1998 was a pretty hectic year for me. Not only was there a bumper crop, if you excuse the pun, of crop formations (over 100 in the UK alone!), but I was asked to speak at three international conferences on crop circles and the unexplained. For those of you who were unable to attend these conferences I thought I would summarise the main points I spoke about at my lectures. I can also expand on some finer points that are sometimes omitted when under the stress of a public spotlight.
In most of my lectures I usually give a brief introduction as to how I became involved in the crop circle enigma - and the fact I was quite normal until then.... My initial introduction to the subject was covered in Enigma issue 1 (indeed it was some of my early experiences which prompted me to start Enigma in the first place). However, over the years the most important thing that has occurred to me is not the fact that I became interested in crop circles at all, but the time at which I did; 1990. After speaking to many people during the last eight years of my research, it has become blindingly obvious that a great deal of people also became 'involved' with the subject in 1990. More of this coincidence later.....
In 1992 I met a wonderful geometer called John Martineau, who had the knack and insight to see exquisite geometries present in many of the crop circles of the period. This proved beyond reasonable doubt that many of the complex designs were extremely unlikely to have been made by old men or vandals with boards in the darkness of the night. Indeed some of the designs were difficult to plot in broad daylight, with the advantage of graph paper and protractors. After a number of conversations with John, I decided to take this two dimensional geometry a step further. By profession I work as a computer programmer and consultant, so I decided to see if I could convert some of the complex crop circle designs into three dimensional shapes and rotate them on the computer screen.
After programming the computer to take the ground surveys and convert them into three dimensional images, say substituting a sphere for a circle and a tetrahedron for a triangle etc., I was surprised to find that other crop circle shapes could be formed from existing shapes. An example of this is the diagram (right), reproduced from Enigma issue 1.
By examining the crop circle shapes from different angles and perspectives I soon realised that I was merely seeing a part of the whole, interpreted by my brain. It struck me that this is how the human race works. Through the ages, man has always assumed that he knows everything and that scientific discovery has uncovered all the answers. This couldn't be further from reality. As anyone who shares my spiritual awakening since 1990 will know, the more we think we know, the smaller and smaller our extent of knowledge. Man tries to categorize everything and find laws and theories to explain that which we don't understand. Even on a subconscious level the brain tries to make sense of what it can't totally comprehend. For example, the following two shapes (reproduced from Enigma issue 2) demonstrate that your brain will try to make sense of simple two dimensional geometric shapes.
The first diagram is a shape known as the Necker Cube, named after the nineteenth century Swiss naturalist L.A.Necker. If you examine it closely, although it is only reproduced in two dimensions on the paper your brain can spontaneously switch in depth - either looking into the corner of a room disappearing into the paper, or a cube face sticking out of the paper.
The second diagram also demonstrates the brains ability to create a three dimensional object - this time a white cube - from the simple cut out segments from six little circles. Look carefully and your brain will perceive the white cube in the centre.
This concept can be applied to crop circle interpretation. Physically we are merely looking at flattened corn in a farmers field - yet different people have different experiences and perceptions from the shapes they see and visit. The problem with human interpretation is that it leads to a duality of options or opinions; conventional physics vs. 'fringe science', wave vs. particle, Yin vs. Yan, Hoax vs. Genuine, Mind vs. Matter etc. etc. Philip Barth, an engineer with Hewlett-Packard, made a comment about Nanotechnology (the ability to manufacture machines the size of molecules, using quantum theory) which I believe is equally valid for crop circle research; "There's a plausible argument for everything, but there are detailed answers to nothing."
Who is to say who is right and wrong? There are no right and wrong answers. I believe crop circles have acted as a catalyst to speed up awareness in certain people. It is indisputable that they have had a profound effect on hundreds of people the world over. Indeed, along with music, they seem to have a universal language of love and understanding, unbounded by geographic location or language. After nearly 10 years of research we are still no closer to a solution to the crop circle mystery. We still don't have solid proof of extra terrestrial involvement, forces of Gaia, ancient spirits or any other paranormal origins offered. Conversely, the hoaxers have yet to prove that they have made a single formation - other than the ones deliberately made for TV programmes or newspapers - which incidentally never seem to be as good as those they claim to have made during the less favourable hours of darkness, with the possibility of being caught by angry farmers or circle watchers. All we have is words and empty claims and whispers.
However, the circles seem to evolve over time. They seem to illustrate a kind of consciousness or intelligence. One of the early pioneers of scientific research into crop circles, Terence Meaden proposed theories involving complex forms of atmospheric 'plasma vortex' which could indeed form some simple circles, yet no sooner than he had published his findings, complex 'pictograms' started to appear which defied his atmospheric theories. Even as recently as 1997 researchers commented about how wonderful it would be if we saw seven fold geometry in crop circle designs - and as if to answer, the circlemakers created seven fold designs during this summer, of 1998. Of course, this could be an argument in favour of the hoax hypothesis, with hoaxers attending lectures and listening to researchers explain their theories. However, a lot of theories realised physically in the fields were not published or even spoken about, yet designs thought about appeared in the fields. There seems to be a telepathic link between what we visualise in our minds and what materialises in the fields.
Every year formations seem to get more and more complex and elaborate, yet if, as the hoaxers claim, they don't make them every year and others merely copy them, how do these 'new hoaxers' know what shapes the researchers are looking for unless they attend all the lectures, read all the books and study the various theories. Then to execute geometrically accurate manoeuvres in darkness, across several hundred feet of, often uneven, crop field, without being caught and without making a single mistake - all for nothing (we all know that hoaxing does exist, so it's nothing new!), year after year seems rather paranoid to me - something the hoaxers often accuse the researchers of. If anyone is obsessed and deluded, I would say that it was the poor hoaxers who commit their criminal damage whilst the researchers they seem jealous of enjoy themselves chatting and making new friends.
It seems that the circles aim is to elude analytical and methodical disassembly and explanation. They are more of a sign, a symbol of where we are heading, a way of thinking or evolving ourselves. We can stand and analyse the strange markings on a road traffic sign for hours and hours. We can find 'hidden' meanings and geometries in it, yet all the time we are standing staring at it we are not moving any closer to the destination that it's merely pointing out.
Indeed it seems that Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle applies to crop circles themselves. This implies that the closer you look at something, the less you can know about it. It was originally applied in quantum physics when examining sub-atomic particles and states that you can never accurately determine BOTH the momentum AND position of electrons because the more accurately you measure one vector, the less accurate the other one will be. It also goes on to state that there is a finite probability that seemingly implausible events can happen. I think we can start to become too critical about crop circles; examine them too closely and we lose the beauty of them. In one way they are just art forms, yet in another they seem to transcend mere artistic shapes and designs.
Whether or not they are hoaxed, genuine or there is a message or code within them, they are changing people the world over. People are more aware of their surroundings, more spiritual, more environmental. I see this as a great thing and one of the biggest messages for me is that all through history man has changed his environment to suit his requirements. How long can this last? Mankind needs to think about the irreversible damage being done to the world around us. As I write this, large chunks of the Antarctic ice sheet are breaking off due to rising water temperatures, man is destroying acres of rain forest and natural habitats, the Monsanto Corporation is genetically modifying the food we eat (more on this in a future edition - Ed.) and the Governments of the world seem to be getting more and more out of touch with the people they are supposed to protect and support. If there is a message contained in the crop circles it is that man must change himself and that can only come from within, not from the world around him.
One puzzle of quantum physics is the duality of the electron; it seems to exhibit both particle and wavelike properties. Single electrons vibrate at distinct frequencies, exhibiting resonance. These resonances have an effect on everything else in the universe (see Enigma issue 14) and it's these resonances that I believe will ultimately help explain life after death, telepathy, telekinesis, ghosts and other paranormal phenomena. I think everything is invisibly linked in some way and researchers are merely looking for the links, the pieces to the jigsaw if you like.
It was pondering on this concept that made me originally devise what I called "The Five Keys to Consciousness" - again explained in more detail in issue 14. However, since my original article, and after more research and discussion with people, I have slightly refined the five keys. I believe them now to be;
The modified one is shape, which replaces time - ultimately the same as frequency. Shape is also important to the way things vibrate and resonate with the things around them. Some of my current research involves correlating the way sacred sites align to areas of heightened spiritual awareness at certain times of the day or year.
Solving the crop circle mystery, if indeed there is anything to solve, is a bit like discovering the fabled 'Holy Grail' of science; a theory of everything. Yet, I believe the two are linked. Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg made the comparison of 19th Century navigators who knew that their compass needles (always pointing north) converged on to a single spot, but not until early this century was it actually discovered. All researchers are looking for solutions and maybe even come up with different theories, yet none are necessarily wrong. It's just that we haven't discovered the magical spot that all our compasses are pointing towards.
I think the solution could lie within the concept of Superstrings. This is rather difficult to explain in lay-mans terms (it will be the subject of a future article), but essentially strings vibrate very much like the strings on a violin. No one claims that the notes on a violin are fundamental. What is fundamental, is the violin string itself. Likewise a superstring has it's own 'notes' or resonances. Each of these vibrations is equivalent to a subatomic particle. Therefore, this neatly explains why there is such a complex mess of subatomic particles. Indeed, logically there should be an infinite number of these particles, just as there are an infinite number of vibrations on a violin string. If we look at subatomic particles as tiny vibrating strings we can see that when they start vibrating in a different mode they become different particles. In effect the universe is nothing but a symphony of vibrating strings. Indeed this echoes the thoughts of ancient Pythagorans who believed in the 'laws of the harmony of strings'. And who said the ancients were an ignorant people??
Superstring theory also contains Einstein's theory of gravity because as the string moves in space and time it forces the surrounding continuum to curve - just like Einstein predicted. One aspect of superstring theory is that it is formulated in ten-dimensional space-time and actually sets out it's own dimension. By doing this it conveniently encompasses more and more forces, or lesser dimensions. A simple way of seeing how adding higher dimensions clarifies our view of fundamental forces we can think of how the ancient Romans fought their battles. With messages carried on foot, communication was difficult, which is why the Romans would always attempt to go into 'hyperspace' - ie. the third dimension, by capturing a hilltop or high vantage point. From this viewpoint they could look down on multiple battlefields below them and see a clearer view of what their opponents were trying to visualise in two dimensions. By looking down from the vantage point of the tenth dimension, physicists hope to see the established four dimensions laid out before them.
Indeed the very latest developments in physics propose looking at superstring theory from an eleven dimensional viewpoint, which attempts to view some of the mysteries of the tenth dimensional hyperspace. Edward Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton has called it "M-theory" where "M" can stand for "mystery", "magic" or "membrane". We are back to the unknown magical world of mystery and the paranormal.
One very exciting aspect of my ongoing crop circle research is that of becoming involved with sound and harmonics. As first announced in issue 10, I've been developing some computer software which can take a crop circle image and convert it into musical notes and tones. By plugging the computer into a musical synthesizer I can create a complete symphony from the subtle tones of colour and tint contained within the original image, or I can create musical notes based upon the geometric dimensions of the crop formation sounding similar to the bars played to the alien mothership in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. At my lectures I played a few minutes of an audio tape I have produced demonstrating the kind of music produced. Although not really music, the notes are strangely melodic and enthralled the audience leading to many people wanting to purchase tapes after my lectures. These tapes are not available commercially, as they were originally intended for research purposes, but are available for £8.00 each to anyone interested on a one to one basis. Please write to me at the editorial address for more information and details of the exact crop circle formations I used for each one (two tapes are available).
By utilising our brain waves in ways that scientists haven't discovered yet - or argue against, I believe that we can alter the subatomic vibration of waveforms around us. Spiritualists have known this for years of course, when they refer to our aura, or electro-magnetic waveform field, which surrounds us and extends to some 55 feet from our bodies. In the same way an opera singer can produce sounds with her voice which can resonate with the waveform of a wineglass and cause it to shatter, thus we could produce a waveform function by thought - the power of the mind - and tune it in order to resonate with objects, people and entities around us - the basis of telepathy and psycho-kinesis. I have no doubt that the 'secret governments' around the world know about these mind techniques and it forms the basis of their remote-viewing and psychotronic projects. Indeed, the 'powers that be' don't like 'you and I' being capable of shaping our own destiny and I'm convinced that this is why they resort to FUD tactics - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. By 'de-classifying' hoaxed documents, arranging for TV documentaries to be made and by planting 'disinformation' and 'debunking' articles in the National Media it serves to confuse the population who either start thinking New Consciousness is a load of bunk or get fooled into confusing hoaxed stories with factual information. Governments, religious organisations and other controllers of power get worried that their status quo will be disturbed if people get to find out the real truth.
At lectures I usually show a slide of the flow chart below, which shows what I call "pieces of the puzzle" (see diagram below). I briefly explain how the various pieces interconnect in our everyday lives and the cosmos around us. In the end, it's up to us to become aware, and a part, of the world around us. To realise that our reality is formed not from what's without, but from what's within. The power of everything lies within us all.
This, I believe, is ultimately the message of the crop circles.
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