TO BELIEVE OR NOT TO BELIEVE...

THE CROP CIRCLE PHENOMENON IN THE NETHERLANDS

Theo Meder

 

Introduction

In the summer of 2001, I started my research of narratives concerning crop circles and their possibly supernatural, divine, ecological or extraterrestrial origin. I wanted to focus on the tales and conceptions in which crop circles are interpreted as non-man-made signs of the times. Furthermore, my research involved the contemporary cult movement that started with ufos in the 1950s as a kind of proto-New Age movement. Crop circles are the most tangible element of this modern New Age conviction, which also incorporates: ufo sightings, alien abductions, cattle mutilation, government cover ups, free energy, ley lines, mysterious orbs of light, alternative theories on the creation of man, connections with ancient and prehistoric monuments (like the Egyptian pyramids and the Celtic Stonehenge), the cosmic knowledge of lost civilizations (Atlantis, Mayas etc.), and the expectations of the coming of a new era or even an End of Days. Needless to say, nobody believes exactly the same thing within this specific New Age cult movement. There is no exclusive bible for crop circle, ufo or New Age belief: there is an abundance of books, magazines, articles, documentaries, organisations, contact groups, websites, e-mail discussion groups and - let us not forget - fiction.

As far as crop circles are concerned, various groups are involved, their convictions ranging from strong belief to doubt and sheer scepticism. There are farmers, crop circle hoaxers, tourists, journalists, sceptic scientists, believers and crop circle researchers (or cerealogists). Some people visit crop circles out of curiosity, just to see some rural artwork, others seek the healing capacity of the formations, some try to find ley lines with their dowsing rods or measure the energy with their pendulums, some come to meditate. Farmers are seldom pleased with crop circles because of the harvest loss involved - caused not only by the flattening of the crop, but also by the trampling of curious visitors. Sceptic scientists hardly bother to come, but esoteric researchers come to investigate, measure, sample, film and photograph, for later analysis and interpretation. Journalists visit the formations during the silly season in search of a juicy story, preferably on the mystery of the unexplained, on the subject of little green men, or on the fact that the entire crop circle phenomenon is a huge man-made practical joke.

England: where the phenomenon started

Although some like to believe otherwise, crop circles are quite a recent phenomenon. It all started in the south of England - mainly the rural Hampshire and Wiltshire areas - in the late 1970s: simple circles appeared in the crops. People started to speculate whether these circles might be an imprint left behind by a flying saucer that had landed. In due time, the forms evolved from plain circles to intricate pictograms and - today - even matrix print-like figures. Although these fantastic formations could no longer be explained by landing ufos, the belief in a possible extraterrestrial explanation was here to stay. Perhaps these crop circles were messages from outer space...?

In 1991 two trickster artists called Doug Bower and Dave Chorley confessed they had created crop circles for over a decade, but a considerable number of people argued that this elderly duo could not have made them all. Believers stated that circle formations were not only to be found in fields of wheat or rye, but in carrots, potatoes, grass, trees, snow, ice and desert sand as well. For some time now, crop circles have been reported in Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Russia, Israel, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands too. Make no mistake: not all believers are convinced that the circles have an alien origin. Some say there is an ecological or a divine explanation, others think earthly beings of a yet unknown kind (or dimension) are responsible - perhaps the beings of light that people in the past gave names like fairy, pixie, will-o'-the-wisp or jack-o'-lantern. Moreover, even the believers are aware of the fact that a fair amount of crop circles are man-made hoaxes.

The 'Julia Set' near Stonehenge (1996)

One of the more startling geometric formations appeared some six years ago near Stonehenge - ancient civilizations, who were still in touch with nature, are supposed to have built their prehistoric monuments in places where earthly energy lines come together. The Stonehenge crop circle came to be known as the Julia-set, because it is shaped like the so called Julia-fractal in mathematic chaos theory. Our foremost Dutch cerealogist dr. Eltjo Haselhoff tells the following story as an exemplum:

On July 7, 1996, at a stone's throw (no pun intended!) from the famous Stonehenge megaliths in south England, a formation of 151 circles appeared during broad daylight. The total formation was over 380 feet wide.

There was a rumor that a pilot had flown over Stonehenge at about 5:30 p.m., and had not seen anything, yet a little more than half an hour later he flew back and discovered the magnificent formation. I suspected that this pilot could have been Busty Taylor, whom I had met a year before when he was lecturing in Amsterdam, so I decided to call him to inquire about the rumor. I found that it was not Taylor himself who had discovered the formation, but a friend. Taylor confirmed the story, relating that, "My friend has been looking at crop circles with me since 1988, and he knows what he is looking for. He flew over there at half past five in the afternoon, and he flew around Stonehenge seven times. The crop circles weren't there at half past five." David Kingston, ex-RAF pilot and now full-time crop circle researcher, told me that three independent witnesses had been found, all confirming the same event: The 1996 Stonehenge formation appeared within about half an hour, during broad daylight. A farm worker had also confirmed the absence of any shape in the field throughout the day, and a Stonehenge security guard had looked down into the field and had confirmed that there was nothing unusual there all day long. The many tourists at Stonehenge, as well as the many people driving over the adjacent highway, could have easily seen the formation in the adjacent field, which is in its entirety slightly uphill (I checked this personally in the summer of 2000). If it had been there all day, it is almost impossible that the formation remained unnoticed for so long. Hence, the explanation of a simple human hoax should be excluded.

The Milk Hill formation (Wiltshire, 2001)

Every year the formations seem to become more complex, especially in England. In 2001 the apotheosis was formed by a crop circle near Milk Hill and two near Chilbolton. The one in Milk Hill appeared overnight on August 12 near Alton Barnes (Wiltshire): it was a stunning sixfold Julia-set, some 900 feet in diameter, consisting of over 400 circles. It is clear for anyone to see that these kind of crop circles can not be explained by natural causes: they must have been made by some intelligent species, whether they be human or not. I am not suggesting anything, but the farmer left a sign outside the Milk Hill field, saying: "You may use this private track to visit the crop circle. Please put £1 in the toll box further on".

The face at Chilbolton (Hampshire, 2001)

The other two formations were reported on August 19 in a crop field near the Chilbolton Radio Telescope (near Wherwell, Hampshire). For both formations a new matrix technique was used, resulting in figurative pixel prints, only to be distinguished from a distance. The first shows the face of an alien - similar to the alleged Face on Mars, which was photographed by the NASA space probe Viking in 1976. The second formation strongly resembles a binary radio message that was sent out into space in 1974 by SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). The message was sent from the Arecibo radio-telescope in Puerto Rico and the signal was aimed towards the globular star cluster M13, some 25000 light years away.

Binary code at Chilbolton (Hampshire, 2001)

There are just a few variations in the crop field message, which all suggest that we are dealing with an alien response. The message can be translated and summarized as follows (with the variations in italics):

We know the decimal system and count from 1 to 10 as well. The elements that make life possible here are hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, silicon and phosphorus. Our DNA consists of sugar-phosphate, but our double helix has an extra string. We have a humanoid body with a large head, two arms and two legs. We measure 3 foot 4 inch (roughly 1 meter). Our population consists of 8,5 billion beings. Our solar system has nine planets, and we inhabit the third, fourth and fifth planet from the sun, which is relatively small - the fifth planet is the largest and most important one. This message was sent by a solar panelled satellite.

No doubt this message matches up with the image humans seem to have created of ET quite well. Fact is that it can not be an answer from star cluster M13, because our binary code has to travel for another 250 centuries to get there! Incidentally, the crop circle formation is a mirror image of the binary code, just like it has been printed in mirror image in some books by mistake! Still, the formation is intriguing, even if it is man-made. In that case, it gives us insight in human creativity, and in the way man fantasizes and theorizes about extraterrestrial life.

The extraterrestrial connection

I said there is no New Age bible. Still, as far as New Age notions on cosmology and extraterrestrial civilization are concerned, two leading authors - sceptics call them mythmakers - need to be mentioned here: Erich von Däniken and Zecharia Sitchin. Both had an enormous influence on contemporary New Age thought. They both take ancient myths and legends for a fact. If you are not familiar with their theories, my summary will sound too far-fetched for words. Nevertheless, if the ideas reach you slowly, one step at a time, they become acceptable. Insert the 'mind virus' little by little, and people will eventually consider the idea's credible out of their own free will. That is exactly how the process of believing works: gradually putting the pieces together until the existential puzzle becomes clear and everything fits to your liking.

The Swiss amateur-archeologist and hotel manager Erich von Däniken wrote several books, which all come down to the same question: were the gods of the past actually alien beings? His answer is - of course - affirmative. Von Däniken's first book, entitled Chariots of the Gods, was published in 1968. It was translated into German in 1969 as Erinnerungen an die Zukunft. The same year, the book was translated into Dutch under the title of Waren de goden kosmonauten? (Were the Gods Spacemen?) and has been reprinted for over thirty times since. According to Von Däniken, many ancient artifacts, myths and scriptures bear witness of the fact that we were visited (and experimented on) repeatedly by aliens, whom primitive cultures have considered to be gods: cave paintings show gods with space suits, antennas and space crafts; the epic of Gilgamesh speaks of contact with aliens; demigods are human-alien halfbreeds; myths and legends about giants are actually about aliens; the superb Sumerian cosmology must spring from alien knowledge; ancient Egyptian architecture, art and rituals cannot exist without alien involvement; the statues on Easter Island suggest extraterrestrial contact; the pyramids, the space observatory and the calender of the Mayas were made with alien aid; the medieval Turkish map of the world of Piri Reis is based on a much copied aerial photo; Peruvian landscape art is truly an airstrip for alien vessels (surely alien vessels without brakes, the sceptics mock); the Bible is full of aliens portrayed as God, angels and 'sons of heaven'; chariots in the sky are ufos; Sodom and Gomorrha were annihilated by a nuclear blast; the Deluge was caused by aliens to destroy their unsuccesful experiments with mankind; the Arc of the Covenant was an electrical radio-transmitter; the prophet Ezechiel described an amphibious helicopter and so on, and so forth. By the way: as an experiment, Von Däniken suggested to draw a circle and a triangle in an enormous wheat field with a laser, to make ourselves known as an intelligent species and attract the attention of alien beings. Wouldn't that look like a huge crop circle?

Whereas Von Däniken does not know who the aliens are, and where they come from, Zecharia Sitchin does. Zecharia Sitchin was born in Russia, raised in Palestine, and graduated from the University of London with a degree in economic history. He worked as a journalist in Israel and emigrated to the United States in the mid-1950s. His first book, entitled The 12th Planet, was published in 1976, followed by several other volumes in the 'Earth Chronicle' series. After studying Sumerian clay tablets, Sitchin reached the conclusion that the alien beings are called the Anunnaki ('those who came to Earth from heaven'). These Anunnaki live on the planet Nibiru ('the crossing planet'). In some way, this planet belongs to our own solar system: it is our tenth planet (or twelfth celestial body, including the sun and the moon). The orbit the planet Nibiru descibes is enormous: it takes approximately 3600 years to reach our solar system and Earth again. This is why the aliens can only visit us at long intervals. The Babylonians gave Nibiru the name Marduk. In the Bible the Anunnaki are called Anakim or Nefilim. The description of creation in Genesis is basically right, says Sitchin: first came the stars and planets, then the creatures of the sea, then the birds and the creatures of the land, including the dinosaurs. This evolutionary knowledge of the Hebrews dates back to the Babylonians and Sumerians, who were informed - not by God, but - by the Anunnaki, who had studied the Earth's evolution. Of course, the creation days of Genesis are to be understood as eras. Then the Anunnaki actually created mankind by means of genetic engineering. Adam was the first test tube baby. This human hybrid - half Anunnaki, half homo erectus - lacked some vital DNA in order to make him submissive, for the humans were supposed to work as slaves in the goldmines. Thanks to the advice of Enki, the supreme Anunnaki scientist, Noah built a kind of submarine and was able to survive a deliberate Great Flood to destroy mankind. After that, the Sumerians developed the first advanced civilization, with expert knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, with the help of the Anunnaki. It were the Anunnaki who built the pyramids in Egypt and Peru. They once had a base on Mars, which they are probably using again today.

The return of the god-like Anunnaki is near, perhaps in 2012 - when for instance the calender of the Mayas ends. In New Age circles, the year 2012 is often mentioned as a turning point: a new Deluge, Armageddon, or the transition to a peaceful age or a higher dimension are expected.

Although they certainly have opened up new horizons in thought, to my humble opinion, Von Däniken and Sitchin underestimate the imaginative, creative and scientific capabilities of mankind in general and ancient civilizations in particular. Human art, religion, knowledge, imagination and achievements do not have to be attributed to alien influence at all. Human artifacts and texts need not be as mysterious as claimed. The interpretation of historical sources by Von Däniken and Sitchin is basically anachronistic. From an ethnologist's point of view though, Von Däniken is almost right: not that the past gods of man were really aliens. Man today - and Von Däniken first - is just in the process of transforming these gods into aliens. From a religious point of view, Von Däniken and Sitchin are not wrong at all: if people believe they are right, so they are! Religions, myths and legends are only being re-interpreted. The studies of Von Däniken and Sitchin place the crop circle phenomenon in a wider perspective. Several publications make an effort to fit crop circles into the alien theory, and interpret them as cosmic signs.

Crop circles in the Netherlands

Without any doubt England is the cradle of crop circles. In 2001, a total of 197 crop circles have been reported in 14 countries world wide: 52% of these formations were found in England. Germany comes in second with 12%, Canada is third with 9%. The Netherlands end up fourth with 8% of the crop circles. Most of the formations were found, just before harvest, in July and August.

'Golden Tunnel' hoax at Nieuwerkerk (1997)

Crop circles have been found in the Netherlands since the late 1980s. It started out with simple circles and later they gradually evolved into pictograms. There was a peak in 1996 with no less than 99 crop circles. In 1994, thirty formations were reported, and in 1997, fourty-three crop circles were found. From 1998 onwards, the number of formations decreased and now fluctuates between fifteen and twenty a year. Frankly speaking, most Dutch crop circles are no match for the spectacular English ones at all. We only had two impressive looking formations in Nieuwerkerk (Zeeland) in 1997 and 1999, which both turned out to be hoaxes. They were both made by Remko Delfgaauw along with a team of friends and colleagues. He described the months of preparation, designing and practice, as well as the nights of the actual field work, in a 1999 issue of Skepter, the magazine for sceptic scientists. What he wanted to prove was that even the most complex crop circles can be made by man: it can be done, in the dark, without any overview, using tape measures, ropes, wooden tripods, tent pins, lots of pvc pipes and headsets to communicate. Not that it is an easy job. The makers even dispaired for a while, when they were flattening their first circle in 1997: behind them, the wheat stems stood right up again! Even though the team worked for two nights in a row, they were not able to complete the planned design: large connecting circles are missing due to a lack of time. This first formation, created by six men, was inspired by the Julia-set and was called the Golden Tunnel Project.

'Fe-male Project' hoax at Nieuwerkerk (1999)

The second one in 1999 was called the Fe-male Project. In both cases, Remko Delfgaauw had asked the farmer for permission and had financially compensated him for the damage in advance. The Fe-male Project was carried out by eight men and seven women as a team building experience for Delfgaauw's computer technology agency. Obviously, Delfgaauw doubts there is an alien connection concerning crop circles, as he argues: "If aliens really have a message for us, they are making a hell of an effort to make it as incomprehensible as possible."

Robbert van den Broeke (Hoeven, 1999)

Most Dutch crop circles have never been claimed by hoaxers though. On the other hand, there is a young Dutch eyewitness called Robbert van den Broeke, who lives in the Dutch village of Hoeven with his parents. He supposedly saw balls of light make crop circles. In his recent study on crop circles, researcher Eltjo Haselhoff says:

In 1996, I obtained a report from a sixteen-year-old boy named Robbert van den Broeke, who told me how he had witnessed the formation of a crop circle several times. When I discovered that his stories were similar to the statements of other eyewitnesses I had heard and read about, I obviously became interested. Just like many others, the boy also mentioned trembling air and crackling noises "as if you take off your sweater over your head," or, on another occasion, "as if you throw frozen French fries in hot oil." The creation of a crop circle, he says, occured with one or multiple bouncing balls of light, spinning very rapidly through the crop "so that it almost resembled a fluorescent disk." Sometimes the balls had a white-bluish or white-pinkish color, or at other times more orange-like. According to the physical laws of electromagnetism, this could be an indication of varying temperature, while the trembling air around the balls could be the result of intense heat. After the formation is formed, in seconds, Robbert says, the light balls fade and disappear, "as if you switch off the television."

Furtheron in his book, Haselhoff comes with another eyewitness report - closer examination learnt though, that this is Robbert van den Broeke again:

Over the years, quite a few people have claimed that they witnessed the formation of a crop circle by a "radiant ball of light." For example, in the night of June 7, 1999, a young Dutchman noticed a small light in the sky, which looked like a bright star over the field behind his house. Suddenly he noticed that the light was a very faint pink, almost white. Then, in just a few seconds, the light transformed into an elliptic shape, which appeared to hover in the air at a height of about three meters, while the faint light seemed to shine down on the field. The air around it was trembling as if it were hot. Then the light slowly faded and disappeared. He ran into the field, where he discovered a fresh circle of flattened crop, and he noticed that the crop, the soil, and the air felt physically warm.

In a brief survey I conducted myself in 2000, a correspondent living in Hoeven wrote to me:

The people here think the circles are made by one of the neighbour's boys, who wanders through the fields day and night. The boy even claimed that ufo's made burn marks on the paint of his house - and then another crop circle appeared in the neighbourhood. The people don't believe him.

The burn stains form another story by Robbert van den Broeke, published by Haselhoff without mentioning the name of his witness again. Incidently, Robbert never claimed he saw ufo's, he only saw balls of light.

Dutch cerealogists

Eltjo Haselhoff is actually the best-known crop circle researcher in the Netherlands, and he has a Ph.D. in physics. He wrote several articles and two books on crop circles. His most recent book, entitled The Deepening Complexity of Crop Circles; Scientific Research & Urban Legends, was published in Berkeley (California) in 2001, and translated into Italian, German and Dutch. In spite of his subtitle, Haselhoff does not mention Urban Legends in his book at all. He only debunks some popular beliefs, for instance the notion that most orbs seen on photos are balls of light, whereas they in fact are mere reflections on small particles in the air, caused by using a flash light.

Haselhoff is chairman of the Dutch Centre for Crop Circle Studies (DCCCS). Although he is a serious researcher using scientific methods, he does not work at any university or research institute. He actually designs medical scanning devices for Philips. He conducts his crop circle investigations as a hobby in his spare time. Nevertheless, his basic findings and theories appear to be quite thorough - which makes it hard for the sceptics to contradict him in another way than saying: 'This can't be right'. To start with, Haselhoff does not believe in any ufo-connection, or at least he never says so. He just argues that for some simple pictogram formations no conclusive traces or evidence of their man-made origin has been found. All kinds of anomalies have been found in such crop circles, like hundreds of dead flies, burn marks, dehydration and magnetite. Examination of the wheat stems within the crop circle showed abnormal swelling of the nodes, which sometimes even seem to have exploded. Like the American biophysicist dr. William Levengood suggested, Haselhoff believes this is caused by some microwave heating and radiation effect. Germination tests with the seeds of wheat from within crop circles showed remarkable deviations in growth compared to seeds outside the circle. Again, this can be explained by believing balls of light, emitting microwave radiation and heat, create crop circles. It cannot be a natural phenomenon like lightning though; the complex mathematical structure of formations suggests some kind of intelligence (sceptics will point out: most likely human intelligence). In a lecture, Haselhoff once let slip the following remark: "It looks as if those balls of light are operated by someone playing with a joystick."

One of the personal stories Haselhoff likes telling in order to emphasize a point he wants to make, is the one that became known as the story of the mouse. In short, this is what happened: after he had taken samples in 1997 for germination trials from a formation in Melick, the Netherlands, he stored the bunches of wheat in his garage. A few weeks later a mouse appeared to have eaten the dried seeds. The most astonishing thing was, that the mouse had only devoured the seeds taken outside the crop circle, whereas it had not touched the seeds from inside. This should not come as a surprise, Haselhoff explains, because in England they had found out a loaf of bread baked from crop circle wheat tastes awful! The story should prove that the microwave forces involved make the taste of the wheat go bad.

So, in a nutshell Haselhoff claims that crop circles are made by balls of light, but he can not yet explain what they are, where they come from, why they create formations, and what their meaning is. Scientific as Haselhoff's conclusions may seem, the sceptics find them hard to believe, whereas some believers are disappointed by such meagre results.

The Dutch research couple Bert Janssen and Janet Ossebaard do subscribe to Haselhoff's conclusions. What is more, their most recent video documentary, called Contact with the unknown intelligence behind the crop circles, is exclusively dedicated to the balls of light theory, showing several scenes of flying orbs in broad daylight, and even showing the 1996 (probably hoaxed) Oliver's Castle footage, in which several balls of light seem to create an actual crop circle during the night. In one scene, one can see that a bird of prey spots a ball of light and tries to catch it, only in the last split second realising it is making a big mistake. In the documentary, Eltjo Haselhoff is interviewed, as well as Dutch crown witness Robbert van den Broeke. The cover of the video cassette states we are dealing with "undeniable evidence of the existence and presence of non-human, highly intelligent entities with a plan for mankind." These last words are indicative for the extra, more esoteric step Janet Ossebaard wants to make. In a recent lecture, after showing a series of crop circle slides, Janet explained that the formations contain a message that we have to learn to read and understand:

What I believe - at this moment - is that this intelligence has a plan for us. That's what we are trying to stress in our video. It looks like there is a plan for mankind. Probably - this would not surprise me - those crop circles do something with your subconscious. That's why I showed these slides at the beginning: let the images sink in. They do something to you. Just like a mandala: it works in your spirit. It is not something you can understand consciously, not something you can put your finger on. [...] It's something that does its work in your subconscious.

Robert Boerman, another Dutch cerealogist, is chairman of the esoteric Ptah Foundation and runs the Dutch Crop Circle Archive on the internet. In a newspaper interview in July 2000, Boerman says: "I have always been somewhat different than the others. For instance, I have another level of thinking. I may even be a chosen one." As a boy he had imaginary friends, which means - according to Boerman - that he is a reincarnation. He is well aware of the fact that some people consider him to be just one raisin short of a fruitcake, but this does not bother him any more: "Better mad than misunderstood." Boerman is one of those esoteric thinkers who believes that everything is connected: there is no such thing as coincidence. He is a magnetizer by profession, and he wrote a book on crop circles, gods and their secrets. He is a declared supporter of (most of) Von Däniken's and Sitchin's theories. This means he believes that ancient civilizations knew gods, who were in fact the extraterrestrial Anunnaki from the planet Nibiru (which governments and NASA are covering up). These Anunnaki are making contact with us again by sending messages in crop circles. Boerman made an effort to decipher the messages. Two crop formations that appeared near Alton Barns (Wiltshire) in 1991 and 1996 form key messages, according to Boerman. After an American wrote the words "Talk To Us" in the crop in August 1991, Hebrew letters appeared some days later. In 1996, a double helix was found, symbolizing our strings of DNA. In short, the messages would be like this: 'I am Enki, also known as Ea and Ptah; I am the Anunnaki scientist who created mankind through genetic engineering.' So crop circles are secret messages from our creators. They can be decoded by means of numerology and the Hebrew alphabet. The numerological combinations leave room for multiple translations. Apart from that, there are crop circles with astronomical pictures and ancient symbols, which point to Nibiru and the Anunnaki. The reason why most crop circles appear in England is simple: the British are still using the ancient system of inches, feet and yards, which is needed for measuring and interpreting the messages. Boerman thinks that crop circles are preparing us for a major change in the near future. Probably the return of the Anunnaki in the year 2012 and the transition into a higher spiritual dimension (due to upcoming DNA alterations). People who call this a load of crap, are just looking for a safe excuse not to think things over, Boerman says.

Crop circles in the Netherlands (2001)

Two Dutch cases in 2001

In 2001, seventeen crop circles have been reported in the Netherlands. Apart from cerealogists and journalists, the formations are being visited by believers and tourists, although not on such a large scale as in England. I will discuss two cases here: Lelystad (Flevoland) and Stadskanaal (Groningen). On July 31, the newspaper Spits printed a photo of an ingenious crop circle in Lelystad, heading: "Farmer Piek puzzled".

Crop circle hoax near Lelystad (2001)

By the time I paid 35-year-old Pleun Piek a visit, on August 2, he was not puzzled any more. Although his Australian wife at first believed the crop circle was 'real' and even felt the cosmic energy tingling in her hands, Pleun Piek soon concluded it was an act of sheer vandalism, which had cost him at least 900 Euro, because flattened crop cannot be harvested with a combine. After the esoteric researchers had examined the formation, 100 meters in diameter, they too declared it a hoax. Footprints had been found, for instance. On the night the circle was made, neighbours spotted a white van with a German license plate. Parts of the circle had not been flattened, just the outline, probably due to lack of time. By mistake, one part of the circle ended up in a field of unmanageable beets. The makers were ignorant of the fact that the last part of the field was half wheat, half beets, and started off from the wrong tramline.

The hole in the middle (Lelystad 2001)

Irrefutable evidence for a hoax was the hole in the middle of the circle: this is where the makers planted the pole to attach the rope to, enabling them to draw a perfect circle.

The 'Scorpio' in Stadskanaal (2001)

On the 16th of August, I visited a formation in Stadskanaal, which, according to the cerealogists, turned out to be a 'real' crop circle - 'real' in their terminology meaning 'not made by man'. The circle was discovered and photographed on the 1st of August by dentist Hans Hesselink, who happened to be passing by in an Ultra Light Aircraft. Photos and a first report were published on the Dutch Crop Circle Archive website of Robert Boerman's PTAH Foundation. Because of the shape, the formation - about 40 meters in diameter - was soon called the Scorpio. In a newspaper interview, dentist Hesselink admitted he believed the Scorpio to be a "signature of a higher intelligent being or group". On the night another crop circle in the neighbourhood appeared, campers had seen strange lights in the sky, Hesselink said.

In their report, cerealogists Robert Boerman and his young nephew Jan Willem Bobbink stated they found wheat stems with blown nodes and nettles with burnt leaves. Using a dowsing rod, Bobbink found some twenty ley lines crossing the Scorpio circles.

Ley lines in the 'Scorpio'

Some days later, Eltjo Haselhoff, Jan Willem Bobbink and Robert Boerman returned for further investigation and sampling. Boerman took some photos and pole shots of the Scorpio with its eight-circle tail.

"One minute there are eight..."

After he had changed position, Boerman - to his utter amazement - noticed there suddenly were nine tail circles! Within a matter of minutes, while the experts were in the field, an extra circle had formed!

"... the next there are nine."

They all went to the new circle and noticed that it was still warm. Haselhoff wanted to take a picture, but the battery of his digital camera was dead all of a sudden. Then Boerman and Haselhoff experienced a distinct pain in their limbs. By means of his dowsing rod, Bobbink sensed that the ninth circle was not finished yet. The researchers ran away in terror. It took them half an hour to regain their courage and to return. When journalist Roel Toering arrived, the battery of his digital camera failed as well. Back home, Haselhoff found out that all his photo files were corrupted, except for one photo he had made outside the crop circle.

A few days later, researcher Ina Kliffen visited the crop circle. She encountered three circles in the grass in the vicinity of the Scorpio. Using her pendulum, she measured unusual energy values. All these extraordinary events were not only published on Boerman's website and in Frontier Magazine, a Dutch magazine for mysteries of science, but also found their way to the news media inside and outside the Netherlands. Benjamin Creme, a Scottish medium and prophet of world teacher Maitreya, stated that the Scorpio was made by a spaceship from Mars.

Circle in the grass (Stadskanaal, 2001)

When I visited 52-year-old farmer Jan Hendrik Adams, I told him I was a researcher, and asked: "What kind of people are coming to this crop circle?" "People like you," he answered. It was for the second season this farmer had crop circles on his acres. Adams told me that he believed the crop circles were man-made, although he could not explain how the ninth tail circle had come into being. He witnessed the researchers flee in panic when he was coming towards them from an adjacent field. According to the farmer, Bobbink's sketch of the ley lines was nonsense: if earth energy created the circles, why were there no ley lines drawn that could have predicted the ninth tail circle? Still, the farmer would not rule out the possibility that crop circles were made by electromagnetic forces. He mentioned another peculiar fact: how come so many formations like the Scorpio appeared at the 53rd degree of latitude? "They are all exactly on a straight line," he said.

When I walked to the crop circle, I met 26-year-old Roland Koning, who worked at a local radio station. He came to visit the circle out of curiosity. As I was putting an interview on tape with him inside the circle, he said he believed the circles were man-made. He would not be surprised if the cerealogists made the ninth circle themselves, just as "a publicity stunt". When we visited the ninth circle, we noticed there was a hole in the centre, about a finger deep (some time later Robert Boerman stated that the hole was not there when they discovered the circle). When Roland and I walked back to our cars, we came across the three grass circles. "How hard can it be to make another one?" Roland asked and trampled around through the grass. A few seconds later there were four circles in the grass!

I must confess that I saw or felt nothing out of the ordinary that day in the Scorpio formation. The only thing that surprised me was the poor quality of my tape recording inside the crop circle, due to a disturbing rustle. Could this be electromagnetic noise? A technician assured me it was the sound of the wind and the waving of the wheat.

Artist makes bread out of crop circles (2001)

This is not yet the end of the story. Late August, a local artist called Chris Westen hit the news, because he decided to buy the wheat from the Scorpio to bake 'crop circle buns'. The artist found a miller to make flour, while around Christmas time, baker Geert Bos from Stadskanaal would make and sell the buns. The profit would be spent on a charitable cause: meals for the poor. Chris Westen considers crop circles to be a rural form of art, not a supernatural or extraterrestrial phenomenon. Crop circle experts tried to warn the general public though: due to radiation, wheat from crop circles may have biological abnormalities. The buns may taste bad, and in the worst case, they are radio-active! "That's why I'll let my mother-in-law have the first bite," artist Chris Westen responded tongue-in-cheek. The farmer told me: "I didn't harvest the crop circle, just the wheat around it. It's impossible to harvest flattened wheat with a combine. By the way, I grow wheat for pigfeed, not for buns!" For a while it just looked like a cheap publicity stunt, because no buns were sold during christmas, or easter for that matter. Still, in the end 5000 buns were baked and sold on Queens Day, April 30, 2002. They looked, smelled and tasted like ordinary whole wheat buns. "There is no wheat in it from within the circle, only from the outside," the baker told me. "I had to put in 50% flour of my own to make it work," he added.

Some explanations and interpretations

Throughout the years, all kinds of explanations have been given for the existence of crop circles. Quite a common opinion is that they are all made by pranksters - in 1996, an eyewitness even saw a crop circle being made by helicopter. Then there were all kinds of meteorological explanations, like local whirlwinds. The patterns in the fields could have a biological origin: geese walking around, mating deer, pollution, even fertilizer. When I was in Lelystad, a visiting mother and her son had become overly receptive to circles and had seen them in other crop fields as well. Pleun Piek went out to look and declared the wheat was down due to an overdose of fertilizer. Furthermore, it has been said that crop formations are actually distress calls from Mother Nature. I already mentioned the supposed influence of ley lines, balls of light and ufos. All of these explanations returned in the surveys I held in 2000 and 2001. The first questionnaire was sent to a group of mostly elderly men living in the countryside. They gathered human interference and small twisters were the most plausible explanations. The second survey was held on the Meertens Institute website and attracted slightly younger, higher educated people - quite a lot of believers too, because the Dutch Crop Circle Archive made a link to my survey. Again hoaxers were considered to be the most likely explanation. This time, both earth energy and extraterrestrial intelligence came in second. I also asked what message crop circles could have. "Man wants to be deceived" was a much repeated reply. A minority thought there was a serious message. I distinguished ecological, supernatural and extraterrrestrial messages. Either way, crop formations are considered as signs of the times, as a warning that man is making a mess of things: a warning against hatred, chaos, war, cruelty, egoism, capitalism, pollution, pesticides, genetic engineering or the End of Days... A new era may be coming - more than once the circles are regarded as signs of the arrival of a superior alien civilization, which will help us solve our problems.

Somehow, there seems to be a growing fascination for mystery and spirituality in a cold and careless society - mind you: it is darn exiting to stand in a crop circle that might represent some kind of mysterious message! It looks like the success of New Age thought can be explained as a reaction on the moral and religious void in which modern European society finds itself, after a period of disenchantment, secularization, rationalization and consumerism. There seems to be a longing for a new world, in which inner peace, harmony, care for each other and nature prevail. People seem to crave for solutions involving world problems and personal worries. From within the existing vacuum, they tend to search for new values and spiritual anchorage, be it on an eclectic and individual base.

The ethnologist's position

To believe or not to believe... that is the question. As soon as narratives about crop circles or ufos are called 'legends' by ethnologists, they automatically get qualified as false stories, as superstition. Who are folklorists to judge? The main thing is: a majority of people is convinced that crop circles are a hoax. They are right. Other people believe in crop circles as 'holistic signs of the time'. They are right too. For a considerable number of people, the matter is unclear: they do not know what to believe. And they are right as well! A genuine ideological battle is fought out between the 'sceptics' and the 'believers'. For the first group, crop circle stories are just contemporary legends, for the latter, the tales are personal narratives that strengthen their spiritual New Age convictions. The ethnologist has no right to take sides: he or she should be a scientific observer who just has to explain the human behaviour involved: why people believe what they believe.

Although crop circle tales are contemporary and are considered to be legends by many, for a specific group of narrators they are part of an elaborate belief system - a modern faith even -, which is more than can be said of the average 'Mexican Pet' or 'Runaway Grandmother' story. Several parallels can be drawn between modern crop circle belief and the more traditional religious movements. New Age researchers and writers can be considered priests, and reading their literature or hearing their lectures can be compared to reading the holy scripture or listening to the good word. Like traditional religions, the New Age ufo-cult movement knows tales about the creation of man, and their prophets have visions about the return of the god-like aliens, the end of times, or the dawning of a new peaceful era. Other tales about crop circles can be compared to traditional religious exempla: they bear witness to the truth. Visiting crop circles can be considered a pilgrimage to holy places, and meditation in the circle is like prayer. Those who seek physical recovery or mental relief, those who look for balls of light are actually looking for miracles and wondrous apparitions. As we know: those who seek, shall eventually find. Finally, the urge for contact with aliens can be compared to contact with the gods, who are capable of solving our problems. Fortunately, everyone is free to choose elements of belief to his or her liking on an individual basis. Hell nor commandments need to be part of the deal nowadays. I am not saying this in order to belittle or degrade crop circle or ufo convictions. Belief is what makes life worth living for.

In matters of religion, ethnologists should not distinguish between true or false, between faith or superstition. What the believer sees or experiences is true, whether he or she sees orbs of light or an apparition of Mary - no discussion possible. What really matters here are the human rituals, their interpretations of forms and phenomena, their mental constructions and their roots in traditional folklore. For those who believe, stories about crop circles or ufos bear witness to an esoteric, supernatural, extraterrestrial or high-tech truth. The only thing we can do is take this faith just as seriously as other people's scepticism.

Bibliography