SUBJECT: CROP CIRCLES IN NORTH AMERICA FILE: UFO1231 The NAICCR Report: Crop Circles in North America North American Crop Circles and Related Physical Traces in 1990 by Chris Rutkowski et al. Released February 1991 by the North American Institute for Crop Circle Research. 40 pp. Reviewed by Michael Chorost Published June 1991 Early in 1991, Chris Rutkowski and his colleagues set out to produce the kind of report cereologists have been aching to see: a tabular list of 1990 crop circles. They also wanted to search the data for patterns, and locate the methodological challenges of doing so. They were confronted with several difficulties from the outset. One was the problem of cobbling together usable data from diverse sources of varying completeness and reliability. Another was the challenge of deciding how to organize it, since no one knows which data structure will best bring buried truths to the surface. Still another was the sheer unprecedentedness of what they were doing, since there were no successful analyses to emulate, no failed analy- ses to learn from. In such a situation, tables of data take on an aspect of terror. They can be sorted in infinite ways, yet only a few of those ways are likely to lead to the truth. One might walk across Antarctica blindfolded with greater confidence. This terror may well account for why no one has published and attempted to analyze tables of data, even though the circles have been the focus of sustained public attention for at least four years. Rutkowski and his colleagues, then, are to be commended for the ambition and bravery of this first attempt, which sets a signal example. England has produced nothing of comparable completeness and integrity. Bigger and better reports should follow, but this one sets the pace. The report's raw data is presented twice, in two different forms: by element, and by formation. In the first set of raw data, the authors list each element of a formation marking separately, so that, for example, a group of ten circles found in Warsaw, Indiana, is listed as ten separate elements. The elements are recorded as a dense table of 86 "unusual ground markings" (UGMs) listed by date, location, circle diameters, direction of swirl, crop type, associat- ed UFO sightings, and whether samples were taken and tests per- formed. Dates range from March to October 1990; locations span the continent, from Pennsylvania to British Columbia, with a preponder- ance in the Ameican Midwest and in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Diameters range from 1.7m (Warsaw, Indiana) to 38m (Odessa, Mis- souri.) Samples and tests are noted but the results are not speci- fied; hopefully future reports will have more to say about their results. Unfortunately, the first data set's mode of organization is not followed consistently. A formation in Leola, SD, which consisted of four separate elements (a "reverse question mark" and three rectan- gles) is listed as only one element, and the same is true for sever- al other multiple-element formations. Rutkowski and his coauthors are not entirely to be blamed for this flaw, however. It is often difficult to decide how many elements a formation consists of, and which to measure. A quintuplet formation obviously has five ele- ments and is made up of circles, but what about a circle with four spokes and two rings, with another circle 125m away (Northside, Saskatchewan, Aug. 28)? How many elements are there and what are they? Only two elements of the Northside formation are listed in the table, because it's set up to record only circle diameters and ring widths. It can't accomodate rectangular elements. It looks like a numerical-tabular format created more headaches for Rutkowski and his colleagues than it solved, because it assumed more uniformity than was the case, and used an awkward mode of representation. The circles are diverse and spatially complex objects which resist simple numerical representation. It would seem more sensible to tabulate them visually, in annotated diagrams. This would lead one to record formations on a case-by-case basis, creating new data categories as appropriate, rather than trying to define all of the relevant data categories in advance. Colin An- drews has made a start in this direction with his computerized visual catalogue. I think Rutkowski et al. made a basic mistake, yet much can be learned from it, e.g.: We should not ache so much to see data in numerical-tabular format. We can develop more flexible and useful ways to represent our knowledge. The other set of raw data is the more immediately useful one, because it lists whole formations, not elements. It lists 45 forma- tions by date, location, and brief verbal description. About thirty are English-style crop circles; the rest are circular burns, areas of flattened and burned crops, areas of missing vegetation, holes, etchings in dry soil, and patches of stunted growth. Since no one knows whether these diverse phenomena are related, Rutkowski et al. sensibly chose not to segregate them. The reliability of the documentation is obviously uneven. Some formations have been extremely well-documented by the authors them- selves; others are reported on little more than hearsay. For exam- ple, one item reads merely, "It was claimed that a crop circle was discovered near this town" and lists the source as a TV station. This is no fault of the authors, who clearly decided that it was better to risk reporting rumor than to leave out potential truth. The shortcomings of the data say more about the primitive state of cereology than anything else. Since sources are listed, it is usually possible for the reader to decide how much weight to give each report. The two sets of data are listed in the back of the report. In the front of the report, Rutkowski et al. attempt a preliminary analysis of the data. They present five tables breaking the data down in different ways: type versus country, type versus direction of swirl, type versus crop, country versus crop, and country versus direction of swirl. Perhaps the most interesting result is that grass elements predominated over wheat elements in the US (46 grass elements vs. 2 wheat ones), but the reverse held in Canada: 16 wheat elements vs. 4 grass ones. Other interesting results are that concentric rings almost always formed in wheat (9 in wheat vs. 1 in grass) and that burned and flattened circles almost always happened in grass (9 in grass vs. 1 in wheat.) One must view these discover- ies with caution, however, because of the uneven reliability of the data, the analysis by element rather than formation, and the low total numbers involved. They may make more (or less) sense when compared to English data, if and when it becomes available, and in the light of future data. It should be noted that grass crop circles are much more common in the U.S. than in England. This is easily explained by the fact that England is so intensively cultivated that there is very little freestanding grassland left. However, it is more difficult to explain why so few grass circles were reported in Canada, a country with abundant grassland. It could be due to the fact that there are fewer people in Canada to discover circles in grassland. The authors also note that the peculiar effects seen in English crop circles, such as strange noises and flashes of light, have not been reported in North American formations. Nor do they exhibit the same level of complexity seen in England (ringed and spoked circles seems to be the maximum.) In sum, it is quite unclear whether the 45 cases listed belong to one phenomenon or several totally separate ones, and whether any of them are truly groupable with the English version of the phenomenon. In an intelligent and cautious discussion, Rutkowski analyzes the debate about the cause of the circles, and argues that no theory adequately explains the phenomenon. He writes that "there was no evident trend in any characteristic of the UGMs [unusual ground markings]." Nor do "statistical studies conducted on the data...suggest any particular unifying explanation." He notes that only 4 of the 45 formations have UFO sightings associated with them, and a perusal of the data shows that none of the sightings are clearly of "nuts and bolts" spacecraft: two sightings were of glow- ing lights, the other two go unspecified. Glowing lights fit in just as well with meteorological theories, which presuppose hot, glowing plasma vortices, as with ET theories. And yet meteorologi- cal theories themselves can explain very little: "Is Britain's change in weather so incredibly dramatic that hundreds of circles can form in 1990, compared with only a handful a decade ago?" Rutkowski notes just how many complicating factors there are: winds do cause crop damage, yet crop circles do resemble classic "saucer nests"; many crop circles have been considered genuine despite their great complexity, yet there have been notorious hoax- es; crop circles may be an effort at communication, yet nobody understands them. And there are, in addition to crop circles, many other kinds of anomalous ground markings. Do they have the same basic cause, or are they caused by an entirely unrelated phenomenon? No one knows. Rutkowski tries to break down the theories into four types: extraterrestrials, wind phenomena, hoaxes, and "other." The first three are certainly the best-known. "Other" subsumes less popular theories, such as military activity and mating hedgehogs. However, there are more categories than Rutkowski notes. Some people in the CCCS (Centre for Crop Circle Studies) subscribe to the theory that "earth energies" create the crop circles. Richard Andrews, a pro- fessional dowser, is perhaps the best-known of these theorists. It is certainly not clear (to me, anyhow) what "earth energies" are, nor how they could create the complex forms we have seen, though Rupert Sheldrake's theory of morphogenetic fields and James Lovelock's "Gaia" theory of planetary intelligence have both been invoked as explanatory factors. In addition, there are significant splits within the theoretical camps: for example, Terence Meaden has accepted that the more complex formations are meteorological in nature, while his followers Paul Fuller and Jenny Randles still think most or all of them must be hoaxes, with only the simpler formations being "genuine." As George Wingfield astutely notes in The Crop Circle Enigma, the "exotic" theories tend to fall into two classes: those invoking earth mysteries, like earth-energy theories, and those invoking sky mysteries, like alien-intelligence theories. The English have a pronounced tendency toward earth mysteries, whereas Americans tend to favor sky mysteries. Perhaps this can be explained by historical and cultural differences between the two nations. The English tend to look down into the earth where generations of ancestors are buried, whereas Americans, a younger and spacefaring race, look up into a sky which may house their descendants. Perhaps Canadians, being of the New World yet still Commonwealth citizens, fall some- where in between. Certainly the Canadians have shown considerable good sense in this landmark report. It has significant shortcomings, as I have noted, but they are counterbalanced by the pioneering nature of the work. Bigger and better reports should follow from both sides of the Atlantic, but this one sets the pace. Available for US $3.00 from P.O. Box 1918, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3C 3R2, or 649 Silverstone Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2V8. The reviewer may be contacted at: Michael Chorost North American Circle P.O. Box 61144 Durham, NC 27715-1144 ********************************************** * THE U.F.O. BBS - http://www.ufobbs.com/ufo * **********************************************