Photo by Ben Sasson
There are two main explanations for crop circles. One says they are messages from a higher intelligence. The other says people make them, as art or as pranks. This post sets out the case for each and where the Crop Signals Project stands.
The case for a higher intelligence
- Strange events. Many formations come with reports of light orbs, odd fogs and faint patterns that return in the same field the next year.
- Complexity. Some designs are fractals and coded numbers laid out across hundreds of feet in a few hours of darkness, often perfect on the first attempt.
- History. Accounts of circles in crops go back to at least 1678, long before the modern wave began in the 1970s.
The weakness of this side is proof. No one has caught a formation being made by anything other than people on camera. Reading a message into a pattern is also a matter of judgement.
The case for people
- Confessions. In 1991 Doug Bower and Dave Chorley said they had made many circles with planks and rope.
- Demonstrations. Teams of artists have made complex designs for TV shows and adverts.
- No physical proof. Sceptics point out that nothing found at a formation has ever been shown to be beyond human means.
The weakness of this side is scale. It needs many skilled teams working in secret for nearly 50 years, mostly on private land, with no payment and almost no one caught. It also leaves the light orb reports unexplained. See 5 reasons to doubt the all man-made theory.
Two phenomena
The most likely answer is that both are true. People make some formations. Others look like something else. That is why this project exists. By cataloguing each formation with its date, place, photos and a rating, we can start to separate the hoaxes from the signals. Every signal page has a vote, so you can add your view.
