really an authentic psychic healer, and not some charlatan as there exists many? Maybe there is no reason at all to doubt his claimed powers, maybe it is real, who knows? Why reject it?
Well, now at least, in addition to rather sensationa claims, we have something in our hands to dig further into the matter: the name of the witness. And if you thought you were at the end of the suprises, be prepared for some more shocks.
Robbert van den Broekke is in no way some anonymous boy anymore.
His website is at www.robbertvandenbroeke.com
He says he is a medium. He is actually a media celebrity in the Netherlands, as he campaigned for years on the radios, TV shows, magazines, in a mission to reveal the reality of the paranormal to the broades audience, in order to bring people to "higher levels of spirituality". Of course, Robbert is also in crusade against the evil minded skeptics who refuse to believe him.
He is the author of the book "Robbert, van zorgenkind tot medium" ("Robbert, from disturbed child to psychic") in which he shares his numerous experiences and talks of his paranormal powers.
Robbert was a problem child. Endowed in setting up puppet shows for his sister, endowed in telling stories, he had problems with school integration, not managing to get interested for activities such as learning multiplication tables or doing homework. His desperate parents had him followed by psychologists, put him in a boarding school for the rehabilitation of difficult children, but without good results. He was depressive, was prescribed antidepressants, but hi parents discovered that it did not take the medicine. Then he met an alleged medium, Rens Hendriks, who stated the kid had paranormal powers, and the parents believed it.
He discovered his first crop circle in February 1996. He then concluded that he had the power to "sense" the appearance of crop circles in advance. As crop circle regularly appear in the area that he traveled on his bike - very small and unimpressive circles - he did not fail to find some, presenting invariably his find as a result of his "visions". Under the influence of Rens Hendriks, he thus grew up, always in social difficulties, but with a "solution": he was different because he had paranormal powers. Since 1996, when he appeared on local television channel TV8, he never ceased obtaining publicity, with the support of his parents. When Eljto Haselhoff became interested in the boy, as "witness of the appearance of crop circles made by balls of lights", he became a national celebrity in the Netherlands.
During one night of the summer of 2000, whereas Robbert's parents were on holiday, his sister Madelon realized he was not home. Robbert appeared only at 4 a.m.. His trousers were wet and muddy. Robbert could not, or did not want to, explain what had occurred. The next day, there were five crop circles in a nearby field.
Robbert claims psychic healing powers, claims to communicate with the souls of dead people, claims to foresse the future, claims retrocognition, and since 2004, claims to have photographs proving his contacts with both ghosts and aliens.
Robbert's family is now very angry ar Eltjo Haselhoff, because the latter never wrote the name of their son in his books and articles on the crop circles of Hoeven and the "balls of lights which make the crop circles", in which he only talks of "an eyewitness" whose "name is known" to him. The family thinks that Eltjo Haselhoff conceals the name of their son so that the fame due to him does not make shade to Haselhoff.
Can his claims be checked?
For many of them, it is impossible. It is obvious that when Robbert claims to receive telepathic communications from supernatural entities, it is quite difficult "to prove" that he does not, that these are only stories he makes up.
But the situation is very different when he shows photographs that he claims to be proof of his paranormal experiences. And Robbert does not lack in photographs to show, in fact, few people have produce such a large catalogue!
Alas, a qualified ufologist who would take the care to throw an eye at this material would not fail to conclude: "someone thinks we're stupid!"
I cannot discuss of of the material. But I believe the reader should see what kind of stuff excite the gullible and the promoters of the sensational in some media of Holland, and what this is actually worth.
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Left: Yes, you are supposed to believe that this smoke that oddly resembles cigarette smoke close to the objective of a photographer and illuminated by the flash, shows, according to Robbert van den Broke's claims, in mediumnic concentration on the photograph, mysterious "electrical fields" of a paranormal nature which accompany his psychic experiences! |
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Left: This photograph, according to Robbert, is those of mysterious visible paranormal "orbs", visible only on photographs that he or other "gifted" people can obtain, for they come from "another dimension", he believes. It has been years that non-sensationalist ufologist explained that these "orbs" are absolutely nothing paranormal! |
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Left: This crop circle did not prompt much scientific studies. Drunk aliens? |
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Left: These brownish traces on an apple are, to Robbert, a paranormal phenomenon. Or maybe, more simply, as we say in France, "the worm is in the fruit!" |
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Left: Robbert showed the picture on the left on Dutch TV show "Dossier X" in 2006, explaining that it is an alien he met and grabbed with his camera. Alas, the vile Dutch skeptics found that the character had been extracted from an image of Papua New Guinea "Mudmen", practising a ritual dance, published in the Netherlands in Readers' Digest "Wereld van het Ongrijpbare" in 1984 (on the right), and pasted on another background by Robbert, thus proven here to indulge in photographic hoaxes! |
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Left: Photograph of "plasma beams" according to Robbert, shown as evidence of the paranormal in a Dutch TV "Dossier X" show in 2006, whereas this is just the trail caused by two candles on the table when the camera was shaken away in the last split seconds of aperture time. |
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Below: Some other alleged "photographs of aliens" by Robbert van Den Broeke, |
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Here are thus some of the exploits of the "witness" of "lights making the crop circles" in whom Dr. Eltjo Haselhoff, Nancy Talbot of the BLT, and many cerealogists, want you to put your faith!
