Seth Shostak On UFOs: A Few Comments: Part Three

Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute in California has authored or co-authored a trio of books to date about life in the universe in general and extraterrestrial intelligence in particular. It’s difficult to address these topics without having to mention either in passing or at length the subject of UFOs and possible association with extraterrestrials. This Dr. Shostak has done, but painted with a very skeptical, perhaps in places with a misleading, paint brush. This trilogy and my abbreviations for them throughout this essay are as follows.

Sharing the Universe (STU)

Cosmic Company (CC)

Confessions of an Alien Hunter (CAH)

For complete bibliographic details, see at bottom.

While Dr. Shostak’s book trilogy isn’t the sum total of his opinions on the UFO phenomena, they no doubt represent a solid representation of his UFO philosophy, and since these tomes are readily accessible to the general public, they form as good a source as any.

Continued from Part Two.

Roswell, July 1947 (STU, CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak is a Roswell skeptic, at least so far as ET is concerned. What Dr. Shostak doesn’t answer or otherwise come to terms with is how experienced military officers (plural) could mistake balloon materials (weather or Mogul) for a metallic crashed ‘flying disk’. I maintain they couldn’t make that oops. I would maintain that Dr. Shostak himself could distinguish between the two and he’s no military officer in the air force or a balloon expert. I’d expect even the little old lady from Pasadena would detect the difference. In fact the discovery of any bit of balloon material in that Roswell debris would give the game away immediately. See also my comments on government cover-ups/censorship above. Dr. Shostak also made a minor mistake in attributing the Roswell incident as involving USAF instead of USAAF (Army Air Force) personnel (STU).

As related above, Dr. Shostak wants hard physical stuff to place on the slab-in-the-lab. That’s the only evidence he will accept for the UFO ETH. The only bona-fide UFO case we know of for absolute certain involving hard physical stuff is Roswell. Since Dr. Shostak acknowledges that Roswell is associated with hard physical evidence that’s testable on the slab-in-the-lab (that Roswell debris or wreckage), perhaps he could politely ask the USAF to loan him some of those Roswell bits and pieces for his analysis since he knows the debris exists. Where is the Roswell wreckage now and why can’t Dr. Shostak be loaned some? 

Of course Dr. Shostak, if successful, would have to take it on pure faith and trust that he’d be getting the Right Stuff; the Real Deal; the Real McCoy to test. Not a given I’d suspect.

Project Mogul (STU, CAH)

Dr. Shostak has swallowed hook, line and proverbial sinker the new and improved 1995 USAF explanation for the July 1947 Roswell incident and debris. It was a Top Secret Project Mogul balloon (just a variation or upgrade on the previous weather balloon explanation). However, even that massive (lots of unnecessary filler of no relevance) 1995 USAF report pointing the Project Mogul finger at Roswell could only conclude that a Mogul balloon or balloon train was the most likely maybe explanation. The 1995 USAF report could not provide any actual evidence that Roswell WAS a Mogul balloon. Thus, the Roswell case is still open, although Dr. Shostak would have us apparently believe otherwise.  

Roswell: Reverse Engineering (STU, CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak maintains that if Roswell were true, that the powers-that-be actually obtained real extraterrestrial materials and thus alien technologies, that America should be light years ahead of the rest of the world in high-tech, especially aerospace technologies, since those powers-that-be would have reversed engineered those alien technologies and put them to American use – good old American know-how strikes again. Of course Dr. Shostak assumes we could actually reverse engineer alien technologies, but that is not a given. One hundred plus years ago, even a team of Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi couldn’t have reverse engineered today’s ever present Smart Phone. 

I quite agree with Dr. Shostak however that lasers and fiber optics and the transistor, etc. were human inventions and not reverse engineered from alien technologies despite some claims to the contrary by some UFO buffs. Even UFO buffs can go a bit over-the-top with their claims.

Abductions (STU, CC, CAH)

If you stop and think about this abduction facet rationally, you’ll see a parallel with our own wildlife biologists who often (via a trap or a tranquiller dart) capture, transport, examine, measure, take samples (blood, tissues, etc.), tag, then transport back and release their wildlife specimens. Substitute aliens for wildlife biologists and humans for wildlife, and it makes scientific sense. Why millions of humans? Isn’t that overkill? Why do we do unmentionable things to millions of lab rats and fruit flies? Isn’t that overkill too?

Human-Alien Sex (STU)

Dr. Shostak notes that in the UFO abduction literature there is an emphasis on sex and reproduction and that from a biological point of view, this is as absurd as a pussy cat mating with a petunia. We’ll ignore Mr. Spock’s parentage here since he’s a fictional character.

Well actually the sex or reproduction referred to is not really akin to what happens in human bedrooms, on top of the kitchen table or in the back seats of automobiles. It’s more akin to what happens in fertility clinics. The scenario is more like aliens manipulating human eggs and sperm and genetic material that’s been removed from their unwilling human hosts than actual alien-human intercourse. Admittedly, this is still pretty far out stuff and one is hard pressed to come up with an alien motive for this behavior. What could the motivation really be? I don’t profess to understand this, but I can point out that we have a lot of trouble understanding motivation at times in our fellow life forms. I’m damned if I can comprehend at times what goes on in that brain thingy that’s housed between my pet cat’s ears. On the flip side of that coin, probably 95% of what I do is no doubt unexplainable and meaningless to the felines. Trying to comprehend alien motivations when it’s difficult to come to terms with our companion animals’ behavior is fraught with danger.  

Crop Circles (STU, CC, CAH)

Dr. Shostak likes to ridicule and poke fun at the UFO ETH by pointing out the absurdity of aliens coming all the way to Planet Earth across the void of interstellar space just to do agricultural graffiti in the crop fields of southeastern England (in particular). And some people do make a UFO/crop ‘circle’ connection. I’m not one of those people. Crop ‘circles’ are a huge anomaly. They aren’t natural formations, but while some are hoaxes, there’s sufficient evidence that not all of them could be. There really is something screwy somewhere. I just can’t figure out a motive (again, dangerous to try one’s hand at alien psychology) for ET to do crop ‘circles’ unless they share a common trait with humans – a sense of humor, a sense of the absurd, a love of pulling pranks and causing mischief for its own sake. So, to make a long story short, I just shunt crop ‘circles’ to one side as an interesting anomaly but one which probably has bugger-all to do with any ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) connection. 

The ‘Face’ on Mars (CAH)

Dr. Shostak goes on for some length about the so-called ‘face’ on Mars photographed by the Viking mission in 1976, and re-photographed in 1998, 2006 and 2007 and probably many times thereafter given all the probes orbiting Mars today. Conclusion – close, but no cigar. Mother Nature played a trick (of the lighting) on us. There is no artificially constructed ‘face’ on Mars. In this I totally agree with Dr. Shostak. But the ‘face’ is just a diversion from there real issue at hand here – UFOs.  

Hostility (CAH)

Apparently, though overall a sweeping generalization, SETI (and other physical) scientists are way less hostile to UFO buffs (a few of which are also scientists) than the other way around (and that imbalance probably applies to other ‘fringe’ buffs as well like inventors of perpetual motion machines who get cranky at the Patent Office and creationists who bucket evolutionary biologists). And I sympathize and feel for those scientists on the receiving end of nasty and personal comments just because they don’t share the exact same worldview as their antagonists. There’s no excuse for that.

However, for Dr. Shostak to suggest that UFO buffs are overly hostile to SETI and therefore SETI scientists who aren’t UFO buffs just because SETI might succeed in proving the existence of ET first, thus leaving the UFO buffs in PR limbo, can cut both ways. How would Dr. Shostak feel if after decades of fruitless dedication to traditional radio SETI along with the spending of multi-millions of dollars on sophisticated equipment, Mary Citizen holds a press conference and walks in with her arm around a bona-fide ‘Grey’ alien?

In any event, a positive SETI hit doesn’t of necessity negate the UFO ETH and Mary Citizen’s press conference doesn’t mean SETI won’t get a positive hit a day later. Even though I don’t see the UFO ETH and SETI in competition, rather as being complementary, if there’s a Nobel Prize or any other public recognition at stake, defending their turf and their claim to priority, even scientists have been known to behave badly towards each other, a trait hardly confined to recent times – scientist-to-scientist hostility goes back centuries - so I’ll cut a bit of slack, but only a bit, for the less professional UFO enthusiast.

My Personal Conclusions

IMHO, Dr. Shostak has a rather shallow comprehension of the entire UFO issue and I doubt that he has really studied the field, at least relative to many that he has debated. He apparently hasn’t gotten his hands dirty doing any actual onsite fieldwork and interviewing witnesses and doing photographic analysis. Further, based on his written works, I don’t believe he has adequately thought through many of the various facets of the phenomena and how those jigsaw puzzle pieces might fit together.

Dr. Shostak might argue that it’s not his job to be on top of the UFO topic and research same, but I suggest otherwise if for no other reason than to play fair with the great unwashed that go to him for advice and information on the subject. It is his job if he is going to write and speak on the subject for the public’s consumption and voice professional opinions for their benefit.

I get the impression that he uses his public profile and his scientific authority as a senior astronomer to convincingly wax lyrical on a subject to Joe and Mary Citizen who know less about UFOs that he does and who aren’t by nature skeptical enough or knowledgeable enough to think the issue through themselves. We tend to rely on authority figures to tell us what’s what.

That aside, there’s nothing in the “S” in SETI which specifies how to search or what to search when it comes to pinning the tail on ET. UFOs are as legit as radio telescopes, so by ignoring any active participation in UFO investigation he’s effectively tying one hand behind his back. To profess an interest in ETI and yet ignore UFOs in the same breath is strange scientific behavior IMHO.

Finally, to end on a positive note, Dr. Shostak has made some valid points as related above; he has put his ‘money’ where his mouth is and been willing to engage politely in dialog with those who hold alternate worldviews.

Bibliographic Details:

Shostak, Seth; Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life; Berkeley Hills Books, Berkeley, California; 1998:

Shostak, Seth & Barnett, Alex; Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.; 2003:

Shostak, Seth; Confessions of An Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; National Geographic, Washington, D.C.; 2009:



Crop Circles: The Julia Set Near Stonehenge: July 1996

While crop circles have been reported from around the world, in the main they tend to be associated with the English countryside in the warmer months when crops are high and agricultural graffiti artists can strut their stuff. Just who these ‘artists’ are hasn’t been proven in any sort of scientific (or legal) court, but just like we all know ‘the butler did it’, well it’s obvious the whodunit here is from the same species as the butler. We have to believe that, because if the butler didn’t do it, we got a major mystery on our collective hands that most of us would rather not acknowledge. Here’s part of the reason the butler didn’t do it.

Apart from a few deluded New Age hippy types, everyone just knows that crop circles are human made hoaxes. That’s despite all the obvious logistical problems in creating perfect, yet massive geometric patterns in near total darkness. That’s despite the fact that hardly anyone has ever been caught in the act. That’s despite the fact that sometimes the overnight weather was wet with rain (this is England after all). Still, what else could they be? But even one exception breaks the ‘everyone knows it’s a hoax’ rule. Consider the 1996 Julia Set.

Most crop circles are discovered in the morning by farmers or farm hands that are up early and out and about to start their day’s work in the field(s), though some discoveries are by motorists, passersby, sometimes pilots. Still, the discoveries tend to be made sooner in the day rather than later in the day. 900 foot crop circle formations are rather hard to miss, even from the ground, and some are way bigger than that.

Translated, that suggests that this agricultural graffiti was constructed and produced overnight, under cover of darkness, the obvious implication being human hoaxers operating in the dark thus avoiding detection.

Despite the fact there are massive problems with that theory – it’s like trying to make then assemble a one thousand piece jigsaw puzzle using just starlight and complete it perfectly in a few hours; no flashlights allowed giving your position away. What isn’t reported to the police isn’t of concern to the hoaxer(s). Still, you’d have to have a few screws loose, tramping around in a muddy field in the dark of night, carting around all sorts of equipment, planks and rollers and ropes for hours on end, just to produce something for which you can’t ever receive public recognition for – least you get paid a visit by the police for trespassing and willful criminal damage.

Let’s accept the universally accepted basic logic anyway. Crop circles are human hoaxes. But could a hoaxer(s) do a crop circle pattern or formation in broad daylight, of a size demanding many hours of labor, with eyewitnesses around, and escape detection?  Or could a massive crop circle avoid being seen in broad daylight in a heavily trafficked area? I suggest that’s highly unlikely on both counts.

It’s late afternoon on a sunny English summer Sunday – July 7^th 1996 to be exact. The location, a farmer’s (identity known) field within a stone’s throw of a major tourist attraction – Stonehenge (you may have heard of it). A major highway, the A303 separates the field from the Stonehenge site - Lots of motorists passing by. Security guards are present at Stonehenge 24/7 as tourists aren’t allowed anymore to wander within the standing stones. Stonehenge is strictly a look from the outside and don’t touch attraction now.

There’s usually a lot of aerial traffic too – lots of private planes operating out of nearby Thruxton Airport, often giving tourists an aerial view of Stonehenge. Now one such pilot (identity known) with one passenger taking off out of Exeter, passing over Stonehenge late that Sunday afternoon, while glancing downwards, sees nothing out of the ordinary. That same pilot, on the return flight, again passing over Stonehenge just 45 minutes later, sees a massive centipede-like geometric pattern (a Julia Set fractal pattern) comprising 149* individual circles (ranging from 50 feet to 14 inches in diameter) spanning 915 feet in length tip-to-tail and 500 feet in width in the farmer’s field, well within the view of passing motorists and the Stonehenge security guards (and tourists). 

Needless to say, prior to the pilot’s return flight and his subsequent sighting, nobody (tourists, motorists, farm hands, security guards) saw a thing. That suggests that, in broad daylight, the entire Julia Set complex was constructed in actually less than 45 minutes. That’s unaltered by a few motorists, over a decade later, who have claimed to have seen at that time and place a strange mist. Whether they did or didn’t isn’t relevant to the basic facts that human hoaxers aren’t in the running as culprits in this specific crop circle episode.

But if they (hoaxers) are, in the running, how did the hoaxers do it? One person (identity known) has claimed that he along with two other people created the Julia Set complex in under three hours early that Sunday morning while it was still dark. One notes by the way that security guards are present at Stonehenge around the clock, so clearly the hoaxers, if they really existed, didn’t use any lighting. That further suggests that this massive formation went unnoticed and unseen in broad daylight for nearly 12 hours within sight of the top tourist attraction in England and a major motorway! Check out the photographs on the WWW and tell me how they done it! Could you and any two of your friends produce that complex geometric formation in darkness in less than three hours? It’s yet another case of someone claiming to be a bank robber for the publicity because that’s easier than actually being a bank robber which results in not only getting publicity but a prison sentence as well. The other alternative is that this person has so flown his anti-crop circle flag up the flagpole and publicly saluted it that he can’t back down now, no matter what!

Over 14,000 tourists visited the Julia Set formation before the farmer had to do what farmers do and harvest what was left of his crop; there are lots of photographs available in post 1996 crop circle books and on the Internet that verify the proximity of the Julia Set to Stonehenge with the A303 Motorway bisecting. It’s easy to plug in something like “Julia Set” plus “Stonehenge” into Google’s search engines, like Google Web and Google Images and judge for yourself the bona fides.

Now I don’t know how the Julia Set near Stonehenge in July of 1996 was created; or what intelligence created it. I am (along with those New Age hippy types and other open minded people) convinced the intelligence wasn’t human. I’ll just leave it at that.

*Some sources originally gave the set as containing 151 individual circles, not 149, but 149 is the correct number.

Exobiology: UFOs: Crop Circles

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. Assuming one or more extraterrestrial civilizations with advanced, interstellar spaceflight capability exists; then they know about Planet Earth. Say ‘hi’ to those pesky UFOs. If UFOs aren’t mystery enough, there’s the mainly British crop circle enigma. Might the two anomalies be connected?

This item has me totally stumped. Firstly, it’s an ever on-going phenomenon, growing in complexity year by year. That all of them are hoaxes is ridiculous. Have you ever read of someone being caught in the act, apprehended, and prosecuted for trespassing and destroying personal property (these crops are valuable commodities to their owners)? [Actually, a few have, but so few relative to the thousands of circles created that for all intents and purposes, if all are hoaxes, then the vast, vast majority are getting away with their vandalism.]  On the other hand, they certainly aren’t the landing marks of UFOs. Nor are whirlwinds a be-all-and-end-all explanation. And I really don’t want to try to come to terms with any mystical solutions – earth energies, Gaia, whatever. There is clearly an intelligence at work here, and I’m damned if I know what it is. If I had to vote for the most puzzling scientific mystery of our times, this would be it. However, I’m reasonably convinced it has nothing to do with UFOs or ETI and therefore has little relevance here. But I sure wish I knew what was going on! Although…

For better or worse, crop (or sometimes ‘corn’) circles have been associated with UFOs to a greater or lesser extent depending on whom you consult. Firstly, there’s no doubt that crop circles exist – that’s undisputed. Secondly, crop circles are the product of intelligence; there’s no way Mother Nature can naturally make these complex geometric formations – that’s undisputable. Thirdly, although there are isolated cases from other countries, crop circle formations are 99 & 44/100% reside in merry old England – no arguments there.

That third fact brings up question one: assuming crop circles are hoaxes, what is it about the British mind set that prompts them to commit these ‘works of art’? That’s never been explained. Maybe crop circle hoaxers might be more reluctant to do their thing in the USA where farmers shoot first and ask questions later, but why not lots and lots of ‘circles’ in France, Canada, Australia and a host of other nations with major agricultural (crop) industries?

Question two, again assuming hoaxes, can the sum total of crop circle formations be explained by artistic human intelligence, keeping in mind the restraints of sheer numbers of circles; the period of limited darkness in which to operate (high summer in England); the fact that it is dark; the possibility of being caught (you don’t want to use flashlights); not to mention additional time required for the ever increasing complexity of these crop circle formations?

Question three: assuming now not human, but extraterrestrial intelligence (the UFO connection – if any), what is the motive? Sceptics have pointed out, rightly so, that it is ludicrous in the extreme to suggest that extraterrestrials come here, from there (wherever there is) just to do geometrical graffiti using agricultural crops as their canvas! It’s probably equally ludicrous to suggest that UFOs are alien tourist buses, the extraterrestrials on a holiday tourist tour, and England has been set aside as the area for extraterrestrial artists on tour to practice their art!

But, there could be another aspect to ET and the circle mystery. There are the trickster gods of mythology, who are actually not supernatural deities but extraterrestrials. If trickster ‘gods’ wanted to have a bit of relatively harmless fun with us humans, well perhaps they’re behind the crop circle business! Now the absurdity of ET coming across light-years of space away with a motive just to dabble in agricultural (crop circle) graffiti has been pointed out by others. I quite agree. But, if ET were already here (and agricultural graffiti wasn’t the motivation) and some ET’s have a wicked sense of humour and like to befuddle the humans, well that’s a motive!

But, maybe crop circles are a smoking gun that we do live in a simulated Universe and on a simulated planet. All other ‘rational’ explanations are equally, if not more so, ridiculous. If extraterrestrials, their motive isn’t at all obvious apart from playing April Fools’ pranks.  If human in origin, crop circle graffiti should be way more widespread like ordinary back alley brick wall graffiti is, not to mention that a lot higher percentage of crop circle culprits or ‘artists’ should have been caught, tried, convicted, and fined for vandalism, destruction of private property and just plain trespassing. 

Further recommended readings:

Andrews, Colin & Delgado, Pat; Circular Evidence: A Detailed Investigation of the Flattened Swirled Crops Phenomena; Bloomsbury, London; 1989:

Andrews, Colin & Delgado, Pat; Crop Circles: The Latest Evidence; Bloomsbury, London; 1990:

Collins, Andrew; The New Circlemakers: Insights Into the

Crop Circle

Mystery; 4^th Dimension Press, Virginia Beach, Virginia; 2009:

Delgado, Pat; Crop Circles: Conclusive Evidence?; Bloomsbury, London; 1992:

Fuller, Paul & Randles, Jenny; Controversy of the Circles: An Investigation of the Crop Circles Mystery; British UFO Research Association, London; June 1989:

Fuller, Paul & Randles, Jenny; Crop Circles: A Mystery Solved; Robert Hale, London; 1990:

Glickman, Michael; Crop Circles: The Bones of God; Frog Books, Berkeley, California; 2009:

Haselhoff, Eltjo H.; The Deepening Complexity of Crop Circles: Scientific Research & Urban Legends; Frog Books, Berkley, California; 2001:

Meaden, George Terence; The Circles Effect and Its Mysteries; Artetech Publishing Company, Bradford-on-Avon, UK; 1989:

Noyes, Ralph (Editor); The

Crop Circle

Enigma: Grounding the Phenomenon in Science, Culture and Metaphysics; Gateway Books, The Hollies, UK; 1990:

Schnabel, Jim; Round in Circles: Physicists, Poltergeists, Pranksters and the Secret History of the Cropwatchers; Hamish Hamilton, London; 1993:

Silva, Freddy; Secrets in the Fields: The Science and Mysticism of Crop Circles; Hampton Roads, Charlottesville, Virginia; 2002:

Thomas, Andy; Vital Signs: A Complete Guide to the Crop Circle Mystery and Why It Is NOT A Hoax; Frog Books, Berkley, California; 2002:

Further recommended viewing:

Gazecki, William (Director); Crop Circles: Quest for Truth; Eagle Entertainment DVD; 2002:

UFOs: Bits and Pieces: Those Crop Circles: The Julia Set of 1996

With both the existence of pure theory and applied evidence supporting the plausibility of the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) – where the UFO remains a UFO after appropriate expert analysis has failed to find a more terrestrial explanation – lets look at a few snippets of the phenomena this time a phenomena that may, or may not, be connected with the UFO ETH – those crop circles, specifically the Julia Set of July 1996.    

While crop circles have been reported from around the world, in the main they tend to be associated with the English countryside in the warmer months when crops are high and agricultural graffiti artists can strut their stuff. Just who these ‘artists’ are hasn’t been proven in any sort of scientific (or legal) court, but just like we all know ‘the butler did it’, well it’s obvious the whodunit here is from the same species as the butler. We have to believe that, because if the butler didn’t do it, we got a major mystery on our collective hands that most of us would rather not acknowledge. Here’s part of the reason the butler didn’t do it.

Apart from a few deluded New Age hippy types, everyone just knows that crop circles are human made hoaxes. That’s despite all the obvious logistical problems in creating perfect, yet massive geometric patterns in near total darkness. That’s despite the fact that hardly anyone has ever been caught in the act. That’s despite the fact that sometimes the overnight weather was wet with rain (this is England after all). Still, what else could they be? But even one exception breaks the ‘everyone knows it’s a hoax’ rule. Consider the 1996 Julia Set.

Most crop circles are discovered in the morning by farmers or farm hands that are up early and out and about to start their day’s work in the field(s), though some discoveries are by motorists, passersby, sometimes pilots. Still, the discoveries tend to be made sooner in the day rather than later in the day. 900 foot crop circle formations are rather hard to miss, even from the ground, and some are way bigger than that.

Translated, that suggests that this agricultural graffiti was constructed and produced overnight, under cover of darkness, the obvious implication being human hoaxers operating in the dark thus avoiding detection.

Despite the fact there are massive problems with that theory – it’s like trying to make then assemble a one thousand piece jigsaw puzzle using just starlight and complete it perfectly in a few hours; no flashlights allowed giving your position away. What isn’t reported to the police isn’t of concern to the hoaxer(s). Still, you’d have to have a few screws loose, tramping around in a muddy field in the dark of night, carting around all sorts of equipment, planks and rollers and ropes for hours on end, just to produce something for which you can’t ever receive public recognition for – least you get paid a visit by the police for trespassing and willful criminal damage.

Let’s accept the universally accepted basic logic anyway. Crop circles are human hoaxes. But could a hoaxer(s) do a crop circle pattern or formation in broad daylight, of a size demanding many hours of labor, with eyewitnesses around, and escape detection?  Or could a massive crop circle avoid being seen in broad daylight in a heavily trafficked area? I suggest that’s highly unlikely on both counts.

It’s late afternoon on a sunny English summer Sunday – July 7^th 1996 to be exact. The location, a farmer’s (identity known) field within a stone’s throw of a major tourist attraction – Stonehenge (you may have heard of it). A major highway, the A303 separates the field from the Stonehenge site - Lots of motorists passing by. Security guards are present at Stonehenge 24/7 as tourists aren’t allowed anymore to wander within the standing stones. Stonehenge is strictly a look from the outside and don’t touch attraction now.

There’s usually a lot of aerial traffic too – lots of private planes operating out of nearby Thruxton Airport, often giving tourists an aerial view of Stonehenge. Now one such pilot (identity known) with one passenger taking off out of Exeter, passing over Stonehenge late that Sunday afternoon, while glancing downwards, sees nothing out of the ordinary. That same pilot, on the return flight, again passing over Stonehenge just 45 minutes later, sees a massive centipede-like geometric pattern (a Julia Set fractal pattern) comprising 149* individual circles (ranging from 50 feet to 14 inches in diameter) spanning 915 feet in length tip-to-tail and 500 feet in width in the farmer’s field, well within the view of passing motorists and the Stonehenge security guards (and tourists). 

Needless to say, prior to the pilot’s return flight and his subsequent sighting, nobody (tourists, motorists, farm hands, security guards) saw a thing. That suggests that, in broad daylight, the entire Julia Set complex was constructed in actually less than 45 minutes. That’s unaltered by a few motorists, over a decade later, who have claimed to have seen at that time and place a strange mist. Whether they did or didn’t isn’t relevant to the basic facts that human hoaxers aren’t in the running as culprits in this specific crop circle episode.

But if they (hoaxers) are, in the running, how did the hoaxers do it? One person (identity known) has claimed that he along with two other people created the Julia Set complex in under three hours early that Sunday morning while it was still dark. One notes by the way that security guards are present at Stonehenge around the clock, so clearly the hoaxers, if they really existed, didn’t use any lighting. That further suggests that this massive formation went unnoticed and unseen in broad daylight for nearly 12 hours within sight of the top tourist attraction in England and a major motorway! Check out the photographs on the WWW and tell me how they done it! Could you and any two of your friends produce that complex geometric formation in darkness in less than three hours? It’s yet another case of someone claiming to be a bank robber for the publicity because that’s easier than actually being a bank robber which results in not only getting publicity but a prison sentence as well. The other alternative is that this person has so flown his anti-crop circle flag up the flagpole and publicly saluted it that he can’t back down now, no matter what!

Over 14,000 tourists visited the Julia Set formation before the farmer had to do what farmers do and harvest what was left of his crop; there are lots of photographs available in post 1996 crop circle books and on the Internet that verify the proximity of the Julia Set to Stonehenge with the A303 Motorway bisecting. It’s easy to plug in something like “Julia Set” plus “Stonehenge” into Google’s search engines, like Google Web and Google Images and judge for yourself the bona fides.

Now I don’t know how the Julia Set near Stonehenge in July of 1996 was created; or what intelligence created it. I am (along with those New Age hippy types and other open minded people) convinced the intelligence wasn’t human. I’ll just leave it at that.

*Some sources originally gave the set as containing 151 individual circles, not 149, but 149 is the correct number.

UFOs: Bits and Pieces: Those Crop Circles

With both the existence of pure theory and applied evidence supporting the plausibility of the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) – where the UFO remains a UFO after appropriate expert analysis has failed to find a more terrestrial explanation – lets look at a few snippets of the phenomena this time a phenomena that may, or may not, be connected with the UFO ETH – those crop circles.    

I’m sure the phrase ‘crop circles’ need little introduction. I can’t imagine too many people being ignorant of the general phenomena – there’s lots of books, media coverage, internet sites, TV specials, feature films, even calendars which have, and continue to cover the subject.

There’s no doubt that crop circles exist – that’s undisputed. Crop circles are an ever on-going phenomenon, the pictograms growing in complexity year by year. So there’s an evolutionary pattern that needs explaining. And at least crop circles have the decency to sit still and not vanish without trace like UFOs, the Yeti and the lone mysterious interstellar ‘wow’ signal so suggestive, yet so illusive of proving the existence of, extraterrestrial intelligence!

There’s no denying the picturesqueness of them, and often, in fact in more recent times, their geometric complexity.

So what the hell are crop circles? Are they a new form of human graffiti? Are they messages from extraterrestrials? Are they a cry for help from our own Mother Earth or Mother Nature? Are they a now and again mysterious, but ultimately natural, even if chaotic feature of Mother Nature – say weather or biological phenomena? Are they in fact none of the above?

When it comes to the British crop circle phenomena, no explanation put forth makes any logical sense. The best of all the implausible explanations is the extraterrestrial intelligence one, but only on a scale of two out of ten because the rest don’t even rate that highly. 

I’ll start this off with a controversial statement. I thing the crop circle (or corn circle as it is sometimes referred to) phenomena is currently the greatest terrestrial scientific puzzle going – full stop.

I admit from square one that I haven’t the foggiest idea what they actually are, or represent, but I at least think I know what they’re not.

For better or worse, crop (or sometimes ‘corn’) circles have been associated with UFOs to a greater or lesser extent depending on whom you consult. Firstly, there’s no doubt that crop circles exist – that’s undisputed. Secondly, crop circles are the product of intelligence; there’s no way Mother Nature can naturally make these complex geometric formations – that’s undisputable. Thirdly, although there are isolated cases from other countries, crop circle formations are 99 & 44/100% reside in merry old England – no arguments there.

That third fact brings up question one: assuming crop circles are hoaxes, what is it about the British mind set that prompts them to commit these ‘works of art’? That’s never been explained. Maybe crop circle hoaxers might be more reluctant to do their thing in the USA where farmers shoot first and ask questions later, and although there are a few, why not lots and lots of ‘circles’ in France, Canada, Australia and a host of other nations with major agricultural (crop) industries?

Question two, again assuming hoaxes, can the sum total of crop circle formations be explained by artistic human intelligence, keeping in mind the restraints of sheer numbers of circles; the period of limited darkness in which to operate (high summer in England); the fact that it is dark; the possibility of being caught (you don’t want to use flashlights); not to mention additional time required for the ever increasing complexity of these crop circle formations?

Question three: assuming now not human, but extraterrestrial intelligence (the UFO connection – if any), what is the motive? Sceptics have pointed out, rightly so, that it is ludicrous in the extreme to suggest that extraterrestrials come here, from there (wherever there is) just to do geometrical graffiti using agricultural crops as their canvas! It’s probably equally ludicrous to suggest that UFOs are alien tourist buses, the extraterrestrials on a holiday tourist tour, and England has been set aside as the area for extraterrestrial artists on tour to practice their art!

But, there could be another aspect to E.T. and the circle mystery. There are the trickster gods of mythology, who are actually not supernatural deities but extraterrestrials. If trickster ‘gods’ wanted to have a bit of relatively harmless fun with us humans, well perhaps they’re behind the crop circle business! Now the absurdity of E.T. coming across light-years of space away with a motive just to dabble in agricultural (crop circle) graffiti has been pointed out by others. I quite agree. But, if E.T. were already here (and agricultural graffiti wasn’t the motivation) and some E.T.’s have a wicked sense of humour and like to befuddle the humans, well that’s a motive!

But, maybe crop circles are a smoking gun that we do live in a simulated Universe and on a simulated planet. All other ‘rational’ explanations are equally, if not more so, ridiculous. If extraterrestrials, their motive isn’t at all obvious apart from playing April Fools’ pranks.  If human in origin, crop circle graffiti should be way more widespread like ordinary back alley brick wall graffiti is, not to mention that a lot higher percentage of crop circle culprits or ‘artists’ should have been caught, tried, convicted, and fined for vandalism, destruction of private property and just plain trespassing. 

Now to my way of thinking, two things seem crystal clear here. There’s intelligence behind the crop circle phenomena; equally clear (to me anyway) it’s not by any stretch of the imagination a 100% human intelligence – the hoaxes – criminal activity - referred to above.

If the intelligence behind crop circles is not even close to being 100% human intelligence in the main, then it must be a non-human intelligence, though not of necessity extraterrestrial intelligence. So, what about a non-human intelligence? While we share this planet with other relatively intelligent species – dolphins, parrots, apes, the octopus – I find it unlikely in the extreme that crop circles can be blamed, or credited, to any of them.

Since I know of no other native intelligences on Planet Earth, I’m somewhat reluctantly forced to now go for an extraterrestrial intelligence, without any evidence other than process of elimination.