The Deception: Manmade Crop Circles

The Deception: Manmade Crop Circles

Interview with Crop Circle
Researcher and Author Colin Andrews

by Diane M. Cooper

The Deception: Manmade Crop Circles

Diane: As I was surfing the web for information about the 2001 crop circles, I noticed that your name has been circulating through the rumormill as of late.

Colin: Yes and it is so unfortunate. The more I insist on keeping away from it the worse my position is, because it gives the impression that I'm elitist and can't follow through with my evidence. And my lack of response may have that appearance. Nonetheless, I just don't want to engage in that kind of negativity.

I also have to say that there is a lot of dishonesty out there. If we are really serious about getting to the bottom of such an extraordinary mystery as the crop circle phenomenon, then honesty is of paramount importance. It's so easy to fool ourselves. I, too, have fallen into that trap. I've certainly been absorbed by the possibilities that exist in every circle ever discovered. But I know also that the mere fact that a crop circle starts out as a mystery doesn't mean it will end up being the real thing. One can get absorbed. Vision becomes clouded so easily.

Diane: I'm sure you're right. But overall it is quite interesting when you see the wide range of people who have been drawn into this phenomenon, from the hoaxers of the world, like "Doug and Dave,"[1] to researchers like yourself. One has to ask why such a wide range of individuals is being attracted. Who or what is behind their motivation?

Colin: Exactly right. I feel such privilege and honor to have been given this opportunity. I didn't go out looking for this — it just happened that I found myself involved in it. And I can stand back after eighteen years and see what an opportunity this has been to observe, from the inside, an extraordinary thing that is occurring.

I've seen all the human weaknesses and strengths that have come to bear as time has elapsed. We began with three regular guys — two coming from science, and the third a meteorologist who basically just "dropped in" to the phenomenon and drew it to the public's attention. And there have been layer upon layer of intelligence agencies checking this out — although I have to say that I've only been directly approached twice, but have intuitively felt their presence from time to time.

I've seen a lot as time has gone on — some of it very disconcerting and some of it very uplifting. It has been an extraordinary human experience, and I do think that those words "human experience" express the bottom line. We have to embrace every element of the phenomenon in order to get its full worth.

Certainly there was a time when hoaxing did not occur. But now it does. We see how the mystery attracted "Doug and Dave" and those like them. And the immediate question is, why? What motivates people to do such a thing.

By their own admission to John MacNish from BBC Television (who went undercover to investigate the Doug and Dave incidents, and who was dumbfounded when he heard this), "But you know, it's as if something makes us do it." Doug Bowers was acknowledging this, and his partner, Dave Chorley, concurred. They both felt that there was something within them — something outside of their character, outside of who they were as people — it was as if they were prompted at a deeper level to get out and do this.

I've heard that kind of thing coming from just about everyone out there that the public doesn't see — the other people that are making counterfeit circles. So I don't think we "get" the entire picture if we simply deny these people a voice, if we just simply say, "you're lying." I believe they have credible experiences in their own right.

Not to my credit, of course. But I've been spending so many years with this, and it's only been during the last few that I've been open to talking to people who I had perceived initially to be deceptive, dishonorable, and dishonest — in other words, those that were making crop circles to fool people like myself and the public. But then I felt that I should open my door and be prepared, first of all, to listen. To ask why. Very important! Unless we get answers to the whys, we don't see the entire picture.

I started to literally phone these people. And I've now met quite a number of them confidentially, and I'm getting a picture that fits the equation I looked at before I opened the door to them. Again, this is a "human experience." This was meant to happen, and it's coming on two fronts. The first is those humans who are "inspired" to make the circles. And the other front is the "something else" that is interacting authentically.

We don't know who the "real" circle makers are. But there is certainly compelling evidence that whatever the source is, it is intelligent. It knows what it's doing. This isn't a random placement of nature.

When I and Pat Delgado, who had just finished the Mariner Project for NASA, joined forces and starting researching this phenomenon, we wrote the book Circular Evidence"[2] and put this subject into the public domain. From that moment on, you could say, we kicked ourselves in the teeth, because we had introduced to the public this dynamic focus and potential of possibilities. So now we weren't the only people on the planet wondering what the heck was going on. Suddenly there was TV, and millions of people, asking the same questions.

We were, I hope, acting as beacons of light and the disseminators of information. And, indeed, we felt a deep responsibility. It was important for us to be totally up front and not to be brought into any particular camp, agency, or business, but simply to be the public's front. We were very conscious of that.

But, it did have its downside. We started seeing more and more people making crop circles that were obviously and notably fakes. A couple of young guys, for instance, might have a pint of beer and run out into a field and have a go at it. These attempts were, and still are, very obvious. Even youngsters can spot them.

Then there are those who have become much more professional and successful in replicating extraordinary, accurate designs. Indeed there are some designs that I would hold up my hand to say couldn't be made by humans — setting myself up, of course, because now people are going to great pains to replicate features that I had hitherto believed could not be replicated.

There are two questions to ask. One, who are these people? What is the profile of a determined individual who is trying to replicate or construct a crop circle. And two, the big question, Why?

I notice there are not a lot of people out there, and certainly not the media, who are asking that second question. I don't think people are quite able to deal with the answer. If it hadn't been for John MacNish spending quality time with Doug and Dave, we might never have received that little bit when they said, "This doesn't feel like us."

Diane: Please give me an understanding of what happened during the Doug and Dave incidents.

Colin: This story offers a precise example of the level of media distortion that exists out there, and the fact that at least in this case the distortion is knowingly perpetrated — that's the unforgivable part.

In September of 1991, Doug Bowers and Dave Chorley approached the Today national newspaper, in England, saying they were responsible for all the crop circles, and requesting a fee for their story. The fee (and I had this confirmed) was 10,000 UK pounds paid to them in two parts, 5,000 upon publication and 5,000 some months later. So money was involved. I think it is important to say that.

The Today newspaper sent out a journalist for a week. And at the end of that week the journalist, with a photographer and, indeed, with Doug and Dave themselves, arrived at the home of my co-author and co-researcher at that time, Pat Delgado, and said that they had something they wanted to discuss. They went into the house, and Pat Delgado, after a few moments of listening, got on the phone to me saying that this meeting was very important and that I really should come over immediately — which I did.

By the time I arrived, they had already spent several hours together, and it was made clear to me that I was not there by invitation as far as the newspaper was concerned.

As I listened to Doug and Dave's story, it became clear to me that what they were saying was no threat to me personally because my name was not going to be mentioned. It did become increasingly clear, however, that in the story to be written by the reporter the next morning, Pat Delgato was going to be made to look extremely foolish.

You also have to know that I was very interested in what was being said because just the week before I had given up a very well-paying job within the British government to take on this research on a full-time basis. I had no idea how I was going to fund my work except for the royalties of the first book. So you can imagine the impact these men's words had on me.

The reporter had apparently asked Pat to go and have a look at a new crop circle which had just arrived in a field not too far from his house. Pat went there, and he dowsed it and was duly impressed. Apparently, a helicopter was hovering nearby, filming, and when the reporter allowed him to see the circle that Doug and Dave had constructed, those two men appeared from behind the bushes. And Pat was totally devastated. Doug and Dave, along with the Today newspaper, had set him up.

So upon hearing this story, I forced my way in and asked Dave Bowers — and this is the bottom line here — "You know the cover of our book, Circular Evidence ?"

"Yes," he said. "We made all of those on that site."

So I said to Pat, "Do you have a pen and paper?" Pat and I had spent many hours studying the plants in the Celtic Cross that appeared on the cover of our book, and we actually never did reveal its location to the public because the farmer didn't want a lot of people there.

In this circle, the plants were lying radially across the actual ring. So in other words, rather than lying in sympathy with the flow, as you would expect the plants to be if they had been flattened with a wooden plank, these were laying at 90 degrees radially straight out.

I drew the ring that connected the four satellites that connected the Celtic Cross around the central circle. I drew this design, and then I asked Doug how they had made it.

There was this stony, icy silence. Nobody talked. The journalist stopped taking notes, and Doug looked at Dave, and he had nothing to offer. And he looked back again, and he looked down. And then he looked at me and said, "We didn't make that one."

I then looked at the journalist and said, "I hope you're going to print this. I hope you're going to cover the niggling doubts I have that these men aren't being totally up front with you."

Of course, they didn't print that part. The media knew these people had told lies — at least on this particular design — and nothing was said. So, knowingly, the world was introduced to Doug and Dave the very next morning, and they have been part of the controversy ever since.

Diane: Well, that sounds like a normal media extravaganza — not made for the truth but to entertain.

Colin: Well, for certain it had been cast in stone, and nothing Colin Andrews had to say was going to change it. The big story appeared only twelve hours later.

Then A&E and the Discovery Channel created a much more disgraceful attempt to further muddy the waters.

In spring of 1995, I was asked by A&E to do an interview for yet another television documentary on crop circles. I agreed and I went down to Philadelphia for the interview. The researcher seemed to be a very pleasant woman and quite thorough. I did my interview. Nothing seemed to be out of place. It seemed to be very fair. I was asked questions and I gave very straight answers.

Then I got a call when I was back home in Connecticut from a woman by the name of Mary Benjamin, from Greystone, the company that was putting this together for A&E. She telephoned and said, "What we would like to have is a little bit of input from the skeptical side," which was fair — I like that balance. She asked me who might have some television footage which would cover the Doug and Dave side of the story.

Right away, I thought of John MacNish, whom I have already referred to. John spent part of his life with the BBC, and now had his own television production company. He had for many years shot aerial footage of the circles, and was the one who did the undercover work on Doug and Dave. I figured he was the man to help them, so I gave Mary Benjamin his contact information.

When I began to watch the show on the night that it was aired, I felt that the program had been set up very nicely. I was on first, and they used me to introduce phenomenon, discussing the points that support the occurrence of something unusual.

The show ran nicely all the way through. And then — in approximately the last 5 minutes — the program suddenly turned on its head. Five minutes from the end of the program, they said, "A British television company staked out the fields of Southern England, and to their amazement, look what they discovered!"

And what they "discovered" — with low-light cameras — was Doug and Dave making a crop circle. And the program's parting shot was, "Well, mystery resolved!" You see film footage of these two old men making a crop circle, and the narrator is saying, "But you probably knew this anyway." End of program.

I was furious. Because they had shown a lie. I immediately got in touch with John MacNish and said, "John I know that footage was yours — I've seen it many times."

He said, "Yes, it was."

I said, "What's the story with this? They said that you had staked out the fields and, to your amazement, this is what you found. But you told me before — and please, is this true? — that you paid Doug and Dave. You went to their home, and picked them up in your vehicle with your film crew, and went to a field, and filmed them with low-light cameras making a circle. You said you did this to get footage that you could sell to the media for money in the future. Is that true?"

He said, "Yes, that is true."

Then I asked, "Why did A&E say that you had 'staked out the fields' and discovered the circle-makers of Southern England 'to your amazement'?" This is an absolute lie. It gives the impression these guys were out there making circles and you just happened to find them, when in fact you asked them to make the circle and paid them to do it."

I told John that I wanted to call A&E right away and conference them in, so that he could confirm this to them. But he said, "They know this."

I said, "What do you mean they know this?"

He said, "I told them this when I sold them the footage. They wanted it to put a spin on the phenomenon."

I said, "That is completely unacceptable. That is an outright lie. They are deliberately contaminating the phenomenon in the eyes of the American people, and I'm going to do something about it!"

But I'm one small man. All I was able to do was encourage the readers of my newsletter to call Mary Benjamin to confirm what I am now telling you, and to ask for another story to "revisit" this situation.

It was disgraceful. It was an absolute attempt to dissuade the public from believing anything real is happening in the fields. You can probably feel the anger in my voice even now. I just despise the lack of responsibility in the international media.

But happily the story has not dissuaded the research and curiosity that still continues in large force around the world.


The Reality: Genuine Crop Circles

Diane: I understand you've been working with dowsers and measuring the electromagnetic effects of the crop circles. Tell me about that.

Colin: Dowsers have been working with the phenomenon for at least the past 15 years. They will walk into the circle from the standing crop using the unaffected crops as the control area. They will then walk up the tram lines or the tire tracks that are left from sowing the seed, which provide convenient access points into that part of the field.

As they walk, they tune themselves to the movement of energy. In other words, they are looking for energy boundaries from one point to the next registered by movement in the dowsing rods. This is potentiality.

They aren't looking for water, or fluidity, or solid mass. They walk up the tram lines with zero response, a little waver here and there, until they hit the extremity of the crop circle. And in every single circle where I've witnessed dowsing, from simple to complex designs, the dowsing rods will then move in the direction of the flow of the plants. In other words, if the plants are spiraled counterclockwise, the rods will move in the same direction, exactly on the circumference.

As the dowser walks across the profile of the circle, walking across the flattened area, they will get seven equally spaced responses — perfect concentric rings equally spaced.

In aerial photographs taken from higher than 500 to 600 feet above ground level, we can physically see that the plants within the circle have modified themselves into a growth pattern attempting to get the head of the plant pointed back up to the light in a vertical position. These are also growing in seven concentric ring patterns (click on picture at left to see a full diagram of this process).

So we have dowsers telling us that something is registering, and we have plants that are growing in specific growth patterns.

To make matters more interesting, we contacted a fellow by the name of Masahiro Kahata, a man who designed and constructed a marvelous piece of technology to measure brainwave activity for many hospitals around the world. He was kind enough to come to England for three years in a row, and we measured the brainwave activity of the dowsers doing this work, as well as that of people off the street — both believers and nonbelievers.

What we found, measuring with a computer real-time in the fields, was that the right brainwave activity of the dowser, at the precise moment those seven rings were measured and reacted to by the dowsing rods, spiked in all the brainwave frequencies — alpha, theta, beta, and delta — at the precise moment the dowsing rods moved (click on picture at right to see blowup of brainwave chart).

Diane: Wow!

Colin: It should be headline news.

Recently we've had a new development, one of the three new extraordinary designs that appeared late this past summer.

One was a rectangle that gave what appeared to be a response to the Arecibo Radio Telescope message that went out from Puerto Rico in 1971. It appeared next to a Ministry of Defense Radio Telescope in England.

Another one, that appeared next to it, was composed of circles — but in a gridded matrix network. From the ground, the formation appeared to be circles in various sizes; extraordinary, in the field. But from an aircraft, there was very clearly a face.

The third, which for a number of reasons is more important, was a vast spiraled galaxy arrangement on a hill not very far from Stonehenge called Milk Hill. On the top of the hill, it covered an area of 700,000 square feet: 409 individual circles, some of them as large as 72 feet, filled the entire field, with one circle in the center. It was vast. It was extraordinarily accurate. And, indeed, from our aerial vantage point I was able to see that it was made with a different hand, so to speak. Let me explain.

Some three years ago, I did work for Lawrence Rockefeller. I was acting as a consultant to him, doing my own work. I was not asked to go in any particular direction. He just approached me asking if he could help. I said, "Most certainly you can help. We need to accelerate certain areas of understanding, one of which is to know the profiles of people that are admittedly making crop circles." So with his money I engaged private detective agencies, and we began looking at individuals and the hoaxing activities.

What we learned is that there are characteristics that we can observe with aerial photography that are consistent with those we know are manmade.

The characteristics we saw on Milk Hill, however, were different from these. This was a vast design, more complex than we had ever seen before, that did not have the combing affect visible with all of the manmade methods that we have looked at and have proven exist.

So with that, I flew back to England, and looked very closely at these three particular designs, focusing on Milk Hill particularly.

I was walking with my assistant measuring the electrostatic field and the Earth's magnetic field across this truly large arrangement. And, quite by accident, I left my electrostatic meter on while I was walking across one of the circles. I happened to look down at my meter as I was walking, and my meter was pulsing. My meter measured, equally spaced, seven electrostatic charges of 80 volts positive charge.

So now, as further proof that something measurable is happening, I've got the electrostatic field pulsing up to a maximum of 80 volts positive potential on the same boundaries as we have the brainwave activity, the plant growth, and the dowsing which I have spoken of earlier.

This is actually very exciting news, because the scientists that had just conducted my preliminary analysis now knew that this was something we could sink our teeth into. The readings from the magnetic field were in excess of 150 percent of what they should be, and the magnetic profile was mirror- imaging the crop design itself (see Magnetometer Survey).

This was the first time we were able to spend this much time without public interference. Obviously when you have people coming and going wearing glasses and holding metal cameras you can't do this kind of sensitive work. But we had a bare field to ourselves, and we had staggering results. In scientific terms, we can calculate that there are magnetic dipoles, either stationary underground or stationary above ground, at approximately 20 feet, that are influencing the earth's magnetic field only over the design.

Plant analysis is not my particular area, but W. C. Levengood, a very well published biophysicist in America at the Pinelandia Laboratory in Michigan, has discovered how the plants in authentic crop circles have changed at the cellular anatomic level. He's been looking at plants sent to him from a number of continents for at least the past ten years.

Diane: What about UFO activity?

Colin: We've got many films of spheres in excess of fourteen inches, seen by day and night, that have appeared. It certainly gives us the feeling that they are observing or monitoring the designs. I have no evidence at all that I can offer you that these objects have anything to do with the construction of the crop circles. I mean, I suppose it is possible that they do, that they are connected. But we don't have evidence that they are connected.

But we are very alert to the fact that these spheres are unexplained. We cannot as yet explain them in rational scientific terms. But they do appear to be moving purposefully. We have to put them in the box called "intelligence" and leave it at that for now.

I believe the point for continuing to research the phenomenon of crop circles is that there does seem to be interaction between this "intelligence" and whomever is involved in research, such as myself, or (as in later years) in manufacturing the manmade versions.

Here's a personal example of this interaction — and I think it's a good one, because it can be confirmed by at least one other person.

I was flying in a light aircraft over part of Southern England near Winchester — the old ancient capital of England before London became the capital, where King Arthur ruled.[3] We were flying just southeast of that city in an area called Cheesefoot Head, where many of the early crop designs appeared way back in the '70s and through the '80s. We would go there regularly.

Busty Taylor, the light-aircraft pilot who still flies for us to this day, was piloting us over this particular field, and — both of us remember this so clearly — as we were leaving the area heading south toward another site, he sort of glanced across at me and said, "You know Colin, it really would be quite something if we were to see all the patterns that we've seen over the years, all overlaid into one integral design."

I clearly recollect this, because it was an unusual thing to say at that point in time.

The very next day, Busty had another researcher from Spain with him, a fellow by the name of Omar Fowler, and they were flying over that same field. And when the aircraft reached the point where Busty had made that remark the day before, the Spanish researcher looked out the window, beyond the patterns they had been taking pictures of, and he said, "What's that, Busty?"

Busty looked, and he said his hairs stood on end.

"When I looked under that aircraft where I had said what I said to you the day before," he told me, "there it was, everything we had ever seen, all laid into one pattern." He and I gave each other a very deep look, and we both knew absolutely that there was something else going on here. It appeared to us to be paranormal, as if it were a spirit or poltergeist, something that was observing or listening and had heard what we had said.

Since then, we've had many, many more interactions that continue to convince me that there is an intelligent aspect to this that we should certainly respect and acknowledge. If we don't, then we are losing an important part of what this is about.

Diane: Yes, because you are talking about the source of "inspiration." I was thinking about the tremendous amount of commitment and energy it takes to be a hoaxer, for instance. Just as something inspires a painter, so, too, something must be inspiring the elaborate designs that are manmade.

Colin: Good point! I have stood with TV cameras and filmed people making them. These people are absolutely exhausted when they've made a 70- foot circle. We've calculated the number of pounds per square inch required to put down plants that are banded together — growing in pods, as they do, 12 seeds per pod — and if you're using a meter-wide piece of wood, there is a considerable amount of energy involved, and accuracy. The physical exertion required in simple designs is enormous.

Then think about the design on Milk Hill. There are 409 circles that were created in one night!

The eyewitnesses I've interviewed in many countries over the years have all agreed with me on one point: when they claim to have seen circles form, they appear in 10 to 15 seconds. So you know that's the real phenomenon.

If we are to postulate that people could be responsible for that huge design on top of Milk Hill, we are looking at extraordinary numbers of individuals, who would have to have been well practiced, making no mistakes, with perfect geometry.

Not to mention that the artists' canvas is a field of plants. The canvas that is chosen is unforgiving. If you make errors in ripened wheat, which is the crop for the one on Milk Hill — if you bend one plant over beyond 45 degrees, it doesn't come back up, it just stays there. Here you have 409 circles, accurately placed into a perfect galaxy design with total precision, covering 700,000 square feet, created at night, with not one single error that we can see from aerial photographs.

That is pushing the realm of human possibility to the nth degree. And I think that this is why this particular discovery hit all the national news in Britain. There was not a single journalist I spoke to who wasn't duly impressed. The hardened skeptics among them were saying, "I don't know how they did that" — still thinking, of course, that humans must have done it.

And that's my point. How on Earth did they do it without making a single error?

This pattern was discovered on August 13, and the feeling I get with this particular design on the hill is that of completion. Because many of the patterns we've seen over the past years are contained within it. They are in an extraordinary pattern, and quite beautiful. It occurred on the highest spot in Southern England. It is as though we've reached the end of an age, or the end of a period of time.

As you know, we are seeing — and I know a lot of native peoples are saying — that we've reached the end of an age. There are signs of change all over the world, both politically and militarily. Indeed, because of 9/11 we have been kicked into a whole new arena which hopefully will bring about a better world ultimately. I hope I'm right.

Diane: I do too. Thank you Colin for sharing your stories with us.

Colin: Thanks so much for being interested.


Colin Andrews is widely acknowledged as the world expert on the crop circle phenomenon. He founded Circles Phenomenon Research International, the first organization established specifically to investigate the crop circle phenomenon, and his scientific investigations are responsible for much of the current information available on the subject.

Andrews is an electrical engineer by profession. As a senior officer in the British government, he was for three years an government adviser on the crop circle phenomenon, supplying technical and scientific reports. As a result of his persistence, the subject was raised in the House of Commons.

Colin Andrews became involved in the circle mystery during 1983 when he saw an arrangement of five circles in a natural amphitheater near Winchester, England. His book Circular Evidence, co-authored with Pat Delgado, became an international best seller and was the first book of its type ever chose by Queen Elizabeth for her prestigious Summer Reading Listing. A subsequent book, Crop Circles; The Latest Evidence (1990), was equally successful.

He has consulted for several European research institutions, for well-known anthropologist and NY congressman Laurence Rockefeller, and for crop circle films and videos. He urges the need for openness and honesty in both governmental and private research.

Colin Andrews is currently active in promoting environmental awareness and education, as well as in continuing his crop circle research to a conclusion.

For more information, check out CropCircleConnector and Colin Andrews's Circles Phenomen Research page, or write to Colin Andrews at P.O. Box 3378, Branford, CT 06405-1978.



Footnotes:


Doug and Dave — On the morning of January 3, 1999, the British BBC Television's "County File" was devoted to a remarkable program. In it, Douglas Bower, from Southampton, England, confessed that he and some friends had started the crop circle phenomenon as an elaborate hoax. On the program, Bower demonstrated how he and friends used a simple wooden plank and some rope to create a complicated crop circle pattern in a farmer's field. Douglas Bower and David Chorley first admitted to producing the hoax crop circles as early as 1991.
Circular Evidence: A Detailed Investigation of Flattened Swirled Crop Phenomena by Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews, paperback (December 1995). Check out Science-Frontiers.com for more information.
Experts differ as to the exact location of Arthur's domain, or even whether he actually existed at all. [Ed.]