h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just to thank you for comments so far. Still working to make changes.
Galaxy Babe - for the link with the "corn devil" and have also included the link in bibliography. I am always heartened to find other lovers and kindred spirits on the h2g2.
While there is evidence that crop circles are manmade, there is similarly no evidence to prove this occurs in all cases; thus opening the door to the possibility that unknown forces are at work. Viva la mystery.
Zaphod (sceptic about sceptics)

Hi Zaphod!

I'm a bit in two minds about this. The entry is interesting and obviously well researched. However, I found it a little overlong and noticed that some points were made more than once, eg hoaxers are mentioned several times in the entry.

I don't think you need the subheader at the start 'preamble'. Most entries start with a preamble and I was advised that it is better form to go straight into the entry.

I see that you've incorporated suggestions so far. Perhaps it might be a good idea to have a look at the organisational structure and see if you could tighten it up (easier said than done, I know).

BTW, I'm with AGB. I think we could all use a little from time to time.

PS: I don't know who Andrei Tarkovsky is and it might be worth a footnote to explain ley lines (unless you think everyone will know).

I would also like to know how the "hoaxers" make the ice-circles, there's a picture of one at the link I posted.

ZsSF - Thanks for your comments . I have tried cutting out the repetitions/contradictions which you and Deidzoeb have rightly pointed out, and re-structuring certain parts. I have also removed subheading as suggested.

AGB - Perhaps it was a one-legged ice skater?

Zaphod

Have the crops been harvested before this happens, then? That seems obvious, but they might not be...

Oh, the Mandelbrot set is great... I didn't know you could do that (make a crop circle of a fractal). By the way, there is an edited fractal entry at A425972 that you might want to link to.

The third paragraph under Circle Types begins with "2001"--generally I try not to start sentences with numbers.. It just doesn't seem right and is somewhat distracting. But that might just be me.

On a footnote on Mother Earth (middle of second paragraph, After Thoughts), you say "Demeter in Greek mythology"--did the Romans have a counterpart? I think they did, but the name is flying my mind right now... But you might want to include that there too.


*grin*
I don't see anything really wrong with the entry I just read... Whenever you talk about something like this, there's bound to be some controversy... But there are a multitudes of "outside" forces that could make a crop circle, and the only "inside" force we know of is humanity. And hoaxers are mentioned rather often. If you are going to cover the other possibilities, you've got to mention hoaxes. And I think that has been done quite well; I didn't find my sensibilities at all bothered by the fact that this entry went further into outside possibilities than my personal belief in hoaxes. The other stuff, after all, is the interesting stuff.

But mentioning by name some of the well-known hoaxers and that they have done television programs might be a good idea.


Shee

Hi Zaphod. I don't know if anyone already mentioned this in another conversation thread, but two of the links appeared to be broken, or perhaps the images were taken down from those sites. They were the Templar's cross and the Kabbalic links. Or maybe it's one of those temporary things, but they both gave me a 404 error. Definately ought to fix those, or check if it's a more than temporary thing.

I especially enjoyed the "pyramid" link, where the writer critiques the sketchy crop circle. I guess if crop circles are an art, whether created by humans or Others, there will always be art critics!

Interesting.

I reckon your pre-amble is over-defensive, to be honest. I would put discussion of whether the circles are created only by hoaxers under the section on 'theories and beliefs', rather than according it special attention. Why should the cynics get first bat?

I'm afraid I found the section on 'the effects of crop circles' to be a little one-sided. It could possibly do with a little rewording. It might also be worth mentioning the idea that the beauty of the art, and its greater sense of scale, might have an effect on observers - including, for example, disorientation.

I found this sentence: "Athough theories abound about the origin of circles, none have satisfactorily explained how they are made." to be a little unbalanced too - this time in favour of the agnostics and undecided over those who have got off the fence. I'm sure that many ufo-logists would claim that they have explained crop circles satisfactorily, for example.

what's a "grounded theory approach" ??

I think you'd do better to have Theories and Beliefs as a HEADER, and then have each of Mass Hoax, Extraterrestrials, Gaia Theory, Natural Explanations (etc) in a SUBHEADER. It doesn't help the flow, IMO, to have a bit on theories, and then another bit on 'other theories'.

Afterthoughts was just WAY too new-agey and overly agnostic for me. To be honest, I think you're drifting from the topic a little bit, speculating on the nature of truth like that. Also, some of the afterthoughts seem to me to be better placed under theories and beliefs.

I do like the way you've (pretty much) described what crop circles are first, and then done the speculation after. I think that that's a really helpful division - to lead off on undisputed FACTs first - and could stand being made stronger.

Hope this helps some...
-Martin

In reply to Orcus, I have a *lot* of problems with this getting into the Guide. I can't really restrain myself from advancing the observation that the only *truly* conclusive evidence that the whole phenomenon presented was that for the limitless capacity that we humans have for delusion, whether of others or ourselves. The article seems to fit into the latter category of evidence.

I don't doubt that the odd patch of flattened corn has a perfectly natural, albeit non-man-made, origin and why anyone wanted to mythologise this quirk of nature in the first place escapes me. The vast majority of complex shapes are quite obviously man-made though. Obfuscatory New-Age jargon might win a few converts among the sort of people who are impressed by this stuff, but won't convince sceptics (such as myself). Also, the really interesting grains of 'wheat' (about what might causes the genuine 0.1%) are diluted by so much of this 'chaff' that I lost interest about a 3rd of the way into the article.

I'm sure that there is a balanced, informative and rational article to be written on this subject. But this isn't it. Sorry I can't be more positive. Nice writing style, 'though.

Felonious,

I agree that it's not totally balanced. I don't agree that Edited Guide entries need to be balanced anymore. Yes, there's a point in the Writing-Guidelines that says entries must be well-balanced for the Edited Guide (number 9, to be precise). But it has been ignored before, so the only reason to enforce it this time would be if scouts or sub-editors or editors were playing favorites.

How can the Edited Guide turn away opinion pieces ever again when they accept something as clearly unbalanced and opinionated as "The 2000 US Presidential Election - A Democrat's Perspective" or "Vietnam - America's Mistake"? A precedent has been set for opinion in the Guide. If those got in, why shouldn't this one?

Subcom,
I take your point, but so much of the article is conjectural, ill-founded, stream-of-consciousness speculation about the other wordly origin of crop circles that it deliberately overlooks the obvious explanation that some impish retired gents were buggering about for ten years in cornfields. Informative? No. When I was a kid there was a bloke called Eric Von Daniken who applied much the same reasoning to perfectly explicable natural phenomena. Few really took him seriously then and nobody does now.

I have the CD of the Led Zeppelin Remasters here on my desk. Looking at the crop circles, I am reminded of an letter which pointed out that the design bears a remarkable resemblance to metereological windspeed symbols on weather maps. Look at http://www.symbols.com/encyclopedia/16/1626.html if you don't believe me.

Hardened sceptic that I am, I find the whole crop circle business interesting as a sociological phenomenon only, and that there is a good article about *that* lurking somewhere in *this one*. However, when credulous folk start advancing 'straw man' arguments in favour of their cherished beliefs, I think it's time for liberal application of Occam's Razor (or Occam's Combine Harvester, more like).

The FM

FM wrote: "I don't doubt that the odd patch of flattened corn has a perfectly natural, albeit non-man-made, origin and why anyone wanted to mythologise this quirk of nature in the first place escapes me"

First of all, this phenomenon is much more than "the odd patch of flattened corn".

In 1998, several formations in England were found to contain dead flies adhered to the plant stalks, which were dehydrated as if they had been 'baked', consistent with the involvement of some form of microwave-type energy. Smaller insects inside the seed pods were also dead. Flies and other insects outside of the formations were normal.

The BLT Research Team was founded in 1992 to coordinate the laboratory analysis work of plant samples from crop circle formations worldwide, started by Dr. Levengood in 1989; it became a formally incorporated non-profit research organization in 1998 and now involves the work of other independent scientists and labs in the USA.
Why would they bother if this was just "the odd patch of flattened corn"?

Equipment failure inside formations is commonly reported; in many cases, battery packs (including new ones) will suddenly die inside circles and photo, video and sound equipment will stop operating inside formations, yet function normally again outside.
Other unusual and possibly related incidents include power failures in the vicinity of some circles and agitated (for no apparent reason) animals and pets.

I don't want to get into a full-scale row between the believers and non-believers.

You either believe they are all hoaxes or you believe "some" are, yet the others are created by some mysterious force of which we know nothing. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
I don't know the answer - I only know what I believe.

I believe there's a place in the Edited Guide for this entry.

Well, AGB, people can and do believe what they want to. It's the nature of a free society. However, with the right to hold an opinion goes the responsibility to change it when the evidence to the contrary suggests otherwise, or when the existing evidence is flimsy. Crop 'circles' (and I use this term advisedly) have been around for hundreds of years. They might well be caused by the sort of electromagnetic disturbance that gives rise to earthlight phenomena, another mysterious natural occurrence that remains, for now, resolutely unexplained. However, to leap from a few patches of singed corn to a whole load of ultimately fruitless speculation about Life, the Universe and Everything is a huge non-sequitur and detracts from the fact that the simplest explanation for more complex patterns is that they are *artificial* (given that the hoaxers have owned up, anyway).

Personally (for what my opinion is worth anyway), I don't believe that this article, in its present form, should make its way into the edited Guide for the same reason that I believe an article on Creationism should not. Both would be perverse opinion masquerading as accepted fact, and this article drags in so much other spurious baggage (Loch Ness Monster, Mars, Alchemy, etc.) that obfuscates rather than elucidates. The only 'great mystery' is what causes the genuine, small, circular 0.01% of these things. It's probably an extremely interesting *natural* phenomenon in its own right, and the article misses this pivotal point of the issue *big time*.

Lucinda - Thanks for incisive, thoughtful comments. I have carefully considered your range of suggestions from which I've selected what I feel to be the most salient ones. I particularly think the subheaders for *beliefs abd theories* section enhances clarity and readability. Also explained grounded theory and re-vamped the intro, placing the arguments for/against manmade circles where I feel it belongs under the hoaxes section. However, I'm reluctant to change the afterthoughts and, in fact anything else, having made so many changes already. I'm going to let it "sink or swim" as it stands. If its not selected then I feel its the guide's loss (basing this on the assumptiomn that h2g2 will never have an entry on crop circles (or similar mysteries in my view) if there is so much antagonism towards the subject). I don't mean it in a negative or personal way (and I'm at pains to stress that your comments were really constructive and helpful), but it's just so controversial a topic that to defend yourself against cries of bias is nigh on impossible. It feels at times like a cocunut shy. The other obstacle, of course, is the h2g2 requirement for factuality, rationality and balance, and the rigid way this seems to be applied by some researchers. This is offputting to say the least, and a veritable straightjacket when writing on subjects such as this which require some latitude and relaxation of rules. Indeed, Felonious Monk seems to think that an informative, balanced, rational piece on the subject is possible. Why do you suppose there is nothing written on the subject already, and the phenomenon has been with us for many years now. And whilst on my soap box, there is very little on things mystical in the edited guide, and I'm beginning to understand why. Apart from taking exception to FM's comments (e.g. I think the entry is *essentially* informative and rational) - who is going to write it who hasn't already an opinion or vested interest in the matter. FM's pronouncement that complex crop circles are *obviously manmade* puts him out of the frame. Is FM and other sceptics assuming that we can all take an objective, dispassionate view, when this approach (in my view) stifles the very subject being written about.
Long Live Mystery
Zaphod OED

FM, you're still missing my point when you write, "...I don't believe that this article, in its present form, should make its way into the edited Guide for the same reason that I believe an article on Creationism should not. Both would be perverse opinion masquerading as accepted fact..."

There have been other entries in the guide that present opinions. Pieces in the Edited Guide should no longer be assumed to be "accepted fact." If this entry were given the title "Crop Circles - A Believer's Perspective," it would be clear enough that it is not supposed to be "accepted fact," only an opinion.

You can continue arguing against the possibility of crop circles being anything other than a hoax (and continue damaging your credibility by using thinly veiled ad hominem attacks against believers), and it will continue to be moot. The point is that opinion is already in the guide, and this piece should not be excluded just because it's an opinion piece. It should be identified more clearly as an opinion piece, and then it would be at least as acceptable and uncontroversial as "Vietnam - America's Mistake" or "The 2000 Presidential Election - A Democrat's Perspective," two entries that would be very controversial among Americans, even if they seem minor to others.

I see no evidence to believe that anything other than humans or maybe wind has caused crop circles. So you don't need to convince everyone how wrong you believe Zaphod is. But I would like to hear why other clearly identified opinions should be allowed in the Guide, but this one should not.

Actually the best way to balance the Edited Guide would be to have "Crop Circles - A Believer's Perspective" and "Crop Circles - A Skeptical Perspective." And we also need a "2000 US Presidential Election - Republican Perspective" to balance the current Edited entry.

Any sqeptics interested in writing a rebuttal and submitting it to PR? Where are those people who suggested the circle hoaxers' websites? Come back!

TTFN. I'm off to write the "2000 US Presidential Election - A Green Perspective..."

The Green perspective was pretty grim unfortunately

Zaphod - if you can change the entry's name to label it as opinion before I find another suitable entry, I'll recommend it ASAP

H.A.

I just reread the entry. I reckon that if the 'afterthought' section was cut out, and with a few tweaks to the 'effects' section, then this entry would fit perfectly in the Edited Guide. As Deidzoeb has said, it already fits much better than many existing Edited Entries. It certainly doesn't need a 'perspective'-like title, any more than my entry on Santa Theories.

If Zagreb doesn't want to do those tweaks (and I can certainly understand why), then I'm sure they'd give a sub-ed no hassle. I reckon this one is pickable