tiggers

MarkO,

In light of the smugness of your response I think a further reply is warranted.

If I had ANY proof they weren't manmade we wouldn't be having this discussion would we - so as arguments go that's pretty pathetic. I mean no one can show you any hard evidence God exists, but plenty of people believe in God.

I have simply expressed my personal view that I find it hard to believe the people making these circles never seem to get discovered whilst doing it. You have shown me a website that exists expressly to debunk any other theory than that of people running around fields in the middle of the night. Fine - it's called a difference of opinion, but try being a little less self righteous and intellectually aloof about it?

After all you were the one who expressed surprise that the crop circles appear only in summer when the crop is only there in summer - Doh!!!

tiggers.

Holy Ghost

oh dear beemerboy

duh, since when does "inexplicable phenomenon" (my original words in my first post) equate to aliens? i never used the word once: i never said that crop circles are caused by them. the inexplicable need not just be extra-terrestrial.

please do try reading posts fully, without being led by the nose when marko smugly wades in with his smart-**** club feet and starts making patronising assumptions without provocation.

beemerboy

HG, i didnt say you referred to aliens, i merely said "look its aliens at work"

blimey, dont have a go at me mate, or i'll arrange a complex flattening of your back garden!!! LOL

all the best

BB

Holy Ghost

riiiiiiiiiiiight.

beemerboy

this is actually a great thread, and very informative.

i can see the excitement these guys must get from doing these circley thingamajigs.

i was going to say, they dont do any harm, but i dont think kellogs will share my opinion!!!

i hope it continues....

BB

Markus

I remember some BBC prog about crop cricles years ago. They had some scientist type bloke who was adamant they were not fakes. So they got a group of lads to go and make a circle, and they filmed it. They took ariel pics of the finished thing, gave them to scienteist chappy, who went into details about how they were made by other forces, etc.. They then showed him the film of it being made, and he point blank refused to believe them! How do you convice people like that, who blindly and totaly believe in something even when you prove they are wrong?

Pete Croney

I agree about the layout not being precise. But as to the correlation with this particular constellation (not just any close stars), the size of each pyramid matches the magnitude of its relative star quite accurately. Its also the most obvious constellation in the sky, when in view, so a good way of attracting attention to the monument.

Agreed, but Giza, Angkor Wat and Nezca are by far the largest and most important monuments. Easter Island has always been an enigma, but if you accept that there is a relationship between the monuments then it seems to have significance. You can say that only selected monuments line up, but there aren't many to choose from in the first place. Those that do are staggering feats of engineering, even by today's standards.

I got into looking at the possibility of civilised life before ours by reading about the Piri Reis map. That's another interesting subject.

MarkO

It's a perfectly valid argument. For anyone to take any notice of your theories, you have to present suitable evidence to back it up.
My point exactly. And I have precisely the same contempt for people who believe in God as those who think that crop circles are anything other than pranks.

Nimbus

Going to have to disagree with you agin..

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...rg/Oriond2.htm

You need to define what you mean by "size".



True, it is a great sight when you know what to look for. However, what we are looking at is Orion, and this is a Greek constellation. I'm not sure what the relationship of these stars is in the Egyptian equivalent. Would they recognise it as a belt? I don't think so.



And if you don't accept any relationship (outside of the mathematics), then it's just a coincidence. Is there any physical evidence to tie these places together? That's what I would like to see.



Agreed. I don't think we can appreciate today how much actual manpower (and I mean that in it's literal sense) when into constructing these.



I'm fascinated by this subject too. Ancient history is fascinating stuff. . I'll have to look into that map sometime.

tiggers

That would be me then - like I didn't know that already

tiggers.

Pete Croney

Nimbus

When you compare the numbers the association isn't very accurate. If you compare what you see, or a photo, it is close.

Why does it have to be a belt? That's our interpretation taken from the Greeks and not necessarily what the Egyptians were seeing at all. The Greeks got a lot of knowledge from the Egyptians though, so who knows. Christianity also takes a lot from the Egyptians. The Egyptian symbol of life is a cross with a round top. Amen was an Egyptian god. "We 3 kings of Orient..." or "We 3 kings of Orien"? And then there's the Masonic links but that's another story.

Other than them being far ahead of their time and their link to the skies, then no, then nothing connects them at all. Probably just coincidence Although you could argue that Nazca was the first crop circle type art, which brings us back to the thread topic

Not just that but the places selected made it even harder. If the place isn't important, then why not build it near to the quarry, or somewhere that doesn't require vast amounts of jungle to be cleared. As for Nazca, nothing can be seen from the ground, so who was it for? Did they have the ability to fly? Its in a place that never rains, so has survived thousands of years. Although its now being destroyed by people driving trucks over it. The manpower involved is only based on our belief that they did not have machines. A JCB won't last 400 years, let alone 4,000. There is a school of thought that says the Great Pyramids of Giza were the first to be built and the others, built later, were of gradually deteriorating quality. It would indicate that skills existed but were not/could not be passed on or that machines failed and could not be repaired.

what would scooby do

- bunch of fools - get a life

TelBoy

I'm learing a lot here. For instance, i never knew the Egyptians had NASCAR...


<coat>

Tiggs

beemerboy

sorry, but can you not just do any old drawing around the stars and pretend it designates something, i mean, check out this crab....



BB

Pete Croney

Tel

Nazca is what bored ancient Peruvian students did on the way back from the pub

http://skepdic.com/nazca.html

tiggers

Says 'What Would Scooby Do' with nearly 10000 posts on Scoobynet

Nimbus

WWSD,

Is this aimed at anyone in particular?



Pete,

I admit, there's a lot I don't know. However, as stated before, I am really interested. I just wish there were some hard evidence for the sort of links you mentioned rather than theories and speculation. Oh well, maybe one day. Until then, I'll remain sceptical, but open-minded...

Good debating with you. Really got to get some work done

Pete Croney

BB I agree about the amount of interprtation involved. There's evidence to show that the Egyptians smoked weed. I guess it was good stuff

http://www.umich.edu/~lowbrows/guide/cancer.html

Pete Croney

Yes I enjoyed the the debate. The subject is what I would like to seriously research when I (if I ever) retire.

A lot of this has only come to light in the past 5 years and people that have spent their lives on propping up the views of the past 100 years are somewhat put out. I think there's lots more evidence to come, but some of it will need authorities to accept that their long held views should be questioned, before research will be allowed.

Holy Ghost

a point worth making here is that sure, humans can make crop circles - clearly have, clearly do - but that's not the same as saying that humans make *all* crop circles.

the extraordinary variables and unpredictability of our own environment are sufficient to put such a statement of (foolhardy) finality in immediate doubt.

unless of course, one has a shuttered, flat-earth outlook that is unable - or unwilling - to incorporate alternatives, however mundane - or natural - they may be.


[Edited by Holy Ghost - 8/7/2003 6:54:12 PM]

[Edited by Holy Ghost - 8/7/2003 6:55:07 PM]

MarkO

Perhaps, but only somebody of a foolhardy, imaginative and gullible nature would ignore all the evidence that points to the fact that they're man-made, and try and suggest that some other 'weird' phenomena is to blame, despite a complete and utter lack of evidence to support that theory.

So if they're all not man-made, HG, what do you think caused the non-human generated examples then, and what evidence can you put forward to lend the theory some credibility?

NeilT

Interesting topic.....and one which (for once) I'm fairly well read on...

My view (which is supported by many papers / books on the subject) is that 100% of the complex pictagram circles ARE caused by hoaxes, HOWEVER some (and only some) of the simple classic (slightly skewed) 'circles' (they are not perfect circles) seem to exhibit some strangeness about them which indicates they are made in a different way (90 degree bends in stalks already been mentioned, together with a change in the composition of the corn effected).

I dont support the ETH theory for these, just pretty sure that these are not the work of hoaxes. Terrences Meaden's theory of plasma vortexs seems slightly more plausible....some have been found half in the corn, half on the road - now why would Doug and Dave waste their time on that ?

There used to be a magazine available (mail order only) called "the Crop Watcher" - which avoided any hokum of ETH and just concentrated on the scientific aspect of the original circles (which BTW date back to before the 18 century) - I've probably got a copy around somewhere if anyone wants some details of how to get hold of it

Neil

Holy Ghost

marko

you're so boorishly tiresome and graceless. i never said aliens: i asked people what they thought made them without offering a theory of my own simply because i don't know but remain curious and open-minded - you're like a terrier that keeps looking for rabbits down the wrong hole.

sir barnes wallis once said of lord cherwell, winston churchill's chief scientific advisor during WW2: "...he suffered from a didactic approach that he himself knew everything worth knowing, and that everyone outside his field of knowledge must be wrong."

hhhhm, sounds rather like you old boy.

enjoy your weekend.

MarkO

Thanks. (I'm presuming that was a complement). The only references I've made about aliens is in the context of the large number of general public who are under the misguided impression that crop circles are some unexplained extra-terrestrial phenomena. If you read the last paragraph of my post towards the top of this page, you'll see that I didn't say or imply that you thought they were aliens. I simply asked what you think the most likely explanation is for them, if you don't believe they're man-made, and suggested you might like to present some credible evidence to back up whatever theory you put forward. Hardly unreasonable, IMO.

The problem I have with all this is that there is a huge amount of evidence (circumstantial, scientific and anecdotal) to show that most (if not all) crop patterns are the work of pranksters. There is also some evidence which indicates that a small proportion may possibly be caused by extreme weather phenomena. However, to my knowledge, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that anything 'weird' is causing any of these patterns (unless you class people who like larking about in fields at night 'weird' ).

Yet a good proportion of the population appear to believe that there is some mystery or unexplainable phenomena going on here, and unfortunately a good chunk of them appear to believe that some form of extra-terrestrial life is responsible for travelling thousands of light-years to our planet in order to leave odd patterns in arable crop fields during a few months of summer - and usually at the weekend.

Sorry to be such a cynic, but if people are going to suggest that non-human forces are at work here (be they E.T. beings, magnetic fields, holes in the space-time continuum or whatever) then I would like to see some (any?) evidence to support those (IMO) far-fetched suggestions...

TelBoy

The thing is Mark, they have obviously taken people *such* a long time, and a great deal of effort, that it sometimes seems baffling as to *why* people would go to the trouble of doing it.

If somebody could convince me of the underlying reason for them, i'd be much happier to believe that they're 100% manmade.

unclebuck

LOL - MarkO vs. Holy Ghost

<a bit like predator vs. alien>

UB

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

That could apply to anybody!.......... I ask myself that question about people who walk around trying to hit a little white ball into 18 holes.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

Nobody ever mentioned aliens!

tiggers

MarkO,

This really is very simple.

You believe that all the crop formations in the whole world (that have been appearing since long before the late 1970's btw) are the work of people who like to get up in the middle of the night, wander into the crop fields and plot out (sometimes) complex patterns in the crops using nightvision goggles or whatever.

Some of us are not so sure given the complexity of doing this not to mention the question of why people would keep doing this.

That's all there is to it - a difference of opinion.

There is no real need to be as patronising/antagonistic as you have been about it and to say you've contempt for people whose views are different to your own .... well let's just say that Freud has some theories on that

tiggers.