My findings -> Crop Circles -> Home
Cette page en français

Crop Circles:

My findings:

Is there a crop circles message?

Sometimes people suggest there is a "message" in crop circles. They suggest crop circle are designed by or under the influence of some higher source of inspiration, as if they discovered some general pattern or message in them as evidence thereof.

There isn't.

They think "Knowledge", or spirituality, or healing, or predictions, or scientific information sent by "other intelligences", would come out a study of the "Crop Circles Message".

It doesn't.

Phase I:

Crop circle design evolved. The first crop circle by Doug Bower and Dave Chorley "appeared" in England, in 1978, and were not made without a reason: they wanted that people who discover them speculate that flying saucers have landed. So, these early crop circles were round, because flying saucers were circular, as "everybody knows", in people's imagination if not in reality.

Had they made "crop squares", or any other design than simple rounds, people would not have thought they were flying saucer landing traces.

This is the reason of the early, simple, round crop circle design, this is the pattern, the logic, the "message" if you will. What the "message" said was "a flying saucer had landed". And it was just a good prank.

Phase II:

The second phase occurred essentially because after the two men's circles were discovered, an English meteorologist, Terence Meaden, claimed crop circles were caused by a quite natural phenomenon: the wind.

Meaden was already a skeptic about UFOs and aliens, as a weather phenomenon expert, he had helped debunk a few silly "UFO reports".

The notion that Bower and Chorley's circles were saucer landing traces had already been discarded by field investigators, ufologists like Ian Mrzyglod. But it was still used in sensational newspapers headlines. "RAF helicopters" were accused by some farmers, but it was easily discarded too, the circles didn't resemble at all any sort of helicopter's effect. So a "serious", "scientific" explanation was missing.

And Meaden believed he had found the "scientific" explanation to the circles. He claimed that when a wind vortex occurs, it can create one of these round crop circles.

Although a number of ufologists believed it, seduced by the "scientific" smell this theory had, Meaden was wrong. Sure enough, the wind can damage crop, farmers knew that for long, but the round crop circles that were shown in the newspapers had mostly nothing to do with the wind. They were done by Doug Bower and Dave Chorley. They weren't the messy disorder the wind can cause in a field, they were neat circles, with neatly delimited edges. Anyone should have realized that they weren't caused by any kind of wind.

Bower and Chorley read about Terence Meaden's theory, as it was publicized in the newspapers. they know how ridiculous Meaden's explanation was, and they were appalled that it would be promoted as "scientific" so easily.

So they decided to have a little fun at the expense of the meteorologist. And I say it was deserved.

When Meaden argued that the wind is the creator of the crop circles because the crop was always flattened clockwise, they did an anti-clockwise crop circle. Now, this one was still a round crop circle. Meaden did not abandon his theory, he just abandoned this argument.

Meaden said the crop circles are downhill because that's where the wind vortex gets trapped. Actually, the reason the crop circles were downhill was that Bower and Chorley did them in places were they would be seen by passing automobilists. Certainly no on the top of the hills.

So Bower and Chorley made a crop circle at the top of the hill and anonymously alerted the Press about it. To no avail.

They thus had to find another was to disprove the wind vortex theory. What they did was multiple rounds formation, so-called "triplets", "quadruplets", "quintuplets". The two men thought Meaden would now drop his theory. But he did not; instead, he argued that there are multiple symmetrical wind vortices, that result in groups or symmetrically arranged circles.

So Bower and Chorley men added other variation, such as... a "crop triangle", for example.

This is the reason why crop circles ceased to be simple rounds. This is the "message". Not a message from any paranormal or alien activity at all. A "message" intended at a scientist who was claiming utter nonsense!

1991 crop triangle.

Phase III:

At some point, after having made crop circle that were not just simple rounds, and having made more elaborate design to contradict Terence Meaden's wind vortex theory, Bower and Chorley started "artistic" crop circles.

For one, they were becoming bored with simple circles, and almost nobody still claimed it was flying saucers landing traces anyway. Also, both men were amateur painters, and sensed that the fields were like some sort of new type of canvas to "paint" on, to paint "richer" designs than just circles. So they started to make crop circles that weren't round at all, or included lines.

Doug Bower with the sight he invented to trace straight lines.

From Doug Bower's photo album.

Though it lost credit, the thesis that saucers did the crop circles didn't totally disappear, but ufologists who still claimed that needed to "refine" their theory when crop circles weren't just circles anymore. They couldn't say one crop circle was caused by one round saucer pressing down the crop just by their landed mass, they needed several saucers, "field forces" and other magical "beams". Left: "Explanation" of a saucers-created crop circle by Dr. Jan Pajak in the News Observer (NZ) on 3.9.1990.

Scientist Alan Watts still believed aliens did the circles. East Anglian Daily Times 23.7.1991.

And others followed. Soon after the first round circles, others than Bower and Chorley had started to make crop circles. They wanted to check whether it was possible or not to do the circles, whether it was difficult or easy, whether they would be caught in action or not. Skeptics, UFO buffs, UFO experts, tourists, and the curious started to try to make circles, in England, and sometimes in other countries. They all realized it wasn't very difficult, and that they generally weren't caught in action.

They saw that crop circles were not just simple rounds anymore, they also sensed there was some art form to develop, they sensed that there was a challenging angle in doing more and more elaborate designs, and larger ones, too. Every year the circles became more complex, and the more elaborate were in the newspapers. Who would still want to do a simple circle that caused no sensation?

Crop circle. Round but larger than the early "saucer's landing trace" crop circles.

Early off-centered circles.

Crop circle artists thus wanted to impress the public, and impress the other crop circles artists. They often gathered in groups of two, three or more people, in teams of crop circle makers, and rivaled in more and more complex, elaborate, "unbelievable" designs.

	Crop circle typical of the beginning of the land-art period. The two off-centered rounds in the upper right corner is the artist's signature.
	D D, Doug and Dave, signature. Because people had sometimes claimed circles done by others, some crop circle makers decided to add a distinctive signature to their creations.
	1991 land art.

This is why there was a "growing complexity" of the crop circles. Not because aliens or angels of secret military people using beams just developed an artistic sense, but simple because the reason to do crop circles was not anymore to make believe in saucers landing.

In doing so, circle makers teams actually made the so-called "crop circle mystery" survive for the next decades. It survived the admission by Bower and Chorley that they were the "superior intelligence" that created the crop circles.

Nobody could seriously claim anymore that the simple circles of the beginning were "impossible to do" for men with ordinary tools, but what about the "giant" elaborate crop circles? Some people claimed those were impossible to do. So in a way, even if artistic rivalry had become the motivation, so-called "crop circle experts" eventually convinced some people that the "mystery" was not solved.

It is with this phase that the notion of a "message" became a topic of discussion. "Experts" or crop circles buffs or even ufologists started to claim that the crop circle designs must be "studied" not just in the fields to check for evidence of human making or lack thereof, but also, the design itself, the "message" must be "decoded".

Some of the "experts" came up with a variety of supernatural theories. For example, it was claimed that although men could do these "complex" crop circles, there must be some sort of supernatural intelligence that "guides" the crop circle makers. An intelligence variously claimed to come from within an "earthly intelligence", "Gaia", or to come from the spirits of ancestors from ancient civilizations, or from some sort off so-called universal collective psyche in mankind, etc.

Wishful thinking!

If the proponents of such supernatural theories would only look at the crop circles of the artistic kind, they would realize that there isn't just one source of inspiration, but many designs that get richer and richer over time just because crop circle makers improve their technique. There isn't any particular kind of design that can be singled out as a "message from above" or "from within" that would be "typical" or more meaningful that any other design.

The complex designs only show the rich variety of crop circle makers' inspiration, a very human and ordinary inspiration.

The Guardian, U-K., 7.9.1990.

Of course there are "categories" of designs; which can be "sorted out" in some way. Of course the different teams develop their skills in some direction and elaborate more in one direction than another, eventually.

For example, when a crop circle makers team first created a so-called "fractal" crop circle called "The Julia Set", they would later develop the design, expectedly, logically, no supernatural powers necessary, no particular message, just the intent to make people go "wow!":

	First success. (See here for more information).
	Then it becomes "more complex".
	Then this one topped the "Julia Set" series.

For example, when some crop circle makers were identified, caught, they couldn't continue doing crop circles "illegally" and found a way to go on with the crop circle making openly without risking legal consequences; they invented the advertizing crop circles, and anyone can now see there is one class of crop circles done with this motivation:

London 2012.	Nike order.
Weetabix.	Smart Loop.

Of course some crop circle makers heard about theories that ancient earthly "spirits" guide circle makers in doing designs that some from ancient symbols of some religion or cult or culture, so some crop circles can be put in corresponding classes.

Of course some crop circle makers just started to create crop circles and what they do is not that elaborate. They need some more years of experience of crop circles creating before they can produce anything really impressive, so simple, or clumsy crop circles co-exist with the more elaborate ones.

Non-impressive 2009 design.

Poor design in Hoeven, the Netherlands (See here).

2000 poor design.

Of course some crop circle makers act only occasionally and practice the art of circle makings like another form of graffiti art, printing in the field anything to their liking:

	F. word.
	Very mysterious symbol...
	"Sarah marry me". Easy to decode.

Some "crop circle experts" claim the "message" in crop circles has to do with geometry, or mathematics, or musical harmony. Of course this is true! But this is nothing in support of any non-human intervention, this is just because some of them use a computer software, a freeware, offered by one crop circle makers team, to help in planning geometrically impressive crop circles, and of course geometry involved mathematics rather than random layout, and musical harmony is no stranger to mathematical harmony.

Of course many crop circle designs are more or less faithfully inspired by "the Ancients". But this does not need any supernatural powers.

	Evidence that it was inspired by Nazca ghosts, right?
	"Aegyptian".
	Christian crop circle.
	One of the early "Celtic Cross" crop circle.
	Allegedly "Mayan" crop circle.
	Chinese Yin-Yang.
	Symbols assortment.
	"Owl Goddess".
	"Buddhist Mandala".

But there is just as many other "types" of crop circles, or "crop circle messages", as human imagination and circle making techniques allow. And no reason at all to single out one particular sort of crop circles as evidence of any really meaningful "message" from above, within, beyond or below.

	Pacman crop circle.
	Chibolton "SETI / Arecibo / alien response" crop circle.
	Crop circles new age gurus may tell you this one has something "magnetic" about it.
	The logo of the freeware web browser software Firefox.
	Hard to decode.
	DNA crop circle.
	So-called "alien message". Who can seriously claim the message is evidence it was created by aliens?
	1081
	Decode that.
	Birds.
	Bird, a different style.
	Butterfly, fairy?
	Butterfly
	The "Crop Circles Mystery" in perspective.
	Sara Palin crop circle.
	Crop circle within a crop circle.
	Drunken automobilist crop circle.
	Something.
	Something else.
	Diamond.
	Whatever.
	Skeptic crop circle.
	Crop triangle.
	Car.
	With fishes inside.
	Supposedly a sextant, the sun, and planets.

Claims sample - not for the sensible reader:

• One chap claimed some crop circles are actually blueprints of various technological devices, condensers, magnetron and the like:
  http://photovni.free.fr/cropcircles1/crop.htm
• One French alleged "contactee" claimed a crop circles made by aliens announces a huge tsunami to occur on May 25, 2006 when evil aliens will throw a meteorite in the ocean.
• Kenneth M. Heck in his 2009 book "The Heck Hypothesis" claims he analyzed and interpreted over 1000 circles as evidence from aliens of their intention to guide a series of comets to strike this planet.
• English astronomer Gerald Hawkins (1928–2003), after works about "decoding" Stonehenge, claimed to have discovered "Theorems derived from studies of Crop Circles":
  http://www.alternatelimits.org/paranormal_fun_1.htm
• French crop circle buff Anne Moro wonders about a crop circle she says announced a solar eclipse, a crop circle she believes identical to a sunspot, and so on:
  http://www.culture-crop.com/soleilh.htm
• New Age crop circles:
  http://ellisctaylor.homestead.com/thegift.html
• Frenchman claims "Synchronicite et predictions, St Jean":
  http://crops.u-sphere.com/index.php?title=Synchronicite_et_predictions
• Frenchman links UFOs, UFO landing traces, crop circles and a famous hoax: aliens from planet Ummo:
  http://www.denocla.com/?p=463&lang=fr
• Paul Dale Roberts, "HPI Ghostwriter and Cerealogist" says crop circles are "Messages from the Gods":
  http://www.trueghosttales.com/aliens/crop-circles-roberts.php
• Neil A. D. Olsen says "The overall crop circle message is one of joy and celebration because it is the good-news spiritual message of the formations that matters more than who or what made them."
  http://www.cropcirclesdeciphered.com/crop_circles_fact_or_fiction.htm
• "Wholisitic" healer Synthia Andrews, spouse of "crop circles expert" Colin Andrews, offers therapy:
  http://andrewshealingarts.com/Bio-SynthiaAndrews.html
• Colin Andrews links crop circles, UFOs, channeling, spirituality, eddie currents, megaliths, brainwave research, the CIA, ecology, etc.:
  http://www.colinandrews.net
• Ufologist Jacques Vallée wonders whether "the innocent designs in English fields are really telling us to get ready for" secret weapons, such as a "beam directed at the field from a hovering dirigible, painting a figure very much in the same way as an electron beam 'paints' a digital image on a computer screen"; and wonders if the crop circles druidic/Gaia "hypotheses have been coldly planted among the New Age milieu as part of a psychological warfare experiment".
  http://rr0.org/data/1/9/9/1/09/Vallee_CropCircle-SignsFromAboveOrHumanArtifactOrPersonalSpeculationsOnAFractualTheme_NewAge/index_fr.html
• Here, you can buy "crop circles resonance cards" alleged to have healing effects as: "crop circles are visible expressions of energy forms, and these forms are conscious and vibratory by nature. The Institute of Resonance Therapy in Germany discovered, over a decade ago, that unadulterated photos of crop circles contained a code that systems in distress required to rejuvenate themselves."
  http://www.cropcirclesecrets.org/healingcards.html The "Institute of Resonance Therapy" is also claimed to have performed "scientific studies" on crop circles.
• "Some crop circle theories explain how they offer a vibrational type of signature in their geometrical patterns of sacred geometry. They carry with them the transfer of subtle energies which are imprinted into the grains structure on a cellular level."
  http://www.healthynewage.com/crop.html
• "Crop circle expert" Fred Silva's crop circles "Sacred Geometry": "As stated in Islam, and echoed in all Abrahamic and Hindu religions, sacred geometry provides the means to see the vestiges of God and Its multiplicity in the universal order of things. Remarkably, the arabic religion still contains at its core one of the last unadulterated vestiges of primordial truth. Its mosques and art forms, as well as its latter-day architecture still incorporate many of the keys to the structure of the cosmos, symbols of the archetypal world as a creation of God." Etc. At: http://www.cropcirclesecrets.org/crop_circles_sacredgeo.html
• DNA, Enoch, pyramids, crop circles:
  www.greatdreams.com/radio/oz/ozradio.htm
• The "Great Spiral in the Sky" (a ridiculous "UFO" story, actually just smoke from missile test that went wrong!) said to match "The Yatesbury Field Spiral Crop Circle Formation" and be a "Reference to the Chakra System":
  http://www.greatdreams.com/crpcirc.htm
• An example of the numerous claims that crop circles and Nazca lines are "somehow" related:
  http://ufolibre.xooit.com/t65-Crop-circles-Nazca-OVNI-26-9-6.htm
• "Crop Circles can be easily Deciphered using Biblical Numerics, Symbolism, History, Metaphors and Parables."
  http://www.cropcirclesdeciphered.com
• They say they "deciphered 150 non-man-made crop circles":
  http://www.cropcircleanswers.com
• "... he discovered a secret message being conveyed to Earth's inhabitants. By repositioning various parts of the circles and converting them into three-dimensional shapes, he was startled to see that gentle extraterrestrials had created a blueprint for the construction of a starship."
  http://www.bluenotebooksonline.com/gift.html
• "Crop Circle Correlates To Grek-5 Numerical Pyramid!"
  http://www.secretofnine.com/cropcrcl.html
• "...the three circles which surround it are the Lattice the Children told about..."
  http://lumiweb.org/fr/textes/thomas6.htm
• Angels and crop circles:
  http://www.excatholicsforchrist.com/articles.php?PageURL=anglescrop.htm
• "Chakras in the Wheat", etc., from crop circle "expert" Umberto Molinaro:
  http://www.cerclesdanslanuit.com/pewsey2004.php
• Would you spend $60 to buy a Powerpoint slideshow just to learn that "80% of the crop circles to appear in England during 1999 and 2000 were man made":
  http://www.busty-taylor.com/cropper/assesscd.htm
• Terence Meaden: "Try this link to serious scientific study of the Crop Circle phenomenon and its possible relevance to ancient sites", at:
  http://www.stonehenge-avebury.net/scienceofcropcircles.htm
• "Crop circles use ancient Sumerian symbols to identify Nibiru, tenth planet of the solar system":
  http://cropcirclebooks.com/tenalienmysteriessolved
• "Alien ET UFO Crop Circle and Atlantis Info":
  http://www.ufodigest.com/news/0608/ufo-atlantis.html
• French Scientist Jean-Pierre Petit: "This 'radiological' bomb (with radiation effect) is said to have been tested in a secret base located in the south of England (this brings us back to the Crop Circles file)."
  http://www.jp-petit.org/nouv_f/Crop%20Circles/Haarp.htm
• French scientist Jean-Pierre Petit: "The reason I was not invited it is that I would have developed my own hypothesis, more disturbing, that of the test of lethal weapons (see further why) founded on the action of pulsated microwaves acting on the "nodes" of crop stems, implemented since 1981 by the Anglo-American."
  http://www.jp-petit.org/nouv_f/Crop%20Circles/Crop_Circles.htm
• "When the Sky communicates with the Earth "; " Initiatic voyage in the Crop Circles"; " As doors of the ground and the sky open, the human being and his planet 'Mother-Earth' seem to prepare to being synchronized with a wavelength of high light. Ourselves, as an infinite creation and a body extension of the Divine Intelligence, came on this planet to reactivate and reprogram the biochemical structure of the body preparing us to this new wavelength implying a NEW BIRTH. The old forces of the earth will be replaced by higher energies carrying new information-light preparing us to Future contacts with the higher Intelligences."
  http://www.aoe-oae.com/pageLibre00010074.html
• Mandalas Crop-Circles - 32 Mandalas to colorize for a "contact" with another dimension:
  Klaus Holitzka
  http://www.decitre.fr/livres/Mandalas-Crop-Circles.aspx/9782702904657
• Sylvain Bélanger: "A sacred place having a particular energy as Crop Circles creates a favourable space so that the human being expands his consciousness." And: "The Imaginary Listening proposes a modern look at the development of intuition and the shamanic and healing approaches."
  http://www.meditationfrance.com/archive/2010/0305.htm
• Gaia in Switzerland. Psychologist Fabrice Bonvin: UFOs, aliens, men-in-black, and crop circles are "a message from the Earth" supposedly crying ecological sufferings and eager to turn mankind into better ecological behaviour using "false" UFOs, MiB, aliens, contrails in the sky, and crop circles.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_uYyc3W4GU
• "The Tao of the Circles: Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching Adapted for New Visions", book by Carl Garant. Claims that crop circles have to do with Taoism.

Beware of bold claims:

When crop circles buffs, or crop circle "Experts" or some ufologist claim that there is a common characteristic in the crop circles - for example, that they have something "Celtic", or "Buddhist" in their design, they are totally wrong and only reveal their ignorance of the variety of crop circle designs.

When crop circles buffs, or crop circle "Experts" or some ufologist claim that some crop circle that has a particular design proves a particular outlandish theory, they are fools. Of course the "Chibolton" crop circle has something that relates to aliens in it, but this is in no way evidence that it was actually done by aliens. Of course a crop circle can look like a Buddhist mandala, but this is no evidence that it was done by a Buddhist monk from Tibet, or that an English circlemaker was directed telepathically to do a Buddhist crop circle. When a crop circle shows a fish, it just isn't evidence that it was done by Christian, when it evokes some ecological disaster it does not follow that the disaster will occur and does not follow that ecologists do this crop circle or the crop circles. Of course paranormal topics show in some crop circles, but this is no way means that anything paranormal is at work. the paranormal is only one of the wide range of topics in crop circles design.

When crop circles buffs, or crop circle "Experts" or some ufologist accuse one particular group to be the circle makers, claiming that the crop circles designs are showing a sort of "signature" that reveals that one particular sect, or religious group, or cult, or culture, creates the crop circles, they are just fools. Crop circle were invented by two men to make believe saucers had landed, and are now made by a number of different, competing individuals and teams, which individuals and teams are generally not at all any sort of religious group, or cult, or sect. The only thing that is quite true is that several cults or sects, generally UFO cults, use the crop circle as evidence of their claims; they would be around done crop circles selling their literature and preaching their beliefs. But this doesn't mean at all that they are the ones who do the crop circles. Sects and cults leaders simply know very well that the more gullible people are the more likely to buy their merchandises or join their ranks, and that gullible people can easily be spotted around crop circles.

When crop circles buffs, or crop circle "Experts" or some ufologist claim that crop circles reveal something "geometrical of "mathematical" or related to whatever "harmony", they are half right: of course most crop circles are essentially geometric and not just random crop flattening! But when they claim this proves or suggest any kind of cause other than human making with ordinary tools, they just fool themselves, or fool you.

Several crop circles buffs or experts claim or claimed to have "decoded" one or the other "crop circle message". But what do they came up with, really? Nothing. Nothing like some new knowledge, no verified prediction of future events, no technological information from aliens, no religious or spiritual revelation that couldn't have been without any crop circle support, nothing.

That is what a "study of the crop circles message" shows: No real "message", nothing supernatural, alien, angelic or ghostly or otherwise "significant" in the designs of crop circles. Just the expectable various source of inspiration of totally human crop circle makers, with a motivation that changed over time, a circle-making experience that increases overtime, and designs that go in about all the direction you'd expect from the totally human circle makers.

Feedback  |  Top  |  Back  |  Forward  |  Map  |  List |  Home

This page was last updated on May 24, 2010.