From: Sheryl Gottschall <gottscha.nul>
Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2004 15:05:28 +1000
Fwd Date: Mon, 05 Apr 2004 11:35:53 -0400
Subject: Crop Circles In Australia



In A Whirl Over Crop Circle

Story has good photo.

http://www.thesundaymail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,9177996%255E2765,00.html

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[And] I had to scan this from the article, no web site link
sorry.


'Unfakeable' Crop Circles Discovered At Conondale
by Cameron Outridge

Source: The Range News April 1, 2004

A set of four intricate crop circles has been discovered at
Conondale. Resident Christopher White said he would rate the
crop circles about 8 out of 10 on a scale against others
discovered around the world. "Kate (Kate Dash of Montville) has
been to England and has studied them for years. She was
impressed. They were absolutely perfect", Mr White said.

Mr White said the four circles were in a relatively straight
line, roughly north to south. All are neat, clockwise swirls.
They were discovered in a private paddock on Aherns Road on the
way to Crystal Waters on Sunday aftemoon March 28 by local boys,
Eli Colbran and Tom Braby who were bushwalking at the time.

"You can't imagine anyone faking these because the seed heads
would be broken," said Mr White. "This grass has still got seed
heads on it so it doesn't appear as though it could have been
trampled or squashed down. That would have broken off the seed
heads. "These strands of grass are bent and beautifully woven.
It's like the different types of grasses are literally woven
together.

"There were groups of people in England that purposefully went
out and faked a group of circles. They did a good job but they
still couldn't fake it." Mr White said crop circles were often
found above underground water courses. He said many had a very
heightened electromagnetic field. People had experienced high
pitch noises and warbles, "almost music-like".

Mr White said some residents had reported seeing bails of blue
light on the Friday night. Mr White's observations were
supported by another resident who has read widely about crop
circles, but who wished to remain anonymous. "The crop circles
at Conondale could not be man made. It couldn't be faked. Not
without a tremendous amount of technical effort, and there'd be
little point of that in sleepy little Conondale," he said.

The circles, with their centres aligned, are 29 metres centre to
centre and the diameters starting from the north 3.5m, 8m, 2m
and Im. "Very interestingly the circles are aligned but the
centres are offset.

"This is a feature that is typical of crop circles in that the
centre of the circles is not the centre of the swirl, which
makes it unfakeable - unless one wants to rig up an amazing
piece of machinery which creates an ellipse as you walk around
the field.

"There were other aspects which elirninate man made. The
particular field is pasture grass. The property has no cattle on
it. It is not being eaten down and what you have is 300 mm tall
green grass blades. And the seeds are very ripe. if you even
stike one of these seed heads with the side of your hand they
shower off. So if you'd used any mechanical means to flatten the
grass the seed heads would be knocked off. That was not the case
the seed heads were all intact within the circles.

"Also the grass was folded down in a twisting motion and none of
the stems are broken and that act creates a layering effect. We
all attempted to duplicate this process out in the field and you
can't even begin to create any similar effect."

"Most crop circles have a pressure swirl in the centre of
tightly woven stems interlayered one in a tight circle around
the centre. The effect looks rather like a bird's nest and these
circles all have that."

Kate Dash said by midday Tuesday the crop circles had been
degraded. "People should not rush out and expect to see the
pristine circles. There have been amateur attempts at further
circles and the grass is starting to rise."

Less intricate crop circles were discovered in a sorghum crop at
Glass House last year. These were deemed by experts to have been
caused by a natural phenomenon called lodging.

"Something certainly happened at Glasshouse but it wasn't
anything like this," said Ms Dash. "These are beautiful
symmetrical circles."

Ms Dash has visited the crop circles in England many times and
is happy to provide information to people who were interested.

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Sheryl Gottschall