From: Paul Anderson <psa@look.ca>
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 05:01:27 +0000
Fwd Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 09:22:00 -0400
Subject: Two Major Articles On Evidence For Circles


CCCRN NEWS
The E-News Service of the Canadian Crop Circle Research Network

http://www.geocities.com/cropcirclecanada

September 18, 2002

_____________________________


TWO NEW MAJOR MEDIA ARTICLES ON THE SCIENTIFIC
EVIDENCE FOR CROP CIRCLES

Two new substantial mainstream articles on the work of the BLT
Research Team outlining the latest scientific evidence for a
real phenomenon, from The Sunday Times in the UK and the
Providence Journal in the USA.

Featured are key soil studies from the 1999 Edmonton, Alberta
seven circle barley formation. Text copies below.


THE CROP BUSTERS

The Sunday Times Magazine

September 15, 2002

Julie Cohen
and
Stuart Conway

For years, crop circles have been taken as seriously as UFOs and
fairies. Now, not only have the weird patterns arrived in
Hollywood, but scientists are trying to solve the mystery. And
the answer may lie in the soil. As the helicopter landed on the
roof of New York's Rockefeller Plaza, two uniformed security
guards ran out, speaking into their microphone headsets, and
rushed Nancy Talbott inside. She was ushered into a suite where
a sumptuous buffet was laid out. Aides made a respectful retreat
as the philanthropist Laurance S Rockefeller arrived. Talbott,
the president of BLT Research Team Inc, an organisation formed
to investigate physical changes in plants at crop circles, had
been invited to lunch to discuss an exciting proposal.

Hollywood has just given British audiences its version of what
causes crop circles, in the movie Signs, with Mel Gibson playing
a farming preacher who discovers a formation in his field. But
Talbott had information on the real phenomenon. Preliminary
research suggested the circles were made by an unknown energy.

The puzzle began six years ago for Diane Conrad, a geologist who
analysed soil samples from a circle near her home in Logan,
Utah. To her surprise, they displayed a characteristic generally
found in sedimentary rock, caused by the pressure of tons of
rock heated by the Earth's core over considerable time. Yet
these samples were surface soil from within the crop circle;
outside the circle, the soil showed none of these inexplicable
traits. 'I couldn't understand the results,' Conrad explains.
'The soil seems to have been subjected to an intense heat of 500
to 1,500 degrees Celsius, and yet the plants were not
incinerated. They were not even singed.' What kind of energy
could produce heat of that intensity, yet not burn the plants to
a crisp? Conrad was unable to initiate an in-depth evaluation at
the time, but she passed the information on to Talbott, who has
dedicated the past 10 years to co-ordinating scientific research
into the circles. Research of soil samples required expensive
techniques, so her mission was to persuade Rockefeller to fund
it.

More than 10,000 circles have been reported around the world to
date. Formations have appeared in tree tops, ice and sand as
well as crops. Nobody knows how many are genuine anomalies and
how many are man-made, and scientific investigation has been
very limited. But Conrad's work raised questions that Talbott
believed mainstream science could not ignore. After a convivial
lunch, Talbott handed Rockefeller her proposal. A few weeks
later, a cheque for a 'substantial amount' arrived in the post.

Field teams in the Netherlands, the United States and Canada
collected soil samples. A seven-circle formation reported in
September 1999 in Edmonton, Alberta, was chosen for detailed
analysis. A farmer and his wife reported seeing unexplained
lights above the field about a week before the circles were
discovered.

Nearly 90 soil samples, as well as controls taken from outside
the circles, were sent to Dr Sampath Iyengar, a mineralogist in
San Diego, California. Clay minerals in the samples were
analysed using a technique called x-ray powder diffraction
(XRD). X-rays are beamed into the sample at various angles, and
the way they deflect provides information about how the atoms
are arranged, and the kind of mineral it is.

Imagine a marble represents an atom in the mineral being
examined. If you throw a handful of them on the ground, they
will form a random pattern. If instead you line them up in rows,
that would indicate an 'increase in crystallinity'; something
has made them ordered, an as-yet-unexplained energy. This is
what had happened to the surface soil from inside the crop
circle.

Nothing like this had ever been seen in surface soil. 'This
would normally only be found in geologic sediments exposed to
low temperatures and pressures over millions of years,' says
Iyengar. 'In the laboratory, temperatures in the range of 600 to
800C are usually required to achieve such crystal growth. There
is no way we could explain these results. It's some kind of
energy, an unknown force, that's causing this.' Talbott, excited
by the results, needed the report peer-reviewed by an authority.
She decided to start at the top and went to Hanover, New
Hampshire, where she banged on the door of Dr Robert C Reynolds
Jr of Dartmouth College. A winner of the Roebling medal for
lifelong achievement in mineralogy, Reynolds is an expert in x-
  ray diffraction. He asked for samples to be sent to his
laboratory, and performed his own experiments. The results were
the same.

In a letter to Talbott, he said: '... I am convinced that the
sample preparation methods and the x-ray analytical procedures
used were consistent with sound, standard methods of analysis.
But this brings up the question of the meaning of their results.

'Temperatures of 600 to 800 degrees Celsius are required in the
laboratory for such growth and these conditions would have
incinerated any plant material present. In short, I believe that
our present knowledge provides no explanation...' For the crop-
  circle world, the involvement of such a distinguished expert in
the subject is a great victory. It is the first time a scientist
of his standing has taken an interest in the phenomenon. Where
does the intense heat come from? Some witnesses claim to have
seen small balls of light and heard trilling noises in the
fields just before a circle has appeared, but whether this is
related has yet to be proven. 'It is possible we are observing
the effects of a new or as yet unrecognised energy source,' says
Talbott in the BLT report.

One of the biggest contributions to the scientific study of crop
circles has come from the Michigan biophysicist W C Levengood,
who began investigating plants taken from circles in 1990. The
most curious anomalies he has studied are pinhead-sized holes in
plant nodes, the fibrous 'knuckle-like' protuberances found
along the stem. He calls these holes 'expulsion cavities'.
Levengood believes moisture inside the stems is heated rapidly
and turns to steam, in some places stretching the plant fibre,
and in others blowing a hole in the stem. 'It seems to be a
powerful microwave energy that is causing this; it heats from
the inside out. The interesting thing is, these holes occur in a
matter of microseconds.'

The youngest, and most elastic, tissue in the plant stems is at
the top, and it is here that he has consistently observed
elongated nodes - stretched sometimes to double their normal
length. Lower down, where the tissue is more fibrous and less
elastic, expulsion cavities are regularly seen. These effects
have never been found in control samples. Levengood also found
changes to the seeds and germination capability of plants within
the circles. When circles occur in mature plants with fully
formed seeds, the seeds often grow up to five times faster than
control seeds, and the seedlings can tolerate lack of water and
light for a considerable time without apparent harm.

While investigating the crop-circle seeds at his Pinelandia
Biophysical Laboratory in Grass Lake, Michigan, Levengood
discovered a way of using a process he calls molecular impulse
response (MIR). 'When I exposed the seeds to the MIR energy, I
got the same effect as in the crop formation. We can produce
seeds that grow a lot faster.' Along with his colleague John
Burke, he patented the formula in 1998. Is the agricultural
industry interested? 'Oh yes. We hope the grain will be ready
next year. There are several companies doing big field trials at
the moment.'

This summer, field researchers found expulsion cavities inside a
formation resembling a celtic knot in Avebury Trusloe,
Wiltshire. The formation, reported on June 2 in a barley field,
was examined by the former government scientist Rodney Ashby,
who began investigating crop circles six years ago. 'The
stretched nodes and expulsion cavities in this formation are
very interesting,' he says. 'This occurred only on the stems
that were flattened to create the formation.

I always look for the most logical explanation, but in cases
like this there just doesn't seem to be one.'

 From the edge of the field in the waist-high barley, it is
impossible to see the downed crop. The only extraordinary
features seem to be the ancient Adam and Eve stones in the next
field. Scholars believe they marked the beginning of an avenue
of stones leading to the stone circle around Avebury. A few
hundred yards inside the field, the crop suddenly flattens in
swirling patterns.

Daniel Lobb, a field researcher, picks up a handful of barley
stalks. Sure enough, there are tiny holes and stretched nodes
that are double the length of the plants outside the circle.

Next morning at the Silent Circle, a cafe in Cherhill, the hub
of crop-circle information, 15 people are watching a video of
the latest circle. A map on the wall covered with pins is
quickly updated with the position of the most recent formation.
The cafe walls are covered with aerial photographs of the 70
circles reported so far in the UK this year, and posters by the
former architect and professor of design Michael Glickman, who
draws the geometry of the formations.

'Let's go,' cries Glickman. It's like a call to the hunt, and
everyone piles into their cars. In the lead is Glickman,
followed by the Croatian documentary maker Nikola Duper, then
three Italian women, a Dutch couple who have come to Wiltshire
for the past 10 years to see the circles, and us. The convoy
snakes along narrow roads past thatched cottages in tiny
villages. Everyone is waving and chatting excitedly on their
mobiles about what the shape could be. As we pull up by the
field, we see people on stepladders holding cameras attached to
long poles, trying to get an aerial shot. A helicopter circles
overhead and the 'croppies', as they are known, pull out cameras
and notebooks.

Next day, when the aerial pictures are put up in the cafe, there
is concern that it may be man-made. 'We're under attack,' says
Glickman as he sips his coffee dejectedly. 'It's a waste of
researchers' time and money to be polluting the fields with
these second-rate man-made circles when there's a real
phenomenon needing more studies.'

Interest in the circles has intensified this year. Signs opened
in the US on August 2 and took more than $60m in its first three
days, sending it straight to No 1 at the US box office. The
British drama A Place to Stay, set in the crop circles of
Wiltshire, also looks set to pique public interest.

Freddy Silva, the British author of the recent book Secrets in
the Fields, which sold 10,000 copies in the US in its first
week, is looking over a formation at the Gallops, near
Beckhampton, an impressive shape with 76 radiating spokes. A
deer leaps to the centre and stays for a few moments before
running out. 'Whatever Hollywood comes up with about the
theories behind the crop circles, it will never be as intriguing
and mysterious as the real thing,' says Silva.




LESLIE KEAN: ORIGIN OF CROP CIRCLES BAFFLES SCIENTISTS

09/16/2002

SAN FRANCISCO

SINCE THE RECENT release of the movie Signs, crop circles have
been thrust into the limelight. Such major publications as
Scientific American and U.S. News and World Report have echoed
the common belief that all crop circles are made by stealthy
humans flattening plants with boards. This assumption would be
fair enough if we had no information suggesting otherwise.

However, intriguing data published in peer-reviewed scientific
journals clearly establishes that some of these geometric
designs, found in dozens of countries, are not made by "pranks
with planks." In fact, a study about to be published by a team
of scientists and funded by Laurance Rockefeller concludes "it
is possible that we are observing the effects of a new or as yet
undiscovered energy source."

In the early 1990s, biophysicist William C. Levengood, of the
Pinelandia Biophysical Laboratory, in Michigan, examined plants
and soils from 250 crop formations, randomly selected from seven
countries. Samples and controls were provided by the
Massachusetts-based BLT Research Team, directed by Nancy
Talbott.

Levengood, who has published over 50 papers in scientific
journals, documented numerous changes in the plants from the
formations. Most dramatic were grossly elongated plant nodes
(the "knuckles" along the stem) and "expulsion cavities" --
  holes literally blown open at the nodes -- caused by the
heating of internal moisture from exposure to intense bursts of
radiation. The steam inside the stems escaped by either
stretching the nodes or, in less elastic tissue, exploding out
like a potato bursting open in a microwave oven.

Seeds taken from the plants and germinated in the lab showed
significant alterations in growth, as compared with controls.
Effects varied from an inability to develop seeds to a massive
increase in growth rate -- depending on the species, the age of
the plants when the circle was created and the intensity of the
energy system involved.

These anomalies were also found in tufts of standing plants
inside crop circles -- clearly not a result of mechanical
flattening -- and in patches of randomly downed crops found near
the geometric designs. These facts suggested some kind of
natural, but unknown, force at work.

Published in Physiologia Plantarum (1994), the international
journal of the European Societies of Plant Physiology,
Levengood's data showed that "plants from crop circles display
anatomical alterations which cannot be explained by assuming the
formations are hoaxes." He defined a "genuine" formation as one
"produced by external energy forces independent of human
influence."

A strange brown "glaze" covering plants within a British
formation was the subject of Levengood and John A. Burke's 1995
paper in the Journal of Scientific Exploration. The material was
a pure iron that had been embedded in the plants while the iron
was still molten. Tiny iron spheres were also found in the soil.

In 1999, British investigator Ronald Ashby examined the glaze
through optical and scanning electron microscopes. He determined
that intense heat had been involved -- iron melts at about 2,700
degrees Fahrenheit -- administered in millisecond bursts. "After
exhaustive inquiry, there is no mundane explanation for the
glaze" he concluded.

In another paper for Physiologia Plantarum (1999), Levengood and
Talbott suggested that the energy causing crop circles could be
an atmospheric plasma vortex -- multiple interacting electrified
air masses that emit microwaves as they spiral around the
earth's magnetic-field lines.

Some formations, however, contain cubes and straight lines.
Astrophysicist Bernard Haisch, of the California Institute for
Physics and Astrophysics, says that such "highly organized,
intelligent patterns are not something that could be created by
a force of nature."

But Haisch points out that since not all formations are tested,
it is unknown how many are genuine. Nor is it likely that such
complex designs could evolve so quickly in nature. "Natural
phenomena make mountain ranges and form continents -- they don't
learn geometry in ten years," says Haisch, who is the science
editor for the Astrophysical Journal.

In 1999, philanthropist Laurance Rockefeller made possible the
most definitive -- and most revealing -- study to date. The BLT
Research Team collected hundreds of plant and soil samples from
a seven-circle barley formation in Edmonton, Canada. The plants
had both elongated nodes and expulsion cavities, and the soils
contained the peculiar iron spheres, indicating a genuine
formation. The controls showed none of these changes.

Mineralogist Sampath Iyengar, of the Technology of Materials
Laboratory, in California, examined specific heat-sensitive clay
minerals in these soils, using X-ray diffraction and a scanning
electron microscope. He discovered an increase in the degree of
crystallinity (the ordering of atoms) in the circle minerals,
which statistician Ravi Raghavan determined was statistically
significant at the 95 percent level of confidence.

"I was shocked," says Iyengar, a 30-year specialist in clay
mineralogy. "These changes are normally found in sediments
buried for thousands and thousands of years under rocks,
affected by heat and pressure, and not in surface soils."

Also astounding was the direct correlation between the node-
length increases in the plants and the increased crystallization
in the soil minerals -- indicating a common energy source for
both effects. Yet the scientists could not explain how this
would be possible. The temperature required to alter soil
crystallinity would be between 1,500 and 1,800 degrees F. This
would destroy the plants.

Understanding the possible ramifications of these findings,
Talbott sought the expertise of an emeritus professor of geology
and mineralogy at Dartmouth College, Robert C. Reynolds Jr., who
is former president of the Clay Minerals Society. He is regarded
by his colleagues as the "best-known expert in the world" on X-
ray diffraction analysis of clay minerals.

Reynolds determined that the BLT Team's data had been "obtained
by competent personnel, using current equipment."

The intense heat required for the observed changes in
crystallinity "would have incinerated any plant material
present," he confirms in a statement for the Rockefeller report.
"In short, I believe that our present knowledge provides no
explanation." Meteorologist James W. Deardorff, professor
emeritus at the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at
Oregon State University, and previously a senior scientist at
the National Center for Atmospheric Research, states in a 2001
Physiologia Plantarum commentary that the variety, complexity
and artistry of crop circles "represent the work of
intelligence," and not a plasma vortex. "That is why the hoax
hypothesis has been popularly advocated," he says.

However, he points out, the anomalous properties in plant stems
thoroughly documented by Levengood and Talbott could not
possibly have been implemented by hoaxers. Deardorff describes
one 1986 British formation in which upper and lower layers of
crop were intricately swirled and bent perpendicular to each
other, in a fashion that "defies any explanation."

"People don't want to face up to this, and scientists have to
deal with the ridicule factor," he said in a recent interview.

Adding to the puzzle, professional filmmakers have documented
bizarre daytime "balls of light" at crop-circle sites. Light
phenomena were observed by multiple witnesses at the site of the
Canadian circle so meticulously examined under the Rockefeller
grant.

Eltjo Hasselhoff, a Dutch experimental physicist, has taken on
the study of what he describes as "bright, fluorescent flying
light objects,sized somewhere between an egg and a football."

Scientists face real and serious questions in confronting this
mystery. Could this be secret laser technology beamed down from
satellites? Is it a natural phenomenon? Is there a consciousness
or intelligence directing an energy form yet unknown to us?

"To look at the evidence and go away unconvinced is one thing,"
says astrophysicist Haisch. "To not look at the evidence and be
convinced against it . . . is another. That is not science."
It's not good journalism, either.

Leslie Kean is an investigative reporter and producer with
Pacifica Radio based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She can be
reached at lkean@ix.netcom.net


____________________________


CCCRN News is the e-news service of the Canadian Crop Circle
Research Network, providing e-mail updates with the latest news
and reports on the crop circle phenomenon in Canada, as well as
other information on CCCRN-related projects and events, sent
free to your e-mail.

To subscribe, send an e-mail with Subscribe CCCRN News
in the subject line to:
cccrnnews@look.ca

The Canadian Crop Circle Research Network is a non-profit
research organization which has been investigating and
documenting the crop circle phenomenon and other possibly
related phenomena in Canada since 1995, creating a liason
between researchers, farmers, the public, the media and
scientists in trying to solve this ongoing enigma.

Main Office

202 - 325 East 14th Avenue
Vancouver, BC V5T 2M9 Canada
Tel / Fax: 604.731.8522
Cell: 604.727.1454
E-Mail: psa@look.ca
Web: http://www.geocities.com/cropcirclecanada

=A9 Canadian Crop Circle Research Network, 2002