Crop circle:

My findings:

What follows is not the proof of anything else than what is indicated in conclusion. Any other point of strangeness is or will be approached elsewhere, that is, here.

An alleged strangeness of crop circles:

"In hoaxed circles, the stems of the plants show marks of damage by the mecanical stomping by hoaxers using the stomping boards; in the authentic crop circles, there is no such marks, as they are not stomped mecanically."

Proponents of the theory that some crop circles are not made by men but by an hitherto unknown mysterious cause, or by aliens, or some hush-hush military agency supposed to beam crop-circle-making rays from space satellites, or some so-called "paranormal" or "spiritual" cause, show pictures of crop circles plants showing that the plants are damaged in some circles.

They say that the damages are evidence that these crop circles are not "authentic", which in their mind means that that are made by hoaxers and artists.

Hoaxers and artist, they argue, use the famous stomping board, and the board inevitably damages, scratches, the plants' stems. They say this betrays that the crop circle was "a hoax."

Conversely, they show pictures from other crop circles in which marks of damages do not appear on the stems.

Because they reason that artists and hoaxers using boards to stomp the plants must inevitable damage the stems, then, a crop circle in which stem damage is not seen is not made by men, but is an "authentic" crop circle, made by an hitherto unknown mysterious cause, or by aliens, or some hush-hush military agency supposed to beam crop-circle-making rays, or some so-called "paranormal" cause.

Unfortunately, avid crop circles proponents simply ignore any fact that goes against their theory, willingly or unwillingly.

Of course, sometimes the damages of the stems just do no show, because the damage is not marked enough. Stems are not always fragile enough to be scratched; this happens best when the plant is green and less when it is dry. Crop circle tourists of course sometimes tramp the crop circle before investigators can have a look and study of the state of the stems is then more or less or completely compromised.

But there is a another factor that crop circle proponents using this argument should have understood.

Quite simply, artists and hoaxers do not always use a board to flatten the plants.

It is a well-known fact among crop circle artist teams, and among crop circle experts, proponents or opponents, that another tool is also used:

The garden roller.

Unlike the stomping board, the garden roller does not scratch the stems.

Left: when the stomping board is used, stems can be bent at various heights, and can show many scratches from the board.

Right: with the garden roller, stems are bent mainly at ground level, there are much less scratches on the stems.

The fact that plant stems are not scratched in some crop circle is not evidence that they were done by aliens or paranormal forces and the like: it is rather evidence that they were not done with stomping boards but more with garden rollers.

Consequently, the proof that the crop circles are not all made by very human land-artists or pranksters must be found elsewhere.

This page was last updated on July 27, 2006.