From: liberty@gate.net (Jim Ray)
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 1996 11:29:08 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: An Enigma - Wrapped In a Circle
Message-ID: <199601270257.VAA40304@osceola.gate.net>
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In the January/February 1996 Mensa Bulletin on pages 9-10 is an
article by Teresa Fisher titled "An Enigma Wrapped In a Circle."

The article is about a phenomenon which has interested me for quite
some time, "crop circles" or "pictograms." I have tried to find
this excellent article on the web and failed, so I will quote a few
parts of it I consider relevant. All typos are mine, Ms. Fisher is
an excellent writer, and I have changed her well done presentation
only for brevity and clarity. If you think that this post has "no
cypherpunk relevance" you can:
1. Flame me, in *private* e-mail. [I'll happily ignore you.]
2. Go hump a tree.

Article excerpts (in quotes) and my comments follow:

"In the late 1970s, farmers over the world were finding unexplainable,
perfectly round, flattened areas in their grain fields. The flattened
crops made irreproducible, layered swirl patterns. As time went on
and crop circle incidents increased tremendously, the outlines of the
formations became more complex and came to be called pictograms."

They appeared overnight, "[by 1990] some 2000 circles and pictograms
had been formed all over the world. A large percentage...were showing
up in a small area in southern England, mainly in Wiltshire Downs."

"Then, in 1991, two retired Englishmen named Doug Bower and Dave
Chorley announced that they had been responsible for the crop circle
phenomenon for the past 13 years." The dim media swallowed this hook,
line, and sinker; neglecting to question "how they created intricate,
sometimes braided swirls, executed elaborate pictograms in the dark,
and caused crop formations in 19 other countries besides England."
Brittle plants in the (non-hoaxed) circles were also bent in a way
"that no investigator has been able to duplicate."

Recent tests, including some at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories,
show isotope changes in the soil, and differing biophysical and
biochemical properties of the grain within the pictograms when
compared to adjacent grain in the field.

Gerald Hawkins was not fooled. He did "a systematic study of the
geometry of the circles, and found ratios of small whole numbers
that precisely matched the ratios defining the diatonic scale.
Further statistical analysis revealed three other geometric theorems
in the circle patterns, and he realized that all four theorems had
a common thread that led to a fifth, more general theorem. His
inability to find any of these theorems in Euclidean geometry or
any of the math books he consulted caused him to conclude that
whoever is making the circles had to not only know how to prove a
Euclidean theorem, but also to conceive of an original theorem.
Hawkins says that proving a theorem is easy; conceiving it in the
first place is quite another matter."
["FN 6 Ivars Peterson, "Euclid's Crop Circles," *Science News* 141,
No. 5, pp. 76-77."]

In late 1991 in Ickleton "a perfect depiction of the mathematical
configuration known as the Mandelbrot Set" appeared.
["FN 9 Beth Davis, *Ciphers in the Crops,* (Bath, England:
Gateway Books, 1992)pp. 9-15."]

I am now experiencing Tim's wish that I could draw in e-mail, as
there is a diagram here of "a circle inside a triangle inside a 
ring inside a hexagon inside a ring." Don't even *try* to imagine
it. The article points out that "NASA will be promoting the space
program with a crop circle image and the slogan, 'We need to be
out there.'" [Agreed, but with *tax* money?] Back to Ms. Fisher.

"I have been amazed at the need many people have to dismiss this
mystery. They will ignore all of the evidence to claim that the
circles are being formed by weather or hoaxers. Neither claim
stands up to even minimal scrutiny. I don't know what is causing
crop circles to appear, but I'm certain it isn't being done by
the wind or by an old man with a board. What do you think?"

I must add that anyone who has seen the cover of Robert Plant's
"Now and Zen" album would have trouble believing that a couple
of drunks from the pub down the street did _THAT_! I do not
know if "extraterrestrials" or "UFOs" are responsible for these
images. [In my long-held opinion, governments tend to lie about
UFOs (surprise!).] I do feel that these pictograms, these "Ciphers
in the Crops," cry out for cryptanalysis, by someone far more
adept at complex mathematics than I am. Results might well be felt
worldwide. Thoughts?
JMR

Regards, Jim Ray  --  Boycott espionage-enabled software!

 "He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even
  his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he
  establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." - T. Paine
            http://www.shopmiami.com/prs/jimray
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