Click here to support the Daily Grail for as little as $US1 per month on Patreon

Crop Circles? They Belong in a Museum!

Whatever you think of the crop circle phenomenon —alien symbols, messages from Gaia, vandalic graffiti or magick sigils— I think we all can agree at least on one thing: Many of them are gorgeous to look at. Which begs the question: Why hasn’t there ever been a proper museum exhibit showcasing these fascinating works of art?

Fortunately, the fine folk working at the Witlshire museum have corrected this unforgivable omission. From June 21st to August 31st of 2014, the exhibit “Exploring the Mystery and Beauty of Crop Circles” will be showcased; the first ever exhibition of its kind, right at the heart of the crop circle capital of the world.

The exhibit is being curated by Dutch and German crop circle researchers Monique Klinkenbergh and Andreas Müller, and along with large-size prints of the most prominent crop circle photographs taken since the phenomenon started —or since the circles gathered public attention, whichever you prefer— it also seeks to offer some background information in the history of the phenomenon, and the research conducted so far in trying to explain it.

“The concept of our exhibition is based on the idea that there is a genuine, not man-made phenomenon”, adds Monique Klinkenbergh. “For this view, we present evidence and background facts. Over the last three decades printed and aired media presented the phenomenon mostly as the result ‘Dough and Dave’, the two elderly tricksters who suddenly appeared on the scene in 1991, followed by students and hoaxers. With our exhibition in the Wiltshire Museum we also want to set some records straight from a research point of view.

But what of the possibility of visiting an actual circle, instead of just looking at an aerial photograph? The Wiltshire museum also hosts the Crop Circle Access Centre, which is a mobile app informing on the latest formations & which ones are open to the public; it also seeks to compensate farmers whose field has had the ‘fortune’ of being chosen by the crop circle makers, paying them a portion of the money raised through the passes —field owners in other countries would wish to be so lucky…

Over the years my personal opinion on the matter of crop circles has changed substantially. Back in the late 80’s & early 90’s I was convinced these ‘agro-glyphs’ represented tangible evidence of some sort of communication with a non-human intelligence; now I side with the notion that the great majority of the circles are created by clandestine artists, who prefer to remain anonymous as much to avoid legal repercussions, as to infuse their creations with the necessary amount of mystique.

And yet that doesn’t make those circles ‘hoaxes’ in my mind, nor does it mean some subtle interaction with an external influence is not occurring; a lot of the makers admit to sometimes feel ‘compelled’ to choose a particular design or location for reasons beyond their understanding, or sometimes report odd happenings while they are flattening the wheat using the infamous ‘planking method’ popularized by (the equally infamous) ‘Doug & Dave.’

Whichever the case, if you happen to have the chance to visit Wiltshire this summer, you might want to stop by at the museum, and perhaps write for us a review.

[Hat tip to Andreas Müller]

Links:

  1. Who made them?
    I’m sure that some, perhaps many, of the crop circles are human-made; but surely not all. Were I a billionaire, I would put this challenge to the skeptics: you can win a million dollars if you’re able to replicate one of the more elaborate circles, such as the famed Crabwood formation of 2001 (skip ahead to the 3:20 mark of this clip: http://www.SheepleTV.com/decoded-crop-circles-2-important-alien-messages/ ) — under identical circumstances and time constraints. Some of the hoaxed circles have been impressive, but none have been on the scale of ones like that. That’s very telling, imo.

    1. Crabwood
      The Crabwood formation always looked phony to me. Like it was made by someone who was looking to reinforce the current mythology involving UFOs, the Grays and whatnot.

      The Julia set crop circle is more interesting to me, due to the alleged testimony of a pilot & a passenger who flew over the field 45 minutes before the formation had been discovered, and they didn’t see anything.

      But I’m not interested in playing detective in trying to determine which circles are ‘genuine’ & which ones ‘fake’, since I feel all of them have a purpose, even if they were made by humans.

      1. Intentions
        Initially, the Crabwood formation also struck me as suspiciously too aligned with the current ‘alien’ mythology to be real, but I now believe it’s simply too complex to have been done in only a few hours of darkness. Not impossible, just highly unlikely. I’d probably have to agree that the Julia set crop circle is even more impressive in ways, especially because of the pilot/passenger testimony you mention–but I also have to add that, having once taken part in a crop circle hoaxing experiment myself, I feel a symmetrical, purely geometrical circle is in some ways easier to fake than a non-symmetrical one (like a face), for logistical reasons which I won’t go into here but which should be easy to deduce. But your point about all of them having a purpose, whether real or fake, is well-taken. As a firm believer in synchronicity and other weird ideas, I think we often act out larger impulses and imperatives than we consciously realize. Case in point: when Orson Welles did his “War of the Worlds” hoax in 1938, it coincided right then with a very powerful alignment in the stars, among other things. Did he consciously know that? Almost certainly not. But it doesn’t matter. Even our conscious intentions aren’t what we think they are.

        1. http://www.amazon.com/Secrets
          http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Fields-Science-Mysticism-Circles-ebook/dp/B00BUAM6H4/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404665787&sr=1-1&keywords=secrets+in+the+fields

          Still the book that folks with a bit of interest that is not thoroughly informed should read. Previous to reading this one I was fairly sure that about 99% of all circles were man made, and that still may be accurate, but it’s the 1% that aren’t which blow the mind. Silva is very good at ferreting out the circles that were at first blush looking to be man made but which in fact could not have been. I’m not just talking about the huge ones that appear very difficult to make in the allotted time span by even the most accomplished makers but the circles that were “covered up” by drumming up a story about their making that was entirely an emergency fabrication.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Mobile menu - fractal