MarkO

But you're arguing against yourself there, mentioning snow circles. Why do we never see any?

And as for the 'fractal' patterns, it's not overly complicated - and some of the proven hoaxes have produced incredibly complex and intricate designs...

Madjay

Snow circles would be very hard to see white on white.

in Egypt(sp?) there versions of crop circles can still be seen today after 100's of years. and even thought they where claimed to be smart the mathematics which go into these circles would be beyond most of there understandings. leads on the alot of other questions how the hell did they build pyramids. even today builders would struggle with all there new technology

MarkO

There are a lot of things, mathematics included, which the Egyptians understood long ago. And there's no mystery as to how they built the pyramids, it's well-know the mechanisms and skills that were involved. It just too more manpower and time than it would today...

jbryant

http://www.circlemakers.org/index.html

Good site!
Joolz

tiggers

MarkO,

OK then here's my challenge to you. Find the biggest area of floorspace you can, cover it with cheap paper (e.g. wall lining paper) and tape it all together. Plot out a fractal as big as you can with a marker pen and then take a couple of digital camera pics of it to post here.

Whilst I don't exactly expect you to do this it would be great to see you try. Then remember that the formation in question was much much bigger and done at night and without disturbing the surroundings and without anyone seeing it being constructed AND it was just about mathematically perfect when viewed from the air.

I think you'd be surprised at just how difficult this might be.

Just for info here is one of the Mandelbrot set fractal crop circles, Yeah I reckon you could do this in a couple of hours (NOT):-

http://www.revamped.co.uk/lvg/chroni...es/crcirc3.gif

Regards,

tiggers.

[Edited by tiggers - 8/7/2003 12:02:53 AM]

[Edited by tiggers - 8/7/2003 12:04:56 AM]

Pete Croney

Really Mark? Please explain.

MarkO

Tiggers, that is not a mandlebrot set. It is an, albeit fairly complex, pattern of circles laid out to give an impression of being a fractal or chaotic geometric pattern.

Given a bit of careful planning, and several people helping, and a good deal of practice, it is perfectly possible to create patterns like this - as has been proven by hoaxers who've produced evidence and proof to show they did it.

Pete, did you not watch the BBC documentary a while back which showed precisely how they did it - dragging the stones, etc., etc.? It's by no means a secret, and there have been numerous modern-day studies and practical trials to prove it was possible. All you need is a lot of time (several decades) and an inordinantly large amount of manpower - which the Pharohs had plenty of....

MarkO

Tiggers, why not take a look at the CircleMakers website, where they have photographic evidence and lots of other information about crop circles they've created which bear an uncanny resemblence to the one you posted above....

Pete Croney

The only show I saw was rubbish. It mentioned building a curved ramp to get stones to the top, but made no mention of the 2,000,000m3 of earth that would be required for the ramp, where it came from or where it went. The exercise of building the ramp dwarfs the civil engineering involved in building the pyramid. It also didn't explain how they could machine 60 ton blocks so accurately that you cannot get a pen knife blade anywhere between them.

There are far too many mysteries surrounding the pyramids to say its all been explained. The maths involved is staggering and far too complex for these to have been merely burial sites.

Its something I enjoy researching and hope to go there one day.

MarkO

Fair enough, Pete. But I think the point was made in the documentary (and has been made elsewhere) that whilst some of the feats acheived in and around the pyramids were incredible, they aren't impossible given enough time/effort.

I mean, if you go and look at some of the older architecture in the UK (cathedrals such as St Giles in Edinburgh, Westminster, or even Canterbury) and consider when they were built and the technology available at that time, the constructions are mind-boggling - including the preciseness of the masonary involved, and the complexity of the canti-levering and other engineering techniques.

However, nobody casts any doubt or mystery over their origin, do they?

Sure, there's stuff we haven't worked out about the pyramids' construction, but to say they're a complete mystery and that it was impossible for them to be man-made would be naive and short-sighted.

Oh, and when you go, give me a shout, 'cos I'd love to see 'em close-up too.

unclebuck

wow... some of those on the Circlemakers site are astounding

The alien head one:



is almost like asci art.

UB

TelBoy

I got a quick question:

*WHY* do these people bother to do these (if indeed it is mad students or whatever doing them)?

For whose benefit are they?

MarkO

Does there have to be a reason, Telboy?

I think it started out as a bit of a laugh in the 70s, and then more and more people had a go, producing more and more complex patterns to out-do each other.

And of course there's commercial value in it now - see the Richard & Judy, Orange and Big Brother crop patterns, for which these guys were no doubt paid handsomely....

TelBoy

I guess not Mark, but if they're that creative, i'd have thought they'd have put it to better use and made some beer money out of it...

Nimbus

Whilst I would like there to be an "unusal" explanation for them, I would have to agree with MarkO. I think it's far more likley to be man made than anything else. There's just no evidence (that I've seen) to think the're made by unexplaned acts, and lots of evidence that they are man made. Never underestimate the ingenuity of people...

I am, however, ready to be convinced otherwise...

tiggers

MarkO,

Sorry to shatter your illusions, but the circle pictured and numerous others are generated from fractal equations and when photographed from directly overhead are virtually perfect.

Why will you not accept this? It doesn't mean they're created by aliens or suchlike and you're right in saying that they could be produced by pranksters, but I guess it makes it all the harder for you to swallow so you're in denial.

Just look at the scale of some of these formations and tell me honestly that you think every single one is produced by teams of bored students wearing nightvision goggles and creeping around the countryside of the world having trained religiously in the art of crop circle making in their own time/premises etc.

Then explain to me why not a single one of these formations has been discovered half done or in progress by anyone from the authorities or why not a single member of the mainstream media (note the word mainstream) has uncovered the solution to the mystery or why none of these highly talented students have come forward to the mainstream media.

I'm not buying into the alien theory either, but equally I'm not happy with the 'nightvision goggle wearing bored student' solution.

Regards,

tiggers.

unclebuck

Then explain to me why not a single one of these formations has been discovered half done or in progress by anyone from the authorities or why not a single member of the mainstream media (note the word mainstream

True, and I was wondering why they never seem to **** them up. I mean, they can't rehearse it and it would be easy to make mistakes on the more complex ones. I think it less likely to be bored students then a bunch of cunning old hippies

MarkO

Tiggers, sorry to shatter your illusions, but you clearly didn't have a look at the CircleMakers site.

These guys have constructed hundreds of corn patterns worldwide. They have documentary evidence of them being filmed making perfect (when photographed from overhead) geometric fractal-style patterns, almost identical to the one you posted, in a matter of hours. One of the good examples, is a spiralling pattern of over 400 circles. Look at the site, and you'll see what I mean. It is perfectly possible.

Look also at the Big Brother logo they created in a field for CH4, and the 'photo' images they've created of Richard & Judy, and of a woman (used in an Orange ad campaign). They look pretty complext to me, but pretty perfect too.

The fact is, your 'inexplanable phenomena' theory is based solely on the fact that you believe these shapes are too complex to be generated perfectly by a bunch of guys in a field with stakes, ropes and flattening boards. The CircleMakers site clearly & unequivocably shows that it is possible, without any doubt at all.

All you're doing is claiming that because you don't believe it's possible, it can't be man-made. However, despite the fact that there is clear evidence to the contrary, and you just don't seem prepared to accept it....

Pete Croney

Mark

http://home.hiwaay.net/~jalison/ppp.html is a bit of light reading.

Whoever built them could measure enormous distances with accuarcy that we have only had in very recent times, knew the earth was round and had a very good understanding of mathmatics. You can't explain it away as 100,000 peasants building over 8 years for a king. Its not just the building, its the placement that is mind boggling.

The same as the pyramids at Nazca are a representation of the solar system and includes every planet, its size and its distance from the sun... including Pluto, which we only discovered in the 1900s.

The earth crust displacement theory is that there was civilised and technically advanced life on earth before our recorded history. The build up of ice on the polar caps is never circular and if it is sufficiently offset, a strike from a large meteor is sufficient for the crust to slip on the core. Such an event would be like format C: The theory was created by Einstein and goes some way to explain why fossils of tropical plants are found in areas like Siberia. If people survived and wanted to convey their knowledge or even just record that they existed, anything written down is useless as language changes and things get lost. The only things that don't change are the stars and the language of maths. So if you built massive monuments, which represented obvious solar objects (Giza is a perfect representation of the belt of Orion, in star size, orientation and by measuring from the Nile, placement from the Milky Way) and then include complex mathmatical information, it shows for all time that you were an advanced civilisation. All of this goes against what the Egyptians believe today, as they want to think that it was all their own work and heritage, hence they don't allow dig permits for research that could prove them wrong.

An open mind is required.

Tel, also not sure why they do it, but its art on the grandest scale and I'm glad they do

MarkO

Who's to say people haven't been caught midway through constructing a crop circle? Hardly likely to make the news in the same way as a 400m radius perfect circle, is it?

And there probably are plenty of bodged ones, but again, they won't get publicised....

Nimbus

Pete, Will have to disagree with you here. The stars are moving all the time (we are, after all in the middle of a revolving Galaxy)...


Although it is agreed that the patterning of the stars in Orion's Belt resembles the broad disposition of the Giza pyramids, the orientation of the arrangement argues against a deliberate correlation, partly because the alignment of the Belt stars when referred to the meridian must have diverged by more than 30° from the corresponding alignment on the ground, at the epoch of around 2500 BC.

From http://www.legon.demon.co.uk/orion.htm

Nimbus

And here...

http://www.hitchins.co.uk/belt.html

Gordo

my **** - there have been loads of examples of **** ones, messed up designs, trampled corn etc - only the good ones make the press and give credence to the hippies who belive in little green men/ natural forces [wheeooo, wheeeeoooo noises need to be made at this point )/ conspiracy theory.

They're very impressive and have advanced considerably over recent years as the pranksters have got better at them (surprising how they weren't around 20 years ago or how alien technology has improved, isn't it?).

they're a good laugh, nice to look at and keep the students away from the pubs for a few hours, spending my taxes, so a good thing in my book

Gordo

tiggers

MarkO,

I have seen the Circlemakers site, but being as it is a site put there exclusively to debunk any other theory it is hardly likely to be anything other than a little biased.

If you had read my posts properly you would have understood that I have already said that these formations can be manmade and many probably are.

Additonally I agree with much of your last post about Big Brother, Richard and Judy etc., BUT you still fail to answer my main question which is how is this done in the middle of the night without people ever noticing. The Big Brother/R & J efforts were done during the day by a team of people so they're hardly surprises are they?

Anyway I think we're unlikely to agree on this so maybe you'd best leave me to my way of thinking and I'll leave you to yours.

Regards,

tiggers.

P.S. Now where did I leave my spaceship?

beemerboy

thats PeteC in his mad max contraption.

BB
...next question.?

Pete Croney

Nimbus

The guy on that site seems to dismiss the correlation because Orion was "discovered" later by the Greeks. I think he is mising the point. Yes, the stars are actually moving all the time and the spacing of the pyramids is an exact map of the spacing of Orions stars at 10450bc. Why this date? Who knows. I'm sure he would also dismiss the fact that the ratio of the base circumference and the height is exactly 2pi, as Pythagoras didn't invent this until 2500 years later

As for the placement, this chap thinks it was so the king had a nice view of it being built. If you look at the placement in relation to the other monuments of the ancient world http://home.hiwaay.net/~jalison/30th.html there is certainly something to think about. Of course, it could be a pure coincidence that that the angles between Giza, Easter Island, Angkor and Nazca are represented, precisely, or it could be that we are not the first civilised race to live on earth in its 100 million year history.

If you wanted to convey information to someone doing it this way would mean that they would only start looking for the answer when they were clever enough to understand that a message was being conveyed. If you looked at a sheet of random characters on a page and then spotted a word, you would look for more. If you couldn't read, it would just be a pretty pattern.

As I said, an open mind is required.

MarkO

Tiggers,

But I have answered it. British farms are huge, and it's perfectly possible to lark about in a field in Wiltshire for several hours without being caught - and that's when you're not trying to be stealthy!!!

The guys on the CircleMaker site have got lots of documented and videotaped examples of how they made crop circles, without anyone seeing them do it. How much more evidence do you need?!?
Fair enough.

I've presented plenty of evidence to support my side of the argument, your response has simply been to say "I can't see how they could have done it, and not been seen doing it", whilst presenting no evidence at all that the circles aren't man-made. If you want to leave the discussion there, then that's fine by me.

MarkO

Pythagoras didn't invent it, he discovered it. Can you - or anyone - be absolutely sure that nobody else stumbled across that fact in the thousands of years of civilisation before he did?

Pete Croney

Mark

Exactly the point I was trying to make

beemerboy

oi, holy ghost, look its aliens at work....



BB