Disney Making Fake Crop Circles?

GuNgA-DiN writes: "It seems that Disney has been busy trying to promote their upcoming movie 'Signs' (by M. Night Shyamalan). There is an interesting article from some guys who REALLY follow and study crop signs: Paul Anderson of the Canadian Crop Circle Research Network has reason to believe that they will be creating some man-made formations to promote the forthcoming movie. Anderson cites a competition or sweepstakes currently being promoted on the official 'Signs' website." Remember, patronize only genuine alien-swirled crop circles!

Comments

Sue Disney

[Osty]

Remember, patronize only genuine alien-swirled crop circles!

Better yet, don't patronize any crop circles at all, since it's destruction of property (how would you like it if a bunch of jokers spray painted your house or car, or broke into your computer and muddled around with the files? It's all the same -- destruction of property). If Disney's really doing this, then I expect to see a rash of lawsuits against them as well.

Of course, if you believe that crop circles really are made by aliens, well ... I guess it's time to break out the ol' tin foil hat.

Sad.

[Artifex]

The original "crop circles" were later admitted to be a hoax. However, when I tried to run a search for that information to show it here, I couldn't find it among the deluge of sites like this one which claims that "most serious researchers" believe that they are from "supernatural intelligence" and give quasi-religious defense for that... Where is the Amazing Randi when I need him?

Re:hmm..

[GMontag451]

perhaps you should check out some of the more recent ones on www.artbell.com

Art Bell is either an idiot or a charlatan, I'm not sure which though. He constantly airs completely unconfirmed anecdotal stories and tries to use that as evidence for all sorts of completely ridiculous things. I suggest you pick up an issue or two of Skeptical Inquirer. It is a very good magazine that has lots of good debunkings on such topics as dowsing, Kirlian photography, and even crop circles. I also suggest that next time you listen to Art Bell, you ask yourself how critical is he being of his "evidence", and whether or not there is a simpler, naturalistic explanation for the things that people claim to see.

if you see the pics they are quite elaborate and definitely not natural, and for having been done in a single night Disney would have had to put down some serious money.. espeically considering the biggest one is right next to StoneHenge (correct me if i'm wrong but Disney still releases movies in teh US first)

No one is saying that Disney is responsible for the crop cirlces that have already occured. If you had taken the time to read the story, you would see that they are concerned that Disney may in the near future sponsor some people making crop circles in order to promote their new movie.

I dunno what they look like to you but they look like hints at the solar flares from 2012 that the mayans predicted.. my $.02

First of all, the Mayans didn't predict any solar flares, they didn't even know what solar flares are. They predicted a huge (earthly) disaster because they believed that those occur during plantary convergences (like the one that will happen in 2012) and other unusual astronomic events.

The only way that a solar flare could bend as much as a single wheat stalk woud be if a satellite malfunctioned because of a flare storm and crashed into a wheat field. The material part of a solar flare is limited to the sun's corona. The ejecta of a flare is just a bunch of charged particles, some of which are attracted to the Earth due to it's strong magnetic field. It is the immense charge that causes the damage, not the particles themselves.

disclaimer: this is neither a troll nor am i a lunatic (NATOL)

That may be true, but if so you are a sorely misguided person who doesn't know much about physics and doesn't know how to critically think.

Crop Circles, Aliens, UFOs

[evilviper]

I fail to understand people's logic.

'Flying Saucers' were NEVER seen until one report back in the 60s got quite widespread. Then everyone reported seeing them everywhere.

Even worse, Alien abductions follow the same line. It NEVER happens to ANYONE in thousands of years... One day someone reports it happening. Then it suddenly happens to EVERYONE.

Crop circles are at least understood as fakes by most people because someone came out and admitted to doing them (despite expert opinions that people could not do such a thing :-D ) but why don't farmers just file lawsuits against those who destory their fields? That would certainly take it out of the realm of the supernatural. Not to mention stoping the recurrance of this 'phenomenon'.

P.S. Next time you see Big Foot/Yeti and the Nesse/The Lockeness Monster, tell them Elvis said "Hi". I missed them at the last Christmas party.

Re:Crop Circles, Aliens, UFOs

[Tablizer]

(* 'Flying Saucers' were NEVER seen until one report back in the 60s got quite widespread. Then everyone reported seeing them everywhere. *)

The issue of whether the media stories come first or the sightings is controversial. Flying disks and other odd things *were* reported before "they hit big" in the summer of 1947.

For example, a meteorologist (weather person) quietly reported some flying disks about a month or two before the "big wave" hit.

There is also controversy about whether Kenneth Arnold's report (the first "big" story) triggered similar reports on the same day, or if they were independent. The timing is too close to accuratetly tell.

Simular things happened with abduction stories. There were a few reports before the "wave".

Whether the "wave" causes reports or simply makes people feel more comfortable in reporting them is something that is debated over and over in pro and anti UFO newsgroups.

As far as crop circles, I don't know of any history of them. I figured the field is too polluted by fakers to be worth anything. The "grays" of the abduction reports did not want publicity according to the material.

Thus, if there are true alien crop circles and abductions, it is probably not the same group of aliens.

Note that intentional faking is not even a common cause of (sky) UFO reports according to even the skeptics. They usually cite some sort of "media induced hallucination" as the most probable cause of the stickier cases, not fake ships.

I think ufology is an interesting topic of study. The problem is that clowns and greedballs keep ruining the reputation of *any* research into odd phenom.

whether you believe or not:

[Maeryk]

I have read of some interesting phenomenon in a few of the circles investigated. Molecular changes at the base of the stalks causing them to bend, rather than break. (do that with a 2x4!) and magnetic issues inside the circle formations.

I agree that most of them are man made, and probably the most intricate ones are man made as well.. but I also remember reading with a giggle as the SKeptic Observer reported definitively that they were being made by "mating hedgehogs".

I feel safe in saying we dont KNOW they are all man made, but we do know a lot of them are.

Check here: for more info. This guy seems to be a genuine researcher who accepts it when his hypothesis dont come out right.

Maeryk

Re:Crop circle HOWTO

[canadian_right]

They are not complicated, they are not "perfect". They are made by bored pranksters. Since when have randon collections of circles, lines, and rectangles qualified as "perfect".

JAMES RANDI = FOOL. -Don't use him as an example!!

[Fantastic Lad]

Randi, to my knowledge, basically proposes to give prize winnings to anyone who can demonstrate to the world on camera the existence of Auras and similar.

The fact that nobody has come forward to claim this prize, again, as I understand the general argument of the Skeptic, is evidence that such phenomenon probably do not exist.

There are some fairly obvious flaws with this argument, and the fact that they fail to immediately register with the otherwise often intelligent Skeptic, I think demonstrates something significant.

Some of the problems I have with Randi's challenge are as follows. . .

1. Evidence is virtually impossible to legitimize. When people say "Evidence" they mean either, "As seen on TV", or, "As Reported by a respected body of scientists."

The problem is that Television evidence is never credible unless accompanied by the approval of a Respected Body of Scientists. There is actually quite a lot of video tape evidence of a wide number of strange events available for public viewing, but what worth is it? Even video tape of a shuttle launch, shot with the most expensive 'movie quality' equipment could be argued as fake by somebody with such a bent. Public acceptance of any event all comes down to what popular opinions are encouraged/reinforced by media dissemination and authority bodies. As a result, 'Evidence' is never going to be good enough on its own. Evidence must be accompanied by the approval of Authority. And Authority, (Respected Bodies of Scientists) are NEVER going to place their jobs and reputations in jeopardy by admitting that they were wrong, that Magic exists and the $20 New Orleans psychic had it right the whole time. Just won't happen.

2. People who get too successful in convincing the world of phenomenon outside the accepted realm of science are ridiculed, tormented, punished and murdered. Or nailed to crosses. Take your pick. There is, quite simply, NO way that a person with genuine abilities would be allowed to change the whole Western belief paradigm by way of James Randi's little challenge. --Think about it. Even in the corridors of accepted science, researchers are regularly assassinated for rocking the boat. That string of deaths of top biochemists and assistants over the course of last year and early this year is a fairly good example. There are others.

3. James Randi has too much personal stake in his 'Quest for Truth'. Remember the last time you were caught out and shown to be 180 degrees of wrong in a subject you were not just spouting with authority for years, but upon which you based massive amounts of self-worth? Perhaps this has never happened to you. Perhaps you are very good at the denial game, (which allows you to continue living in a wishful thinking daydream and not feel like a damned fool). This is James Randi. I strongly suspect that he would do almost anything to prevent himself from being proven wrong in a massive public forum. This is the kind of bias James Randi comes installed with. He has NOTHING to do with truth, and everything to do with witch hunting and serving his ego-based agenda.

4. As chance would have it, I happen to know several people who have 'supernatural' abilities but who, a) Have never heard of James Randi and his little propaganda machine, b) have been so sufficiently tormented and stunted for being different while growing up by ignorant and/or cruel people around them, that they instinctively cringe away from such mean-spirited (and most likely fixed) public challenges like Randi's; they would probably shrivel up and die if forced to stand on a stage facing a million eyes determined to see only what they want to see, and to pour out only scorn and disbelief regardless of what is demonstrated. --Or d) (and this is a big one), Those who do manage to arrive to maturity with confidence, health and strength of mind, in order to reach such a state where abilities manifest with great power, also tend to have grown a million miles beyond caring what a bunch of juvenile Skeptics happen to think. There are many excellent reasons for this. Money quickly, quickly changes its importance to truly enlightened people. There are certain things people should NOT be shown until they can handle it. For the very powerful, it is easy, wrong and cruel to explode a young soul's viewpoint before it is ready to graduate to larger realities. Such would interrupt their learning cycle, and such powers are not allowed to individuals until they truly understand that they must limit how they express their abilities. --Another way of looking at it is to realize that convincing demonstrations void free choice in people. It circumvents faith, and faith is not something which can or should be bottled; it's something which must be reached on its own, or it is false and worthless; much like the 'faith' hammered into people regarding 'science'. --I put science in quotes, because while the study of maths and physical reality are an important way to advance, 'science' as propagandized into blind faith in the public, (people who believe without questioning or searching for themselves), LIMITS and allows for massive control. And further, a large portion of psychic abilities/phenomena are predicated on forces which only exist when you focus attention upon them. "I'll see it when I believe it." --While we do of course have scientific models which recognize this concept, the basic idea is automatically rejected by the majority of people, simply because it flies very much in the face of the normal 'science' the Lords of Today want people to remain addicted to.

Understand that the worries and demands of the unbelieving public become unimportant when one is no longer in any personal doubt about the existence of magic. Only those trapped in the small cage built from accepted scientific realities have any interest in the outcome of, "Yeah? Prove it!" contests, which are designed primarily to calm inner ruffles within the Skeptic, and have little or nothing to do with determining truth.

--Essentially, believe what you want. No collection plate will be passed, no representative will come to your door, and above all, nobody with any wisdom is going to worry about what you believe. Your faith is your own problem; find your own way, and do try to have fun with it.

The nice thing is, when you are ready, teachers will emerge who will guide you. That's how the universe works.

-Fantastic Lad

Re:JAMES RANDI = FOOL. -Don't use him as an exampl

[dvdeug]

Evidence is virtually impossible to legitimize.

If you can bend a spoon, or whatever, under controlled conditions, then you have legimate enough evidence to win the million dollars. It's not like Randi is going to let someone edit in something.

Even video tape of a shuttle launch, shot with the most expensive 'movie quality' equipment could be argued as fake by somebody with such a bent.

Sure. But the claim that science makes, is that I can go down to Houston one evening and watch the shuttle launch. Science is open to people to people looking over their shoulder; even if I'm not looking over their shoulder at this time, I can trust someone else is.

People who get too successful in convincing the world of phenomenon outside the accepted realm of science are ridiculed, tormented, punished and murdered.

Just look at the bloody way John Edwards died, just when people were starting to hear of him.

Science works by proof, and so far has been very succesful at changing the world around us using that proof. All it demands of psychic powers is the same thing.