Behind the Crop Circle Mystery: Researchers, Skeptics and Hoaxers Secretly Cooperating? The Ultimate in CIA, MI5 and AIVD Psyops
My personal story regarding crop circles is the same as just about every other conspiracy-related subject. I always had a general awareness of the existence of crop circles, but like any other good citizen I had plenty of things to distract me with and never thought to look deeper into it.
Somewhere in late 2004, some months after I had begun the ISGP effort, I ran into Lucy Pringle's photo book Crop Circles: The Pitkin Guide in a local bookstore. The pictures in the book completely blew me away and made me wonder why something of this magnitude could still be such a mystery in terms of who is behind it. One would think a decently-sized newspaper or documentary channel could figure out who or what is behind the phenomenon in a matter of months - but apparently not. Despite my interest, I put the subject aside. I didn't know anything about anything really, so it was just too much work to figure out who or what information to trust.
It wasn't until mid 2014, while working on ISGP's article Cult of National Security Trolls: Art Bell and Coast to Coast AM, that I got back into the business of crop circles. To summarize the Coast to Coast AM article, it reveals how a group involving the CIA, DIA, AFOSI and a number of wealthy businessmen, most notably Laurance Rockefeller, Joe Firmage, Robert Bigelow and Prince Hans Adam II von Liechtenstein, have created a whole bunch of UFO-related myths that have seeped deep into the national and even international consciousness. These myths include the Ellsworth Air Force Base incident, Roswell, Majestic 12, alien abductions and cattle mutilations. A brief discussion of crop circles originally was also included in this article, because many leading "researchers" of the phenomenon have appeared on Coast to Coast AM. Despite that, crop circles most definitely deserved a more in-depth look before throwing it into the same "myth making" category. And that is exactly what we're going to do here.
One thing that might be important to understand about this article is that as time went on, and more and more cases and layers of manipulation came to my attention, I became increasingly skeptical of literally every aspect of the crop circle phenomenon. So while in the beginning of this article I may seem rather optimistic and open-minded that there is something, however small, at the core of the crop circle phenomenon, as Part II progresses the reader will notice a steady decline of that optimism and open-mindedness. Instead of going back over the article and changing and rearranging everything, I decided to just leave it as it is.
A serpentine temple called Avebury
Crop circles primarily appear in a small part of Wiltshire County, around the Avebury sanctuary and to a lesser extent its smaller brother, Stonehenge. [1] These megalithic structures provide the earliest known evidence of civilization in Great Britain, dating back to the period 2,000-3,000 B.C., even before Old Irish/Gaelic myths of the Nemedians, Fir Bolg and Tuatha De Danann.
There's a bit of alternative history here I'm surprised Coast to Coast AM guests like David Icke and Graham Hancock haven't picked up on yet. In the early 1700s Sir Isaac Newton friend and archaeologist William Stukely, who did crucial research on the Avebury monument before it was almost completely destroyed, introduced the idea that Avebury was a Druidic temple representing a serpent. The curator of Avebury from 1791 to 1816, Charles Lucas, clearly agreed with Stukely's ideas in his 1801 book entitled A Descriptive Account In Blank Verse, Of The Old Serpentine Temple Of The Druids, At Avebury, In Northwiltshire. The more esteemed Sir Richard Colt Hoare (1758-1838), who wrote the two volume The Ancient History of Wiltshire, also didn't have any objections to Stukely's basic interpretations regarding Avebury. John Bathurst Deane's 1830 work The Worship of the Serpent, which relied on Stukely's work, introduced the concept of Druid "dracontiums", as he and a local reverend interpreted Avebury, as well as Stonehenge and nearby Stanton Drew.
Despite being a respected archaeologist, we shouldn't overlook the fact that Stukely was involved in various freemasonic and Druidic religious orders. John Bathurst Deane is like the David Icke of the 19th century. Many of his interpretations suffer from extreme observer bias, such as a non-existent tail between two circles at Stanton Drew. However, there is some evidence of a snake-connection with Avebury. The two avenues leading out from the primary Avebury circle vary in thickness, not unlike a snake, and for the time being it looks as if indeed no temple complex can be found at the "tail" section of the snake; only at the "head". Some of the claims of Stukely are hard to substantiate though, most notably Hackpen Hill, from the "head" towards Barbury Castle, once having meant something along the lines of ''Serpent's Hill''.
What we know for certain is that Avebury and Stonehenge aren't Druidic The Celtic druids didn't settle in Great Britain until the first millennium B.C. when Avebury, Stanton Drew and Stonehenge had already been abandoned for some time. The druids did use the structures for rituals, but who built them is anybody's guess. We just don't know. We only know crop circles love Avebury, do not object to Stonehenge, and for some reason never, or almost never, appear close to Stanton Drew.
It might be interesting to know, by the way, that by 1990, one or more Japanese researchers were wondering why so many of their own crop circles also appeared near ancient sites. And also if the winding patterns had some sort of relation to "dragons mythology". [2] The Japanese love their dragons. Well, who doesn't?
More recently, at least one American crop circle researcher living in Wiltshire has drawn a parallel with the Great Serpent Mound, located in the United States in one of the most active crop circle states: Ohio. A design involving an eye was actually found right in front of the mound, although it wasn't nearly as impressive as formations appearing in Wiltshire. Humans could have easily made it, and let's face it, most likely did.
Early research, early hoaxing: 1978-1991
Conventionally speaking the crop circle phenomenon began in 1978, which is the year that Doug Bower and Dave Chorley allegedly started their hoaxing and also happens to be the year the first case study of the classic 1989 book Circular Evidence, written by Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado, dates back to. It took a while for the phenomenon to catch on in the mainstream media, but by the mid-1980s numerous groups and individuals had developed their own theories about crop circles.
The first researcher on the scene was Oxford University's Dr. Terence Meaden, who, as founding director of the Tornado Research Organization (TORRO) in 1974, had become intrigued by an August 15, 1980 report in the Wiltshire Times of three unexplained crop circles near the Westbury White Horse. The only available scan of the article anno 2015 is almost impossible to read, but here is what could be deciphered:
Mystery Circles -- Return Of The 'Thing'? The Warminster 'Thing' could be back. Speculation that the UFO, which hundreds of people claimed to have seen in the mid and late 1960s, began again this week after three circular depressions appeared in cornfields near Westbury White Horse. The depressions have mystified local farmers and [unreadable] to the White Horse and the Army could come up with no immediate explanation. Two of the marks, which are perfect circles about 11 yards across, are clearly visible in a field directly below the horse. The third, which was in a field a quarter-of-a-mile away, has now disappeared after the grain was harvested. "[Something seems to be missing here] ... rule out a landing by a UFO, and we will now carry out a proper investigation into these [landing?] marks." He asked anyone who had witnessed anything unusual in the area during the past month to contact the [UFO?] society on 01-383-9423 or Warminster 216002. ... Too regular At first sight they appear to be spots where helicopters have landed, but the circles seem to be too well-defined and regular to be caused that way. One farmer told the Wiltshire Times on Wednesday: "I have never seen marks like it before. It certainly isn't the wind or rain damage, because I have seen plenty of that before and it is just not that regular. "If it is not a helicopter it is very mysterious, he added. Another farmer had asked the Army if they can throw any light on the mystery, but as far he has had no reply. When the Wiltshire Time contacted the Army yesterday (Thursday) a spokesman [promised] to investigate. But he added: "I [have no idea] why our helicopters would land in the middle of a cornfield." And UFOs? Similar A spokesman for the British UFO Society in London said similar features had been found in the Westbury and Warminster area in the mid and late 1960s-- the height of the sightings of the so-called Warminster 'Thing'. No [acceptable] explanation would then be found." [3] |
Meaden spent the next few summers circle-spotting from the Westbury White Horse hill. While initially only appearing sporadically, by the late 1980s the amount of reported crop circles increased exponentially. According to Meaden's files, 75 crop circles were discovered in 1987, 110 in 1988 and 305 in 1989. And according to Colin Andrews, 1990 saw the discovery of 600 circles. [4] In the late 1980s Meaden received help from a Japanese team led by professor Yoshi-Hiko Ohtsuki. By 1991, when the circle hype was at its peak, Meaden had gathered a number witnesses to the formation of crop circles who appeared to verify his theory of an unintelligent plasma vortex. However, one of his reports came from questionable journalist and ufologist Arthur Shuttlewood, which by itself fails to convince. The case of the Tomlinson couple, who apparently were right at the center of a forming crop circle, is probably is probably the most fascinating one. The women in this case even suffered a perforated ear drum. [5] Then again, we also have Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews interviewing similar witnesses at the time of their operations White Crow (1989) and Blackbird (1990) who provided descriptions involving a variety of supernatural and mystical experiences [6], indicating we might be dealing with actors of some kind. On top of that, why it is that we have no such reports in mainstream newspapers and magazines over any period of time really of other people seeing crop circles form? And is it realistic to assume that it's possible in this day and age of mobile phone cameras and YouTube that no one has been able to film the formation of a basic "plasma vortex" crop circle while on a stroll in South England's countryside? It's all so very strange.
Sticking to the original 1980 Westbury circles that first drew Meaden into the scene, it very much appears that they indeed were creations of hoaxers Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, as in 1993 it was revealed that they possessed unique photographs of these particular circles. Meaden himself confirmed the authenticity of the photos of Bower and Chorley. [7]
A year after Meaden, in August 1981, the far less conventional Pat Delgado became involved in crop circle research by bringing attention to circles at Cheesefoot Head, just east of Winchester. Unfortunately, these too were hoaxes of Doug and Dave. This trend continued. Two years later, in 1983, Delgado managed to bring national attention to additional Doug and Dave hoaxes at Cheesefoot Head. [8] This episode will be discussed in more detail later on in this article.
Pilot Busty Taylor prominently became involved in the scene in 1985. By that time the circle phenomenon had become so widespread that the Army Air Corps was quite openly carrying out its own basic research. As could be expected, they suspected the circles were hoaxes. [9] Taylor was less convinced and became a relatively prominent researcher in the field.
Colin Andrews entered the scene a year later, in 1986. He was first spotted interacting with leading researchers at a conference of the British UFO Research Organisation (BUFORA) and initially worked with Terence Meaden. However, he soon switched to the more exciting camp of Delgado and Taylor. [10]
The initial belief that crop circles were created by landing alien space ships rather quickly became a minor theory over the course of the eighties, although the somewhat daft-looking Ken Rogers of the British UFO Society largely kept representing this train of thought. [11] He's a very minor character, however, certainly in the crop circle field.
Meaden, along with the Japanese professor Yoshi-Hiko Ohtsuki and the British UFO Research Organisation (BUFORA), took the most conventional route of those in the "believers" corner. Their working theory was that unintelligent plasma vortices were to blame for the phenomenon. Paul Fuller and Jenny Randles were probably the most well-known of the BUFORA UFO and crop circle researchers supporting this theory. [12] Fuller was a member of BUFORA's national investigations committee from 1980 until the early 1990s while his co-author Randles served as BUFORA's director of investigations from 1981 to 1993. [13]
Colin Andrews, Busty Taylor and Pat Delgado - all three fervent dowsers - were of the opinion that alien and/or spiritual beings were involved in sending increasingly complex messages to mankind. For example, in March 1990 the BBC's nation-wide People Today gave the view of these men prime attention. The opening scene of crop circles growing in complexity would do well as an "end of times" scenario for a Hollywood blockbuster. Then, Delgado warns the public that "this [phenomenon] is escalating in such a manner that it doesn't compare with anything else," with Andrews adding:
"We are looking here at ground markings that are evolving in complexity, in density, volume. These things are appearing in snow cover on the hills in Afghanistan, appearing in the paddy rice fields in Japan, in snow cover in the Arctic circle, in Conifer trees forty feet high, in Saskatchewan and Hampshire. ... We're looking at a change in the atomic structure of plants... We're looking at plants in which their crystalline structure is changing within those circles. This cannot be created by human feat. ... "We cannot explain it, but it isn't evidence as of saying we're looking at alien intelligences. We could well be looking at an interface between our dimension and another. It is very, very difficult - it's very exciting." [14] |
True or not, we were clearly dealing with a first-rate Hollywood scenario here with crop circles. Within weeks of this program, in April 1990, many researchers allied themselves in the Centre for Crop Circle Studies (CCCS). The group was the brainchild of archaeologist Michael Green and retired undersecretary of the Ministry of Defence Ralph Noyes. Archie Roy, soon president of the - justified or not - relatively prestigious Society for Psychical Research, became the founding president. Lucy Pringle was a founding council member. Busty Taylor was appointed director for the key regions Hampshire and Wiltshire. Paul Vigay, George Wingfield, David Kingston, and medium Rita Goold were some of the other well known researchers of the CCCS. [15]
While Delgado and Andrews received a lot of attention from the mainstream media - not the least because the royal family was known to have a lot of interest in their work [16] - the CCCS directed interested individuals to the latest crop circles. CCCS researchers received income through their magazine, first The Cerealogist and later The Circular, and at major designs usually maintained a stand with promotional material, books, magazines and/or photos. [17] Despite competition for attention, Delgado, Andrews and the CCCS largely maintained the same alien and spiritual views on the phenomenon. All of them were publicly opposing professional skeptics, hoaxers, the army and security services, and the idea of unintelligent plasma vortices
The most important researcher from the United States since about 1989 has been William "Lefty" Levengood, a plant biologist who in the past had been repeatedly published in Science and Nature magazines, as well as a number of other professional journals. [18] From the March 1990 People Today statements it is clear that Andrews was very much aware of the crop circle plant anomalies described by Levengood. Relatives of him had visited Levengood's lab and by December 1990 Delgado was shipping U.K. plant samples to the U.S. for Levengood to analyze. [19]
Looking at the amount of national attention brought to crop circles by 1990, one would think that breakthroughs would soon follow. This did not exactly happen though. Although that's certainly not the whole picture, one could argue that the September 1991 coming-out party of circle hoaxers Doug Bower and Dave Chorley in front of the international media, did fatal damage to the field. After their revelation, prestigious plasma-vortex researchers as Terence Meaden and the Japanese Yoshi-Hiko Ohtsuki left the field and the media hardly ever again dared to take the subject too serious anymore. Pat Delgado was also gone by late 1993. Only Nancy Talbott, a representative of Levengood's work; Lucy Pringle, and especially Colin Andrews have a degree of fame and presence until the present day. All three have been on Coast to Coast AM, by the way, which to a degree aided their visibility.
While conventionally speaking the crop circle phenomenon started as a hoax in 1978, what we know today is that there is evidence that the phenomenon - whatever it is - goes back a lot further than this. Of course, individual reports of the 1990s - after the phenomenon went viral - about something persons had witnessed decades ago, simply cannot be trusted. However, what we certainly do have is about half a dozen pre-1978 sources that describe mysterious circles appearing in the fields of Great Britain. The accounts of these early crop circles are quite essential, because they predate the modern era in which super-extensive disinformation programs have become the norm. A lot of this disinformation has been discussed at length in ISGP's Cult of National Security Trolls article and we will come back to this subject in relation to crop circles later on in this article.
The first and still the most famous of these early cases is the Mowing Devil pamphlet, dated August 22, 1678. It's exact title was The Mowing-Devil: Or Strange NEWS out of Hertford-shire and resembled some kind of early primitive news report. The exact text:
| "Being a True Relation of a Farmer, who Bargaining with a Poor Mover, about the Cutting down Three Half Acres of Oats; upon the Mower's asking too much, the Farmer swore That the Devil should Mow it rather than He: And so it fell out, that very Night, the Crop of Oats shew'd as if it had been all of a flame; but next Morning appear'd so neatly Mow'd by the Devil, or some infernal Spirit, that no Mortal Man able to do the like. "Also, How the said Oats ly now in the Field, and the Owner has not Power to fetch them away." |
It's most certainly not the best of the early cases, because the Mowing Devil could well involve creative storytelling. However, at the same time it has to be admitted that the facts described are quite reminiscent of a modern crop circle formation:
- The mowed area involves a round or elliptical formation.
- The formation occurred in a field of oats.
- The oats were "neatly Mow'd", although, granted, crop circles are not mowed, but laid down uncut.
- It happened overnight without anyone knowing the exact perpetrator.
- It happened in August, during the height of today's crop circle season.
Moving on two centuries, we have a July 1880 report about a crop circle-type phenomenon observed in Guildford, located just to the south-west of London. It was documented in a letter sent in to Nature magazine by John Rand Capron, a well-respected philanthropist and amateur scientist of his time [20]:
"The storms about his part of Surrey have been lately local and violent, and the effects produced in some instances curious. Visiting a neighbor's farm on Wednesday evening (21st), we found a field of standing wheat considerably knocked about, not as an entirety, but in patches forming, as viewed from a distance, circular spots. "Examined more closely, these all presented much the same character, viz., a few standing stalks as a centre, some prostate stalks with their heads arranged pretty evenly in a direction forming a circle round the centre, and outside these a circular wall of stalks which had not suffered. "I send a sketch made on the spot, giving an idea of the most perfect of these patches. The soil is sandy loam upon the greensand, and the crop is vigorous, with strong stems, and I could not trace locally any circumstances accounting for the peculiar forms of the patches in the field, nor indicating whether it was wind or rain, or both combined, which had caused them, beyond the general evidence everywhere of heavy rainfall. They were to me suggestive of some cyclonic wind action, and may perhaps have been noticed elsewhere by some of your readers. [21] |
Capron observed his phenomenon on July 21, 1880, so again right in the middle of crop circle season. Despite its name, many crop circle formations have actually been spotted in grass over the years, so Capron's report is not at all out of the ordinary. It's also very common to find a small group of stalks still standing in the middle of crop circles. For the rest, I'll leave it up to the reader what to think of Capron's observation.
Incredibly, the first time a crop circle was photographed was not by researchers in the early 1980s, but by ordinary witnesses in 1932. This happened in Bow Hill on England's southern coast. The following report comes from a publication of the Sussex Archaeological Society, apparently from 1937:
"During August 1932, some visitors to Bow Hill, near Chichester, drew the writer's attention to some curious circles which they could see in a field of ripe barley, when looking north-westwards from Bow Hill towards Stoughton Down. ... "In the barley, three dark rings could be and part of a fourth [right on the edge of a field] could be seen from the top of Bow Hill, the south-eastern ring being clearer than the others. When viewed on the ground only this south-eastern ring could be located, and this was found to consist of a circle in which the barley was ... " [22] |
Three decades later, in the summer of 1963, the "Wiltshire crater" briefly made a number of headlines and was visited by many people in the neighborhood. In the middle of a potato field a crater was found one day. The problem with it was that nobody had seen anything falling from the sky or heard any kind of explosion. The possibility of a World War II bomb having gone off was soon ruled out by the bomb disposal unit of the military. Also, no evidence of a meteorite was found.
Strangest and least reported of all, a number of typical crop circle formations appeared at the same time in an adjoining wheat field only a few hundred feet away. The characteristics of these circles today are very recognizable. The plant stems were swirled down in a spiral motion, the border of the flattened area was clearly-defined, and a few chalks were still standing upright in the middle. As on-site researcher Patrick Moore noted, "it would be a remarkable coincidence if these [flattened circular] areas were not associated with the crater."
The entire case was perfectly summarized by Moore in a letter to The New Scientist, published on August 8, 1963. After carefully weighing all the evidence, it is clear that Moore was definitely open-minded to the possibility of some kind of high strangeness event having taken place. Moore's letter is reproduced in full here:
"Sir,--Considerable interest has been aroused by the now-famous crater in a potato field, at a farm at Charlton, Wiltshire (near Shaftesbury). Various theories have been advanced to account for it; some are rational, while some are, perhaps, less rational. Since I have been to the site myself, and since I have been quoted as well as misquoted, it may be worth my making a few comments. "When I arrived at the site, on 25 July, the form of the original crater could be judged only with great difficulty and uncertainty. The bomb disposal team had been at work, and there had been a great many visitors to the field; it was said, indeed, that the visitors had been responsible for more damage to the potatoes than would have been caused by a dozen craters. However, I talked with Mr Blanchard, the owner of the farm, who had seen the crater before it became notorious. Mr Blanchard said that it took the form of an 8-foot depression, with a deeper 2-inch hole in the middle. Radiating from it were four "spurs", from which vegetation had been removed; three of these "spurs" lay to one side, while the longest spur was more or less opposite. (I saw the remains of these spurs, somewhat trampled.) He also said that the general impression was that some object had landed and then taken off again. "In the adjoining wheatfields were other features, taking the form of circular or elliptical areas in which the wheat had been flattened. I saw these myself; they had not been much visited, and were certainly peculiar. One, very well-defined, was an oval, 15 yards long by 4 1/2 broad. There was evidence of "spiral flattening", and in one case there was a circular area in the centre in which the wheat had not been flattened. In no case was there any evidence of an actual depression in the ground. "The bomb disposal team had excavated to a depth of about 8 feet, and it had been previously stated that the crater was due to an old bomb which had exploded for some reason or other. This did not seem very probable, and by the time I arrived the idea had been more or less given up. I have done some bomb disposal myself (though a very long time ago), and I was therefore able to appreciate what had been going on. The only interesting feature was one particular piece of material, found in the crater, which was suspected to be meteoritic. I examined it; and though I make no pretence of being an expert, I said that in my view the object was emphatically not a meteorite, and was similar to the other material in the area. In the television news that evening, it was said that I had expressed the view that the object was a meteorite. What I had actually said was that the crater could be of meteoric origin, and quite probably was. It may be added that the Museum authorities in London eventually found that the object itself was not a meteorite of any kind. "The bomb disposal authorities were subsequently satisfied that no bomb was involved, and so their interest in the crater understandably vanished. By the time that this letter appears in print, peace will have descended once more upon the potato field; but it is worth pausing to see just what the crater really was. "It could have been caused by natural subsidence, but it did not give that impression, and in any case there are the areas of flattened wheat to be taken into account; it would be a remarkable coincidence if these areas were not associated with the crater. Since the areas of flattened wheat "led" to the crater, it looks very much as though they, and the crater, were caused by something which came from the sky. In this case, the wheat would have been flattened by violent air-currents produced by a falling body. "The body itself--assuming it existed--could have been a piece of an artificial satellite, but this appears improbable. It cannot have been a piece of aircraft, as this would have been traceable, and no machines were reported either lost or in trouble. We can, of course, invoke secret aircraft or even flying saucers from Uranus, Saturn, Alpha-Centauri or some other world. But on the whole, the most likely explanation is surely that some meteoritic body was involved. "The radiating spurs are certainly odd, but this, remember, was a potato field, and had been dug in various set directions, so that an impact might have opened up old furrows. A body of small small size could have caused an 8-foot crater, and even produced air-currents sufficient to produce the areas of flattened wheat. On the other hand, I was quite unable to find any trace of meteoric material; and there is certainly no definite evidence of a meteoric impact. "The suggestion of a hoax has been made, but seems, to me, to be wildly improbable. "When public interest has died down, it might well be worth carrying out an investigation to see whether any evidence of a meteoric fall can be found. Meanwhile, there is little more that I can add to this somewhat off episode." [23] |
After the existence of crop circles became widespread knowledge, it was reported that another circle had been found in this field in either 1951 or 1952. This account came from Graham Brunt, who had also talked to the same land owner, farmer Roy Blanchard. Brunt's letter was published in the The Dorset Evening Echo on February 7, 1992. Paul Fuller of The Crop Watcher contacted Brunt at this point, asking for additional clarification, which he got:
"Dear Paul, "Thank you for your letter about crop circles, and also for your magazine. I can confirm that it was either 1951 or 1952 that the circle appeared at Charlton, as it was definitely when we lived on the Salisbury Road outside Shaftesbury, and we left there in December 1952. "Unfortunately, I did not actually see the circle, but was told it was in a field belonging to Mr. Blanchard, and it was necessary to go from the Shaftesbury direction as far as Charlton Church, then turn right and go some distance along that lane." [24] |
Also an additional account 1963 circle appeared in the media, but the fact remains that none of these should even be remotely considered reliable. And if we're being realistic, even with the 1963 event, we've already arrived in an era in which manipulation of the flying saucer phenomenon was taking place, at least to some extent. So as I've said before, I'll leave the reader to judge for him or herself.
Another interesting pre-1978 crop circle observation was made around 1968 at Blindtarn Moss, a mountain lake in the north-west of England, by park ranger John Wyatt and a group of his rather educated friends. [25] Granted, the account was only written down in Wyatt's 1980 book Reflections on the Lakes, but at this point the crop circle phenomenon was still extremely unknown. At the same time there seems little reason to distrust Wyatt's motives. Wyatt:
| "In the centre of the very large rush bed that had been the tarn was a quite distinct completely circular area of flattened rush. It was I supposed some fifty feet or more in diameter. We stood there and looked at it and laughed. There was no explanation we could readily think of. I suggested a whirlwind. Then Ken, one of the searchers, brought our attention to the smell. We noticed it then too. It was a distinct smell of ozone. This clinched it for another member of our party who said that there had obviously been an electrical storm and lighting had struck there, and what the observers had seen was in fact a fireball or a thunderbolt. The others arrived and agreed that it was peculiar. One suggested that it resembled the flattened area of produced by a helicopter and maybe what had been seen was a night-flying chopper? "Well, there was no sign of pieces of wreckage so we searched on over the hill towards Essedale Tarn. But as we rested and looked back from higher position, we saw the circular area quite distinctly. We opened our pack lunches and flasks and speculated. Pete put an interesting point: "'If we saw a flying saucer I'd keep it to myself. If I started putting it about everyone would think I was daft. So, I ask myself, how many people have seen UFOs and said nothing for the same reason?'" [26] |
Of course, Australia in particular has had a number of well-known pre-1978 crop circle cases. The most famous of these are the 1966 Tully "saucer nests", which took place in reeds above water. [27] This is also the case that Doug Bower claimed inspired him to start his own hoaxing in England in 1978 [28], so the Australian cases most certainly do have a bit of relevance to the British crop circle phenomenon. However, Bower never explained how crop circles also began in the late 1970s in Japan, possibly a number of other countries [29], and what the Australian cases were about, so in that sense his claims and explanations do fall a little short. Either there's some kind of supernatural force behind part of the circle phenomenon or the hoaxing/psywar was coordinated at a higher level than just Doug Bower. Granted, when drawing these conclusions, I rely on information gathered earlier for ISGP's Cult of National Security Trolls article and aspects of the crop circle phenomenon that still need to be discussed.
Personally I prefer to stay clear of the Australian cases, as well as those from Canada. The characteristics of early circles that have been reported here are different than those in England, the incidents have been much rarer, and most of the research and reporting has been carried out by notoriously unreliable flying saucer groups. So as for pre-1978 circles, better stick to England.
Not mentioned until this point is ISGP's (modest) discovery that the 1678, 1880, 1932 and 1963 crop circle appearances we just discussed all occurred on the edge of southern England's giant underground chalk aquifer. That's definitely an interesting coincidence that shouldn't be ignored. The exact correlation can be observed in the image below:
The link between crop circles and underground aquifers has primarily been made by the American BLT research of William Levengood and his partners Nancy Talbott and John Burke. This group still needs to be discussed in some detail and definitely should not be considered trustworthy. While BLT Research guests are not at all popular by Coast to Coast AM producers and hosts, BLT's Nancy Talbott and John Burke have appeared on the show on a few rare instances. That still remains a huge red flag as everyone and everything linked to Coast to Coast AM seems to promote disinformation, but because of the correlation between the pre-1978 alleged crop circles and England's chalk aquifer, maybe it won't hurt to give the word here for a moment to John Burke, as he has most clearly explained the theory that crop circles might be linked to underground aquifers. The following words of his date back to 1998:
"[Southern England has] the deepest chalk aquifer in the world, up to five hundred meters thick. It's what you see the edge of when you see the White Cliffs of Dover. "The chalk is porous rock. It has water in the pores or spaces within the rock. The other interesting point about this English aquifer is that it's got some of the highest seasonal fluctuations, up to one hundred vertical feet, of any aquifer in the world. You put those two together, and it turns out -- this is available in the standard geological and geophysical journals -- that water percolating through porous rock creates an electric charge, by a process called adsorption. When you've got a lot of water in an underground aquifer or water table, fluctuating through porous chalk, you create a lot of electric ground current in there. "We were able to measure that in numerous ways when we were there in 1993. Such currents are taking place in the ground and creating signature magnetic fields. We measured the actual electric current with electrodes in the fields and sites that are getting the most and the largest crop circle activity. Again, that's another example of coincidence, if you will, if this is not a natural phenomenon. Around Silbury Hill after a thunder storm, in the two days following the thunderstorm, as the water settled into this surface chalk aquifer, it created these electric ground currents. We were fortunate enough to have two volunteers, one with a Ph.D. in engineering whom I personally trained, do a magnetic survey in the field and detect wide variations in the magnetic fields there. Four days later it received a major formation. Four days after that, we got back to resurvey that field and the variations were evened out. It was as if you had separation of charge in this field, and some event came along, running through the subsurface of that field, that erased those variations, homogenized it if you will. We have picked up that kind of activity in numerous ways. "The other interesting thing is that the crop circles love to occur on hillsides and other areas where the soil has eroded, and that electrified chalk layer is closest to the surface. You never get crop circles in the valleys that are covered with a lot of alluvium or loose soil. There are hillsides -- I could show you on a map -- where practically every year you have crop circles all over, right up to the edge of where that alluvium begins, but there's never been one below the edge of that alluvium. .. "In the U.S. and Canada, you have pretty much no chalk deposits, but you do have limestone deposits throughout, in different areas. Limestone is a chemical twin of chalk, but it's not nearly as porous. In England, you do get crop circles on the limestone aquifer, but only to a tiny degree of the frequency that you get them on the chalk aquifer. In the U.S., running especially up through the center of the country, the Midwest Great Plains, continuing up into Canada, you have a great deal of limestone aquifer, because that was an ancient inland sea. "The other thing you find in England is that the hottest crop circle activity is often at the edges of the aquifers. In the little bit of mapping I've been able to do with several dozen of the North American circles over a few years, roughly speaking you see a similar correspondence. "The sites that have the most frequent crop circle activity tend to be either at the edges of this major limestone aquifer, or in spots where a river valley has cut through it and, if you will, produced an edge, so to speak. In fact, there's only two spots -- Winnipeg, Manitoba and Lethbridge, Alberta -- that have had a flurry of three or four separate crop circle events in one year, and both of those are on exactly opposite edges of the Grand Limestone Aquifer. In fact, in Lethbridge, Alberta, there's an underground canyon where the water concentrates, and the four circles that occurred there in one year exactly straddle that underground canyon. So there is a correspondence. What's interesting is that we don't get nearly as many per square mile in this country as we do in England, where they've got the chalk." [30] |
What's left to discuss about chalk aquifers after these words of Burke? Not much really. It's an interesting theory, but without solid data on all crop circle appearances and which ones can and cannot be explained, there's very little we can say for sure about the phenomenon.
Speaking of solid data, the oversight below in which all reported circles have been put on a map and correlated with the type of group it appeared on is exactly the kind of information that we need. However, this information is hyper-obscure and I have no idea what the quality is of these reports, or even if they involve real reports. It's just impossible to tell what information can be trusted.
If this many circles have been appearing, combined with some of the early reports, one assumes that in past decades many more people have stumbled across mysterious circles in southern Great Britain than we are aware of. While these reports do exist, there are not nearly enough of them. Certainly the ones gathered by "mainstream" crop circle investigators who took the hoaxes of Doug and Dave at face value cannot be trusted. And apart from their work, there just isn't that much to go on. Recently I did spot the following interesting report in the crop circle documentary Equinox, a little less than five minutes in:
| "My family farmed near Winchester in Hampshire for 30 years and we've had circles, but never more exotic patterns occurring in corn fields virtually occurring throughout that period." |
This report has to be mentioned, of course, but yes, who really is this person? I don't know. Is he speaking the truth? I don't know. There's certainly enough information to keep wondering if there's a degree of truth about a link between southern England, chalk aquifers and basic crop circles, but we need more information. Much more.
On to another alleged anomaly of crop circles, which has also been predominantly discovered and addressed by BLT Research: plant anomalies. As already explained, BLT is centered around the research of scientist W.C. "Lefty" Levengood, who claimed to have discovered various anomalies in plants gathered from crop circles. Despite the fact that "W.C." means "toilet" in Dutch, it must be said that nobody has actually disputed that his anomalies can occur in plants. It also appears as if mainstream researchers have failed to reproduce his described and photographed damage to the crop with stomping boards or rope.
In the 1990s, during the Clinton UFO disclosure initiative, Laurance Rockefeller provided BLT Research with $120,000 for an additional clay mineral study that looked at changes in the soil of crop circles. [31] While ISGP's Cult of National Security Trolls article clearly demonstrates that Rockefeller has pretty much exclusively financed bogus research, it can't be ignored that outside experts not involved in UFO or crop circle research appear to have verified the anomalies in the soil. [32] The possibility for deception is still there, of course, but no one has actually gone out and proved it.
Below the reader can see an oversight of the basic anomalies associated with genuine crop circles, according to Levengood's 1994 Physiologia Plantarum publication. The plants do not seem to be physically bent by force, but rather softened at one or more of the plant nodes on the stem to the point that the stem can't carry the weight of the plant anymore. These nodes often expand considerably in the process and sometimes, apparently in cases of overheating, the nodes are blown out or even have charred. Subsequent laboratory studies apparently reveal considerable changes in the cell wall pit size as well as major changes in growth development in plants germinated from the seeds of crop circle plants. [33]
Organized debunkers have attacked Levengood's 1994 Physiologia Plantarum publication, but most of their arguments have not been compelling. Most importantly, they have never demonstrated that Levengood has been fabricating his observations. The main arguments they have been able to make is that Levengood's plant sample size was not large enough to draw any conclusions, that he did not use consistent protocols for obtaining plants, and that he suffered from observer bias. [34] That doesn't automatically dismiss Levengood's findings though. Skeptics will have to do better than that to accomplish this.
Interestingly, Colin Andrews has been attacking Levengood and BLT with the exact same accusations. When one looks online for Andrews' stance on the BLT reported plant anomalies, it looks as if he does not believe in it at all. He instigated a huge row over the fact that Levengood gave himself out as a "Doctor of Science" despite not having received a Ph.D. While factually true, it does not help the crop circle cause at all. Levengood has been published in Science magazine on 8 occasions [35] and received a double MA instead of a Ph.D., apparently because he missed a few necessary university points. [36] None of his colleagues really bothered with it, until fellow crop circle believer Andrews started a ruckus about it. In addition, Andrews has been attacking BLT for over 20 years of misrepresenting data. Even in January 2015, when after 16 years of absence Talbott was invited a second time to Coast to Coast AM, albeit for no more than 30 minutes, the host focused on the useless Andrews-Levengood "rivalry". [37] That's all nice and well, but one wonders then why at the same time Andrews, in his 2003 book Crop Circles: Signs of Contact, has nothing but praise for Levengood's work. [38] Also in his early work dating back to 1989-1990 Andrews squarely stood behind Levengood's work. As we've seen, he promoted Levengood's plant research on national television at the time.
Despite the fact that the BLT team seems fact-based and down to earth, I've never been able to shake the feeling that something is off with these individuals. The accusations against Levengood, that he suffers from observer bias and refuses to admit mistakes, appear to be true to an extent. Having read some of the analyses he sent back to researchers associated with Colin Andrews who supplied him plant samples, he can come across as sloppy, unscientific and preachy - something one wouldn't expect from a scientist repeatedly published in Science magazine. He also hopelessly fell into Andrews' trap, even overruling his explanation of partial wind damage with the claim that both the small and large circle were the result of an anomalous "transient energy". [39] The website of BLT Research also fails to convince. They did a lone British crop circle analysis for season 2009, while one would expect this to have been done in many other years as well. Reading the analyses for different crop circles, it's hard to pinpoint for the most part which circles they actually think are genuine - just too much detail is lacking. [40] All of these are red flags.
In the end I can't draw any conclusions about crop circle plant anomalies. I would literally have to move to southern England, find crop circles for myself, and do my own tests in order to be sure.
Levengood has actually something in common with early conservative plant researchers as Dr. Terence Meaden and Dr. Yoshi-Hiko Ohtsuki: both believed there was a genuine aspect to the crop circle phenomenon and both believed it was caused by something called an unintelligent "ion-plasma vortex" - although Levengood in the final years before his life did change his opinion on the "unintelligent" aspect. [41]
As said, when it comes to this subject I'm as blind as the average reader, but the electromagnetic effects are interesting when looking at the earlier-discussed late-1960s crop circle encounter of park ranger John Wyatt. He wrote about his group noticing "a distinct smell of ozone" with one member of his party concluding as a result "that there had obviously been an electrical storm and lighting." [42] This person was thinking ball lighting, but how does ball lighting flatten bushes in a single 50-foot perfect circle? And leaves the flattened bush uncharred? It's something Wyatt's group never quite figured out.
Electromagnetic as well as sound anomalies apparently also were observed in the 1989-1990 period by BBC engineers who went out into the field with Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado during Operation White Crow (1989) and Operation Blackbird (1990). The Japanese, with NIPPON TV as a major financier, were also part of these projects. A first anomaly was reported in the summer of 1989, right when the first BBC investigations had begun:
| "A sudden blast of noise may hold the key to the mystery of flattened circles in cornfields. "It was recorded by a BBC TV crew at the centre of one of the circles, which some people say could be caused by UFOs. "There was no sign of a source for the sound, but the man they were interviewing said he felt an invisible force. Today viewers will have a chance of helping to solve the long-running puzzle when a tape of the sound and film of the drama are played on Daytime Live on BBC 1. ... "The sound blast experienced by producer David Morgenstern and his team is the first definite evidence of energy forces at work. Technicians at Broadcasting House have spent weeks analysing the noise but still cannot identify it. "The blast happened during an interview with electronics engineer Pat Delgado, co-author of the bestseller Circular Evidence about the mystery. "He said yesterday: "It was so loud the sound engineer tore off his headphones and I felt myself being physically moved by the energy force." ... "Producer Morgenstern said: "We picked up very powerful radio interference from the centre of the circle, but when we moved out it disappeared. "BBC crews tend to be very cynical about this sort of thing but we were very taken aback. Now we want people to watch the film and ring us in with any information about crop circles they many have." "The team were filming in a cornfield near Silbury Hill, Wiltshire, site of one of the most ancient monuments in Europe." [43] |
This anomaly appears to have been observed during the 1989 BBC West program that featured host Chris Vacher and skeptical professor Heinz Wolff following Colin Andrews, Pat Delgado and a number of BBC engineers as part of Operation White Crow. The program introduced to the public the concept of the "Wessex Triangle" with Vacher making it clear how epidemic the circle mystery was becoming by explaining that "an incredible 270 giant circles, mainly in cornfields, were reported between May and September this year, against only 94 in 1988." [44] There was also footage of BBC engineers seemingly being impressed by Pat Delgado's dowsing instructions. However, this specific program did not mention the "mysterious noise" that was picked up while the above-mentioned Daytime Live broadcast on BBC 1 is not available on the internet today.
In 1990 Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado continued their cooperation with the BBC and its engineers during Operation Blackbird. [45] During the program, sound engineer Roger Waldron explains:
| "We were forced to spend the night in the field and our equipment was so sensitive that we just had to wait until everyone had left and the wind had died down. ... "At about 4 o'clock we headed we decided the wrap and Michael came down from the caravan to help out. And he was looking around the lower circle of the two. I was just recording some extra sounds to go with what we've been filming during the day. And there was a "yelp" from Michael. "Roger, come down quick!"" [46] |
Waldron is talking here about Michael Kerry, the designer and operator of a "Skystalk night surveillance camera", is observing the field as well. Kerry describes his experience as follows:
| "It wasn't an electrical shock 'cuz there was sound, but literally for a few milliseconds there was a high-pitched sound - at that's the best way I can describe it. A very strong sound, but ever so short - which actually physically shook." [47] |
So that's a second anomaly. And there's more. A few days later, still during Operation Blackbird, Delgado and Andrews receive a phone call of new crop circles having emerged in the Wiltshire region. They interview a witness to one of the circles. She's talking about seeing a flash in the sky during the night, followed by columns of mist in the field, a rustling noise, and the feeling that something (or "some thing") was present nearby. Interesting as that may sound, things only become enigmatic when a small army of BBC engineers carrying all kinds of equipment are called in to carry out a number of tests. Two of them provide an account of what they experienced next. Steve Dunn, the first engineer, (indirectly) explains that the BBC team was actually becoming quite comfortable with the results they were getting from dowsing:
| "We were actually able to pinpoint, using dowsing, where the hot spots were. We didn't have Pat with us this afternoon. It was quite interesting that we were able to find them ourselves." [48] |
Tony Pierce then adds considerably more enigmatic information:
| "Yes, we found two spots in the large circle. And both of these corresponded to these large DC shifts, voltage shifts. So we tried actually to put the aerial onto a tape recorder. And we got a signal. It was like a series of tones." [49] |
Voltage shifts and series of tones in a fresh crop circle that correspond with ley line anomalies picked up with dowsing rods? And all this preceded during the night by a flash of light, columns of mist, rustling noises and the feeling of a presence while the circle is being created? And this is reported by the BBC without any sensationalism or ridicule? Despite the fact that this is 1990, things can't get much stranger. Although... in the next segment Andrews, the BBC narrator explains:
| "The following day this bizarre formation appeared in full view of Operation Blackbird. One camera was pointing in that direction. The picture it recorded is not clear enough to make out the formation nearly two miles away, but it is still being analyzed." [50] |
So things can get stranger. What's equally strange is that the BBC never broadcasted this footage. While everybody is aware of the hoaxes during Operation Blackbird [51], to this day this footage of a crop circle apparently being created has never been made available to the public. Nobody seems to care about it either.
It wasn't until 2003, 13 years after this BBC broadcast, that Colin Andrews explained to his readers that he himself participated in the cover up of the tape in question. The British army was largely in charge of the Operation Blackbird site, because it delivered the high tech surveillance equipment and demanded that it would have to be operated and guarded by two of their officers. Apparently, when the live creation of a crop circle was recorded, the army immediately terminated all broadcasts and confiscated the tape. Andrews claimed he was ordered to provide a decoy tape to his Japanese colleagues of Nippon TV and did so. Not because he was worried that he would be killed or something severe along those line, but simply because he "would have been banned from the site and that Mr. Ogawa would have been given the phony tape anyway." [52] That seems like a pretty weak excuse for stabbing your financiers and colleagues in the back. In any case, according to Andrews, he doesn't know where this "yellow tape" went. It's incredible really that the BBC mentioned the existence of this tape. Or maybe, just maybe, they were just playing along with the whole Delgado-Andrews circus. Who really knows? The Delgado-Andrews anomalies still have to be discussed to a large extent, by the way.
A little while later into the 1990 BBC program, the host who is interviewing Delgado and Andrews brings up another interesting piece of evidence of the Operation Blackbird surveillance campaign. He shows a picture that was shot by one of their Japanese colleagues and asks Andrews and Delgado what it is. The picture consists of a bright white light over a corn field with smoke moving up in the middle. Andrews and Delgado explain that this was one of the many anomalies they encountered, but it appears this photo and its circumstances for the time being have also disappeared into the mists of time.
Having watched a Japanese documentary on Operation Blackbird, there's a bit of footage there that can't be found in the BBC broadcast. However, there's no mention of the picture just described nor any kind of "yellow tape" capturing the live formation of a crop circle. There are video segments of Andrews and colleagues tracking strange lights in the night sky, but based on the movement of these lights they could well be choppers with searchlights. Especially considering evidence that Delgado and Andrews purposely worked with hoaxers to help establish a myth and/or discredit it, an aspect which for the most part still needs to be discussed, we can't really do anything with this footage.
The crop circle phenomenon is generally tied in with orbs of light that apparently are often spotted in the area around Avebury and Stonehenge, including the appropriately named Golden Ball Hill. Quite a few videos of these orbs exist, the most dramatic footage having been shot over the 1994 Eye of Horus formation in which an orb appears to be interacting with two army helicopters. A screen capture of this video, shot by Colin Andrews' questionable research group, can be seen at the top of this article.
However, it's probably best to see the orb and circle phenomena as separate until a link can be demonstrated between the two. As a lot of people are pointing their cameras toward crop circles, it's only logical that many orbs - assuming they are real - are caught on video in this manner. However, at this point we have no evidence whatsoever that the orbs actually produce the circles.
For those that don't know, the widely distributed Oliver's Castle video supposedly filming two orbs creating a crop circle design is a well-known hoax, created by John Whaley in August 1996. Whaley, a video effects specialist, simply shot the field before and after he and his associates created the design. Then a basic fade-over effect was applied, after which Whaley tried to convince Colin Andrews of the legitimacy of the video and the formation. One hardly needs the history of the story to see through the hoax. The crop circle itself was also of relatively simple design, as the reader can see below:
For those disappointed that the Oliver's Castle video is a hoax, I may have a more uplifting personal story involving an orb, albeit in the absence of any circles. Back when I was a 14-year-old kid or so, camping with my parents in the south of France, I sat down in the middle of the night. Having seen plenty of falling stars in my life, I wanted to see something way more interesting: a UFO! Everything dead silent, no falling stars, no planes, nothing for 10 minutes. Then, whoosh! The light below appears at the exact enter of my vision for just a second. Hyper-excited, I run to the caravan of my parents, but decide I want to see it again--just to be sure--before waking them up and dragging them outside. So I sit down again. Instantly: Whoosh! Exact same thing for just a second. I've had a few other peculiar experiences like this over the years, so the moral of the story is: go out and get your own experiences. Despite the fact that Steven Greer with his CSETI events, and anybody involved in crop circle hoaxing (who actually often claim anomalous experiences like these - as will be discussed later on) basically is a con artist, they seem to be right about one thing: the orb phenomenon can interact with people on a one-to-one basis. However, I'm not saying at all that lights in the sky are related to circles in the field.
In 1990 the size of some crop circle designs increased dramatically. From there also the complexity began to increase in leaps and bounds. Below I've compiled the most revolutionary designs of their respective time. They all represent sudden increases in complexity.
The 1991 Barbury Castle formation is the first really high quality modern design. After a few years of relative rest, the 1994 season featured numerous complex designs. The Eye of Horus (or CBS Eye) formation was among them, which can also be seen at the top of this article with two army helicopters hovering above it and what appears to be a light orb interacting with the helicopters. This seemingly incredible footage was shot by Colin Andrews and a number of his associates, who were actually chased away by one of the helicopters. While the orb and certainly the helicopters appear to be very real, I have my doubts about the formation itself. One certainly hopes that both extraterrestrials and supernatural beings would be able to come up with something more creative than a corporate logo.
1996 saw the appearance of a huge "Julia Set" formation only 200 meters (220 yards) from Stonehenge, apparently in the late afternoon. Unfortunately, although the road was apparently lined with spectators, we have ABSOLUTELY ZERO reliable testimony of individuals having witnessed this circle being created. It's all latter-day testimony gathered by Colin Andrews, Lucy Pringle and associates. [51] This type of testimony is notoriously unreliable and is largely how Coast to Coast AM-affiliated researchers keep the rumor mill going around bogus UFO subjects as Roswell, Bentwaters, alien abductions and the like. It is only to be expected that the same thing is happening with crop circles. While the event was mentioned by Lucy Pringle in mainstream newspaper reports of the 1990s, no newspaper or television station seems to have given attention to the 1996 Stonehenge design right when it was found. Considering its size, complexity and beauty alone, this is a little surprising. Did the formation actually form in seconds or minutes at the end of the day? Very hard to say. It has been argued that the formation appeared in a little bit of a bowl that is hard to observe from the road or even from Stonehenge. Also, usually people, and even pilots with a much better view, are not that quick to call in any crop circle spottings. In any case, a complete lack of media reports immediately after the event make it next to impossible to draw any conclusions about the formation. And there's actually a solid argument to be made that it is man-made, but we'll get into that later.
A more elaborate version of this design appeared two weeks later, but in the more typical overnight fashion. The most extensive version of this formation, depicting a spiral galaxy of 150 meters (165 yards) across consisting of roughly 400 separate circles, appeared in 2001 at Milk Hill, seemingly overnight. This formation can be seen in the above compilation.
Moving on, it wasn't until 2000 that the first complex 3D designs were found. 2001 and 2002 in particular featured the hardest to reproduce formations yet: the 3D faces at the Chilbolton observatory and the Crabwood / Crab Wood farm (see above compilation). These formations appeared some distance away from both Avebury and Stonehenge and contained a very unique and Coast to Coast AM-esque alien theme. Still, all these formations formed in southern England. While Japan experienced a similar circle phenomenon starting around 1980, here they never reached the extreme complexity of the Wiltshire formations. The same goes for other parts of the world where formations have been reported.
It's clear that crop circles rather quickly evolved from sporadically-appearing basic circles to extremely complex designs in a rather short period of time. In fact, we have been so spoiled by beautiful complex designs of the late 1990s and early 2000s that really no one is paying attention anymore to the basic circles the phenomenon started with. That might not be the best of developments.
Maybe we should discuss the Crabwood formation in a little additional detail. Here we have a holographic-looking evil gray alien projected on a 60 Hz TV screen with UFOs flying in the background. It's completely different from any other formation and staggeringly complex. I spent two full days checking the accuracy of the ASCII code in the disc: it's pretty much perfect. The disc contains about 1340 binary digits, including the separation marks. Not a single one of them is wrong, although it does contain 6 extra digits that are seemingly out of place (not counting the lead-in and lead-out). It's doubtful these were mistakes. For example, the letter "V" in "BELIEVE" is preceded by four extra blocks. That would be a very obvious mistake, a little too visible in otherwise more or less perfectly written ASCII code. The ASCII code, which differentiates between upper- and lowercase letters, reads:
"Beware the bearers of FALSE gifts & their BROKEN PROMISES. Much pain but still time. BELIEVE. There is GOOD out there. We OPpose deception. COnduit CLOSING." |
How to read the circle:
Lucy Pringle interviewed some of the residents living around the field where the Crabwood design appeared. While she doesn't discuss the implications, two major red flags pop up: the outer frame of the design was already in place one or more days before the final design was finished; and during the night a helicopter was heard hovering over the field. [54]
So, who made the circle? As we shall see, known circle hoaxing groups have never proved they even remotely possess the amount of skill necessary to produce Crabwood, not even in daylight hours with unlimited time. Partly for reasons that still need to be discussed, I suspect that Crabwood has been one of the most sophisticated psychological warfare operations against the public, in-line with Roswell and the alien abduction phenomenon that are discussed in detail in the Coast to Coast AM article. Probably not by coincidence, Roswell and really also the alien abduction theme is clearly woven into the Crabwood design.
How covert groups can get away with this type of criminal activity really is as big a mystery as when Crabwood and other designs were created by aliens or spiritual beings, so I urge crop circle believers reading this article not to be too disappointed. Under all circumstances there's plenty of mystery to go around.
Chilbolton 2001: Gray alien and Face on Mars hoaxes
The two years preceding the Crabwood design saw closely-related activity at the Chilbolton Observatory, located a few miles to the north. For an exact location, readers can look at the map included near the top of this article. In 2000 a design appeared which many assumed showed a galaxy of some sort.
A year later, on August 21, 2001, two designs in the same field were reported that made much larger waves. One involved a 3D-like face as it would look through something like a cloth. While maybe not a huge step up in complexity when compared to the magnetic poles design of 2000, it most certainly was a stunning piece of art.
The second design involved what seemed to be an alien reply to the November 16, 1974 Arecibo radio transmission into space by the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). This transmission, designed by Dr. Frank Drake (of the Drake Equation) and Carl Sagan, involved information on human DNA, what humans look like, their height, how many there are of us, a schematic of our solar system, including the planet on which we reside; and a representation of the observatory through which the message was sent.
The "reply" that appeared in the field next to the Chilbolton Observatory in 2001 seemed to reveal that the mythical Gray aliens replied to this message. A physical resemblance of such an alien was included in the template, with the message that they were about 3' to 4' high. Other information provided included a population of almost 13 billion, that they were inhabiting the third, fourth and fifth planets around their sun; and that their DNA has a different number of base pairs. At the bottom of the template the alien communication device was represented, and looked exactly like the "galaxy" design of the year before in the same field.
No one was more excited about the face than Coast to Coast AM's resident scientist and astronomy consultant Richard Hoagland, who claimed it must be a sign that the Face on Mars indeed is an artificial, alien-built structure. The history of the Face on Mars though involves nothing more than long-term psychological warfare that was primarily ran through the Bechtel-dominated Stanford Research Institute (SRI) since the late 1970s. This history is discussed in ISGP's Coast to Coast AM article, as are similar cases of establishment-backed, long-term disinformation projects involving Gray aliens.
Looking at these facts, and the crop circle phenomenon as a whole, and one has to conclude that the crop formations at Chilbolton of 2000 and 2001 were part of this same long-term disinformation campaign, as was the 2002 Crabwood design. The only real questions that remains are: who created these pictograms? And: who ordered them to be created?
While we have a pretty good idea in what circles we need to look for the culprits, we also have shockingly little direct evidence to go by because the team that created these designs was never caught and has never come forward to take credit. That's pretty impressive all by itself.
Why known circle hoaxers don't cut it
Crop circle hoaxing, of course, has been an enormous problem, effectively stifling serious research from ever taking place again. The bizarre thing is, the most professional British hoaxers, allied in Circlemakers.org ("Team Satan"), have never demonstrated that they can create something of the complexity of the Crabwood alien face of 2002, or even some of the earlier 3D designs, most notably those of 2000 and 2001. Below are all major designs that they have taken credit for. When one compares them to the earlier oversight of the most revolutionary designs of their time, these Circlemaker designs simply are not that impressive, especially not when one keeps in mind that all of their "complex" later designs, usually funded by mainstream media outlets as National Geographic and the BBC, were created in broad daylight.
Arguably the Dutch Remko Delfgaauw of XL D-Sign is a more skilled crop circle creator. His exact motives for creating crop circles are a little vague. He appears to be an atheist Buddhist who in the early to mid-1990s obsessively studied "thousands" of crop circles, but then, by creating a few designs himself, became completely convinced that all of them are man-made. Subsequently he was invited to write an article in a major Dutch skeptical journal [55] and trashed the field a little more by creating crop circles for ABN AMRO bank, Samsung, Amnesty International, Quest magazine, and a few television outlets. [56] Another thing that makes me question his moral character is that he seems to overstate the size of his designs anywhere from 30 to 100 percent. [57]
Three crop circle designs of Delfgaauw in particular have drawn a considerable degree of media attention. The first of these formations was the July 1997 The Golden Tunnel. Its purpose? As explained on the website of XL D-Sign:
| "The primary reason to begin this project was to see what would be the effect on the press, the public and scientists if somewhere in the Netherlands "out of the blue" a complex crop circle would appear which could measure itself with the complex structures as those found in southern England at the time. "In addition, the makers (Remko Delfgaauw and three friends) were curious about the reactions if, several weeks after discovery, it was demonstrated without a doubt by the makers that human hands play a role here and there." [58] |
A year later, in 1998, Delfgaauw launched "Project Fe-male", a crop circle representing a vagina that can be seen below on the left. I think we all have to admit that it's a very impressive demonstration as to what humans can achieve with crop circle designs in just one night. Well, officially it was created in two nights: one to map everything out and another to actually create the design, but the first aspect of the operation leaves no visible traces. The team used by Delfgaauw, however, was much bigger than the 3 to 6 men Circlemakers crew. 15 individuals were involved in Project Fe-male, the planning of which would have taken more than a few weeks. [59] On the website of XL D-Sign, Bever Innovations is listed as contractor of the project. It's not mentioned, but that's Delfgaauw's old company. [60]
When Delfgaauw again made the news in 2009 with his giant Butterfly Man design, he had recruited 60 people [61] who were working with GPS in broad daylight for 1 or 2 days with the permission of the land owner. At the time there were conflicting reports about the purpose of the design and who paid for it, but ultimately it appears as if Delfgaauw himself compensated the farmer for his losses and paid for the 60-man team, which quite possibly underwent a few additional hours of training and preparation. [62] It's quite a staggering undertaking. As of mid 2016, and despite a 2012 mention on Scientias.nl, reportedly the biggest (skeptical) science news site in the Netherlands [63], it has also been his last. That's quite fortunate, because to this day many people are confused whether or not the Butterfly Man is an unexplained design or not. Delfgaauw's claim that the formation is meant to represent the "beauty and fragility of the human race" is a little dubious in this respect. [64]
Personally I think it is entirely possible that Delfgaauw is an asset of AIVD (Dutch intelligence), but, as usual, there's no proof of that. What can be said is that his British Circlemaker colleagues just happen to have very clear ties to British intelligence (to be discussed) and that Dutch intelligence certainly was blessed with an advertising and team-building company spending all these resources on faking crop circles, debunking them, and studying their impact on society.
When we look at quality, we can additionally draw the conclusion that the best fake designs cannot compete with various complex 3D formations of the 2000-2002 period. That's very strange and we'll get deeper into this in the following sections.
One of the strongest give-aways for all complex crop circle designs being fake is that some of the first and most widely-known of these formations were based on the work of Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2010), a famous mathematician who over the span of his career worked for Caltech, IBM, Yale and Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study. He studied fractals called Julia Sets. In 1979 he developed his very own "Mandelbrot Set", which has been described as "showing how visual complexity can be created from simple [mathematical] rules." Basically, Mandelbrot's fractals look like psychedelic images but are based on repeating mathematical rules. Essentially they are computer-generated psychedelic art.
As for the crop circles, we're talking about the August 11, 1991 Mandelbrot design that can be seen in gray in the image compilation below. Until July 17, 1991, with the complex Barbury Castle design, all crop circle formations involved very basic circles. In 1990 the designs became a bit more complex with the inclusion of interconnected lines and key symbols, but it all remained very primitive until the July 1991 Barbury Castle design and even the Mandelbrot Set formation less than a month later. These formations represent a whole new era of crop circle designs, as discussed in the earlier in Part II.
Five years later, the summer of 1996 saw formation of the famous Julia Set crop circle appearing in broad daylight just 200 meters from Stonehenge. It's an incredible design and while it was only spotted in the late afternoon, no one (reliably) reported to have seen it form or to have seen people working in the field. Then again, looking at various newspaper archives, it appears the national media was totally silent about the formation at the time, leaving room for specialized "researchers" to perform their own manipulations. Quite possibly it has been characters as Colin Andrews and Lucy Pringle who can be held responsible for drawing so much attention to this formation over the years with selective and questionable witnesses testimony. Despite that, it is the only major crop circle design to allegedly have been formed in daylight hours and therefore most definitely has special status among crop circles. It is even more significant than the 1991 Mandelbrot Set in that regard and certainly is more famous.
However... how likely is it that aliens from Andromeda or spiritual beings from the 7th dimension couldn't have come up with something more unique than recently-invented, psychedelic-looking, mathematical fractals? I think that most people would agree with the answer: not very likely. And at that point we have to conclude that one of the most beautiful and unexplained crop circles of all time, the July 1996 Stonehenge design, has to be fake. Despite what Andrews' pilot witness claims, it may have been there all day. Apart from this pilot's claim, we simply have no witness testimonies or newspaper reports confirming that the design suddenly appeared in a cloud of mysterious mist, with cars piling up on the road as a result. We've got nothing to go on.
What might be the most interesting aspect of the July 1996 Julia Set design at Stonehenge is that whoever produced it displayed a skill level above that of Circlemakers.org/Team Satan, supposedly the most professional hoaxing group in existence in England. The same goes for a more complex three-tiered Julia Set that appeared two weeks later (above, bottom-left). While the 1998 vagina design of Remko Delfgaauw can be considered on par, or possibly even harder to make, Delfgaauw didn't become active until July 1997 - and he was making his designs across the channel in the Netherlands. In other words, even though we can rule out aliens and spiritual beings with virtual certainty, we still have a mystery on our hand.
Because we've come to a dead end here as to who designed the above Julia and Mandelbrot Set formations, it might be fruitful to look slightly deeper into the history of Benoit Mandelbrot, who, of course, already maintained quite a few elite connections through Caltech, IBM, Yale and Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study.
Turns out, by 1984, five years after Mandelbrot introduced his Mandelbrot Set, he was a speaker at the first-ever TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference, along with Apple founder Steve Jobs (Laurance Rockefeller was a major investor in Apple); Mickey Schulhof, a Sony executive who introduced the compact disc (CD); Nicholas Negroponte, soon the founder of MIT's Media Lab, a premier high technology think tank, and the brother of the notorious death squad-supporting diplomat John Negroponte; and Stewart Brand, a psychedelic and cybernetics culture pioneer.
Today the TED Conferences have grown into an elite platform that dictates the present state of scientific and technological achievement. I say "dictate", because James Randi's professional debunking clique surrounding CSICOP is intimately part of the TED Conferences. The conferences, which cost over $6,000 to attend, have a lot of elite backing, which can best be spotted through the closely-related Billionaires Dinners of the Edge Foundation, set up by John Brockman, a close friend of Steward Brand. Mandelbrot was present at the dinner in 2010, just before he died.
Without going into too much additional detail, the Mandelbrot link to the TED Conferences is interesting. We know that Laurance Rockefeller in particular has been manipulating - if not wholly creating - the crop circle phenomenon. And we know that Laurance Rockefeller used to financially back the psychedelics movement as well. He helped financed the adventures of the McKenna brothers through the Green Earth Foundation and the Heffter Research Institute. Rockefeller sat on the board of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, which extended its Erdman-Campbell Award to Stewart Brand and his colleague Alexander Rose. Brockman and Brand also were good friends of Buckminster Fuller, whose institute has counted the long and deep involvement of Neva Goodwin Rockefeller, a daughter of David Rockefeller and a decades-long trustee and eventual vice chair of Rockefeller Brothers Fund. A lot of these individuals tie back to the Laurance Rockefeller-backed Esalen Institute from which virtually all psychedelic gurus sprang and quite a number of Coast to Coast AM guests, including David Ray Griffin of 9/11 "Truth" and alien abduction researcher John Mack. Joseph Campbell, Stewart Brand and Buckminster Fuller all belonged to the Esalen Institute.
It is not hard to see that the Esalen and Coast to Coast AM-related group that has been involved in psychedelics and in spreading disinformation on UFOs, alien abductions, and crop circles was fully aware of Mandelbrot's fractal mathematics. However, because Mandelbrot is not known to have been part of the Esalen Institute circuit, we cannot tie him directly to this group. And because of that, I'd say that statistician Ted Clay put it much more succinctly when he stated the following words in National Geographic's 2004 crop circle documentary (words I only found out about after this section had been finished):
| I think [crop circles] are following our culture; not leading it. During the '80s, fractal geometry became a big thing. Fractal geometry hit the crop circle field in the early '90s. You start to see things that look very digital; very much like pixels, just as we are starting to use computers and have computer monitors around. |
A secret society of advanced circle makers?
In some of the previous sections we demonstrated that the best crop circle designs that hoaxers have taken credit for cannot compete with the best designs of unknown origin, most notably the various complex 3D formations of the 2000-2002 period. Most would probably consider that very odd, because why would anyone create such incredible art, but not take credit for it? Because they would get arrested? That makes little sense. Without any kind of reward people simply wouldn't start up these complex projects taking weeks or months of preparation per design with all the risk in the world that they will get caught.
On top of that, teams with a dozen members or more would have to work together. Apart from the fact that it would already be very difficult to gather a group of individuals willing to indulge in such an unusual and rather socially awkward past time, how does this network operate for years on end without anyone being detected, without any arrests taking place, without anybody leaking as to what is going on, and with no high-quality, half-finished designs ever being found? The more one thinks about it, the less sense the whole phenomenon makes.
Really only thee major theories are possible:
- aliens and or spiritual beings are behind some of the crop circles;
- British intelligence is running secret circlemaker teams and quite possibly also bribing farmers;
- both play a role.
Of course, we already ruled out the first possibility to a very large extent. But in order to come to an even more informed conclusion on crop circles, it might not be a bad idea to figure out to what extent we can find evidence of fakery in some of the most complex designs. Unfortunately, none of the major formations have been investigated systematically. There's an incredible lack of data and some of the individual statements that we know about, come from very questionable individuals. As is usual in networks dominated by Coast to Coast AM guests, they are almost no solid facts to hold on to. It's just impossible to trust anyone.
Despite that, let's take a leap of faith and put a little trust in statements made by relatively unknown crop circle investigators Robert Hulse and David Cayton. Their beliefs and backgrounds are more than a little worrying, but the fact remains that they are among a tiny few that have researched most major crop circle formations in Wiltshire and have not been picked up directly by a major show as Coast to Coast AM. Maybe that's because they came to a conclusion that is not particularly entertaining for the average listener to the show. And that is that almost all crop circle designs, even very complex ones, contain human-produced stomping board marks on the plant stems. In fact, when Cayton and Hulse were interviewed by Richard D. Hall in 2009, they stated to have not come across a legitimate crop circle since 2005. Here's a gallery of crop circles labeled by Cayton and Hulse as hoaxes:
Analyzing the designs fingered by Cayton and Hulse, and one has to conclude that they indeed appear to be hoaxes. For starters, the 2004 Savernake design featured in a skeptics and Circlemakers-filled 2004 National Geographic documentary. Looking at the similarities with a daylight design produced by Circlemakers.org ("Team Satan") (below), it appears the "mysterious" designs on the show were created by the same group. Although, one can argue that the patterning in the two designs of unknown origin are a step up in complexity, but not by that much.
Circlefakers as Dr. Robin Allen and Chris Nash, James Randi and statistician Ted Clay all had a field day discrediting these designs in the NGC documentary. Almost hilariously, the same National Geographic special forgot to mention that Allen and Nash were not just an independent-but-skeptical circle making "enthusiasts", but in reality part of the Wessex Skeptics, a controversial skeptics group created by Allen in 1990 that began producing fake circles in 1991. Already in 1991 the Wessex Skeptics were caught circle faking in the dead of night at Cheesefoot Head, the exact same location Doug Bower and Dave Chorley throughout the 1980s. Like Doug and Dave, the Wessex Skeptics hadn't asked permission from the farmer and therefore were guilty of destroying crop, the exact same thing the 2004 National Geographic documentary was attacking all unknown circle makers with. [65]
What's also very interesting is that when we look at Lucy Pringle's crop circle gallery, variations of these "Wessex Skeptics/Circlemakers" "circle/square/star/maze" designs have appeared with some regularity in the Wiltshire fields without them being identified as hoaxes or attributed to the above groups. For examples, this one in Alton Priors, Wiltshire, on July 3, 2005; or this one a month later in Uffington, which also includes a minor Mayan theme. Thus it appears that both groups, or very close associates of them with greater skill sets, indeed have been doing their fair share of crop circle faking over the years without taking credit. Still, I think we all have to agree that these designs are among the more "do-able" that have been found.
Moving on to other crop circles in the above oversight, we see the 2007 Aldbourne design. Here we have to ask what kind of aliens or spiritual beings would include cubicles in their designs? Going through Lucy Pringle's crop circle gallery, these cubicles appear in more than a few designs that have appeared over the years. It must be said though, the Aldbourne formation is a pretty darn complex design. It's so complex in fact, that it instantly becomes clear that if someone can fake a design like this, then most others listed here really shouldn't be much of a problem either. The real problem, of course, is that no circle making group has demonstrated the ability to produce a design like this, not even during daylight hours.
Then we have the Mayan crop circle designs, which are often counted among the most complex and certainly most beautiful designs. However, the 2005 Mayan formation above is basically a combination of the 2004 Savernake and 2007 Aldbourne formations. It's a lot of work, but technically still based on mathematics - not complex freestyle artistry. It makes one wonder about its famous 2004 predecessor at Silbury Hill, which actually appeared over two different nights; and the equally famous 2009 Mayan headdress design. I concur with Hulse that most likely all these designs were created as a run up to the 2012 Mayan prophecies and that "some" crop circle researchers have been exploiting this theme. [66] Most likely Hulse was talking about the 2012-obsessed Colin Andrews, one of the crop circle researchers whose work has been financed by Laurance Rockefeller.
The above 2007 East Field design appears to be an insect of some kind, a theme that was very popular with hoaxing groups in the 1990s. [67] The 2008 Lockeridge formation is complex, but not particularly beautiful and largely improves on the traditional interconnected circles/planets designs that used to be very common in some of the oldest hoaxed crop circle designs. The same aspect can be spotted above in the 2005 Chirton and 2009 Wooten Rivers formations. It immediately makes them suspect.
Unfortunately, Cayton and Hulse were not asked about the 2001 Chilbolton and 2002 Crabwood formations. They did talk about meeting Colin Andrews in the spectacular 2000 Magnetic Field design, but weren't sure whether or not it was genuine. The 2006 Uffington design (above), which they labeled as fake due to the stomping marks, has a very similar style to the 2000 Magnetic Field design. It is not as spectacular, but one has to conclude that whoever managed to produce the 2006 Uffington formation, should be able to create the 2000 Magnetic Field design - and quite possibly has. But, as stated several times before, it's very doubtful that it was Circlemakers or the Wessex Skeptics. Of course, especially Circlemakers has always insinuated that they produce these complex designs [68], but based on what we have seen from them they appear to be well above their pay grade - especially considering these formations were created at night.
Cayton and Hulse basically left the door open for a small number of designs. Cayton in particular felt that the giant 2001 Milk Hill galaxy/fractal design was real due to the flowing nature of the crop and the apparent absence of stomping board marks. I'm not so sure of that, but who knows. Another is the rather beautiful July 17, 2002 Nautilus shell design, at least the small circle appearing right next to it that apparently wrecked their Geiger counter. The 2003 Ogbourne St. George design, listed earlier with orbs above it, remains on their list of mysteries, because the circles didn't reach the ground. The weed was bent in the middle with no evidence of footprints anywhere. Or so it is said. Both were also very fond of a relatively simple May 1, 2005 Alton Priors petal shape design. Apparently, they were intrigued by the fact that the thick rape seed stems were bent, while ordinarily they snap in half rather quickly if one tries to bend them.
Obviously, I'm not going to vouch for any of these positive indications of Cayton and Hulse. Even though they appear to be doing a better than average analysis, it's still a far cry of what should be available in the public domain. Based on everything that I have been reading about crop circle research, I created a form with 48 questions that should have been filled in for each new crop circle. Considering this hasn't been done by any of the investigators, we - the masses - are completely blind when it comes to crop circles.
The main avenue of research that remains is really trying to figure out how deep the involvement and manipulation of the security services in the crop circles phenomenon.
The ultimate CIA-MI5 psyop: researchers as Colin Andrews secretly working with hoaxers
As we've established in previous sections, skeptics and overt circle making groups haven't even remotely displayed the skills to produce some of the more advanced crop circle formations, with circle investigators doing almost zero research in terms of systematically sampling new designs for evidence of hoaxing. Where things really get interesting is with reports and related evidence that this last group of alternative investigators - some of them extremely well-known - has actually been covering for professional hoaxing teams not known, or almost not known, to the public. When we take lessons from Roswell, Majestic 12, alien abductions and cattle mutilations, all discussed earlier in ISGP's Cult of National Security Trolls article, it really looks as if crop circles replaced them as the major psyop of the 1990s and 2000s. Let's take a look at the evidence for this, mainly through guests of the Coast to Coast AM radio show.
At least two veteran circle hoaxers and one questionable researcher, all three Americans, took extended field trips to Wiltshire just after the phenomenon went viral in the early 1990s. These three individuals later became involved with Coast to Coast AM.
Dr. Simeon Hein, who appears every few years on the show, is one of the hoaxers. Skeptical author (but not quite) Jim Schnabel is the other. The questionable researcher here is Andrew Collins. Collins came to Wiltshire two days before the 1991 Barbury Castle formation appeared. As already explained, this triangle design was an absolutely huge upgrade in the complexity of crop circle designs. Collins mingled with all the circle researchers and hoaxers of the time, and had some "shadow entity" adventures with alleged medium Rita Goold. Collins also witnessed the activities of another future Coast to Coast AM visitor upon arriving in England:
"So far, news of crop circles that summer had been surprisingly scant. ... It had been left to self-acclaimed "Son of God" David Icke to cast the kiss of death on any open-mindedness the general public might have held in respect to the circles phenomenon. For two weeks straight he and his aquamarine-clad followers had been seen running rings around a fresh pictogram that had appeared at Alton Barnes." [71] |
Icke apparently had received some secret instructions from the circle makers on how to deal with the phenomenon. On television, and still widely available on YouTube, he explained:
"It's very important to walk in the direction the corn has fallen and to send thoughts of love to the earth. Because every time you do that the energy that she needs to survive is absorbed and produced by HER." |
"Andy" Collins features with some regularity in the 1993 book of Jim Schnabel, Round in Circles. [72] It wasn't until 2007 that Collins began appearing on Coast to Coast AM, at which point he had gone the Graham Hancock route, writing about the Giza pyramids and Gobekli Tepe.
As for Schnabel, he was originally part of Circlemakers.org, also known as "Team Satan". The founder and head of Circlemakers.org, John Lundberg, appears to have very solid ties to MI5 and has hardly tried to hide them [73], at one point suggesting to crop circle investigator Colin Andrews that maybe he too should join the "MI5 psy-ops department" in order to get some funding for his website. [74] Schnabel was invited into the clique of Colonel John Alexander, coincidentally an American expert in psychological warfare operations, and was soon sanctioned as a skeptic of the Project Stargate remote viewing program. Schnabel seems to have appeared on Coast to Coast AM in early 1999. [75]
Already in 1992 Schnabel exposed himself and fellow "Team Satan" member Robert Irving of being intelligence recruits, although quite possibly the leak was deliberate. It looks as if the young Schnabel ran his mouth to a "journalist" (read: bizarre criminal CIA asset used as a spy by George Wingfield of the CCCS) pretending to be trusted by Irving and to look for a job as a circlemaker. Among the peculiar things Schnabel could be heard saying about the crop circle phenomenon:
"Are you talking about MI5? ...Yes, well, I mean... off the record, I mean I think a number of agencies throughout the world have taken an interest in this. It is potentially a very explosive phenomenon. ... We believe there is certainly something very sinister about what's going on, er... I don't know whether you are Christian man or not...? ... Well, yes, yes, so am I [Catholic]. ... "Well, I think some of them are definitely man-made; I mean definitely. I think there is a part which is entirely sinister and I'm not sure how genuine it is or whether it's made by people, but it's something very sinister... Possibly [we're talking about black magic], yes, and I think that it... [Something like Satan?] Absolutely! ... No, no, no. I wouldn't, I wouldn't go into [corporations testing out weaponry], it's much more of a spiritual warfare type of angle, I think. ... I think they are trying to bring about changes in world consciousness and ... for evil, you know, not for good, and, eh, there are some of us who are concerned about this and would like to see this new trend stopped. ... "Oh, I wouldn't say that [there is no military weapons testing]. I think it's a very complex issue though. ... The weapons systems, I mean there's the element of the weapons testing and there's the second element of the, eh, attempt to use the, eh, the phenomenon of the circles to discredit the New Age movement and other such movements. It's extremely complex and much more will be explained to you if it's appropriate at a further time. ... "It's very difficult to explain to you - to explain the structure of some of these organisations, but... I can't go into detail, but, er, basically it is something which is concerning people worldwide and various organisations have pooled their resources, worldwide, and are involved... We have support, yes, we have support at the highest levels. NATO? ... It is not at NATO level, but it's Germany involved, and this country [Britain] and the United States... the Vatican as well. ... It is not quite a military thing, but there are elements of military intelligence [Note: most likely INSCOM and the remote viewing clique, General Albert Stubblebine, Colonel John Alexander, etc.] which have loaned resources. ... It's actually, it involves a supernational organisation which I will not name. [It] has ties to these countries and organisations. I wouldn't want to get into any specifics [whether it's a Trilateral Commission type of thing]. Yes, yes [everything we do is passed on to higher levels]... I wouldn't want to speak about further things, I mean, it's extremely sensitive, I really shouldn't have told you all that I've told you already. ... "Yes [Robert Irving is trying to help determine which faction [or whatever] is involved in the crop circle phenomenon], it's very... extremely sensitive, sensitive work as you can probably imagine... [Irving] is [on the good side]... he is one of our best people, yes. ... "We can discuss things further, someone else will contact you and, eh, it won't be me it will be a much more senior person in the organisation and then subsequently, eh, you know, if things work out well and more information can be shared with you. ...I'm not sure yet which organisation, I mean, that's not my decision - which person in the organisation, I mean, that's not my decision. It could be someone from almost any nationality. "If you are found to be a suitable candidate - it's extremely generous, don't worry about that. ... You will be expected to travel internationally. It would be not only gathering data but also taking active measures, possibly conducting disinformation campaigns and other measures. It's extremely strenuous work and... The organisation realises that, um, you know, sometimes people become burned out after a few years but usually they've made enough money that they are able to retire - you know, after a few years anyway.... it's very generous. ... "We think that sometimes a little bit of intrigue is necessary in cases as serious as this, um, and sometimes measures have to be taken. But I think, I mean, overall, I think that the phenomenon is something which we think will disappear very shortly. ... Well, we think that people will no longer take notice of it, I mean, it may continue, but, er, it [will be discredited]. ..." [76] |
Considering Schnabel has been repeatedly been accused and/or suspected of being an Opus Dei recruit [77] and what we know about Otto von Habsburg's Opusian Cercle clique, the Vatican angle in this conversation is not something that should be dismissed out of hand. Schnabel later claimed he was just playing with "journalist" "Armen Victorian", immediately knowing who he was. Listening to Schnabel's explanation, this makes sense, even more so considering Victorian introduced himself to Schnabel as "Dr. Kasaba Ntumba". [78] Quite possibly the conversation between Schnabel and "Dr. Kasaba Ntumba" is one more in a long line of twilight zone "in role" spook interactions.
Despite this, persons who read Schnabel's 1993 Round in Circles, a book that has largely been forgotten, will see that he is very literal about crop circle researchers dabbling in black magic. We'll get to Schnabel's book later - which doesn't quite fall in the usual "skeptic" category. Comes across as open-minded. who on other occasions has voiced the moderate opinion that some basic circles of old, and only those, could have been genuine non-made-made formations [79]
In fact, like Schnabel, the other Circlemakers / "Team Satan" hoaxers have openly embraced the many balls of light around Avebury and Milk Hill and in their case even claim to have spotted and photographed a number of UFOs. What is very suspicious about all of Circlemakers' alleged experiences, however, is that their chief confidante for their information and pictures was "journalist" Andrew Collins, a later Coast to Coast AM guests and thus an obvious magnet for tall tales. [80] Other crop circle hoaxers of the new age kind, such as Coast to Coast AM's Simeon Hein [81] and the closely-associated group around Matthew Williams [82], have expressed the belief that some kind of supernatural force pushes them to create circles with all kinds of high strangeness phenomena showing up. Of course, Coast to Coast AM instantly implies disinformation and we have to put all this aside as disinformation until more credible information is available. We shouldn't forget, for example, that the "strangest" thing hoaxer Doug Bower recalls having experienced in the field is to have been knocked unconscious by the semi-frozen contents of an airplane's chemical toilet. [83]
One of the last questions of "Armen Victorian" a.k.a. "Dr. Kasaba Ntumba" to Schnabel was if his organization had placed someone undercover in the group of Colin Andrews, England's most prominent crop circle researcher. Schnabel's cryptic answer: "We have, eh .. we have people in every group." Strangely, Colin Andrews, who is also rather popular on Coast to Coast AM as the leading crop circle investigator in the world, also became involved with Colonel John Alexander's clique in the early 1990s. Andrews learned remote viewing under the very shady Ed Dames, Coast to Coast AM's ultimate doomsday prophet who has falsely predicted the end of the world on numerous occasions. Despite that, Andrews is "in awe" of Dames' remote viewing capabilities. [84] Also important to mention, in the late 1990s Andrews' research was financed by Laurance Rockefeller. [85]
The more one actually looks into Colin Andrews, the more it becomes clear that he is just another bizarre scam artist. For example, he claims divine intervention for having figured out the "Wessex Triangle", the location where most crop circles allegedly appear, despite the fact that colleague Pat Delgado already described the exact same triangle in 1983, three years before Andrews' "divine revelation". [86]
Looking at his first 1987 article in the scammy Flying Saucer Review of MI6/foreign service officer Gordon Creighton, Andrews clearly explains he first got involved in circle research after an experience in July 1985, but since the 1990s Andrews places this same experience in July 1983, after which he supposedly founded his Circles Phenomenon Research group that same year, all of which doesn't even remotely fit the fact that he first got in touch with leading researchers Terence Meaden and Pat Delgado in mid-1986 after attending a conference of the (Ministry of Defence-linked) British UFO Association (BUFORA). His first article on the subject, the one in FSR, dates to 1987. [87]
Andrews' credentials have also been upgraded since that time. [88] Maybe worse, Jim Schnabel stated that Andrew's Circles Phenomenon Research (CPR) group was allied with Steven Greer's CSETI group and the nationally-organized and extremely new agy Centre for Crop Circle Studies (CCCS) in the low profile and pretty much forgotten United Bureau of Investigation (UBI), which supposedly was one of the groups involved in circle hoaxing in the early 1990s. [89] Reading various accounts of the joint CSETI-CPR UFO contact event of July 1992, Schnabel might just be right about this. While Andrews and Greer still talk about how special that event was [90], it is known that Schnabel and fellow Circlemakers.org veteran Rob Irving were floating an illuminated helium balloon in the air nearby. [91] One of the participants also expressed skepticism of this "sighting" while explaining that the only other "UFOs" the group was looking at were Greer's high-powered laser lights bouncing off the clouds. [92] This certainly fits the pattern of activities of both men. Paul Bennewitz, who notoriously interpreted helicopters with searchlights as cattle-abducting UFOs, would be proud on Andrews and Greer.
Andrews' colleague Pat Delgado is actually the one who in 1981 brought national attention to a fake circle design of Doug Bower and Dave Chorley at Cheesefoot Head near Winchester. [93] Throughout the 1980s a game existed in which Doug and Dave were faking circles in the Winchester area and Delgado and Andrews were continually labeling them as "genuine", not seldom in front of media cameras. In the months before, Doug and Dave's coming out party in front of the international media, a few unknown but capable crop circle researchers, primarily Matthew J. Lawrence, Nigel Beckett and Ken Brown, had already become very skeptical of what was going on at Cheesefoot Head. While they didn't specifically suspect Doug and Dave, whom were often spotted at the Punchbowl, they did notice footprints, mud on plants, consistent use of imperial dimensions, and occasionally considerable design flaws. But it wasn't unusual to see Delgado or Andrews later pronouncing these circles as "genuine". [94]
Soon after, Delgado completely exposed himself during the famous but almost completely unavailable Men Who Conned the World article of Today newspaper, published on September 9, 1991. First he is asked to inspect a new crop circle that has secretly been created by Doug and Dave. His praise for the circle is completely over the top:
| "In no way could this be a hoax. This is without doubt the most wonderful moment of my research. ... What we are dealing with here nobody in the world understands. We are left with the fact that these crops are laid down in these sensational patterns by an energy that remains unexplained and is laid down by a high level of intelligence." |
Then, in the same article, after the hoaxing of Doug and Dave is explained to him, he completely switched to the other (irrational) side:
| "My reaction is one of wonderment at the artistry that [Doug and Dave] have done in such a manner that their work could be considered as something out of this world. They are to be admired in the way they have conducted their nocturnal escapades which made it look as though there was a real intelligence that we don't understand. From this simple prank has developed one of the world's most sensational unifying situations since Biblical days. ... "There's no doubt your test proves they are hoaxes. I thought it was a genuine corn circle. ... I admire your courage for coming forward. I find this quite hilarious really. It's quite a relief it is all over. ... "You've done so much good in this world [Doug and Dave], you have brought millions of people together over this. Thousands have changed their lives. You're going to upset an awful lot of lives by blowing this now. Couldn't you just tail it off with a couple more next year?" [95] |
In other words, instead of being outraged and disappointed by all the time and resources wasted, Delgado instantly thinks "it's ... a relief it is all over" and then himself proposes to "con the world" a little more, together with Doug and Dave, who have been misleading him for almost a decade. It can't get any more bizarre.
Actually, Delgado wasn't alone with his proposition to "con the world" either. Just before, famous crop circle "researcher" and future Coast to Coast AM guest Lucy Pringle criticized Ken Brown for trying to expose the hoaxing of Doug and Dave. [96]
Within days of the publication of the Today article and in front of the international media that descended on him and his colleague Colin Andrews as a result, Delgado was back to his old self again. He and Andrews can be seen in widely-circulated YouTube clips denouncing a crop circle created by Doug and Dave as an "obvious" forgery. The problem here is that the circle was already trampled by the media by the time Delgado and Andrews arrived on the scene. Delgado was actually annoyed that he had not been invited sooner. That may be true, but it is clear that the old game is continued here in which Delgado and Andrews are promoting the idea that genuine crop circles appear all the time.
Strangely, as far as I can tell, no one has ever drawn attention to the super-bizarre Today statements of Delgado, an aspect that didn't make it to summaries of the Today article in newspapers around the world.
The Today article actually reminds me of later statements of Colin Andrews. In a tiny handful of interviews he has explained that in 1989 he and Delgado were contacted by a CIA agent, whom they had first met during a television show in which this person entertained everyone with a bogus crop circle story. Later this person, who called himself Sandy Reid, met with Andrews and Delgado at Andrews' home. Eventually Delgado walked out in anger, realizing that Reid was lying. Then, according to Andrews, he was more or less kidnapped by this CIA agent that same night and subjected to what appears to have been mind games. The most interesting aspect, however, is Andrews' claim that this agent wanted him to continue his research, but that at a certain point he would be provided with maximum media attention. At that point, and only then, he was required to denounce the existence of genuine crop circles. [97]
Curiously, while Andrews arrived late and then kept himself on the surface when Today confronted Delgado with the claims of Doug and Dave, Delgado did exactly what Andrews was later describing this CIA agent expected of him. Strangest of all may be that Andrews has told this story with considerable emotion, to the point tears were coming into his eyes. [98]
Who knows, possibly it was the alien implant in his brain that controlled these type of moods. At least, among other peculiarities, Andrews apparently believed he carried around such an implant. [99]
Soon after the Today debacle, Delgado left the crop circle field. One of the last things we heard from him was a 1993 article in Flying Saucer Magazine in which he explained to have been chased out of a farmer's field by what appeared to be teleporting, mind controlled cows. Reportedly the farm was a center of cattle mutilation discoveries. In the same issue George Wingfield is bringing a ton of attention to the bogus Linda Cortile case of Budd Hopkins. [100] I think that settles the debate whether or not Delgado was a genuine crop circle investigator. He never was, just like Colin Andrews and Lucy Pringle.
Mistaking Richard Branson's balloon for a crop circle-producing UFO
There has been a pattern with Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews, or even their colleague and pilot Busty Taylor, of allowing themselves to be easily misled when they have the attention of the national or international media. Taylor, at one point, "successfully dowsed the Wessex Skeptics' hoax at Clench Common ... on the Channel 4 "Equinox" programme." [101] And as discussed in the previous chapter, in 1991, the seemingly never too thorough [102] Delgado and Andrews were "fooled" by Doug Bower and Dave Chorley in a Today-ran scheme that went three times the world over. That was hardly the only very public event. The year before that, in 1990, a similar episode occurred during Operation Blackbird, a television project put together by the BBC and Nippon TV of Japan to get to the bottom of the crop circle phenomenon.
At one point during the project, Andrews and Delgado were ''misled'' by a mass of lights floating over the field they were staking out, followed by a fresh formation in the early morning hours. At dawn and upon seeing the formation, the duo mobilized the entire press corps and stormed the field in which this new formation had appeared, only to find out that the circles were hoaxes filled with wooden crosses and Ouija boards. The problem is that Andrews and Delgado should have been instantly skeptical of the formation in the field, because it was just unbelievably crude. The lines of the formation were extremely rugged. From the top of the hill where their observation center was located, anyone could easily see this.
As for the mass of flickering white lights over the field during the night, they moved slowly, steadily and very horizontally. Why Andrews and Delgado got so excited about it is hard to say, because the mass of lights didn't look like a UFO at all. And, as it turns out, it was actually billionaire playboy and super-philanthropist Sir Richard Branson in his Virgin balloon who either on purpose or by accident flew over a field that happened to be staked out by the international media right at the time hoaxers were creating a formation here in the dead of night. That certainly is one hell of a coincidence. [103]
Branson, of course, denied he did anything on purpose, but we shouldn't forget that certainly in recent years, Branson is a darling of the superclass. For example, together with George Shultz, George Soros, the Rockefellers, and Coast to Coast AM's Deepak Chopra, he has been involved in the "liberal CIA" outfit the Drug Policy Alliance. He's also very friendly with Lord Jacob Rothschild [104] and global warming alarmist David de Rothschild, a son of Sir Evelyn de Rothschild.
Looking at the Superclass Index and its associated NGOs, we find Branson - for example - as 2009 founder of the Carbon War Room with a Rockefeller Foundation trustee, a 2011 co-founder of Ocean Elders with super-globalist Ted Turner, as a participant in the secretive Forstmann Little Conferences and the Clinton Global Initiative, as a supporter of Global Zero alongside George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski and other elites; and as an international advisory council member of the Earth Day Network, also the home at one point or another of Laurance Rockefeller, Ted Turner, Maurice Strong, Leonardo DiCaprio, etc. Branson is far from insignificant.
Manipulation of the UFO phenomenon, including crop circles, seems to extend beyond the Rockefellers and also involve the other establishmentarians mentioned here. [105] It's entirely possible that what Branson did was a purposely-planned psyop.
Of course, at this point we are already aware that Delgado and Andrews were playing a double role since the 1980s by labeling crude hoaxes as genuine crop circles. It's not hard to imagine at all that they were used to help discredit belief in crop circles with their irrational beliefs during Operation Blackbird and then with the Today publication.
In the early 1990s Andrews was scooped up by the clique of Colonel John Alexander, Robert Bigelow (financier of Project Argus, a 1992 crop circle research program in England, hampered by massive hoaxing), Prince Hans Adam von Liechtenstein, and Laurance Rockefeller. Haven't we discussed these individuals before in the Coast to Coast AM article as financing the whole bogus UFO movement, from alien abductions to Roswell and MJ-12 research? I believe we have.
Black magic, undead templars, and a "Zirkka"-possessed Delgado
There's much more related evidence that can be discussed, but it should be clear at this point that the most famous crop circle investigators we know, were/are actually scam artists. The question is actually if there have been any independent and serious crop circle investigators at all.
The Center for North American Crop Circle Studies (CNACCS) was ran by what may well be today's most prominent Coast to Coast AM guest: Rosemary Ellen Guiley. She's on the air every three months or so, which is also about the time it takes her to finish a new book on the paranormal. Dan Smith, obsessed with eschatology (end-of-the-world studies) was the other director of CNACCS. Back in 1992 one of many conflicts in the crop circle business was initiated when the research director of the Centre for Crop Circle Studies (CCCS), George Wingfield, was invited to a private dinner with Guiley, Smith and very high level CIA Science & Technology Directorate officer Ron Pandolfi (Aviary name: "Pelican"). [106]
Guiley and Smith were good friends of Pandolfi, who, together with his boss at the CIA, Kit Green, used to be deeply ingrained with quite a few emerging Coast to Coast AM guests in the 1980s and 1990s. Jacques Vallee, for example, regularly met with Green. While Pandolfi comes across as a silly harmless figure due to these ties, he most certainly also sat on the CIA's National Intelligence Council and has organized meetings of the elite JASON Science Advisory Group. Smith, whose sister was great friends with George H. W. Bush and Nancy Bush Ellis, has even attacked him for having had inside knowledge on 9/11. But maybe we shouldn't take the words of Coast to Coast AM visitors too seriously: Smith visited once. [107]
As for the Britain-based influential Centre for Crop Circle Studies (CCCS), which existed from April 1990 to 2005, Lucy Pringle was among the founding council members. Earlier we established that Pringle was involved in trying to cover up the hoaxes of Doug Bower and Dave Chorley. In July 2009, at the time of the very impressive but almost certainly very fake Mayan headdress crop circle formation, Linda Moulton Howe invited her on the air with Coast to Coast AM. [108]
The CCCS is what Jim Schnabel linked to the occult and satanic Friends of Hekate cult, mainly through its founding chairman Michael Green, coincidentally another person who already in the 1980s was heavily obsessed with not just the occult but also fictional ideas of Atlantis. The CCCS seems to have more or less become an extension of these activities. Much of Schnabel's information came from Rita Goold, either a very impressive or - much more likely - a very fake medium, as well as a researcher for the CCCS who headed the infamous seance in a crop circle with Colin Andrews, Pat Delgado and George Wingfield during the 1989 Operation White Crow. Also here it is very hard to tell what's true and what is not. People should really read Schnabel's 1993 book Round in Circles. Whatever the truth is, Schnabel was there, interacting with everyone in the scene, and seems to simply describe his experiences and what people told him. And he often does so in a hilarious manner. Black magic, assuming there is such a thing, was all over the place and few seemed to be spared from it, including Andrews and Delgado:
"[Michael Green] had taken part in archaeological digs at two royal palaces and a Roman town in Essex. ... He was curious to find out whether, as many suspected, the Druids knew more about the supernatural than they had let on to modern historians. And so, as Green likes to tell the story, he set about investigating the Celts, examining the records of old excavations, searching for clues to the Druids and their mysterious rites . . . . . . And one day, sitting in his flat in south London, he was paid a visit. ... At first, Green and his flatmate didn't know what they were. They seemed to be shadows . . . Shadows that shouldn't have been there. After a few days they began to materialize, and eventually it became clear that there were three of them. They were very ancient. One of them even sported a pair of horns. Yet they didn't seem hostile. They were merely curious. They wanted to know how much progress he had made, in his researches into Druidic rituals. Green quickly summoned up a few prayers, exorcist-style, and eventually got rid of the beings. ... "There was a secret satanist organization which called itself the Friends of Hekate [in which Michael Green was allegedly involved]. The Friends of Hekate enjoyed covert links with, or controlled, other, overt organizations, 'front' organizations through which it (a) attempted to recruit new members... The Maltese Esoteric Society, we hypothesized, was another such front organization, with particular value as an apparently unrelated 'third party' through which the deep recruitment of senior crop researchers such as Delgado and Andrews and Haddington and Wingfield could take place. If suddenly horrified at what he had got into, the would-be recruit would disparage only the expendable de Traffordians. ... "Before [SMOM's George] de Trafford had flown in from Malta, the word had spread somehow that he had something to do with the mysterious order of the Knights Templar [SMOM]... Andrews and the others also had it on good authority that de Trafford was a friend of both the Prince of Wales [Prince Charles] and the Duke of Edinburgh [Prince Philip]. ... "De Trafford arrived in England a few months later, in February [1989]. ... Word [later] spread about the night he had dined with Delgado and Andrews in Hampshire . . . and how throughout the meal, throughout all the talk about the Great Pyramid and Manicouagan [Crater] and Venice and [more] de Trafford had been staring at Andrews, staring right at him, as if out of his pupils had come two energy beams, burning, biting, gnawing, drilling . . . into Andrews's skull . . . giving him the most intense headache. ... Perhaps he was some horrible Maltese vampire, or some undead Templar, with strange black powers. To Andrews and Delgado, his appearance was a little unnerving. ... Many now suggested, in retrospect, that George de Trafford was a sinister character, with his ravaged features and occult oscillations. ... "According to Rita [Goold], Delgado's odd behaviour might also have had a little help from the de Trafford magic. Shortly after the business of the horseshoe [which seemingly resulted in a haunted house at Andrews and Delgado] and the Grid, said Rita, she had received a call from Pat's wife Norah, who sweetly explained that an entity known as Zirkka wished to speak to her. Pat had allegedly come on the phone, using a strange mechanical-sounding voice, and had proceeded to harangue her with oblique demands that she get out of circles research. The calls continued for a while until Rita's husband Steve had a serious heart attack, and tactful Zirkka decided to desist. These were the stories we heard from Rita, but there seemed to be other evidence... "Rita said she had even met de Trafford in person, at the Melton Mowbray woman's house. She and her husband Steve had been invited for dinner, and upon arrival, had been led through a series of rooms and halls - doors locked ominously after them - until they came to a room where George de Trafford and several others sat. De Trafford was in his usual distracted, vibratory mode, unnerving Rita and Steve who, although they had heard the stories about the undead Templar and so on, were witnessing the phenomenon for the first time. ... Steve grabbed Rita and they left. "De Trafford had apparently been successful in recruiting others. Wingfield and Haddington had flown to Malta in the spring of 1991 to join de Trafford's very exclusive, very secret 'Circles Seven' group [in which SMOM head Andrew Bertie was also involved]. Haddington, according to Rita, had later disparaged it, and had cautioned against too deep an involvement in these areas..." [109] |
In 1993 Colin Andrews flew to Malta as well to meet with de Trafford. If the reader thinks this sounds impressive, one has to keep in mind that in the same period Andrews was invited to give a speech at United Nations headquarters... but only to its hyper-obscure Parapsychology Society (today known as the Society for Enlightenment and Transformation) which has also been inviting a steady stream of other future Coast to Coast AM guests. This has included Richard Hoagland, who "informed" his audience about artificial pyramids and faces on Mars. Others have included Uri Geller, Ingo Swann, faith healers and medium, all of them complete and utter scam artists. The society and its speakers has been discussed in ISGP's Coast to Coast AM article.
Despite all the controversy over the earlier-mentioned 1992 "Schnabel tape" involving Schnabel's conversation with "Armen Victorian" about a "supernational organization" and hints of black magic, Schnabel clearly told virtually the same story in his largely forgotten 1993 book. It is very clear that Schnabel indeed believed - or wanted people to believe - that some of the circles, like the Barbury Castle one of 1991, were the result of this dabbling in dark forces, mainly by the Friends of Hekate, who in 1987 supposedly had moved from Clapham Wood on the coast to the Avebury area. Or that's just the nonsense Schnabel tells for whatever reason. After all, he was a Coast to Coast AM guest in 1997, even if only once. The Friends of Hekate claim also falls right in the period of the "Satanic scare" in the United States of the 1980s and early 1990s in which to this day it is pretty much impossible to say what to believe and what not to believe. [110] More specifically, the Friends of Hekate claim in southern England is based on the 1987 book The Demonic Connection: An Investigation Into Satanism in England and the International Black Magic Conspiracy. For those interested in the subject matter, read this book, or a summarizing article of one of the authors produced in later years. [111]
Then again, there does exist a trickle of evidence that Schnabel's Maltese Esoteric Society and/or Circles Seven group actually did exist. British actor and crop circle enthusiast Sarah Miles claims to have been involved in it, together with George de Trafford and SMOM head Andrew Bertie:
"There are a few individuals whose sensitivity to a variety of different energies is truly astounding. In the early nineties I went regularly to Malta to study with a small esoteric group. Andrew Bertie was one of the group members and at that time he was the Grand Master of [the Sovereign Military Order of] Malta as well as a Cardinal in the Vatican. Andrew didn't believe crop circles were created from outer space because, from his viewpoint, "belief" was too frail a word. ... "Another member of the group, George De Trafford, was quite an extraordinary fellow. So highly regarded was George for his sensitivity to energy in the late '80s and 1990s, most of England's crop circle fraternity would send photos of crop circles to Malta for George to test. They believed that George had the miraculous gift of being able to feel energetically whether a crop circle was a hoax or the real McCoy. "In the summer of 1992, I was driving with George along the A272. He had his right palm up like a dog sniffing the air. Quite suddenly he boomed out, "Stop the car!" He leapt out and scampered off, and there, about a quarter of a mile from the A272, hidden from view behind a hedge, was a fresh crop circle. "It's a virgin [circle]!" he exclaimed excitedly... "If it's a hoax the smoke trail will travel straight across the circle, but if it's a genuine circle, the smoke will be unable to penetrate the outer wall of energy surrounding the circle; it will simply climb upwards, perpendicular, higher and higher into the air until it drifts up, out of sight." And so it did. George gave me a huge gift that day: proof with my own eyes that perhaps I wasn't deluding myself over experiencing certain energies after all. There were some formations that fell several years back, where the birds refused to fly through the outer wall of energy." [112] |
Miles claims to have experienced various anomalies inside crop circles ranging from different feelings when walking inside them to, once again, audio anomalies, similar to what BBC engineers experienced on at least two different occasions. The problem is, you simply cannot trust anyone even remotely affiliated with the crop circle community. I personally would need to experience these effects myself, repeatedly, and even then I won't take anybody's word on anything else. This is also why I haven't taken up the Maltese Esoteric Society or Circles Seven group in ISGP's NGO list. There needs to be more confirmation, preferably through undisputed sources or at the very least from people with no affiliation of any kind to alternative theories.
Schnabel, in private, seems to believe that some of the simple circles of old were real, but anything complex is man made, which doesn't sound entirely unreasonable. After all, the crop circle phenomenon goes back a very long time. One is tempted to believe that the absolutely massive fakery by different groups of varying obscurity, with researchers as Delgado, Andrews, Pringle or a Paul Vigay secretly covering for them, only makes sense if there is a phenomenon to begin with. After all, southern England sits on top of a huge chalk aquifer. There must be something to that. Right? Or are we being too naive here? Because another option certainly is that the whole scene was created to draw away attention from real down-to-earth government conspiracies or even more legitimate supernatural research. Anything is possible really.
Additional MOD/MI5/MI6 ties to the CCCS, BUFORA, FSR
At this point we have discussed ties of different crop circle researchers to the CIA (Guiley and Dan Smith were tied to the CIA's Ron Pandolfi and then there's the alleged Sandy Reid episode of Colin Andrews), DIA (Colin Andrews and Dr. Simeon Hein ties to the Colonel John Alexander group), Laurance Rockefeller (a member of a CIA-tied family) and MI5 (John Lundberg). We haven't put much focus, however, on the British Ministry of Defence, the group Colin Andrews has been attacking as the source of all crop circle cover ups since the 1980s. While Andrews has proved to be extremely unreliable and pretty much has to be an asset of the security state, there is some evidence that the Ministry of Defense (MOD) has been involved in UFO and crop circle-related matters over the decades, if only as a conduit for the security services.
The least controversial example would be reports from the summer of 1985 that Colonel Edgecomb of the Army Air Corps was inspecting the same crop circles as pilot Busty Taylor, who would soon team up with Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews. Edgecomb couldn't offer an explanation for the circles "other than a very cleverly done spoof". [113] This might well have been the most honest inquiry of any Ministry of Defence department into the crop circle phenomenon.
When it comes to manipulation of the crop circle phenomenon, a premier example would be Ralph Noyes, co-founder of the Center for Crop Circle Studies (CCCS), England's leading crop circle researching agency, in April 1990 with the new age-inspired Michael Green. Other co-founders or very early members include better known names as Lucy Pringle, George Wingfield, Busty Taylor and Paul Vigay. President was Professor Archie Roy, also president of the Society for Psychical Research 1992-1995. [114] It might be important to ask if it really is a coincidence that Noyes used to be a high ranking Ministry of Defence officer and in 1969 even head of DS-8. [115] As one document in the British national archives reads, "DS8's UFO responsibility passed to Secretariat (Air Staff) 2 or Sec (AS) in 1985." [116] While acknowledging that he kept his UFO interest to himself until his retirement, Noyes has also poo-pooed his DS-8 tie a little bit by claiming:
| "The immediate recipients of reports of any disturbing phenomena in British airspace were always the Air Staff - the Royal Air Force officers who lived on the same MoD corridor as myself. They would have shouted very loudly to me - as the civilian colleague able to get them the ear of Ministers and/or necessary funds - if they had detected anything needing funds or Cabinet backing. They never did. ... "Not once ... was there the faintest suggestion that extraterrestrials might be in question. We suspected the Russians..." [117] |
Noyes makes himself exponentially more suspicious, however, with statements made in this same interview:
| "I can't imagine that any government department, however ill-intentioned, would be so silly as to conduct a propaganda campaign about "UFOs", however covert. Let's suppose that the MoD and the Pentagon really do have evidence of extraterrestrial visitation ... would they really take the risk of putting "disinformation" into the public domain? Would they succeed if they tried?" |
And he completely blows his wad in the interview with the following statement:
| "There is no doubt at all that the MoD played a thoroughly dishonest game over the [1980] Rendlesham affair. I have already put some of my reasons on record in the afterword to my science fiction novel A Secret Property, and in a paper, UFO Lands in Suffolk, printed in Timothy Good's UFO Annual 1990 (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1989). ... "We would probably still be faced with this bland denial [of the Rendlesham affair] but for the action taken by American citizens under the US Freedom of Information Act in 1983. In response to enquiries made to the USAF by CAUS (Citizens Against UFO Secrecy) the USAF obtained a copy of Halt's report from the MoD and released it into the public domain in mid-1983. ... My only immediate point is that the MoD have resisted all attempt to obtain a sensible statement, even under sustained pressure to the Defence Secretary from Lord Hill-Norton." |
In this last segment, Noyes is talking about the memo of Colonel Charles I. Halt, the deputy base commander of RAF Bentwaters, about the happenings in nearby Rendlesham Forest in late December 1980. Halt's memo was little more than yet another decades-long UFO psyop with parallels to its Roswell, Majestic 12 and alien abduction siblings, which are all discussed in ISGP's Coast to Coast AM article. Halt, for example, added nuclear weapons-disabling beams of light to the UFOs described in his original memo. Needless to say, Halt has been invited to Coast to Coast AM on two occasions, in one case appearing with one of the original Rendlesham Forest witnesses: sergeant Jim Penniston, who upgraded his original account of anomalous blue lights to include missing time and entities from the future coming back to fix their timeline. His fellow-witness John Burrough has done the same thing. Both also began a bit of a rivalry with Halt on the subject.
To summarize, Noyes' embracing of Halt and the Rendlesham Forest affair, in combination with his high-level MOD, UFO-related background, his total disavowal of the possibility of UFO psyop operations, and involvement with extremely suspect crop circle researchers in the founding of the CCCS, basically gives him away as a security state asset. His allegiance with Admiral Lord Hill-Norton, a favorite witness of the super-disinformative Disclosure Project, and extremely questionable Coast to Coast AM guest and British ufologist Timothy Good point in the exact same direction. He is what he claims doesn't exist: a UFO-related psyop, similar to what the crop circle phenomenon appears to be.
The other major crop circle research organization in Britain, of course, was the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) of Paul Fuller and Jenny Randles. [118] I would swear that at one point I ran into a mainstream news report that mentioned BUFORA had ties or reported ties the Ministry of Defence. Unfortunately I have been unable to find this source again, but some time later I did notice that Sir Patrick Wall had become president of BUFORA by the late 1980s and into the 1990s. [119]
Sir Patrick Wall will be a very familiar name to anyone who has studied the network surrounding Le Cercle, the privately-financed, secretive and ultraright anti-"communosocialist" conference for top insiders of the CIA, MI5, MI6, mainland Europe's security services and radical elements in the Vatican, most notably Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta. It is unclear whether or not Wall ever visited Le Cercle, but he most certainly was deeply involved in closely overlapping groups as the Conservative Monday Club (chair 1978-1980), the British Anti-Communist Council (honorary president), the Western Goals Foundation (parliamentary consultant) and the Anglo-Rhodesian Society. He even was a member of Knights of Malta and founder and chairman of the ultraright Catholic movement Pro Fide. [120] With these credentials, which also included a history as commando during World War II, he clearly was among the most trusted British (and Vatican) intelligence assets available. If BUFORA was a genuinely independent organization, it is doubtful that its leading members and board members would ever have allowed Wall to become president. Le Cercle and Western Goals were closely linked to CIA-backed death squad activity in Latin America and Gladio terrorism in Europe, while all British groups Wall played a role in were stacked with members of the establishment who were working with the security services in undermining Labour prime minister Harold Wilson in the 1970s. Wall absolutely had no business in BUFORA, and certainly not as the group's head.
Turns out, I'm actually not the only person to have raised his eyebrows over the appointment of Wall as president of BUFORA. The somewhat obscure and certainly extremely low budget UFO publication Magonia magazine also made the connection between Wall and his close ties to the extreme-right aspect of the security state. [121] Everybody else in UFO land has been quiet about it though.
Looking deeper, in the early 1980s Wall - unsurprisingly - also played an important role in bringing the Rendlesham Forest psyop to parliament and from there to the cabinet, media and the masses. As MOD veteran Ralph Noyes explains above, the Rendlesham Forest affair was unearthed by FOIA requests of Citizens Against UFO Secrecy (CAUS), which led to the USAF requesting and receiving the Halt memo from MOD. There's more to this picture though. From CAUS a copy of the Halt memo ended up with Jenny Randles, the leading UFO, alien abduction and crop circle researcher of BUFORA. In turn, she sold the memo to The News of the World tabloid [122], a publication owned by Rupert Murdoch, who, coincidentally, is said to have made his career as newspaper mogul after being recruited by notorious CIA officer and Cercle head Ted Shackley. [123] In November 1983 The News of the World published an "investigative" piece on the Rendlesham Forest affair entitled UFO Lands in Suffolk: And that's official. Randles provided the following details in 1984:
| "News of the World reporter Keith Baebey spent two weeks in the Rendlesham area examining all the evidence with Brenda and Dot, and maintains extensive contact with all of us. To their credit be it said that the News of the World did a marvellous job of presenting the raw evidence of the case, and the repercussions (leading to questions in the House of Commons by Sir Patrick Wall, a Conservative M.P. whom we must thank especially for his help and his support, and who has been a close ally of FSR for the past twenty-five years [late-1950s]) have been the most favourable. The pressure is now on the British Government, not to mention the American Government (who, in addition, have the Freedom of Information Act to cope with). If ever there was a chance to get to the truth, then surely it may be now." [124] |
The funny thing is, when I was writing the preceding section on Ralph Noyes and his ties to the Rendlesham Forest psyop, I had long forgotten about any BUFORA or Sir Patrick Wall ties to the affair. All I remembered was that Wall, with all his deep establishment and ultraright intelligence ties, became president of BUFORA. And now it turns out that even before that he played a key role in introducing the Rendlesham psyop to the world. What are the odds? The fact, however, is that it is super-common to find puzzle pieces coming together so coherently as they do here when investigation these disinformation/psyop networks surrounding Coast to Coast AM. Why? Because it's only a small group involved in these practices.
Equally interesting is the above statement of Randles that Wall "has been a close ally of FSR for the past twenty-five years". That means Wall has been involved in Flying Saucer Review since the late 1950s. In fact, Wall's name already appears in the second issue ever published by Flying Saucer Review (FSR) in 1955, in which he, as a freshly-elected member of parliament, is asking the Air Ministry for details on a five-year UFO study that had just been concluded. [125] Considering the UFO phenomenon really started as a worldwide wave in 1947, Wall has been the British people's primary "UFO guy" in parliament throughout the Cold War. One wonders if that has been such an ideal situation, considering Wall's rather sinister connections and his support for the Rendlesham psyop.
As for Flying Saucer Review, we've earlier discussed this magazine in relation to contributions made by Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado. Other consultants/contributors to the magazine have included crop circle veterans Rita Goold, George Wingfield and Jenny Randles herself (booted out in 1983 when she decided to take the skeptical approach on crop circles), Roswell and MJ-12 documents hoaxer Bill Moore, and Coast to Coast AM veterans John Keel, Timothy Good, Jacques Vallee, and abduction researcher Leo Sprinkle. [126] As Delgado's 1993 article on teleporting and mind controlled cows should make clear and the promotion of the works of apocalyptic alien abduction researchers Budd Hopkins and David Jacobs in the same issue [127], little if anything the magazine has published over the years has any merit. It's pure disinformation and has helped bring to the world such theories as ancient aliens, alien abductions, and, from what I saw in an issue going back to the 1960s, the idea that Mars' moon Phobos is a hollowed out alien spaceship.
Contributor to Flying Saucer Review since its very beginnings in 1955, consultant since at least 1965 and editor-in-chief since November 1982 has been Gordon Creighton, another character with a curious background: the elite Cambridge University; the super-elite École Libre des Sciences Politiques ("Sciences Po") in Paris [128]; language student, attache and then first secretary in Beijing; vice consul and consul in Nanking, Shanghai and wartime Chongqing; consul-general in Antwerp immediately after WWII and the location where he met his wife, another foreign service officer; consul-general in New Orleans; served in embassies in North and South America; varying proficiency in 25 existing and extant languages; eight-year intelligence officer (most likely an analyst) at Whitehall in London; chairman Free Chinese-British Cultural & Economic Association; member of Count Nikolai Tolstoy's Association for a Free Russia; and member of Archie Roy's prestigious by rather questionable Society for Psychical Research. [129]
Certainly in China, before the communists took over, Creighton knew highest levels officials as General Chiang Kai-shek and his minister for war General Ho Ying-chin. In 1949 Shek and Chin took their KMT army to Taiwan where they became close partners of the CIA in arms-for-opium shipments for anti-communist guerrilla armies in the Burmese backlands.
| "Being the Embassy's principal interpreter in Chinese, he had the curious experience of being the first among the British diplomatic officials to receive from Chinese Government sources warnings about both the coming German attack (June 22, 1941) on Russia, and the coming Japanese attack (December 17, 1941) on the British and American bases throughout the Pacific and South-East Asia. "In the first case the tip-off came from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek himself, at a small dinner party of the British Embassy with the key men of the Chinese Cabinet on New Year's Eve, 1940. In the second case the information was given to him by General Ho Ying-Ch'in, Chinese Minister for War, in July 1941." [130] |
A decade later in life, Gorden served as an intelligence officer at the Ministry of Defence (MOD) at Whitehall where he personally knew Guy Burgess, a former MI6 propagandist who in 1951 became one the most famous defectors to the Soviet Union in British history:
| "Gordon admits ruefully that, although, for some months, he shared his office in the F.O. [Foreign Office] with Guy Burgess at the height of the Korean War (June 1950-July 1953), he failed to detect that Burgess, who was to defect to Moscow in 1951, was a Soviet spy." [131] |
Another biography, one not provided by Creighton himself, reveals the following detail about his intelligence career:
| "He spent eight years as an intelligence officer on Russian and Chinese affairs at the Ministry of Defence. It is said that in the intelligence post he worked directly below the secret Whitehall department where the Air Ministry and the RAF were studying information on UFOs." [132] |
Another obscure detail is that Creighton actually used to serve as president of BUFORA in the 1960s. [133] Creighton certainly knew where to find the action and we can only guess with how many other high-level government officials he associated with over the course of his life. Equally interesting is Creighton's involvement in the launch of Flying Saucer Magazine in 1955 while in the same period or roughly the same period he worked as an intelligence officer at Ministry of Defence headquarters where all UFO reports were being gathered and analyzed. Then take into account that he has never been open about this connection, as even decades later, by the time of his death, this was only considered a strong rumor. The strange thing is that in the classical UFO world, such close "insider" ties weren't even seen as that much of a problem because ufology has generally maintained the line that governments, despite their penchant for excessive secrecy, are predominantly good.
For a little additional perspective on this, keep in mind that even the "great" J. Allen Hynek was a consultant to Creighton's Flying Saucer Review in the late 1970s. [134] A decade earlier, Hynek had been lead investigator of Project Blue Book, the official U.S. Air Force investigation into UFOs that in 1969 was shut down with the conclusion that little of interest had been found. Hynek soon dissented, claiming he was forced by his superiors into drawing this conclusion. By 1973 he set up the supposedly independent Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) to continue the search, where a decade later Don Schmitt became one his most important proteges. This same Don Schmitt became a superstar on Coast to Coast AM in the 1990s and today is seen as one of the most preeminent Roswell researchers alongside Stanton Friedman. The problem, of course, is that Roswell involves little more than total disinformation and thus we are forced to conclude that Hynek never was a genuine dissenter of U.S. government policy. Neither was Gordon Creighton, or Ralph Noyes. They all emerged from key defense-related government departments involved in analyzing the UFO phenomenon and, after becoming pillars of the supposedly independent UFO and crop circle research movement, all end up pushing nothing but disinformation. Looking at these facts, it makes little sense to believe they ever were well-intentioned or independent. The same goes for Admiral Lord Hill-Norton for that matter, who wants us to contemplate every possible scenario with Bentwaters [135] except the most obvious one: that key witnesses are lying because it is a military psyop.
Bentwaters actually happened three months after the classic September 1980 book The Roswell Incident of Charles Berlitz, Bill Moore and Stanton Friedman was published. This was the first book to bring renewed attention to the Roswell crash since it happened in 1947. As discussed in detail in the Coast to Coast AM article, the book was disinformation from beginning to end and one of the first in a long string of extremely complex UFO-related psyops perpetrated on "truth-seekers" in the West, quite possibly in order to remove a little pressure from the U.S. government after almost a decade of newspaper and parliamentary investigations into CIA abuses. When the Bentwaters incident came along in December 1980, coincidentally only U.S. Air Force soldiers were involved and at least half of them have clearly been inventing and greatly exaggerating their experience - similar to what numerous Roswell witness have done. Over the years the stories of these questionable servicemen came to involve time travel, missing time, alien abductions, implants, and nuke-disabling UFO beams shining down into missile silos. These are all very recognizable elements of other disinformation cases that became prominent over the course of the 1980s and 1990s. This last element actually reminds one of a December 13, 1977 article of the National Enquirer entitled UFOs Spotted at Nuclear Bases And Missile Sites, written by Bob Pratt, who soon after quietly began to write the MAJIK novel with Roswell "investigator" Bill Moore and with that, together with AFOSI and a handful of private financiers, formed the basis of the bogus Majestic 12 documents.
All this is very familiar territory for those who have read ISGP's Cult of National Security Trolls article in which it is made very clear that the CIA, AFOSI and DIA, together with a group of private financiers and elitists as Laurance Rockefeller, Robert Bigelow, Prince Hans Adam II von Liechtenstein, Joe Firmage, Senator Claiborne Pell and Maurice Strong have been creating a series of long-running myths starting with the Ellsworth Air Force Base incident of December 1977 (seemingly in reaction to Pratt's article weeks before), then the Roswell revival in September 1980 after several years of research, the leading of the Majestic 12 (based on a secret Pratt-Bill Moore novel) to these Roswell "investigators", followed by a major increase in the prominence of the alien abduction field. It also looks as if the "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain was used to add Bentwaters of December 1980 and soon also crop circles to the myth-making pool. Predominantly U.S. psyop programs as cattle mutilations and alien messengers already were on a downslope.
Another aspect of the Flying Saucer Review (FSR) - Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) relationship that is very interesting to mention is that both groups were tied to Regnery Press, a publication whose family has been involved in the notorious CIA-Pentagon-ran American Security Council and, apart from that, was "rumored" to have been fronting for the CIA. [136] The long-time editor before Creighton of FSR was Charles Bowen, who had his 1969 book The Humanoids published by Regnery Press. Hynek's The UFO Experience (1972) and What You Should Know About UFOs (1975) were published by Regnery. The books Anatomy of a Phenomenon: Unidentified Objects in Space (1965), Challenge To Science: The UFO Enigma (1966) and Passport to Magonia (1969) of FSR consultant and very close Hynek friend (since 1963) Jacques Vallee were equally published by Regnery. So were books of ancient aliens authors Raymond Drake (1968) and Jacques Bergier (1973). Hans Holzer's the UFOnauts (1974) about alien abductions was also published by Regnery. In contrast, Regnery has been publishing books of long string of ultra-right authors as Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, David Horowitz, Michelle Malkin, Oliver North and others.
I almost skipped Charles Bowen as a somewhat uninteresting character, as Creighton only described him as "assuredly our hardest-working and most severely harassed editor ... while still performing his full-time ten-to-five job in the Finance Dept, of the South African Embassy in London." [137] The finance department? That can't be too interesting, right? Well, we do have to keep in mind that South Africa was an extremely controversial state during the Cold War due to its Apartheid policy. The biggest supporters of the state were ultra-right Tories and their international allies, gathered in such groups as the Monday Club, World Anti-Communist League, American Security Council and Le Cercle. That's a pretty strong hint that Bowen was cut from the same political cloth as Sir Patrick Wall of BUFORA. Creighton himself, who largely acted as Bowen's protege at Flying Saucer Review, has also been described as somewhat of a anti-communist hardliner himself, Once again, the low-profile Magonia magazine, in existence from 1968 to 2009, was the only publication to draw attention to these ties. It also suspected that others at Flying Saucer Review and BUFORA besides Bowen, Creighton and Wall maintained security state ties [138] - which is not unlike the view of ISGP.
The defense department, intelligence and establishment ties of Flying Saucer Review run deep. Founding editor was Derek Dempster, a RAF intelligence officer who is known to have received one or more UFO sightings from pilots. [139] I. Waveney Girvan, editor from 1959 to 1964, was the son of a military doctor who eventually decided he wanted to get involved in writing. [140] The editor from 1956 to 1959 was Brinsley Le Poer Trench, otherwise known as the 8th Earl of Clancarty. He founded the International Unidentified Object Observer Corps and, in 1967, Contact International. A life member of the Ancient Astronauts Society, he also came to serve as vice president of BUFORA. Le Poer Trench pushed every dubious theory he could find: hollow earth, Adam and Eve having lived on Mars, Eisenhower meeting with aliens, and that he could trace his lineage to an alien race that landed on Earth 65,000 years ago. Like the equally questionable Sir Patrick Wall, Le Poer Trench also initiated congressional debates about bogus UFO subjects. [141] In what universe would any serious UFO group consider Le Poer Trench credible enough to be their public face? Well, as said, Flying Saucer Review, like later shows as Coast to Coast AM, have been pushing disinformation from beginning to end. Creighton could also hold his own in this respect:
| "We have many cases of cattle being taken [by aliens]. I'm glad to think that some of them seem to like beef. There might be other forms of protein they might be after which would be rather more alarming. ... People who have been carried off and they certainly haven't come back again. None of this looks to me like the behaviour of benevolent beings. And therefore it is not surprising that the governments aren't saying anything about it. ... We also have many alarming cases ... of blood being taken from people and also semen and also [eggs] from women. "We have many cases on record where they have been seen taking rocks, stones, vegetation of plants. Exactly the things we would do ... "Now let's take an early language like Sanskrit. ... You'll find references to a machine or a vehicle described as a "vimana". There it is in Sanskrit. And you see what it is called. It's called a celestial chariot of the gods or aerial car." [142] |
How many points of disinformation Creighton bring up here? Aliens abducting and even eating humans, flying machines from the Mahabharata, and Biblical UFO reports certainly are three of them. As for crop circles, Creighton's primary theory always was that they were the result of malevolent Jinn spirit activity. [143]
Little seems to have changed over the years. Starting in 2006, Nick Pope, a key UFO investigator at the Ministry of Defence's Air Staff in the 1991-1994 period (with further biographical evidence being almost non-existent), became a very frequent guest on Coast to Coast AM and one of Britain's leading ufologists. He made an initial splash in the national media as a "whistleblower" who resigned from the Directorate of Defence Security at the MoD to inform British citizens of the possibility that extraterrestrials are engaged in "some kind of covert reconnaissance" and that the country now is "wide open" to attack because the MOD is not paying proper attention anymore to UFO reports. [144] Exactly why aliens would invade from the other side of the universe right at a time when we've been thinking about the concept of aliens for less than a century, or how we would actually go about defending ourselves from aliens most likely centuries ahead of us at the very least, is conveniently left out, but Pope, of course, did make time to push a little additional disinformation on his fellow British citizens. For example, recognize the following explanation by him of a past UFO event?
| "In another incident in 1980 at RAF bases in Suffolk, staff investigated a suspected plane crash after bright lights were reported coming from the nearby woods. They found a kind of lunar landing module standing on three legs which then flew off. The indents it left in the ground were found to emit ten times the normal levels of radiation." [145] |
That's the Rendlesham Forest affair, and more specifically the version of events as it has been invented by fellow-Coast to Coast AM guest Colonel Charles Halt and partners-in-crime Jim Penniston and John Burroughs. Thus Nick Pope of Coast to Coast AM is promoting the same fairytale as all those who came before him: Gordon Creighton of Flying Saucer Review, Sir Patrick Wall of BUFORA, Ralph Noyes of the Center for Crop Circle Research and Admiral Lord Hill-Norton of the Disclosure Project. It's safe to say that all his other theories can be thrown out with the garbage as well.
Pope actually has written about crop circles, but he has never shared anything really substantial about them. He has only offered a basic history, a few mundane explanations why government helicopters might have flown over fresh crop circles, and an acknowledgment that the Air Staff he was posted to in the early 1990s gathered reports on both crop circles and UFOs. He has no strong opinions on them, except that he doesn't understand how so many complex circles could have been made without anyone ever having been caught. Obviously he also never considers the possibility of a government-superclass psyop.
PART III: CROP CIRCLES IN THE NETHERLANDS
Robbert van den Broeke I: deranged crop circle medium allied with the Dutch CCCS, Nancy Talbott and a serial killer
Way back in part I of this article, we discussed the work of BLT Research on plant and soil anomalies. While at the present state of information, it is impossible for an outsider like myself to discredit these anomalies, readers were cautioned that there were observable issues with William Levengood and Nancy Talbott. Let's take a better look at that in this chapter.
A little recap might be in place. As discussed in part I, Levengood's reports about plant anomalies he sent back to U.K.-based crop circle researchers as Colin Andrews, Pat Delgado and others in the 1990s did come across a little dogmatic. It also appears as if Levengood and Talbott did not particularly appreciate the individuals who collected the plant samples for them. Then there was the somewhat more minor issue of Levengood having used on occasion the prefix "Dr." while "only" being a (Science and Nature magazine-published) double MA, which Colin Andrews, himself not exactly a stranger to inflating his resume, continues to create a disproportionately amount of fuss about.
The situation surrounding BLT really becomes problematic, however, when we look at how Levengood stubbornly labeled wind damage, identified as such on site by Colin Andrews, as being the result of anomalous "transient energy". [146] Then there is the lone 2009 plant anomalies study for Wiltshire crop circles of BLT [147] that left much to be desired and is extremely suspect because there's plenty of evidence that all the complex pictogram crop circles have been created by humans.
It remains impossible though to discredit the reported plant stem deformations without actually being present in the field, largely because no skeptic or mainstream expert has demonstrated how the plant stems could have been bent in the manner described by BLT. They have also not accused BLT of fraud on this issue. Similarly, the Laurance Rockefeller-financed soil anomaly study of BLT cannot be discredited by outsiders, even more so because a certain Dr. Robert C. Reynolds, Jr., head of the Department of Sciences at Dartmouth, confirmed that the observed soil data indeed was anomalous. [148] Quite possibly BLT tampered with the sample or Reynolds, Jr. was in on the scheme, but that's impossible to prove for the time being.
There's also the issue that, in contrast to Colin Andrews, Rosemary Ellen Guiley or Simeon Hein, the Coast to Coast AM-tie of BLT research is relatively mild, despite the fact that all three founders were/are Americans. Levengood has never appeared on the program. John Burke has only been invited once, in 2007, but seemingly primarily to promote a kind of "superseed" he has developed. Talbott has only been invited twice, once on July 23, 1999 and a second time on January 17, 2015. This second time was only for 30 minutes and was largely wasted by reviving the old Talbott-Andrews rivalry. [149] It certainly makes one wonder if there's not a core of truth to the claims made by BLT, especially because they haven't been discredited in a direct manner.
Albeit a little short-tempered, basically in all her interviews Talbott comes across as very rational and very reasonable, much like Burke and Levengood. This also speaks in their favor. Although, it must be said that crop circle researchers as Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado can also come across as ultra-rational, until one starts to pay attention to the specifics of their claims, especially those made outside the public eye of the BBC. In case of Talbott, we can find similar anomalies, and we really need to explore these.
Only after more than a year-and-a-half of on and off research on crop circles did I notice that Talbott has very frequently appeared on the Rense radio show [150], which went from a basic UFO disinformation outfit rather similar to Coast to Coast AM to an outright Nazi propaganda machine in the years after 9/11. The title of her May 2004 interview reads "World Exclusive Photo Of Tall Grey?" Yes... really. On the left the reader can see what this photo is about. It was produced by supposed Dutch medium Robbert van den Broeke, who Talbott has been hanging out with since 1998. Allegedly this medium has been really good at attracting high strangeness phenomena, including spirits and crop circles, to the point it is almost on demand. Talbott claims to have observed many of these anomalous while staying at his home for two weeks per year. She even claims to have witnessed in 2001 "three brilliant, incredibly forceful tubes of light creating a crop circle in the field behind [Robbert's] home" [151], immediately explaining to us the November 24, 2001 title of Rense's interview with Talbott that reads "Nancy Talbott Saw Crop Circle Formed". It happened again in 2006, but unfortunately once again nothing was captured on video.
Being open minded and not knowing the slightest thing about Van den Broeke, I initially gave him and Talbott the benefit of the doubt when it came to the live manifestation of the crop circle - until then the only Van den Broeke-related anomaly I had vaguely heard about. However, even before noticing the Rense interviews of Talbott, peculiar associations and bizarre facts began to pile up.
The photograph of the alien is just one example of that. In another, much later example dating to 2012, Van den Broeke produced photographs of the supposed ghost of deceased crop circle investigator Pat Delgado. Even upon first glance the "spirit image" of Delgado looks completely fake due to its low-resolution, dull color, and the fact that Delgado looks exactly like he did on television in the years prior to his withdrawal from the crop circle scene - down to his glasses and little mustache.
Needless to say, Colin Andrews, Delgado's old colleague, immediately went off the deep end and began attacking Van den Broeke and Talbott as con artists. Andrews claims to have identified the original tape from which Van den Broeke lifted the image of Delgado, but looking at the screenshot provided by him, the hair doesn't match. It looks similar to the screenshot I have used. This mistake may well have been made by Andrews to keep the debate going forever and ever. [152] As usual, it is unwise to choose a side here, although it seems rather obvious that Van den Broeke faked the photo of Delgado (and others).
His sister backed him up on the balls of light; a client claimed Robbert healed her husband from Shingles in one session.
Looking into Van den Broeke's history, it quickly turned out that he basically is Holland's most famous alleged medium. And unsurprisingly, he is as famous as he is controversial. Robbert (let's call him that from now on) first rose to prominence in late 1998 when he appeared on the daytime talk show of Catherine Keyl. But he really rose to national fame in 2005 when nationally renowned TV host Irene Moors decided to make a program with him called Er is zoveel meer / There is so much more. By the time this program came around, Robbert had managed to snap another picture of a Gray Alien ghost, conveniently right in front of one the crop circles he claims to attract. Readers can see the picture in question in the image compilation below, where he is showing it to Irene Moors. Eventually Van den Broeke was exposed as a charlatan when he rehashed an internet-based genealogy biography, including spelling errors, of a guest on the show while pretending he retrieved this information psychically. [153] One would think the program makers would have asked and checked for the availability of this information beforehand instead of waiting for an organized skeptics group to figure out the deception and embarrass everyone involved in the show. But no, they didn't.
Ultra-busy with ISGP and seldom watching TV, I never picked up on the program. But as every other native Dutch person, I, of course, did know Irene Moors. She used to be the presenter of "Telekids", where kids like me would watch cartoons on Sunday mornings in the 1980s and early 1990s. Ironically, these cartoons included one of my favorites: Ted Turner's Captain Planet.
Robbert van den Broeke I only ran into in early 2015 when looking up information on Ans Hoornweg, a Dutch UFO cultist and the proud owner of a creepy doll collection depicting aliens from "Iarga". She has been described in ISGP's Coast to Coast AM article in the Alien Messengers section, because her aliens were first described by a person with the name Stefan Denaerde, who in turn is known to have been in contact at some point with Colonel Wendelle Stevens, a U.S. Air Force officer turned UFO researcher and Art Bell guest who is particularly known for promoting the hoaxed UFO photographs of Billy Meier in Switzerland. Probably not a coincidence, hoaxed UFO photographs of Billy Meier were shown in the same 1990 RTL 4 television program that promoted Ans Hoornweg and her belief that she was regularly abducted by these aliens in the middle of the night to be examined as to the effect "pollution of the earth". [154] It's probably also not a coincidence that she appeared on television during the height of the American alien abduction craze that was largely financed by CIA assets as Laurance Rockefeller and Prince Hans Adam II von Liechtenstein and similarly promoted by the boys and girls of BUFORA and Flying Saucer Review in Great Britain (Jenny Randles, Gordon Creighton, George Wingfield, etc.). In fact, as ISGP's Coast to Coast AM article makes clear, the whole alien abduction myth was created by the CIA from beginning to end.
Robbert first learned of Ans Hoornweg through the 1990 RTL 4 program. Impressed, he eventually contacted her a first time in 1996 when he was 16-years-old (and soon himself ended up on RTL 4). However, it wasn't until November 2015 that he met Hoornweg in person. A YouTube clip of the meeting is available in which both praise each other's "achievements" and talk about their previous incarnations, alien agendas, their "incredible" struggle to inform the masses, and related subject matters. [155] Make no mistake, I personally find these subjects very much worthy of discussion and scientific inquiry, but unfortunately all we're left with are these little incoherent stage acts of bizarre individuals like Hoornweg and Van den Broeke that make sure no one will ever dare to take these subjects too seriously.
Luckily, almost no website gives Hoornweg any attention these days, although there is at least one major exception: the Dutch website NineForNews.nl, which happens to be a spin-off of Niburu.nl, Holland's most "premier" UFO and non-geopolitical conspiracy disinformation site. With headlines on the front page as "Vaccines can arouse homosexual feelings in children", "Aliens in human suits visited casinos in Las Vegas", and "Is the discovery of Planet X near?" the site indeed doesn't appear to be particularly credible. It's partly sponsored by some Emotional Freedom Technique outfit, which makes sense considering EFT is simply a new agy but ineffective form of acupressure. Looking at the "columnists" of the website we find a number of interesting names. One is Janet Ossebaard, a key contact point in the Netherlands for all prominent American and British crop circle investigators. Another is - you guessed it - Robbert van den Broeke.
As it turns out, in 1996, Robbert did not just contact Ans Hoornweg to tell him about his admiration for his UFO abduction stories. Ossebaard and Robbert have known each other since the latter was 16-years-old, which would be in or around 1996. Why not let Ossebaard explain it:
| "When Robbert was 16-years-old - you are now 31 so that has really been quite a while - I was phoned up by you [after anomalies in your house]... I went to that with Bert Janssen and we researched all that and mapped it all on film and photographs and we talked to his parents... Instantly there was a click. And, of course, [there was] the link with the crop circles, which at this point I've already been investigating for 18 years. And Robbert is the "godfather" of the Dutch crop circles. He knows exactly where they come, when they come, what they're going to look like. It's unbelievable. He's a kind of circle maker, but then in a human body. And I don't know exactly how all this works with reincarnation, but I do think that we both very strongly made a pact [before our incarnation] to do this [research] and bring it to the world. ... Then you just meet each other in this life. And that connection, it's such a strong soul connection, the you just meet each other again. That cannot be erased. "We are on one line [when it comes to the purpose of crop circles]. That it is a manifestation of a really high consciousness, a very pure, loving energy ... to heal the earth and clean up this whole grid of ley lines ... and to lift up the global consciousness..." [156] |
We can now see better how Nancy Talbott met Robbert van den Broeke for the first time in 1998, after hearing of him the year before. This is because in 1996 he contacted the Dutch branch of the freshly-formed Center for Crop Circle Research (CCCR), ran by Janet Ossebaard, Bert Janssen and Dr. Eltjo Haselhoff over anomalies happening around him. The Dutch CCCR investigated and soon brought in the help of Talbott's BLT Research. [157] In addition, for the next decade or so, the Dutch CCCR investigators spent a large chunk of their time investigating crop circles pointed out by Robbert, who, rather similar to the peculiar George de Trafford in Britain, could roughly "sense" when and where they would appear (he claims balls of light create the circles, similar to the widely-distributed hoax video at Oliver's Castle, created in August 1996, right when Robbert also became active [158]). All these leading Dutch crop circle researchers, including Haselhoff, have been religiously supportive of Robbert van den Broeke, which is odd at the very least. [159]
It gets worse. In 2013 Holland's most famous serial killer, Joran van der Sloot, locked away in a Peruvian prison until the 2040s, began claiming that Robbert had appeared to him in his Peruvian cell as a manifested out of body experience. Joran went on to describe how he felt an overwhelming sense of love and understanding, and how he is going to try and change his ways. Joran's belief in this alleged experience was backed up by his lawyer and his letter made national headlines. [160] Next thing we know, Robbert advances the jailed Van der Sloot 35,000 euros for a book that will describe Joran's own self-proclaimed "paranormal powers". [161] Incredible, isn't it?
Pluijmen is also the one who "snapped" the hoaxed April 14, 2012 picture of Pat Delgado with Van den Broeke. By the way, they produced a similar picture of deceased crop circle maker Dave Chorley.
Robbert's link to the serial killer Joran van der Sloot partly runs through his friendship with a certain "Stan P." (Stan Pluijmen), a "highly intuitive" who is such a close friend of the serial killer - before and after the murders - that at one point he wired about 35,000 euro to him. Unlike Robbert's proposal, Pluijmen's transfer did not involve any kind of business proposal. Seeing how Van der Sloot addresses Pluijmen in a letter written from his cell - opening with "Sweet Stan" - one almost begins to think the two maintained a homosexual relationship. [162] Speaking of homosexuality, two days before Joran murdered his second victim, almost certainly over money trouble, Pluijmen tried to help Joran out with the suggestion to blackmail a homosexual man whom he knew had child pornography on his computer. [163] Looking around on the internet, various rumors exist that Robbert himself is gay and even include a rather hilarious statement of Robbert enjoying poop sex and having a fetish of sniffing up the farts of other men. [164] Update: Looking even deeper, one post of Robbert from 2012 turns out to still exist in Webarchive in which he admits to being gay and having had an extremely frustrating youth because of it. In fact, he's never had a relationship [165], although it appears this has less to do with his sexual nature and more with the fact that he allowed himself to get superfat in his early 20s. He looked very good before that. Apart from all that, being gay and sexually and romantically frustrated is not an excuse to send huge amounts of disinformation into the world.
Even this is far from all. In between their supposed paranormal encounters and subsequent business discussions, serial killer Joran threatened to bomb Robbert's home if he didn't quickly send him some money. [166] Parallel to this, Joran proposed a little conspiracy to his friend Stan Pluijmen (also Robbert's good friend and partner-in-crime) to take revenge against a certain John van den Heuvel, Holland's second-most well-known crime reporter who apparently screwed over Joran by secretly taping conversations he had with him in his Peruvian prison and allowing them to be manipulatively edited for American television. [167] Dedicated ISGP readers may vaguely recall the name John van den Heuvel. He's one of Holland's crime reporters irrationally protective of Joris Demmink, the prosecutor prominently accused of homosexual child abuse.
Quite the maelstrom of peculiar associations, isn't it? And these associations keep popping up as we look deeper at Robbert's network. For example, looking around a little bit on YouTube, I eventually ran into a two-hour December 23, 2015 Christmas talk that Robbert gave at the chapel of St. Louis in Oudenbosch, a small town located right next to where he lives: first Hoeven and now Bosschenhoofd. An excerpt:
"Really already in the womb I was really sensitive and when I was born I really wanted to turn right around because I immediately felt the Earthly vibrations. But I apparently did chose the Earth and did sign the contract ... to exist here on Earth. ... Sometimes I saw people by the road; sometimes I saw dead people. ... " [168]
More important here, the hostess and musician for the evening was a certain "Femke". Rather impressed with her looks and extremely pleasant demeanor, I couldn't help myself from trying to figure out who she was. And guess what? It's Femke Bloem, a key journalist and newsreader of Niburu TV and the Niburu evening news in the period that it was operational in 2011 and 2012. In other words, she was a very important cog in Holland's most important conspiracy disinformation website Niburu.nl and with that also its sister site NineForNews.nl. As can be expected, her story is a little questionable in places. So she claims that out of the blue, without any practice, she found out that she was able to play the harp at age 21. [169] ] I'm also not too certain about the accuracy of her "pre-birth biography", which includes having been a priestess in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Bloem:
| "I have a very strong memory of coming [to Earth] from Sirius, but the last couple of times I went back to that planet, I really found out that I came from much farther, that Sirius just was a portal through which I came to this reality. ... You can say that yoga is an Earthly variation of what we did on Sirius. ... Previously I was really busy with trying to go back to Sirius and even further, because I didn't feel so welcome on Earth, but lately I've been experiencing that I really also am an Earth child. ... I just feel unbelievably misplaced. Very misunderstood." [170] |
Clearly Bloem is speaking in similar terms as Robbert and Ans Hoornweg and has many of the same ties, most notably the super-disinformative Niburu.nl and NineForNews.nl network (she has reported on crop circle appearances for the former). There should be a law against the use of attractive girls as disinformation assets. It really isn't fair.
Her buddy Robbert is so much easier to discuss. Did I already mention that he had his door kicked in and was arrested by the police on January 6, 2016, just two weeks after he and Bloem had given their Christmas seminar? Yes, indeed, Robbert had been threatening critics of his for a number of years at this point. This includes members of the Dutch Skeptics Foundation (Skepsis.nl), who, interestingly, admitted during the controversy to have been posting at the large Dutch youth forum Fok.nl. [171] By coincidence, I also now see that Jurgen Deleye, a founder of the prominent Dutch "open minded" conspiracy skeptic site Grenswetenschap.nl, has been equally active at the forum. Looking at the front page of this site anno November 2016, we find articles skeptical of Atlantis and the Philadelphia Experiment, while at the same time keeping an "open mind" on the widely-promoted, super-disinformative theory that something else than Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. In a biography of him on a prominent Dutch UFO site, we find a picture of him standing with leading 2012 "transformation" theorist and Coast to Coast AM guest (thus CIA) John Major Jenkins. [172]
The involvement of all these people makes so much sense! Over a decade ago, when I first got into conspiracy, this Fok.nl forum was (and is) realistically the only place to go in the Netherlands to converse with others on conspiracy subjects. So I went there and soon couldn't help but wonder what various hyper-skeptical contributors with names and slogans indicating they were decades out of their youth were doing at the conspiracy section. The only thing they did was push interested newcomers away, which, as usual, was also done by a number of extremist conspiracy theory promoters. Of course, this is happening internationally in every "free speech zone" on the internet. It's hard to see how the international security services, including the Dutch AIVD, are not involved in that.
Getting back to Robbert, the threats that finally got him arrested were made over Facebook on January 1, 2016 to Bert Brussen, the editor-in-chief of The Post Online (TPO.nl). Here's the translation of what Robbert sent over:
| "Hey Dirty boy Bertie, soon I will have you murdered. You bet that arrangements have already been made. A number of friends, among them Emile Ratelband, know about these plans and are helping us with this. A number of bad guys will kidnap you and take you to a remote warehouse. Emile and I will be there and then these guys will allow us to cut your throat ourselves. Emile will piss in your face as you lie dying. Eventually I will cut your head off together with the hit men guys. I'm sorry, but this is no bluff. We will sacrifice you to SATAN at that point." |
Next Robbert sends over an ISIS video of beheadings with the comment: "I'm sending you this link, so you can already get used to what is waiting for you. Now you are our slaughter chicken. I mean it. You're gonna die."
Amazing, isn't it? One wonders why he would send over such extreme threats, as it is just asking to get arrested. For years he seems to have gotten away with the "explanation" that his account was hacked, but there have been occasions in which he would provide such an explanation while not removing any of the violent content on the very same Twitter or Facebook account. [173] And when one looks at some of the messages, it is clear that Robbert was just messing around. He would send over "hacked" messages typed without dots and commas and with oddly-placed capital letters, followed with much-cleaner written warnings that his account had been hacked, giving one the impression that the messages have a different source. It's a total joke. They're just the usual bizarre mind games one sees all the time in conspiracy land. Stan Pluijmen sending hundreds of very patient and friendly emails to individual skeptics, trying to convince them in every unconvincing way possible that Robbert's paranormal gifts are genuine, falls into the same category. [174] I see and experience these things all the time.
When the police finally raided Robbert's apartment, they actually found recorded Skype conversations in which he talked about Irene Moors, the TV presenter who had made him famous in 2005 but later, after reports of fraud and his angry outbursts, distanced herself from him. He also talks about another critic of him, Constantia Oomen, a peculiar hybrid of an out-of-body experiencer and Dutch Skeptics Foundation ally who eventually was banned from the "truth" section of the Fok.nl forum for "obtrusive and obsessive" behavior over the Robbert van den Broeke controversy. [175] The recordings of Robbert were made public and on them we can hear him say:
| "It seems like fun to kick [Irene Moors] into a coma with steel-toed boots. ... Yeah, she's getting ugly. I'm glad father time is catching up with her. Now God punishes her, by making her ugly, because she shoved Robbert van den Broeke aside." "I hope [Constantia Oomen] gets a ballpoint jammed into her throat. It would be wonderful to cremate her." |
When interviewed about these recordings, Robbert slipped back into his usual pious mode, explained he "was taught not to lie", and admitted that it indeed was his voice that could be heard. The reason he provided is that it simply involved a silly slap-happy conversation with a friend and that he felt absolutely terrible for Irene Moors. [176] That might have been believable, were it not that the Facebook comments that got him arrested weren't available or if not numerous other people hadn't come forward saying that they have been threatened in similar extreme ways by Robbert.
It must be said, the persons targeted for harassment and intimidation by Robbert, exclusively or almost exclusively involve curious individuals. And there are more than just members of the Dutch Skeptics Foundation. Victim Bert Brussen of The Post Online used to be an important contributor to GeenStijl. I didn't mention GeenStijl (NoStyle) in ISGP's article on the Republican Society and Pim Fortuyn's death, but most certainly was considering to do that. Why? Because GeenStijl, notorious for its shock-humor writing style, is one of a tiny handful of ultraright media outlets, similar to Pim Fortuyn, Theo van Gogh (another antagonist of Ratelband) and Elsevier magazine of the Republican Society and to a degree De Telegraaf newspaper (part owner of GeenStijl since 2006). Largely disguised as a popular youth site, GeenStijl is not just against immigration, but also against the United Nations, the European Union and the liberal establishment in general. In other words, it is pulling the international conservative establishment line. It is absolutely impossible to get one (anti-immigration) without the other (anti-EU/UN) when it involves a major, or even minor, media outlet. I have suspected GeenStijl of being an intelligence-linked controlled opposition media outlet for a while now and seeing how Brussen got himself involved with Robbert, about whom I have even stronger suspicions, it doesn't exactly alleviate any of these suspicions.
Rob Muntz has been another target. [177] Coincidentally, I've already suspected Muntz in the past of being an intelligence asset and discussed this on ISGP in various locations. He was the co-host of the 2004 The Great Conspiracy program in which he dressed up as a "man in black", complete with sunglasses, and interviewed Bilderberg and Republican Society elites and their allies, including key conspiracy disinformer Micha Kat and the curious Oscar Hammerstein, about who really runs the Netherlands and the world. Soon after, he went to Austria to mock anti-EU and anti-immigrant Jorg Haider supporters by marching the capital dressed up as Hitler and interviewing politicians that way. Granted, Haider, at the time was a very popular political leader, maintained veiled pro-Hitler sympathies, but Muntz's program still was a despicable move, because the reality is that people haven't been offered a choice in the middle (anti-immigration and pro-EU).
As for Robbert "victim" Henk Verhaeren, he is generally described in mainstream media articles and television segments simply as "a writer". When interviewed, a seemingly shaken Verhaeren stated about Robbert: "Very serious threats [I received] ... and very personal with tons of hate. In bells and whistles it's described how someone's life will be ended." Verhaeren added another interesting detail to the complaint he filed with the police against Robbert, namely that the prosecutors office asked him to sign a secrecy agreement, meaning that he wouldn't been able to write about it in any of his books or tell about it in the media.[178] One wonders what this was all about. In any case, Verhaeren doesn't appear to be your average author. He wrote one book in the early 1990s until his biography about Ratelband appeared in November 2011. When you watch footage of him [179] or Muntz [180] confronting Ratelband, you can see that they were really out of line and were trying to get a rise out of the guru. No matter how annoying they thought the guru was, they were in the wrong at those times. On top of that, Verhaeren didn't factually protest when Ratelband stated on camera that he had helped Verhaeren get off the "dope" and the booze. Verhaeren is just a weird character who comes across as very disingenuous and as someone who likes to steer things up for personal gain.
Not that it is smart - once again - to pick sides, as Ratelband has been caught on tape kicking his wife while telling her, "You're gonna die!" Meanwhile you can hear their child yell in panic, "Daddy, don't kick!" Apart from this incident, he appears to have been saying many more outrageous things to his wife in front of their kid. [181] He even was convicted for it. [182] There's actually no obvious connection between Robbert and Ratelband, except that both have a penchant for making extreme threats to others, that both belong to the Dutch media cult, and that the former has been claiming repeatedly that the two have been cooperating in murder plots.
Another person who has been threatened by Robbert is Rinke "the new Uri Geller" Jacobs [183], a Dutch hypnotist/mentalist who has appeared in the Netherlands on prime time television as a favorite of Uri Geller. Considering Uri Geller is a Coast to Coast AM-related scam artist with highest-level Mossad and CIA ties, that also casts a bit of a shadow over Jacobs. Jacobs also happens to be well-liked by the professional rent-a-skeptic network because he doesn't claim to be doing anything supernatural. [184]
Then there is mainstream TV medium Liesbeth van Dijk. I have no idea about her beliefs or her work, but for obvious reasons one fears the worst when it comes to questions about how genuine her paranormal powers are. Certainly her "intuition" about Robbert couldn't be off much further:
| "Hundreds of emails and many despicable pictures [I received from Robbert]. My mother had just died and a photo arrived that my mother was hanging on a burning cross and that my two children were laying underneath her without limbs. ... [But] my feeling is right, if I look at him he indeed has been hacked. I will NEVER believe that he did that." [185] |
A few other Dutch media cult personalities have been mentioned, quite a few associated with RTL 4, the TV channel that built Robbert van den Broeke and to this day keeps reporting on the controversy surrounding him. But as the reader can see: there's something wrong not just with Robbert himself, but also with most of the persons he's been harassing. It certainly makes me wonder if not the same thing has been going on here as we see all over the conspiracy community: the generation of completely contrived characters, debates and rivalries by the security services and members of the global superclass.
The only other person strongly defending Robbert (and Stan) on television after his arrest in January 2016 was Roy Boschman, Robbert's best friend. [186] It might be a coincidence, but Boschman is the only other "witness" to crop circles forming around Robbert besides Stan and Nancy Talbott. [187]
So, how has Talbott dealt with the overwhelming amount of evidence that Robbert van den Broeke and his closest friends are a group of rather psychopathic con artists? Well, she continues to support him, of course. In 2015 Talbott tried to convince everyone that Robbert's Facebook, Twitter and email accounts indeed had been hacked and that she had been a victim of this as well. [188] After many months of silence during and after Robbert's arrest, she posted more updates in full support of him. August 2016 saw Talbott backing Robbert's first-time video of a BOL (Ball of Light) supposedly forming a small crop circle. Looking at the video, it couldn't be less impressive. One sees a perfectly positioned and emotionless Robbert, a cheap Adobe Premiere / After Effects effect of a BOL that hardly moves realistically, no "incredibly forceful tubes of light" are visible, one doesn't even see changes in the grain at any point, and in the end it turns out that the tiny circle that allegedly was created wasn't even in the path of the BOL, or even visible on camera. [189] October 2016 saw another update of Talbott, this time promoting the view that Robbert most certainly has the ability to paranormally "bi-locate" to distant parts on the globe. Hilariously, Talbott brings up Robbert's ever-present partner-in-crime Stan Pluijmen as the primary witness: "his "bi-location" in Spain this April--during which his friend Stan actually took a photo--proves this is actually happening." [190] For those who missed it, Stan has been even closer to serial killer Joran van der Sloot than Robbert was and was equally implicated in the countless disturbing email threats to Dutch celebrities.
Janet Ossebaard, the old mentor to Robbert van den Broeke alongside Talbott, has continued to support him personally and in a range of scams as well. Ossebaard and Pluijmen both were present in a Dutch crop circle with Robbert on April 9, 2016, when Robbert allegedly manifested a UFO at will. A ridiculously unimpressive video was produced of a saucer-shaped object hanging dead-silent in the Dutch sky, supplemented with interviews of everyone who witnessed this "miracle". Almost all of the interviewees, including Ossebaard and Pluijmen, come across as confused and cultic. For good measure, serial killer Joran van der Sloot was also included in the video. Keep in mind, this is months after Robbert's arrest for threatening to kill a number of media personalities - with the support of Pluijmen - and after years of very cheap hoaxes by Robbert and his crew. Despite Robbert's reputation, an article about the alleged event was published by the questionable British "alt-right" The Express newspaper [191], which coincidentally also continues to publish the most outrageous type of Illuminati, Nibiru and "alien autopsy" disinformation.
It should be more than clear at this point that Talbott and Ossebaard are as big of a scam artist as their protege Robbert van den Broeke, Stan Pluijmen, other Dutch CCCS researchers, Niburu.nl, NineForNews.nl and anyone else in this network, down to famous serial killer Joran van der Sloot. All these people do is generate bogus information and start useless arguments to confuse the heck out of anyone interested in conspiracy and spiritual subjects. Robbert has actually produced way more hoaxed photographs. His scams continue year after year. Many of them are extremely obvious and basically fall in the domain of trolling. Such as the time that he rose CCCS crop circle investigators Paul Vigay and David Kingston from the grave who told him to "send massive amounts of love to Colin Andrews, so that he may come out of the darkness. Colin Andrews also has to watch out for his heart, and one of his lungs." [192] Colin Andrews, similar to talkshow hosts Catherine Keyl and Irene Moors, or organized skeptics, always bite, so that in the end you have near endless discussions going on about completely fabricated affairs. Over 2016 the earlier-mentioned circle hoaxer Matthew Williams also produced a number of videos in which he attacked Robbert, brought up a few dubious questions (the significance of whether Robbert had been in jail for 3 or for 6 days), and discussed a silly Facebook/email row he had with Talbott in the most childish manner possible. [193] I suggest no one takes any of it serious. The whole system is designed you send you round in circles.
Robbert van den Broeke II: father's RABO Bank key in promoting "liberal CIA" UFO cultism in Holland? Bizarre Fortuyn assassination tie
I can't help but feel rather dissatisfied at this point, because, as usual, Robbert has a seemingly watertight background story, with his father, certainly one of his sisters, and at least one person in the neighborhood, going along with the scheme. One of Robbert's sisters, mother and grandmother are also reported to be (or have been) paranormally gifted to an extent. The thing is, one expects there to be clues as to what greater force is behind Robbert - and we're not talking about the supernatural kind.
According to Robbert's "official" biography (in which we will drop most "supposed" and "apparent" cautionary remarks) he developed psychological issues at a young age due to all kinds of impressions he received from other dimensions. By the age of 12 this gift caused such a severe imbalance in his personality that he ended up being sent to the Hondsberg psychiatric hospital and was only allowed to go home one weekend every other week. He spent about 6 months here, after which a temporary staffer recognized his paranormal abilities and began to push for his release. [194] She also helped convince his parents of these gifts. After Robbert's release from the Hondsberg at age 13, his parents sought out the Nijmegen-based psychologist and supposedly gifted paranormalist Rens Hendriks, who conducted remote healing sessions on Robbert, stabilizing him until the age of 15 (1995-1996), which is when crop circles, balls of light, and other anomalies began to manifest around the house in much greater frequency. At this point the story becomes recognizable, because it is in this period that Robbert contacts alien contactee Ans Hoornweg and members of the Dutch Center for Crop Circles Research (DCCCR). He was fully "in role" at this point looking at the account of a local farmer who in this period encountered Robbert in his field next to a freshly-created crop circle. According to the farmer, Robbert told him that a UFO had created it, although he himself suspected it most likely had been Robbert. After sending him off the field, telling Robbert to never come back, he never found a circle on his field anymore.
This is all very interesting, of course, but who are these people around Robbert? Nothing of interest can be found on Rens Hendriks or on Robbert's sisters, mother, or grandmother. However, a really interesting piece of the puzzle in the Robbert van den Broeke saga appears to be his father, Peter van den Broeke. Initially the rather ambitious father appears to have been very disappointed with his son due to his learning disabilities (Robbert was only really great at giving speeches and telling stories, according to his sister). After learning around 1993 from individuals as Rens Hendriks that his son was paranormally gifted, however, he began to do what he could to have his son succeed in this rather unusual line of work. He began to log all of Robbert's crop circle discoveries and together they started calling local newspapers, television stations and alternative researchers. [195]
Bottom picture: Coen Vermeeren, the UFO cultist Wijffels has been relying on, introducing 9/11 "Truth" spin doctor Richard Gage on the same Technical University of Delft stage. To WeAreChange Rotterdam, Wijffels was talking about his role in "supporting" (intercepting) new upcoming cultures with "disruptive technology". [197]
Vermeeren is part of a little UFO and new age disinformation club in the Netherlands surrounding Niburu.nl / NineForNews.nl and Robbert van den Broeke, whose father also happens to be a ranking RABO Bank manager - and one assumes someone who knew/knows Wijffels.
Here's the thing: the father happens to have been a local branch manager of the RABO Bank, one of Holland's premier banks. Back in 1995 he was director of RABO Bank Hoeven-Oudenbosch, the two towns where Robbert has lived throughout his life. This was followed by similar appointments to RABO Bank subsidiaries in surrounding towns in subsequent years: Diessen, Kaatsheuvel and Loon op Zand. [196]
And here's where it really gets interesting: The last article before this one finished by ISGP is the one on the Pim Fortuyn assassination. In it I discuss the role of the RABO Bank in both the Republican Society (Republikeins Genootschap) and Bilderberg and the suspicion that the Republican Society (not to mention Bilderberg) really is a creation of the security state, including the Dutch AIVD, to organize and control opposition movements to the royal house of Orange and the liberal establishment in general. Republican Society founders Pieter Korteweg and Sjeng Kremers ran the Robeco group, which in the early 1990s maintained a partnership with the RABO Bank, until RABO bought Robeco in 1996, the same year the Republican Society was set up. Another Republican Society co-founder, Lense Koopmans, was advisory chairman of RABO Bank from 2007 to 2013.
More important here is that the chairman of the RABO Bank from 1986 to 1999 - and thus during the time that his subordinate Peter van den Broeke helped his son become a leading paranormal and crop circle figure - was Herman Wijffels [198], who has been mentioned earlier by ISGP in its Coast to Coast AM and Republican Society / Pim Fortuyn assassination articles. Why? Well, in recent years Wijffels, a one-time Bilderberg visitor and major proponent of sustainable development projects, has very visibly backed the work of Coen Vermeeren [199], a Dutch UFO cultist who has been promoting fraudulent 2012, Disclosure Project and aliens on the Moon theories, not to mention the disinformative 9/11 truther Richard Gage. [200] Unsurprisingly, Vermeeren has been getting along rather well with Robbert van den Broeke and members of the Dutch CCCS. For example, in November 2013 Vermeeren, Robbert and Janet Ossebaard organized a joint seminar for "only" 333 euros per person on "crop circles, UFOs and aliens":
| "In this unique weekend workshop Janet Ossebaard ... Coen Vermeeren ... and Robbert van den Broeke will show how strongly connected these three subjects are. "Crop circles have been communicating with mankind for dozens of years; they tell us about the extraterrestrial presence; free (zero-point) energy, a new kind of sustainable future for "a new kind of man": Homo Illuminens, the Enlightened Man who from a higher consciousness deals with the Earth and with each other in a different manner: from love, respect and empathy instead of the "mind"... from the heart instead of the head. These predictions already were transferred to mankind by the enlightened Masters as Christ and Buddha, and now - all over the world - is spread by the Circle makers. "You will learn everything there is to know ... about the connection with Niburu (the mysterious 10th planet in our solar system) and the link to Quetzalcoatl, Ptah, Toth, Noach, Inanna and other celebrities from antiquity." [201] |
Can the message of Vermeeren, Robbert and Ossebaard get any more incoherent and new agy? It's like they made it up as they were writing their promo. As for the RABO Bank connection, is that just a freak coincidence? It might be, although one wonders what the chances of that are. One thing that would be nice to know is how well Herman Wijffels and his long-time employee Peter van den Broeke have known each other. Unfortunately the latter did not have a high enough standing to be mentioned in the news media, so this remains anybody's guess.
Another interesting character from the RABO Bank, by the way, has been Wim Duisenberg. He was a vice president of the bank from 1989 to 1981 and sat on the supervisory board from 2003 until his untimely death in 2005. In ISGP's Pim Fortuyn assassination article, he also was suspected of having been a likely intelligence asset due to the activities of his wife, Gretta Duisenberg, for the Palestinian cause and in the past for her association with rogue CIA agent Philip Agee.
We're not done yet, as it turns out. Glossing over the earlier-mentioned 1998 interview of Catherine Keyl with Robbert van den Broeke, a woman named Janny Korteweg sat in the audience who claimed that Robbert healed her husband from shingles in just one session. Looking up her name, not much comes up. Except... it appears she has a son who that very same year in 1998 became involved in the production and distribution of artificially-created vegetarian "meat". [202] That's interesting, because this is a favorite project of the sustainable development-obsessed liberal superclass, including the Rockefellers.
This is as far as I took it initially. A few days later I looked up Jaap Korteweg as well. Turns out, it just so happens to be that this person is the husband of none other than Marianne Thieme. [203] Once again I have to take readers back to the last article of ISGP: the Pim Fortuyn assassination. The assassination of Holland's prime minister-to-be was environmentalist Volkert van den Graaf. This Van der Graaf used to run a small but effective Friends of the Earth-allied NGO called the Vereniging Milieu Offensief / Milieu Front Association with a person named Sjoerd van der Wouw. Together they received about 150,000 euros from the Dutch National Lottery's Doen Foundation, which is allied with the Rockefeller and Ford foundations.
Van der Wouw's career in the environmental movement continued after his partner took out Pim Fortuyn. A few years later he surfaced as the personal assistant to the afore-mentioned Marianne Thieme in her animal rights project Wakker Dier / Animal Awake. Soon after Thieme founded the political party Party for the Animals. Considering she was largely able to do this through a grant of 300,000 euro from a heir to the Pierson banking fortune, which is linked to the 1001 Club and the Republican Society, I already suspected Wouw and Thieme (not to mention Van der Graaf) of belonging to the so-called "liberal CIA" network.
So, a month later I decide to look up Janny Korteweg in relation to her questionable support for Robbert van den Broeke - whom I also suspect of belonging to Holland's "liberal CIA" clique - and I found out that she is the mother-in-law of Marianne Thieme. One wonders what the chances of that are. In the end it appears to be more evidence of what I have already been saying time and time again: that the persons involved in these disinformation networks are very closely knit.
To be honest, I can't be 100 percent certain that Jaap Korteweg's mother Janny is the exact same Janny Korteweg who vouched for Robbert van den Broeke on Catherine Keyl in 1998. However, Jaap and Janny Korteweg lived a 20 minute drive from Robbert's home in a rather sparsely populated area with only farmland in between them. The age also is not incompatible. The Janny in question would have been in her late 20s or early 30s when she conceived Jaap. Two other Janny Korteweg's I can find are three or four decades too young. Also, the name itself only results in 6 Google hits in all, so there's a good possibility we're talking about the same person.
Despite that, I asked Robbert in an email about Janny Korteweg, as well as whether or not his father or he himself played a role in Herman Wijffels' later support for UFO cultism. Robbert replied within one-and-a-half hours at 1:21 a.m. in a rather jovial matter (similar to myself), including: "Why don't you first tell me from what You [sic] are [sic] then I'll see if I have time and if I think it's worth the trouble." Well, that's the last I heard of him. It took him more time to write his reply than two basic confirmations or denials would have taken.
Interesting detail: His highly unusual style of writing in the mail (forgets dots; forgets capital letters with last names; writes "you" with a capital letter) is exactly the same as all those threat messages he sent to famous people, but of which he denies authorship. I'm sure that's just another coincidence.
It must be said, this has become an unusually long article, even for ISGP standards. The reason for this is that I kept running into new examples of how the phenomenon and those interested in it are manipulated. But now it's time to wrap it all up.
So, what conclusions can we draw? The most obvious one is that none of the persons involved in the crop circle phenomenon - whether they are hoaxers, professional skeptics, scientific researchers, or believing authors - can be considered reliable. Certainly every single person even remotely associated with Coast to Coast AM, BUFORA, the CCCS, the Dutch CCCS, the North American CNACCS, BLT Research, or any other crop circle group, should be considered guilty of being a complete and utter scam artist working for the security services. That is, until he or she actually becomes to first to produce solid, systematic research backed with rational conclusions and in the absence of any overly peculiar opinions, personality traits, or associations. The same is true for overlapping phenomena and events as Roswell, Majestic 12, alien abductions and alien messengers.
Quite possibly this agenda of UFO-related disinformation was put into high gear by the national security council and the CIA after years of newspaper revelations and parliamentary investigations into political intrigue by these two government bodies. We don't know the details, except to say that the amount of myth-making along these lines increased sharply in the late 1970s with the bogus Ellsworth Air Force Base incident of December 1977, followed by Roswell, Majestic 12, Rendlesham, underground alien bases, alien abductions, crop circles and all the rest, supplementing older disinformation projects as cattle mutilations and alien messengers. Coast to Coast AM is what came to unite all these subjects under one umbrella.
As for crop circles in particular, it really appears as if an absolutely ingenious game has been going on in which circle-hoaxers as Doug Bower, Dave Chorley, Circlemakers.org and very professional unidentified groups have secretly been cooperating with circle "researchers" as Colin Andrews, Pat Delgado and Lucy Pringle, pretending there's a mystery out in the fields by labeling large amounts of very obviously hoaxed circles as "unexplained". Year after year, Bower and Chorley would literally phone up Andrews after having "spotted" a new circle (which they themselves had just made). Andrews or a colleague would then come in, do his thing, ignore such dead give-aways as imperial dimensions or design flaws, and label the circle as "genuine" in their books and to the press. On other occasions Andrews and Delgado would look utterly shocked in front of the international media when they'd been "had" once again by those pesky MOD-directed circle-hoaxers. The details of this are discussed in the chapter The ultimate CIA-MI5 psyop: researchers as Colin Andrews working with hoaxers.
There's more to this whole scheme, of course, but in the end we're simply looking at different camps interacting with each other in a soap opera that is set on infinite replay. First, a phenomenon or event that was never real to begin with is created, followed by five or six different theories for the masses to pick from - all of them represented by controlled assets of the security state who will always make sure not to be too credible and will refrain from promoting any kind of realistic psywar scenario to the public. Investigative groups are set up, conferences are organized, magazines report the latest developments, books are published, partnerships and feuds are created, parallels are drawn with related (invented) phenomena, etc. The common denominator is that all promoted theories and variations thereof are false and easily debunked by professional skeptics group specifically set up for that purpose. These groups will never dig too deep, of course, so that the interests who put up the whole circus will never be exposed. In the end, none of the controversy serves any purpose except to keep the masses occupied and as far away as possible from any of the real stuff that might be going on. If the disinformation is really presented well, it might even be possible to steer conspiracy believers into desired political or cultural directions. Sustainable development and liberal politics might be the biggest example of that.
Does this mean this is all there is to the crop circle phenomenon? No, not necessarily. In contrast to something as Roswell, there still exists a minor possibility that anomalous circles occasionally appear in the south of England or maybe in other places. I cannot fully debunk the phenomenon in this sense. I would have to move to South England, set up a well-known crop circle contact point, go out into the fields for years on end, and document very carefully each circle I come across according to a 48-point crop circle checklist that I created. And even if I find nothing genuine, there still is the problem that it is terribly hard to prove the absence of something.
While I encourage locals to do this type of research by themselves and report on it through a website of their own, for the average reader it might be much more productive to dismiss the field of crop circles as a whole, apart from an acknowledgment that it involves government psywar. The chances of there being something to the phenomenon are just too slim to really put a lot of time in. Besides, there's evidence that there most certainly is something to the UFO phenomenon, as old newspaper and government reports seem to make clear, and, as I briefly talked about, it appears that mysterious balls of light do fly around in our air space from time to time and can interact with people one-on-one. So, unless you happen to live in an area where lots of crop circles are known to appear, you might want to focus on these latter two aspects of the UFO phenomenon in case you happen to be interested in this type of material. Pretty much all the rest - meaning whatever can be found on Coast to Coast AM and the Rense radio show every night - is a waste of time.
While working on this crop circle article, it quickly became obvious that different researchers have focused on different types of anomalies in crop circles. While some of these researchers may have kept several dozen points mentioned below in mind, none of them have consistently reported which anomalies or red flags they encountered in each design they studied. That is highly unfortunate, because the result is that we simply cannot draw any conclusions about any of the major (or smaller) designs. In each case only one or two, or very occasionally 4 or 5 random anomalies have been brought up, which may or may not have been lies or subject to heavy observer bias. Still, if forms would have been developed in the early 1990s and consistently filled in by a variety of researchers, we could probably have gotten to the bottom of the mystery quite fast. So, long overdue, here's ISGP's version of a checklist with 48 key questions to determine whether or not a crop circle is real or fake. If you ever happen to run into a crop circle, don't forget to look up and print this checklist.
| 1. | Location: | |
| 2. | Owner of the land: | |
| 3. | Type of crop: | |
| 4. | Date and time of first discovery: | |
| 5. | Date and time of last observed intact situation: | |
| 6. | Date and time of analysis: | |
| 7. | Additional observations: |
Equipment
| 8. | Does the infrared camera show anomalies? | |
| 9. | Does the compass and/or magnetometer show anomalies? | |
| 10. | Does the Geiger counter show anomalies? | |
| 11. | Does the electrostatic meter show anomalies? | |
| 12. | Does the temperature meter show anomalies? | |
| 13. | Does the barometric pressure meter show anomalies? | |
| 14. | Do dowsing rods show anomalies? | |
| 15. | Has electronic equipment malfunctioned? |
Initial impression
| 16. | Has there been an absence of humans seen or heard in the presence of the formation when it appeared? | |
| 17. | Is there a total absence of stomping board marks? | |
| 18. | Are the plant stems and seed heads intact? | |
| 19. | Does the downed crop have a gentle flowing appearance? | |
| 20. | In there an even distribution between downed seed heads? | |
| 21. | Are the seed heads perfectly aligned with the direction of the laid stems? | |
| 22. | Can an unusual amount of elongated plant nodes be found? | |
| 23. | Can an unusual amount of bent plant nodes be found? | |
| 24. | Can an unusual amount of blown out plant nodes/expulsion cavities be found? | |
| 25. | Can charred plant stems or nodes be found? | |
| 26. | Can an unusual of amount of dead or stuck insects be found? | |
| 27. | Can any other dead animals be found? | |
| 28. | Does smoke curve around the space above the circle? | |
| 29. | Is there evidence of birds or other animals avoiding the circle? |
Five/six senses observations:
| 30. | Has anyone seen the formation being created? | |
| 31. | Have balls of light, UFOs, mist or other anomalies been spotted at the time of creation? | |
| 32. | Did any balls of light or UFOs hover around or touch the ground at the location where the formation appeared? | |
| 33. | Have balls of light, UFOs, mist or other anomalies been spotted some time before or after creation? | |
| 34. | Has anything else out of the ordinary been spotted? | |
| 35. | Have unexplained sounds been heard? | |
| 36. | Have noticeable temperature variations been felt? | |
| 37. | Has anybody been touched by something unknown? | |
| 38. | Did any strong emotions come up? | |
| 39. | Has there been a sense that unseen entities were present? |
Plant and soil lab tests
| 40. | Is there a difference between crystalline structures? | |
| 41. | Has the growth rate of seeds been affected? | |
| 42. | Has the germination percentage been affected? | |
| 43. | Is there a considerable growth rate difference between plants from inside and outside the formation? | |
| 44. | Do plants need considerably less water and sunlight to grow? | |
| 45. | Are there changes in cell wall pit structures? | |
| 46. | Have an unusual amount of microscopic iron and/or magnetic particles been found? | |
| 47. | Are these particles meteoric in origin? | |
| 48. | Have clay mineral anomalies been detected? |
| [1] | *) Late 1991, Channel Four, 'Equinox', 5:00: "But the phenomenon only began to take off in 1980 when a photograph in a Wiltshire paper of a circle near the Westbury White Horse sparked off circle spotting. The number of circles recorded has grown dramatically every year since then. By 1990 over 2,000 have been spotted all over the world. But they remain overwhelmingly a Wiltshire phenomenon. Over 50 percent of all the circles found since 1980 have been in Wiltshire. The circles have become part of local culture - and commerce." *) 2003, Colin Andrews, 'Crop Circles: Signs of Contact', p. 40: "As we continued to gather the data regarding the location of the crop circles, it became evident that there were large clusterings of formations around sacred sites in southern central England, particularly at Stonehenge, Avebury, Silbury Hill, and other ancient tumuli. My fellow researcher Freddy Silva now describes this area as "the heart of crop circle country."" |
||||||||||||||
| [2] | Late 1990, BBC South Today (YouTube title, 'Crop Cicles in Japan - South Today 1990'), interview with Japanese science writer Kazuo Uneo and Colin Andrews: "[NARRATOR:] You might have imagined the phenomenon peculiar to southern England. Not so. Apparently they have been occuring in America and in the Far East as well. Tonight believers and seekers from around the world are descending on Andover in Hampshire to swap circles and discuss theories about what causes them. One of the researchers is Mr. Kazuo Ueno, a science writer from Japan. [UENO:] I think around 20 [circles that I have come across], especially in the south part of Japan and some of them were in central part of Japan, but almost [all] in south. ... I think it's over - about 10 years [that they have been appearing]. ... Yes [a recent phenomenon], but I think it's very ancient. I believe, maybe ancient people in Japan they saw the same type of circle phenomena. Because, for example, in Japanese circle phenomena we can see some of them very near historical sites, like Silbury Hill in this country, such kind of archeological hill or mountain. Not all of them, of course, but some of them I'm sure have such kind of relation. [ANDREWS:] Certainly, I share that very view. The crop circle dimensions, the main category of crop circle dimensions, relate so closely to the dimensions of all of the circles, the concentric rings of Stonehenge and the ley line configuration around the crop circles and Stonehenge are so very, very close that we cannot ignore it. ... We don't have the answer to that [why crop circles have been becoming so much more complex in the past 12-18 months], but it has been clear over the last decade that the patterning has been evolving. We are looking at a very, very important phenomenon, which is evolving and is moving on towards something very important. [UENO:] I think this is related to some kind of mythology. It's sometimes, I think, as you know, we have, for example, dragon mythology we can see all over the world. Dragons mythology. It's [inaudible] pattern, it's a winding pattern, no? And maybe ancient people beliefs if they saw in their field this circle phenomenon, this is [inaudible], this is winding, you know, and they represent, they express this design in their ancient [inaudible] or totally or something like that. ... [ANDREWS:] It is absolutely, positively not so [that people have hoaxed every formation]. You cannot change the atomic structure of a plant by trampling feet. [UENO:] Yes, I I agree. I think it is completely impossible, yes." | ||||||||||||||
| [3] | August 15, 1980, Wiltshire Times, 'Mystery Circles -- Return Of The 'Thing'?' | ||||||||||||||
| [4] | December 1990, no. 272, Michael Chorost for MUFON UFO Journal (with Colin Andrews contributing), 'The Summer 1990 Crop Circles', p. 6: "but the number of circles per given area is also increasing. According to Terence Meaden's The Circles Effect and its Mysteries (p. 14) and his article in the Oxford conference proceedings (p. 22), 75 formations were discovered in 1987, 110 in 1988, and 305 in 1989. In 1990, according to Colin Andrews, there were about 600 formations." | ||||||||||||||
| [5] | *) August 25, 1991, Mail on Sunday, 'Shock encounter as crop circle is born' (photocopy). *) These same witnesses, Gary and Vivienne Tomlinson, are featured in the documentary Equinox. *) cropcircleresearch.com/articles/sound.html (accessed: October 17, 2016): "Over the years, a number of humming, trilling and other 'unexplained' sounds have been heard in the vicinity of crop circles. One of the earliest experiences of this kind was documented by [questionable Wiltshire Times, Warminster Journal and virtual ufologist] Arthur Shuttlewood in the magazine Now! (29th Aug 1988) and later reprinted in Terrence [sic] Meaden's Journal of Meteorology (vol.9, 1984 [sic]) in which a number of people witnessed the formation of a circle as it appeared in long grass near Starr Hill in West Wiltshire (UK). To quote from their experience, "Suddenly the grass began to sway before our eyes and laid itself flat in a clockwise spiral, just like the opening of a lady's fan. A perfect circle was completed in less than half a minute, all the time accompanied by a high-pitched humming sound. It was still there the next day"" *) July 29, 1995, The Independent, ''One couple were blown off their feet when a circle suddenly formed round them in the middle of a walk': "Most eerily of all [Lucy Pringle] recalled how in the Eighties, a couple called Tomlinson, who had never heard of crop formations, were blown off their feet and had their eardrums perforated when a circle suddenly formed round them in the middle of a walk." *) December 1990, no. 272, Michael Chorost for MUFON UFO Journal (with Colin Andrews contributing), 'The Summer 1990 Crop Circles', pp. 7-8: "Terence Meaden writes of four eyewitness reports of circles forming in daylight before the eyes of surprised onlookers. In one event, a witness saw corn rapidly laid flat in a circle 50-60 feet in diameter (Oxford conference notes, p. 123). Meaden interprets these as the effects of stationary whirlwinds, but it is equally to postualte a force which either operates from a great height or acts invisibly." |
||||||||||||||
| [6] | *) 1989, BBC West, with host Chris Vacher and moderate skeptic Professor Heinz Wolff following Operation White Crow of Colin Andrews, Pat Delgado, and various BBC engineers, 'Secret Circles', here the account of witnesses Richard and Hannah: " [Narrator:] Very few UFO sightings have actually shown a convincing link with the circles, but a Wiltshire couple reports seeing lights and [after arriving] feeling a strange force field when they walked into a circle near Silbury Hill. "[Richard:] Basically we had a very powerful experience where this UFO or spaceship landed and there was a strong energy there, you could definitely feel. And when I was looking at Hannah, basically the whole sky went pitch black, which was before that a fiery sunset. And she became shining white light." "[Hannah:] I also saw the horizon, which was a beautiful sunset, [go] pitch black and watch Richard embodied in silvery light. Also I has a lot of heat going thjrough my body and through my arms and it was just an incredible experience."" *) March 21, 1991, BBC 1, People Today, following Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado with a group of BBC engineers around for Operation Black Bird in the summer of 1990: " [Andrews:] A telephone call from Blackbird surveillance had us speeding once more into Wiltshire to have a look at new circles which have appeared to the east of the site, three of them, just below the ridge and indeed where we'd seen them in previous years. [Andrews in the field with witnesses:] And when did you hear this whooshing noise? [Elizabeth Price, standing besides a man and apparent fellow-witness:] Well, I was looking at the landscape and at these columns of mist, because I appeared to be disturbed by them, because I felt there was a presence there. And I kept looking back at the other side of the sky where I'd seen the flash previously. So I was kept drawn back to the columns of mist. And then suddenly I heard this rustling noise, which seemed like movement on grass or crops. [Narrator:] Once the circle had been authenticated by Pat and Colin, the BBC engineers moved in to try some new tests. Steve Dunn and Tony Pierce pick up the story. [Dunn:] We were actually able to pinpoint, using dowsing, where the hotspots were..." youtube.com/watch?v=o4fvfn4qGw8 (accessed: October 13, 2016). |
||||||||||||||
| [7] | July 1993, Crop Watcher, issue 18, Paul Fuller, 'Doug Bower at the Nafferton Hall, Marlborough, July 28th, 1993': "Another highlight of the evening was Doug Bower's three photographs of the 1980 Westbury circles. The first of these three circles probably appeared in May but had been harvested by the time of the "Wiltshire Times" article of August 15th. Terence Meaden has confirmed that this "first" photograph was in precisely the right place according to his records. The second and third circles were discovered by the farmer, John Scull, on August 13th, and may have appeared on July 21st and 31st. For these reasons neither Ian Mrzyglod or Terence Meaden have ever possessed or even seen photographs of this very "first" of the "first" circles. In question time I pointed out the importance of this evidence (which didn't go down too well with some of Doug's accusers). How could Doug Bower have obtained these photographs unless he was the person who created them? How could he have known that he would have had to drive 60 miles up from Southampton after these circles appeared unless he made them? No one presented an argument to falsify this evidence." Only issue: Couldn't produce images of them working on the circles. | ||||||||||||||
| [8] | November 1983, Vol. 29, No. 1, Pat Delgado for Flying Saucer Magazine, 'Mystery Rings Again at Cheesefoot Head, 1983'. Photocopies: page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4. | ||||||||||||||
| [9] | August 9, 1985, Andover Advertiser, Colin Andrews for Colinandrews.net, 'It's The Great Andover Flying Saucer Mystery': "Has a flying saucer landed near Andover? That was the question being posed this week following the discovery of a series of strange circular 'landing' marks in a wheat field south of town. At least one man, an expert in aerial phenomena, is conviced that the indentations in the corn were made by an off-shaped object coming to earth. It's The Great Andover Flying Saucer Mystery' Has a flying saucer landed near Andover? Mr Omar Fowler of the Surrey Investigation Group on Aerial Phenomena, who visited the site near Danebury Ring, said he was convinced the marks were not caused by a natural phenomenon such as wind or atmospheric pressure. "I also believe that this is not a student prank," he said. "The edges of the standing corn are too uniform and there is not a markthat would explain how the depressions are so symetrical, in any case there would be no point in a hoax." Thruxton pilot, 'Busty' Taylor, who discovered the markings at the weekend, is equally bewildered. He was flying in a twin-engine Commanche, with Thruxton Flight Centre flying instructor Barry Dyke when they made a low turn and Busty spotted the five perfect circles in an area covering the size of a large aircraft hanger in the corner of a field. The sight so amazed the four pilots in the Commanche that Barry Dyke promptly used a helicopter to fly only 500 feet above the wheat field. Busty, an Andover driving instructor who lives in Apple Tree Grove, borrowed a video camera and made a film of the circles. "I have never seen anything like it before," he said after the second flight. "There is no mark on the corn to show that anyone or anything has walked into the field to make the marks. There is no sign of burning and the circles are so neat that it looks as though something has punched them out of the corn." Busty, whose keen eye started it all off is keeping an open mind, but admits he cannot help wondering whether the blot on the landscape is a calling card. When the 'Advertizer' took a closer look there was no trace of footprints nor any sign that the marked areas had been trampled down. The corn was lying in neat circles and in a perfect clockwise swirl effect. The Army have begun investigations into the markings for the Ministry of Defence and photographs were being taken by helicopter during the week. But Omar Fowler of the Surry Investigation Group already has his theory: "It is difficult to say exactly what caused them but my belief is that the marks were made by a large body landing directly from above." Mr Fowler, whose organization has been in existence for nearly 20 years and which works in conjunction with the British UFO Research Association said the marks in the field of Andover were typical of a series of phenomena recorded throughout the world during the past seven years, some of which had been found after alleged sightings of UFOs. The similarity went right down to the fact that the corn was flattened in a neat clockwise direction. Circles have apeared in the same design in Sussex and Wiltshire and near Winchester only four weeks ago and one of the many mysteries to remain is why there are no burn marks. Lt-Col Edgecombe of the Army Air Corps at Middle Wallop inspected the scene, taking photographs from the air and at ground level and has passed his findings with a detailed description of the markings to the Ministry of Defence. "None of us who visited the scene could offer any explanation, other than a very cleverly done spoof," he said." | ||||||||||||||
| [10] | *) 1993, Jim Schnabel, 'Round in Circles', p. 37. *) Paul Fuller book review at iufog.org/zines/cw/cw_18/cw18b.html: "Reading this book I discovered all kinds of things I never knew - such as the fact that Colin Andrews first became involved in circles research following his attendance at BUFORA's 1986 crop circle symposium. According to Schnabel (page 37), Andrews rang Meaden a few days later and asked if he could join "Meaden's group". Since this took place in July 1986 Andrews' subsequent claim (eg on the cover of his "Undeniable Evidence" video) to have been researching the subject "for more than a decade" is shown to be no more than a blatant and cynical lie. It also exposes Andrews' repeated false claim to have been the leading member of this group. Neither Jenny Randles or myself knew that Meaden had attended a meeting at Colin Andrews' house where the subject of writing a book about the phenomenon was first mooted. This is also the first time we have heard of Meaden's TORRO colleague Derek Elsom publishing a favourable review of Circular Evidence in the Geographic Magazine !" |
||||||||||||||
| [11] | 1989, BBC West, with host Chris Vacher and moderate skeptic Professor Heinz Wolff following Operation White Crow of Colin Andrews, Pat Delgado, and various BBC engineers, 'Secret Circles': " [Narrator:] It was in his three-wheeler that ufologist Ken Rogers came to Wiltshire last week on his favorite holiday: a few days of UFO spotting in the Wessex Triangle. He has been convinced since he was sixteen that intelligent beings from another world started human life on Earth and they now return to monitor our progress. [Ken Rogers:] What you would see is a strange glow up in the sky. It would then come down. You may hear a strange buzzing sound or a high-pitched whine. Then it would hover and gradually - if you can imagine it - materialize into a saucer-shaped object. And then gradually come down and hover. Then probes would come out of the sides and probe into the crop." youtube.com/watch?v=Xr_mCsXX62I (accessed: October 18, 2016). *) September 24, 1975, Ellensburg Daily Record, 'Saucer story finally cooled': "Ken Rogers, chairman of the British Unidentified Flying Object Society... Richard Lawrence, secretary of the British UFO Society...." *) May 8, 1978, Glasgow Herald, 'Mundane or Inexplicable': "The British UFO Society is responsible for investigating all UFO sightings in this country. - Ken Rogers, Chairman, British UFO society, 47 Belsize Square, London, N.W. 3." *) April 1976, Flying Saucer Review, mail bag, Nigel Watson letter of January 7, 1976: "The Ken Rogers publicity drive through Britain apparently didn't stop with the Adamski bottle cooler and the other items you mentioned. The Basingstoke Gazette filled a page of its October 31, 1975 edition with further utterings of Mr. Rogers and his mysterious British UFO Society — which has no connection with the. British UFO Research Association." |
||||||||||||||
| [12] | *) December 1990, no. 272, Michael Chorost for MUFON UFO Journal (with Colin Andrews contributing), 'The Summer 1990 Crop Circles', pp. 7-8: "The first conference on the circles was held at Oxford Polytechnic on June 23, 1990. Organized by TORRO (Tornado and Storm Research Organization) and CERES (Circles Effect Research Group), its speakers focused on the theory that vortices of spinning plasma in the lower atmosphere are responsible for the formations. There were over 150 people attending, among which were professional scientists, circle investigators, journalists, and members of the public. The primary figure at the conference was Terence Meaden, an Oxford- educated physicist specializing in the study of atmospheric plasma vortices. He argued that highly electrified, rapidly spinning vortices of air have enough energy to flatten large areas of crops. Grains of dust and pollen trapped inside the vortex rub together and generate a substantial electric charge, which increases the total energy borne by the vortex. Crucial to his theory is the presence of hills large enough to create wind lees --turbulence-- in their wake. Under the right meterological conditions, air moving past hills whips into spinning vortices, which travel for some distance before touching the ground. Their energy dissipates upon contact, leaving behind a perfect circular formation, broken up into satellites or rings according to the internal structure of the vortex. Both Colin and I, and many others, find the theory of natural origin improbable in view of the complexity of the formations. However, the circles might be made by intelligently controlled vortices of the kind Meaden describes. For this reason, I think Meaden's physics shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. ... A physicist from Japan, Dr. Yoshi-hiko Ohtsuki, discussed plasma vortices in nature... Other speakers were Tokio Kokuchi and Hiroshi Kikuchi (Japan), David Reynolds (England), and Paul Fuller and Jenny Randles (England.) Fuller and Randles argued that plasma vortices can account for virtually all still-unexplained UFO sightings, and proposed that UFO studies should be considered a branch of meteorology. But many thought the most important speaker was Busty Taylor. He showed slides and videotapes of recent formations he had filmed from the air. They were so new that most of the people in the audience had not seen them. Their impact was sensational. For many, they made the carefully phrased arguments for a natural cause disintegrate." *) August 19, 1991, Jim Schnabel for the Washington Post, 'Against the Grain' (describes the theories of Terence Meaden and Dr. Yoshi-hiko Ohtsuk). |
||||||||||||||
| [13] | *) ufoevidence.org/researchers/detail40.htm (accessed: October 16, 2016): "Joined Britain's oldest and largest national UFO group - the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) - and subscribed to FSR (Flying Saucer Review) magazine circa 1968/1969 from money saved up by delivering newspapers. Became a BUFORA investigator in 1973. Joined the council, as northern liaison officer in 1975. Promoted to Director of Investigations in 1981, post held until 1993. BUFORA honourary life member. I write and record BUFORA's weekly news and information service for the BT (British Telecom) phone network. This venture, UFO Call‚ has been gathering thousands of regular listeners since 1989 and is available to all UK phone users." *) euroufo.net/2011/12/fuller-paul-united-kingdom/ (accessed: October 16, 2016): "Paul Fuller (born in 1960) joined BUFORA in 1980, becoming a member of the National Investigations Committee. ... He played a key role in BUFORA's crop circle research, beginning with "Mystery of the Circles" (1986) and "Controversy of the Circles" (1989). Both reports contained evidence of media hoaxing, possible hoaxing methods... Author with Jenny Randles of "Crop Circles, A Mystery Solved" (1990, 1993), Paul has been editing the quarterly Crop Watcher between . He researched Ray Santilli's alien autopsy films with various colleagues, concluding that they were hoaxes. Subsequently joined the UFO Investigations Network..." |
||||||||||||||
| [14] | March 21, 1991, BBC 1, People Today, Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado interview. youtube.com/watch?v=o4fvfn4qGw8 (accessed: October 13, 2016). |
||||||||||||||
| [15] | *) October 19, 2005, SwirledNews.com, 'Centre for Crop Circle Studies Closes Down': "Founded in April 1990 by now legendary research figures such as Michael Green, Lucy Pringle, Ralph Noyes, George Wingfield, et al, and symbolically headed by its president, Professor Archie Roy, and its impressive-sounding patron, the Earl of Haddington, the organisation was set up by a curiously mixed group of mystics, scientists, ex-Ministry of Defence staff and Old Etonians. ... The peculiarly self-destructive nature of CCCS over the years has led some to speculate that the organisation might actually have been originally CREATED by the Ministry of Defence to keep tabs on circle researchers and developments, so that it could be imploded from the inside if anyone got too near the truth (alternatively, Jim Schnabel suggests CCCS was a cover for a Black Magic coven with Pagan agendas). ... There used to be an old joke circulated around the croppie world, which ran something along the lines of that if a crop circle were to celestially appear in front of the very eyes of all the major researchers, Terence Meaden would telephone the Met Office, Delgado and Andrews would kneel and worship it - and CCCS would call a council meeting." *) cropcircleconnector.com/anasazi/CCCS2001.html (accessed: October 16, 2016): "The CCCS was founded by Michael Green and the late Ralph Noyes in April 1990... Michael Green... As an archaeologist he directed excavations of Whitehall and Westminster palaces, and for 35 years excavated a Roman Town, Duroviquvilla, in East Anglia. He lectured in 'ancient symbolism' at the Institute of Archaeology, London and it was in this capacity that he became interested in the crop circle phenomenon. He founded the Centre for Crop Circle Studies in 1990 as a research organisation and has held the posts successively of chairman and president. ... Lucy Pringle: Former Vice-Chairman of the CCCS, she is currently chairman of UNEX Unexplained Phenomena Research Society). ... Dr Eltjo Haselhoff, MSc, PhD Studied experimental physics at the University of Twente, where he obtained his MSc degree in 1987, specializing in higher power laser physics. He obtained his PhD in physics at Los Alamos Labs in the USA specializing in free-electron lasers and high current electron beam accelerators. Eltjo is an active field researcher studying Dutch and foreign crop formats." *) July 11, The Independent, 'Country Matters: Furious energy from beneath the corn': "Lucy Pringle, membership secretary and treasurer of the Centre for Crop Circle Studies..." *) noufors.com/George_Wingfield.htm (accessed: October 16, 2016): "He is a founding member of the Centre for Crop Circle Studies (CCCS) in which he holds the position of Director of Field Research." *) January 22, 1995, MUFON Ontario, 'The Wiltshire Crop Circle Farce': "Readers may also be interested to learn that Paul Vigay, a CCCS Council member and field officer..." *) cccs-uk.org/contact.htm (accessed: December 9, 2002): "The Centre for Crop Circle Studies Contacts CCCS. COUNCIL 2002 - 2003: Patron: Baroness Edmee di Pauli. President: Michael Green RIBA, FSA. Vice President: Busty Taylor. ... BRANCH CO-ORDINATORS AND LOCAL CONTACTS: ... Dorset: David Kingston... Hampshire: Busty Taylor... Wiltshire: Busty Taylor... HOLLAND: Dr Eltjo Haselhoff..." *) 1992, Andrew Collins, 'The New Circlemakers: Insights Into the Crop Circle Mystery', p. 6: "Friday, July 19, 1991. ... I pulled out a copy of The Cerealogist and, as a layman, dialed the number of Busty Taylor, the southern England coordinator for the CCCS-the Center for Crop Circle Studies." *) 1993, Jim Schnabel, 'Round in Circles': describes Rita Goold at one point as a researcher for the CCCS (exact page or quote not available atm). |
||||||||||||||
| [16] | January 23, 2009, The Sun, 'Queen fascinated by mystery of crop circles': "[The royals] were gripped by the mystery of crop circles, it was revealed yesterday. Letters seen by The Sun showed the couple asked to be kept informed about the weird farmland patterns. Her Majesty also asked an aide to send a sympathetic letter to Britain's leading expert whose research was under threat. And Philip was so intrigued he had newsletters on the circles - thought by many to be created by extraterrestrial beings - sent to Buckingham Palace. They were published by researcher Colin Andrews, 46, an ex-local government engineer He said yesterday that his book Circular Evidence was placed on a summer reading list prepared for the Queen. He later received a letter from her private secretary. It read: "Her Majesty has taken an interest in the mysterious crop circles for some time and was sad to hear your results of years of research into the question are at risk through lack of funds." Meanwhile, Philip paid Eur6 for an annual subscription to Colin's crop circle round-up. Colin said: "What has infuriated me is that the MoD continues to deny the Royal Family took an interest in the subject when I know for a fact they did." The Royal fascination matched the nation's at the height of the phenomena in the 1980s and 1990s." | ||||||||||||||
| [17] | 1992, Andrew Collins, 'The New Circlemakers: Insights Into the Crop Circle Mystery', pp. 1-6: "Friday, July 19, 1991. The idea would be to spend some time in the fields of Wiltshire, wandering from one crop formation to the next... Saturday, July 20, 1991. So far, news of crop circles that summer had been surprisingly scant. ... It had been left to self-acclaimed "Son of God" David Icke to cast the kiss of death on any open-mindedness the general public might have held in respect to the circles phenomenon. For two weeks straight he and his aquamarine-clad followers had been seen running rings around a fresh pictogram that had appeared at Alton Barnes. ... I pulled out a copy of The Cerealogist and, as a layman, dialed the number of Busty Taylor, the southern England coordinator for the CCCS-the Center for Crop Circle Studies. They were the national body for circles research, and he, if anyone, would be able to direct our party to the crop formations I could only assume had already appeared this summer season. Busty was helpful and obliging, directing us to a newly arrived pictogram with a triangular ground-plan, lying beyond the northerly slope of an ancient camp named Barbury Castle. He said that a sign saying "crop circles" pointed the way and that "you'll not have seen anything like it before." He added that there were further examples we could "play with" in the Alton Barnes area. Thanking him, I carefully followed Busty's suggested route until the elevated treeline marking the location of Barbury Castle's prehistoric summit grew ever more apparent. In archaeological terms it is a hill fort of ditches and banks classified as Iron Age in origin (meaning it could date back to anything between 500 BC and AD 60). To its east lay the "Celtic" field system of Burderop Down, unchanged for nearly 3,000 years, and clearly emphasizing the great age of this agricultural landscape. The handwritten sign directed those interested in seeing the "crop circles" westwards along the Ridgeway, one of the oldest surviving ancient trackways in Britain. ... Crowds of people in bright summer wear were either on their way into or just emerging from a ripened field of corn. A farmhand stood by an open gate collecting a 1 pound admission fee in front of a horsebox that doubled as a makeshift office. Upon its display board were leaflets advertising the Center for Crop Circle Studies (CCCS), next to a news cutting relating to the crop formation apparently present in this field. ... [Now we went to] the base of Hackpen Hill. Nestling into the hedgerow below was what appeared to be a three-circles pictogram with a concentric halo beyond each end. The only additional feature was a small, single circle joined irregularly to the western crescent. People were milling about and approaching the field in question, where we found another makeshift office-cum-shop and a pleasant lady taking an admission fee of 1 pound for adults and 50p for children. ... CCCS material was in evidence again, and this time there was a little table selling copies of Ralph Noyes and Busty Taylor's Crop Circle Enigma as well as picture postcards and posters of crop circles from the previous summer season. This really was becoming a thriving cottage industry." |
||||||||||||||
| [18] | W.C. Levengood publications in Nature magazine, Science magazine, the Biophysics Journal and other (not listed here) journals:
"Lefty" Levengood, a pioneering biophysicist and long-time resident of Grass Lake, Michigan (and the "L" in the original "BLT Research Team"), has died at the age of 88. Educated at the University of Toledo (B.S. in Physics and Mathematics, 1957), Ball State University (M.A. in Bioscience, 1961) and the University of Michigan (M.S. in Biophysics, 1970), Levengood worked as a research physicist at the now-defunct Institute of Science & Technology and the Dept. of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan from 1961 through 1970, after which he was employed as the Director of Biophysical Research and as a consulting scientist for various private-sector companies. Because of his wide-ranging scientific curiosity he maintained a well-equipped laboratory at his home in Grass Lake, where he pursued a variety of interests and obtained multiple patents, several relating to seed germination and vigor and the development of new plant varieties through genetic transduction. He also authored more than 50 peer-reviewed papers published in professional scientific journals, including several in the preeminent journals Nature and Science, as well as in a diverse selection of other professional publications, ranging from The American J. of Physics and the J. of Applied Physics to The J. of Experimental Botany, The J. of Chemical Physics, The J. of Physics and Chemistry of Solids, Bioelectochemistry and Bioenergetics, The J. of Geophysical Research, to The J. of Insect Physiology and many others. In December of 1990, after his wife Glenna had seen a TV crop circle show (which he then subsequently also watched), Levengood contacted Pat Delgado (one of the original British investigators of the phenomenon) and they arranged for Delgado to begin shipping plant samples and controls to "Lefty's" Michigan laboratory. Almost immediately Levengood began to find multiple anomalies in the plant samples from within the crop circles as compared to the control plants taken at various distances outside the formations (but in the same fields). In these early trial stages of his crop circle research some approaches were non-productive, while others began to build a consistent data set of abnormal changes characteristic of the crop circle plants. By 1992 both John A. Burke, a New York businessman with a strong avocational interest in electromagnetic theory and Nancy Talbott, a New England music festival producer with a research background at Harvard College and the University of Maryland, had both also become aware of the circle phenomenon and Levengood's involvement and–encouraged by WCL's early laboratory results and the indication that something highly unusual was taking place in the crop fields of England—an informal research collaboration was formed which became known as the "BLT Research Team." Over the next ten years crop circle plant (and after 1993, also soil) samples and controls were being collected by hundreds of field personnel in multiple countries and arriving at Levengood's Michigan lab non-stop. During these years "Lefty" worked on circle plants and soils not just from the UK, but also from Germany and Holland, Israel and Australia, the U.S. and several Canadian provinces. In later years circles in Belgium, Poland, Italy and Scandinavia were also examined and three peer-reviewed papers were published presenting many of the research results: Levengood, W.C. (1994) "Anatomical anomalies in crop formation plants," Levengood, W.C. & Burke, John (1995) "Semi-Molten Meteoric Iron Associated with a Crop Circle," and Levengood, W.C. & Talbott, Nancy P. (1999) "Dispersion of energies in worldwide crop formations." The 1994 and 1999 papers were published in Physiologia Plantarum and the 1995 paper in the J. of Scientific Exploration (see: http://www.bltresearch.com/published.php). One of the clearest indicators that mechanical flattening of crop circle plants by planks and boards was an inadequate explanation of the phenomenon–and that a complex electromagnetic energy source was involved instead–was the discovery that the apical (first plant-stem-node beneath the seed-head) node-length increase regularly documented in crop circle plants was found, repeatedly, to match the degree of change consistent with that predicted by the Beer-Lambert Principle, a well-known law in physics which predicts the results of the absorption of EM energy by matter (see Item #6: http://www.bltresearch.com/plantab.php; see also, the introduction to the v/d Broeke case: http://www.bltresearch.com/robbert.php, and the1999 paper: http://www.bltresearch.com/published/dispersion.php). Perhaps the most significant discovery of the early BLT circle research resulted—as is often the case in science—when Levengood accidentally forgot to dispose of boxed left-over crop circle samples which had been deprived of water and light for between 10-14 days–and his observation upon re-opening the box that the circle plants so deprived were not only alive, but growing vigorously…while the controls had all died. He and John Burke were eventually able to reproduce this effect in the lab—creating enhanced growth-rate, increased yield, and increased "stress tolerance" (the ability to withstand drought and lack of sun-light)–in a variety of cereals and vegetables by exposing normal seed to very specific electrical pulses. Named the "MIR process" (Patent #5740627, and carrying the registered trademark "Stressguard"), the MIR equipment delivers "organized electron-ion avalanches" which then form "organized plasmas," to which the normal seeds are exposed (Item #7, "Laboratory Replication of Crop Circle Plant Changes: http://www.bltresearch.com/plantab.php). Mechanical flattening of plants cannot produce this result…and the fact that the MIR process can replicate this regularly-documented capability of those crop circle plant seeds taken from formations which occur late in the growing season (when the seed is fully formed) is proof, again, that highly unusual electromagnetic energies are involved in the authentic crop circle creation process. Levengood's published hypothesis regarding the causation of crop circles involves the exposure of the plants to multple energetic, interacting, thermodynamically-unstable plasma vortices, which he felt most likely originated in the ionisphere (as opposed to Terence Meaden's more meteorological idea of a plasma vortex which originates in the earth's lower atmosphere)–which vortices, upon impact with the crop surface, then create a wide variety of crop imprints. The fact that plants taken from many "non-geometric" or totally randomly-downed areas also have exhibited the same plant "indicators" of authenticity as many "geometric" circles lends further support to this hypothesis (Item #2: http://www.bltresearch.com/otherfacts.php). Some of Levengood's crop circle plant findings have been replicated by two other scientists, but the strongest overall substantiation of Levengood's work comes from the Laurance Rockefeller-funded "Clay Mineral XRD Study" conducted on a 1999 Edmonton, Canada crop formation (see: http://www.bltresearch.com/xrd.php). WCL's participation in this study was limited to his typical plant work and examination of soil samples for the presence of magnetic material. Of the four scientists involved in the XRD study, Levengood was the only one who had ever even heard of a crop circle—a protocol specifically designed to avoid any possibility of "experimenter bias." Also, none of the scientists involved knew each other or had any contact during the study. The results showed not only a statistically-significant increase in the crystalline "structure" of the clay minerals examined (at the 95% level of confidence)—but also revealed a statistical correlation at "greater than the 99% level of confidence" when Levengood's plant-abnormality data were compared with the clay mineral XRD results—the sampled plants and soils having been taken from precisely the same sampling locatons. With a correlation at the 99% level of statistical confidence there can be no question regarding Levengood's accuracy. Finally, the eminent clay mineralologist and XRD expert who interpreted the results of this study, Dr. Robert C. Reynolds, Jr. of Dartmouth College, not only reaffirmed the previous XRD and statistical results, he concluded that the energy involved in creating this crop circle had to be an "energy unknown to science." Throughout his career Levengood remained interested in transformations caused to living organisms by exposure to various energies, and the methods through which these alterations were achieved. Toward the end of his life his research focussed primarily on bioelectric fields in living organisms and "subtle energies" and methods by which to demonstrate their presence." |
||||||||||||||
| [19] | *) August 24, 2010, Colin Andrews, 'BLT got it wrong and should admit it and move on': "As Nancy knows but has never engaged publicly, I worked with Pat Delgado and Levengood (See side note left panel) on plant analysis before Nancy was even aware of crop circles. My family members visited his lab and inspected his protocols and my own research colleagues were in fact engaged by BLT as the first sampling team in England. I give this short back drop to my point and it's this." *) bltresearch.com/history.php (accessed: May 5, 2015): "In December, 1990, Michigan biophysicist Wm.C. Levengood contacted Pat Delgado (one of the very early British crop circle investigators), expressing an interest in examining plants taken from crop circles (samples) and comparing them with plants taken elsewhere in the same fields (controls). Mr. Delgado began shipping crop circle plant samples and controls from various British crop formations to Levengood's Michigan laboratory and, almost immediately, Levengood began observing anomalies in the circle plants..." |
||||||||||||||
| [20] | exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/themes/people/scientists/capron/ (accessed: October 16, 2016): "John Rand Capron (1829 – 1888), was an amateur astronomer and highly respected spectrologist. Apart from practising as a solicitor he had a variety of other roles; Clerk of the Peace for the borough of Guildford; Chairman of Directors for Guildford Gas Light & Coke Company, and for some years Coroner. ... He was originally fascinated by and interested in biology and geology, and later became interested in spectroscopy and astronomy he built a private observatory in Guildown..." |
||||||||||||||
| [21] | 1880, John Rand Capron letter to Nature magazine (screenshot). | ||||||||||||||
| [22] | 1937 (estimated), Sussex Archeological Society (screenshot). | ||||||||||||||
| [23] | August 8, 1963, Patrick Moore letter to The New Scientist, 'Letters: The Wiltshire crater' (screenshot). | ||||||||||||||
| [24] | April 1994, number 21, Paul Fuller's The Crop Watcher, 'Crop Circles at Charlton, Dorset, 1951 or 1952': "Here's another historical case from my files. Following an article in the "Dorset Evening Echo" (February 7th 1992) I wrote to Graham Brunt of Weymouth, Dorset. His response dated 17th March 1992 is reproduced below... PF Notes: Mindful of the more famous event at Charlton in 1963 (see CW13 page 31) I checked with Graham Brunt that he was not confusing his "1951 or 1952" crop circle with the 1963 event, but as he specifically recollects seeing the crop circle prior to moving house in 1952 these dates seem reasonably reliable. However, I must admit that now I've re-read the account in FSR Vol 19 No 6 (November/December 1963) of the hoax claim that was made about the Charlton crater the significance of this historical crop circle case must be debatable. It also seems curious that farmer Roy Blanchard was involved in both the 1951/52 and the 1963 events. I find this rather dubious ! Could he have known that both events were UFO hoaxes ? We hope to carry more revelations about the Charlton Crater in our next issue." |
||||||||||||||
| [25] | *) Wikipedia: John Wyatt (1925-2006). Writer. First ranger for the Lake District National Park 1961-1986. *) May 9, 2006, The Guardian, 'Rural Affairs: John Wyatt': "John Wyatt, the first warden in the Lake District national park - and its chief ranger for 25 years - applied for the job in 1961..." |
||||||||||||||
| [26] | 1980, John Wyatt, 'Reflections on the Lakes', p. 171. | ||||||||||||||
| [27] | Basic info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_circle#Modern_times oldcropcircles.weebly.com/australia-1966-tully.html (accessed: November 18, 2015). |
||||||||||||||
| [28] | March/April 1993, issue 16, The Crop Watcher, 'An Interview with Doug Bower, The Man Who Claims to have Invented the Crop Circles': "We also have the second part of Doug Bower's highly revealing interview with UFO Sweden's Clas Svahn. ... SVAHN: What about the Australian circles, I understand that you lived in Australia? BOWER: Well I lived in Australia from 1958 to 1966, which was eight years, and of course there was a report of some UFO nests in Tully in Queensland I think, and I've always been interested in that sort of thing and of course when Dave and I were on the hill at Winchester one evening I remarked about the saucer nests that were found in Queensland and I said "Let us put a circle in the cornfield" and of course there it was... SVAHN: But you never made any circles in Australia ? BOWER: No, no, it didn't even enter my head then. SVAHN: It was an inspiration for you ? BOWER: That's right, yes." |
||||||||||||||
| [29] | *) Late 1990, BBC South Today (YouTube title, 'Crop Cicles in Japan - South Today 1990'), interview with Japanese science writer Kazuo Uneo and Colin Andrews: "[NARRATOR:] You might have imagined the phenomenon peculiar to southern England. Not so. Apparently they have been occuring in America and in the Far East as well. Tonight believers and seekers from around the world are descending on Andover in Hampshire to swap circles and discuss theories about what causes them. One of the researchers is Mr. Kazuo Ueno, a science writer from Japan. [UENO:] I think around 20 [circles that I have come across], especially in the south part of Japan and some of them were in central part of Japan, but almost [all] in south. ... I think it's over - about 10 years [that they have been appearing]. ... Yes [a recent phenomenon], but I think it's very ancient. I believe, maybe ancient people in Japan they saw the same type of circle phenomena. Because, for example, in Japanese circle phenomena we can see some of them very near historical sites, like Silbury Hill in this country, such kind of archeological hill or mountain. Not all of them, of course, but some of them I'm sure have such kind of relation." *) 2003, Colin Andrews, 'Signs of Contact', pp. 76-79: "[CANADA:] Crop circles in Canada have generally evolved similarly to those in the United Kingdom, with simple circles and rings appearing back in the 1950s, and the first complex design appearing in 1989. Several dead porcupines have been discovered in Canadian crop circles. Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta are the hot spots and, in most years, there are reports from these provinces. ... [AUSTRALIA:] Some of the earliest reports of crop circles in Australia came during 1966, and most were associated with official UFO eyewitness reports. In fact, many of the crop circles reported during this period were described as "saucer nests," since many in Australia believed they were evidence of UFO landing sites. Since those first reports, many simple circles have been found, but not one complex pattern has ever appeared in the country, and that is unusual. .... [UNITED STATES:] The first reports of crop circles in the United States that made the official database came from farmers who watched a 1989 broadcast of Unsolved Mysteries, the first in-depth television coverage of the mystery in United States. Subsequent research has uncovered single circles and single rings across the United States from 1952 through 1989. The first complex design appeared in 1990, the same year as such a pattern appeared in the United Kingdom. Most of the complex patterns in America tend to be sloppy and irregular, and are likely manmade. ... [JAPAN:] The first report of a crop circle in Japan occurred in 1977 near Nakanom, and this formation appeared in a rice paddy. It was not until 1991, when a formation was discovered in a wheat field, that a circle appeared in cereal crop. ... On one occasion during 1990, two designs appeared adjacent to each other, making it the most complex formation to date. ... The numbers of reported formations has been falling since 1991, which was Japan's peak year. ... [GERMANY:] There are very few reports from Germany of simple circles, and that is unusual. Most of the reports are of complex designs. The very first report of a crop circle in Germany did not come until 1990, and that was a simple circle. In 1998, Germany's peak year for crop circles, more than 25 formations appeared over a period of several months. ... [FRANCE:] Mostly simple circles have ever been recorded in France, and the number of reports have been minimal, with the first stretching back to 1954. A complex pattern, believed to be the first one in the country, was reported in 2002. ... [NETHERLANDS:] In 1997, two intricate crop patterns appeared in the Netherlands, followed within weeks by another 22 reports of formations. There have been fewer reports in recent years. A very active location is Hoeven, Noord-Brabant." *) Colin andrews doesn't bother distinguishing between possibly real and confirmed bogus ones. The 1997 one in the Netherlands, as well as a number of others, were created by Remko Delfgaauw of XL D-Sign. |
||||||||||||||
| [30] | 1998, CNI News (of Michael Lindemann), 'A scientific view of the crop circle phenomenon: Investigators See Mysterious Forces of Nature at Work' (John Burke interview). | ||||||||||||||
| [31] | *) March 2004, bltresearch.com/xrd.php, 'Clay-mineral crystallization study': "In 1999 New York philanthropist Laurance S. Rockefeller provided BLT Inc. with the funds needed to implement this in-depth XRD examination of expandable clay minerals (illites/smectites) in crop circle soils." *) November 29, 2013, Podcast UFO, interview with Nancy Talbott (greatly opposed by Colin Andrews): "Toward the end of that time period, Laurance Rockefeller contacted me because he had heard about our papers and he wanted to be brought up to date. So I went to New York and I gave him an overview of the work we had done, what we had found so far, and he offered to fund some more work. I wrote up some proposals and he picked one in particular. ... We've never had the money to do the entire study again. That study was 120,000 bucks." |
||||||||||||||
| [32] | *) November 29, 2013, Podcast UFO, interview with Nancy Talbott (greatly opposed by Colin Andrews): "I wrote up some proposals and [Laurance Rockefeller] picked one in particular. That is this clay mineral X-ray to fraction study that we then carried out. In this study, it's the most comprehensive and the most complete work that anybody has so far on the scientific aspect on the crop circles. Levengood did what he always does in this particular study. He did the plant work. But I hired totally independently the x-ray to fraction expert, who simply did the x-ray to fraction work. I then hired a statistician who did nothing but the statistics. And I was lucky enough to have the help of Dr. Robert C. Reynolds, Jr., head of the Department of Sciences at Dartmouth and the world's acknowledged leading authority on clay minerology and x-ray to fraction technique. He agreed to interpret our results. None of these men, except for Levengood, had even heard of a crop circle. They did not know even what they were. And none of them knew each other, nor did they know Levengood. So we have here as strong a statement about that there could be no experimental bias here, because three of the guys involved had never even heard of crop circles, none of the people knew each other, and each person only did their own work. The circle that we sampled for this particular work happened to be in Canada. ... When Dr. Reynolds saw our results, he was at first so stunned he said: "Oh no, there must be some mistake. This can't possibly be so. We simply have never seen such a change [at the surface; only under high pressure from above and heat from the earths core]." We were looking at the crystalline structures of very specific clays in the surface soils of these crop circles. The theory was that if heat affects the plants, then it might also affect some of these clay minerals. Clay minerals are known to be affected by heat readily. ... Based on these facts [and after very extensive studying and restudying] he said: "We must then be dealing with an energy unknown to science." And that's exactly what he said. And furthermore, his wife told me he was modest in his comments with me, as most academics are. ... He was on the telephone talking to his son, who is apparently also a geologist. And the remark he made to his son was: "I wonder if these people know what they've got."" Explains things considerably longer in the interview. *) June 17, 2011, SHT general assigment reporter Billy Cox (billy.cox@heraldtribune.com) for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's De Void magazine, 'Going against the grain': ''Dr. Robert Reynolds, the former president of the Clay Minerals Society and Dartmouth College professor emeritus of geology and mineralogy, was utterly stumped by the transformation of crystalline structures in the surface soil beneath the stricken crops. The changes he observed would've required temps of between 1,500 and 1,800 degrees F, sustained over a period of hours. But that type of heat should've incinerated the plants. ... At one point, Reynolds was shepherding this material toward a juried forum. But he died in 2004. So did Rockefeller. Levengood is in his mid 80s and slowing down. Money is tight. So let's roll ahead to 2011. ... There's a lot more to this story, but Talbot knows better than to mention the U-word around strangers, so she attempts to make connections to plasma discharges and microwaves of unknown etiology. But she's not delusional about the future of crop circles in the mass mind. "Oh, people make calendars and take pictures and do tours and talk about spiritual stuff. And that may be true," she says. "But that's about as far as anybody will take it. The media idiotically says crop circles have to be made by aliens or hoaxers. But nobody's looking at what's going on inside the plants, the genetic changes, the nutritional value, all that. It's depressing."" |
||||||||||||||
| [33] | 1994, Physiologia Plantarum 92, W.C. Levengood, 'Anatomical anomalies in crop formation plants', pp. 356-363. | ||||||||||||||
| [34] | 2005, Vol. 19, No. 2, professional Italian debunker Francesco Grassi et al., Journal of Scientific Exploration (of the Society for Scientific Exploration), pp. 159-170, 'Balls of Light: The Questionable Science of Crop Circles'. | ||||||||||||||
| [35] | *) colinandrews.net/Dr-William-Levengood.html (scan of a 1993 Levengood letter to Andrews): "October 1, 1993. ... Dear Colin: Somewhere between our recent high-pitched communications lies a middle ground of understanding and mutual respect. A region which I sincerely hope will ultimately lead to a semblance of rational and fruitful input into greater clarification of the crop pattern enigma. Although we may be "marching to the tune of different drummers", I feel that our interests center around attempting to shed more light into the entire field of investigation. Upon reflection, I realize that my letter may have seemed petulant, and certainly contained elements of triviality. What I was trying to point out is the need to understand more, and be up to date regarding details of my reports or information bulletins. I cringe and perhaps over react when statements are made concerning aspects of the findings which were made over two years ago, and during this interim have been revised and updated. My approach was unkind though I certainly did not intend it that way. In the future I will keep an open mind toward your work and approach. Perhaps we can start fresh and maintain a higher level of respect for others efforts. With rapid germinating respect, Dr. W.C. Levengood." *) August 24, 2010, Colin Andrews, 'BLT got it wrong and should admit it and move on' (colinandrews.net/Crop-Circles-BLT-Wrong.html): "Nancy Talbott's January interview with George Knapp on Coast to Coast AM radio was recently brought to my attention by someone from my website. I listened to the interview with interest and was disturbed by the many inaccuracies, some of which were clearly libelous. Although my website has a longstanding article documenting the blind testing of W.C. Levengoods plant analysis, Talbott's interview deserves an update. ... The following address some of the many inaccuracies of the portion of Talbott's Coast-to-Coast AM Interview on 1/17/15 that specifically related to the blind testing of Mr. Levengood's plant analysis. ... 2. Scientific relevance requires blind or double-blind testing which Levengood was adamantly opposed to in regards to his research into crop circles. (What he was afraid of is another subject). When serious doubts emerged in the minds of Talbott's collecting team as to the legitimacy of Levengood's results, this experiment was devised. The intent was to blind test Levengood's analysis of crop circles by submitting samples from an area of plant lodging (wind damage)and a man-made circle. To ease the minds of those who think this unethical, Levengood himself blind tested others working with him as can be seen in this letter he sent to Pat Delgado in 1991. 3. ... Despite Talbott's assertions otherwise, they were clearly labeled as a crop circle and wind damage and as two separate events in the same field. This can be viewed on the video and is supported with documents on the website link. They were also photographed and the images were included with the samples. It is disingenuous indeed to claim Levengood thought the samples were different areas of the same circle. ... 4. Levengood's report on these samples (published on the website) states that they were 'among the best examples of the real crop-circle forming energies' seen to date. He disputed that the lodged plants were caused by wind damage and postulated that the lodging was caused by the same energy as created the crop circle, but that the energy was interrupted before a crop circle formed, as is clearly seen in his report. (above link) ... 5. Prior to any public discussion about the blind test, the video was sent to Nancy Talbott of BLT for an opportunity to explain. Communication of this sort is standard scientific procedure. Talbott refused to comment, suggesting it was beneath consideration, and has maintained that stance after repeated requests (see website). She continues to refuse a serious discussion and even the latest interview on Coast to Coast does not address why two separate and clearly defined areas of flattened plants were found to be formed by real crop circle energy, when, as seen on the blind test video, they were not. ... 6. In 1999, I received a grant from Laurence Rockefeller for two crop circle projects: to look at hoaxing and to conduct research into magnetic anomalies found in crop circles. I was told to keep the source of funding in confidence. I was asked who else might be doing interesting research, but was not told who else was being funded. At some point in the early stages of writing the grant, Rockefeller's personal assistance, Marie Galbraith, asked me what I thought of Levengood's work. I expressed my doubts and sent the video, suggesting further research would need to address the double blind problem. Galbraith passed the video to Talbott for explanation. Apparently Talbott believes this was an underhanded attempt to disrupt BLT funding. It was not. It was an honest answer to the question. 7. [Corrected: the original skips from point 6 to 8.] On the video you will hear me making reference to Levengood as Dr. Levengood. At the time the video was made, Levengood was presenting himself as holding a PhD in Biophysics. In fact, he held a Masters degree. Contrary to Talbott's claims that Levengood did not call himself a doctor but was so labeled by the media, letters Colin received from him were signed as Dr. Levengood. The discovery of falsified credentials furthered my concerns over his results. ... 10. Talbott claims that I do not have the scientific qualifications to understand Levengood's report. Rather than discuss Talbott's level of qualification, it should be noted that I worked with many plant biologists who were extremely qualified to analyze the results(see below). In actuality, there was no analysis on my part- I quoted Levengood's paper, the analysis I used was his. I don't think it takes a degree to do that!!! " Interestingly, Colin Andrews has been attacking Levengood and BLT with the exact same accusations. When one looks online for Andrews' stance on the BLT reported plant anomalies, it looks as if he does not believe in it at all. He instigated a huge row over the fact that Levengood gave himself out as a "Doctor of Science" despite not having received a Ph.D. While factually true, it does not help the crop circle cause at all. Levengood has been published in Science magazine on 8 occasions [31] |
||||||||||||||
| [36] | *) October 15, 2013, Openminds.tv, 'Biophysicist and crop circle researcher W.C. Levengood passes': "William C. ("Lefty") Levengood. March 13, 1925 – September 28, 2013. "Lefty" Levengood, a pioneering biophysicist and long-time resident of Grass Lake, Michigan (and the "L" in the original "BLT Research Team"), has died at the age of 88. Educated at the University of Toledo (B.S. in Physics and Mathematics, 1957), Ball State University (M.A. in Bioscience, 1961) and the University of Michigan (M.S. in Biophysics, 1970), Levengood worked as a research physicist at the now-defunct Institute of Science & Technology and the Dept. of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan from 1961 through 1970, after which he was employed as the Director of Biophysical Research and as a consulting scientist for various private-sector companies." *) The claim of Levengood allegedly missing a few points to receive a Ph.D. and therefore receiving a second masters comes from Nancy Talbott, whom I've heard make this claim during an interview. Don't know which one, however, anymore. |
||||||||||||||
| [37] | January 17, 2015, Coast to Coast AM, conversation between host George Knapp and Nancy Talbott: " GK: I can imagine this crop circle research, gets very intense rivalries, just as in the ufo field which have developed that I know of. I saw Colin Andrews has written something pretty nasty about you, saying - accusing you of doing what National Geographic did. Nancy Talbott: Don't pay attention to Colin. GK: That someone had gone out in the field, created a crop circle, took some samples out of it, sent them to BLT. NT: That's Colin being Colin. Its not worth discussing George... GK: Well I am asking about it anyway. NT: What is your question? GK: My question is, what is your response to Colin Andrews saying that you guys took these samples, that you guys made, and and analyzed it and said that it had been something anomalous. That the nodes had been exploded and... NT: OK, OK, I've got it, I've got the question. GK: OK. NT: He got it a little wrong there... GK: OK. NT: What happened was, one year I hired a number of workers in England to do some of the plant sampling for me. One of the teams I hired was a nephew and niece of his. Never occurred to me that they would cheat, never. And they, along with several others were hired to do certain circles and I decided which circles were to be sampled. And when a circle would appear, I would decide every fifth or tenth one or whatever and I would send a team out to do it. In this case it was one of niece and nephew ...were chosen to sample. They went to the formation and while they were there, Colin went along with a video camera, had them make another circle near the one that was there anomalously. He video taped the entire thing and then the sampled both the one they had made and the thing that was there anomalously but they indicated that the entire thing had been there. In other words, they didn't tell me or Levengood that these samples came from two different types of thing. They implied that the two circles were part of the original anomalous thing and all the labels were all labelled that way. OK, it comes in here into the States and I don't know what has happened, only what the field workers tell me, and Levengood is even blinder than I am because I am handling all of the samples. Levengood only takes it from me, as it gets it as to what the truth is. So, as far as he knows he's gotten samples from two parts of one crop circle. And as he is doing the work, he is finding the difference. The node length changes between these two things were different. It wasn't the same. Then he started doing other tests and found differences also. Very confused because as far as he knew, these were two parts of the same thing, right. In his report which he wrote up, he clearly indicates that these variations between the two sets of samples. Him of course being completely ignorant that one has been man made by Colin's niece and nephew. He sends the report out, the second Colin gets it, he pops himself down with one of his video cameras and holds the thing up and starts to talk about how Levengood has made a mistake, has mistaken because Colin doesn't understand the report. He doesn't realize (laughing) in the report ... Levengood has clearly identified there is a difference between circle A and circle B. And not only did he record all this as if he was, you know, some sort of authority, he then sent a copy of this tape that he has all put together, of his niece and nephew making the circle. They are setting Levengood up, Levengood goes for it, he doesn't understand it, bla bla. And they send it to [Laurance] Rockefeller. Colin sent it to Rockefeller, in an attempt to see to it that Rockefeller would not fund the project. Our project. It didn't work because this lady [Marie Galbraith] who gets all Rockefeller's mail, sent me the video tape, so I knew what Colin had done. I don't know if Laurance ever found out, ever saw the video at all but the particular one Colin sent was sent to me and I then knew what I was dealing with. That his niece and nephew had participated in this when they were being paid by me. You know, all their expenses and stuff, to do this work for Levengood. So that's my reply. How do you like that? GK: Well, I think it was a good explanation and I think it was important for you to say it. That was one of the things that Colin had said online, I had read it earlier today that he couldn't get a response from you. (at this stage in discussion time marker: 1hr, 10 mins, 51 secs ) continued: Are there patterns . . (NT interrupts) NT: I don't like to get into this nasty stuff, it doesn't - the circles are not about this kind of thing. I know this: what ever they are, this isn't what they are about, and Colin tries to keep himself relevant by injecting himself into these things and its so distasteful to me. GK: Can you talk about where the phenomenon might be heading? um, I'm wondering if there is a larger pattern. For example with UFOs there are waves where these things happen. Is there anything like that, ah has anyone... NT: I don't know, plus whatever it, it is that the most interesting stuff that I know of is, going on crop circle wise is going on around Robbert [van den Broeke]." |
||||||||||||||
| [38] | 2003, Colin andrews, 'Crop Circles: Signs of Contact', pp. 51-53: "William C. Levengood, an eminent biophysicist at the Pinelandia Laboratories in Michigan, has ... discovered is that the internal structure of the plants is changed at the cellular level, and that the cell pit walls within the structure of the plants are fractured and have expanded. What is important about these findings is that this effect has most assuredly not been replicated by human beings tramping on plants. ... Interestingly, Levengood has also determined that there is magnetic material impregnated in some of the plants from authentic crop circles, as well as in the soil taken from around those plants. This magnetic material, to date, has only also been found in a small number of meteorites. ... Levengood has posited that microwave radiation could cause many of the expulsion cavities and nodal changes found in crop circle plant stalks. In fact, as part of his research at the Pinelandia Labs, Levengood was able to duplicate the specific nodal changes by exposing normal plants to microwaves. However, one element of the changed plants he could not duplicate through microwave exposure was the genetic changes to the nodes found in crop circle plants. Levengood's research has been criticized by skeptics, mostly for the allegation that he has not conducted much of his work in a double-blind manner. ... Closer study of his work is revealing, however, and regardless of the skeptics' immediate rejection of even the possibility of a crop formation being "non-hoaxed," there are distinct and quantifiable results in Levengood's findings that are not found in known hoaxed formations. There is a great deal in Levengood's work that should be taken seriously. He has written over 50 peer-reviewed papers, and I know for a fact that he does not embark on a research protocol recklessly, or with less than the highest standards of control, monitoring, and recording. Seed heads collected from plants inside crop circles suspected of being authentic were malformed, and yet often manifested speeded-up germination. ... The negativity of ardent skeptics, in my opinion, does more harm than good. ... Why would a scientist of the caliber of William Levengood, the holder of five patents—obviously, a serious man—commit time, resources, and his reputation to studying something that is nothing but a fantasy? Levengood is one of those credible people, and I, for one, am not so ready to dismiss his work and his findings as nothing but a silly waste of time." |
||||||||||||||
| [39] | May 31, 1996, Pinelandia & Bayville Labs, W.C. Levengood and John A. Burke, report no. 75, 'Crop Formation: Whitchurch, U.K. 1995': " c) - in every case the epical nodes within the so-called "wind damage" area are significantly expanded. This clearly demonstrates that this is not a [sic] simple wind damage, but rather an area which received transient energy of [sic] even higher degree than the small 4 ft. circle nearby. Comments: ... For the past several years we have been pointing out that organized plasma interactions can very satisfactorily account for the shapes of crop formations. Even seemingly minor details, as for example the "notches" on the outer edge of the barley formation ... are indicative of unstable shear forces, typically observed within plasma systems. This notch of ratchet effect has appeared in many crop formations. Probably the best known was the Barbury Castle formation, which made the cover of the Feb. 1, 1992 issue of Science News. All our experimental findings. All our experimental findings involving the transformations in plant cell morphology and in the external characteristics, such as node swelling and expulsion cavity formation, have supported an ion plasma model. There have been no anomalies which would have invalidated this hypothesis; in fact our concept was accepted in the peer-reviewed scientific journals Physiologia Plantarum and the Journal of Scientific Exploration. We admit that chaos theory is not simple and straightforward to understand, but it is scientifically sound. In conducting scientific investigations one quickly realizes that nature does not always provide simple answers. Being able to unravel the complexities within these special formations will ultimately lead to a working model for describing all formations." Photocopies of documents listed here: colinandrews.net/Crop-Circles-BLT-Wrong.html (accessed: October 13, 2016). |
||||||||||||||
| [40] | Nancy Talbott at bltresearch.com/fieldreports/uk2009.php, 'Plant Abnormalities Indicate Plasma Discharge in 2009 UK Crop Circles'. | ||||||||||||||
| [41] | This is according to a YouTube-based interview with Nancy Talbott, the exact source I've lost. | ||||||||||||||
| [42] | See note 23. | ||||||||||||||
| [43] | October 31, 1989, unknown newspaper, 'UFO blasts TV crew from circle of corn' (photocopy). | ||||||||||||||
| [44] | 1989, BBC West, with host Chris Vacher and moderate skeptic Professor Heinz Wolff following Operation White Crow of Colin Andrews, Pat Delgado, and various BBC engineers, 'Secret Circles'. youtube.com/watch?v=MHnKyfRhrPs (accessed: October 13, 2016). |
||||||||||||||
| [45] | March 21, 1991, BBC 1, People Today: "In an attempt to catch a crop circle in the making, enthusiasts Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado set up Operation Blackbird, a high-tech surveillance operation. ... Seven special cameras watch night after night, perched on the edge of an iron age Wiltshire, but would a circle appear in their range? Only two days [August 25] later their hopes seemed to have been answered. ... Genuine formations [according to Delgado and Andrews] were popping up every day. Pat and Colin decided to call in experts from the BBC engineering department. Their only clue was the mysterious noise picked up by a film crew the previous year. But before their equipment could be put to work, there was one important technique they had to learn, as Pat explained to Patrick Dunn, the BBC's frequency coordinator. The art of dowing is an important skill. ... Roger Waldron from Pebble Mill was having some difficulties with his recordings [too much noise around, so have to record at night]. ... Nearby the Skystalk night surveillance camera, operated by its designer Michael Kerry, watched his every move... back at Operation Blackbird, the hoaxes were still coming, this time what appeared to be a UFO. Later claims of close encounter with the Virgin kind with Richard Branson at the helm of the mothership." youtube.com/watch?v=4dXutJodrUk (accessed: October 13, 2016). |
||||||||||||||
| [46] | Ibid. |
||||||||||||||
| [47] | Ibid. | ||||||||||||||
| [48] | Ibid. | ||||||||||||||
| [49] | Ibid. | ||||||||||||||
| [50] | Ibid. | ||||||||||||||
| [51] | Ibid. | ||||||||||||||
| [52] | 2003, Colin Andrews, 'Crop Circles: Signs of Contact', p. 135: "Ten days after the fake formation had been constructed, a real crop circle appeared in the field below Bratton Castle. On August 5, 1990, 440 yards from the site of the hoaxed formation, a real circle appeared—and its formation was captured on film. This second event, which was most definitely an authentic crop formation, was recorded on what has come to be known as the "yellow camera." I was off the site when this occurred, but I was immediately notified of the event and returned within one hour. "Where's the tape?" I asked the moment I arrived. I was told by one of the team members that the tape had been placed in a locked box—I was actually shown a sealed case that was supposedly the box where the tape was secured—and I was also informed that it had only been viewed once. I was not allowed to watch the tape nor was I able in any way to confirm that the actual tape from the yellow camera was now in the locked box. I later learned the truth. The tape from the yellow camera had been immediately removed from the site by person or persons unknown, and it has never been seen since. I was immediately sworn to secrecy and I was instructed—"ordered" is actually a better word—by a person whom I will not name, to give Mr. Michihito Ogawa of Nippon Television a videotape. I was to tell him that the tape was from the yellow camera, and assure him that it contained the footage of the crop circle event. The tape given to Mr. Ogawa was actually video of the site taken days earlier, and it showed nothing but the silent landscape. Mr. Ogowa returned to NTV headquarters in Japan, where extensive analysis of the tape was performed. Regrettably, they were analyzing a decoy tape. The tape that they owned the rights to was not provided to them, and to this day I have no knowledge of the whereabouts of the tape from the yellow camera—footage that shows the formation of an authentic crop circle in a field in central southern England. I say now that I firmly believe that I was not being given a choice when I was told to give NTV a dummy tape. I do not know what would have happened if I had refused to do as I was ordered. I suspect that I would have been banned from the site and that Mr. Ogawa would have been given the phony tape anyway." |
||||||||||||||
| [53] | *) October 15, 2009, ColinAndrews.com, 'Eye witness to the formation of a crop circle opposite Stonehenge'. colinandrews.net/JuliaSetStory.html. *) 2009, lucypringle.co.uk, 'News Flash. Taxi driver witnesses crop circle appearing opposite Stonehenge. Dramatic story behind this event'. ... lucypringle.co.uk/news/stonehenge-julia-set-eyewitness.shtml. |
||||||||||||||
| [54] | 2002, Lucypringle.co.uk, 'The Crabwood Event'. Summary of information provided:
|
||||||||||||||
| [55] | December 4, 1999, Remko Delfgaauw for Skepter (Skepsis.nl), 'Party hard in the grain; The sensation of crop circle making' ('Uit je dak in het graan; De sensatie van het graancirkels maken'): "Drie jaar geleden viel het besluit om de eerste graancirkel te gaan maken. Ik was net verhuisd vanuit Den Haag naar Zierikzee op Schouwen-Duiveland. Ik volgde het graancirkelfenomeen inmiddels al vele jaren. Vanaf de eerste confrontatie was ik er al door geboeid. ... Net als vele anderen probeerde ik de verborgen boodschappen te interpreteren die door een nog onbekende energiebron gecreëerd werden en vervolgens in het ochtendlicht aan het oog van de mensheid verschenen. Vele jaren was ik een twijfelende gelovige. Alhoewel ik een rationele atheïstische achtergrond heb, ontkwam ik er niet aan om de graancirkels te interpreteren als boodschappen van buitenaardsen die bedoeld waren om ons op onbewust niveau te beïnvloeden. Wat die boodschap dan inhield? Daar kwam ik niet echt uit. Zeker niet toen ik na tien jaar bestuderen van het fenomeen, en dus duizenden graancirkels verder, door de bomen het bos niet meer zag. Als de buitenaardsen een boodschap voor ons hadden, dan deden ze verdomd goed hun best om die zo onduidelijk mogelijk te maken, dat was het enige wat duidelijk was. Inmiddels waren de 'toppers' van elk graanseizoen, met name in Zuid-Engeland, uitgegroeid tot gecompliceerde patronen, vaak op basis van symmetrie en herhaling van patronen. Mandala's in het veld zou je het kunnen noemen. ... Er bleef maar één manier over om er achter te komen of de graancirkelgelovigen naïef waren: just do it! Maar net zoals de schoenen die achter deze slogan schuilen je niet vanzelf kampioen hardlopen maken, maak je ook niet zomaar een graancirkel. ... Ik wilde niet een plankje en een touwtje pakken en dan maar rondjes gaan draaien. Dan wist ik nog niets. Nee, op z'n minst zou het de grootste en meest complexe van Nederland moeten worden. De figuur zou zich moeten kunnen meten met de beste die in Engeland waren verschenen. Ik begon onder m'n vrienden eens polshoogte te nemen om te kijken of ik hen kon interesseren in een graanproject. ... In totaal zes man had ik bij elkaar weten te brengen. Zes mensen – inclusief ik zei de gek – die gemotiveerd en serieus wilden samenwerken om iets nieuws te proberen. ... We begonnen dat jaar in maart al met de voorbereidingen. We kwamen 's avonds, eens in de drie weken bij elkaar voor een groepsbespreking. ... Diverse methodes zijn getest om het graan plat te krijgen: de gazonroller, de plankjes, holle pvc-pijpen, touw – ja zelfs de blote hand. Uiteindelijk won de pvc-pijp het. Door hier handvaten aan te bevestigen konden we gewoon rechtop blijven lopen in het veld. Via moffen zouden we de pvc-pijpen modulair houden en op de gewenste lengte kunnen vastzetten. Dit probleem was vrij snel getackeld. We namen de proef op de som met een pvc-pijp van tweeënhalve meter. Het werkte prima! Daarna kwam de vraag over het figuur. Aangezien ik de aanstichter achter het project was en me zelf bezig hield met mandala's schilderen, leek ik de aangewezen persoon om een figuur te ontwerpen. Mijn voornaamste inspiratiebron was de Juliaset die in Engeland was ontstaan. Als basis voor mijn figuur gebruikte ik de verhouding 13:21, beter bekend als de gulden snede. De bollen zouden in ons figuur volgens deze verhouding naar buiten toe in diameter moeten groeien en in een evenredig toenemende hoek moeten afbuigen. De bollen zouden verbonden worden door ringen die volgens dezelfde verhouding naar buiten toe steeds groter moesten worden. 'De Gulden Tunnel' was de naam die we eraan gaven. 's Middags hadden we een laatste briefing. Iedereen had zijn deel van het actieplan gelezen. In de briefing werd in grote lijnen het hele plan besproken en werden de laatste vragen beantwoord. Daarnaast werden de headsets getest die we speciaal voor het project hadden aangeschaft. Het devies voor de nacht was: draag donkere kleren, gebruik niet of nauwelijks een zaklantaarn, verlies niets, laat geen afval achter en: weet verdraaid goed waar je loopt! ... Uiteindelijk hebben we het voordat de zon opkwam voor elkaar gekregen. Alle coördinaten waren uitgezet. Dunne haringen in de grond gaven de locaties aan en touwtjes die de haringen aan elkaar verbonden creëerden een pad dat we de volgende nacht zouden kunnen volgen. ... Al met al was het echter wel al zo laat geworden, dat het onbegonnen werk zou zijn om de cirkels nog plat te walsen. We zouden tevreden moeten zijn met de 21 bollen die we in een dynamisch bewegend model in het veld hadden gelegd – nog steeds de grootste graancirkel die ooit buiten Engeland was gemaakt. ... Het duurde twee dagen voordat de media er lucht van kregen. We hadden ze een handje aan mee geholpen. De eigenaar van het perceel, die van de hoed en de rand wist, 'ontdekte' namelijk heel snel dat er een graancirkel in zijn veld was ontstaan. En 'toevallig' kende de eigenaar ook een nabij wonende luchtfotograaf die hij direct inschakelde. Veel kranten en commerciële zenders besteedden aandacht aan de graancirkel. Duizenden mensen kwamen op bezoek, vrijwel allemaal gelovigen. Uiteindelijk kwam ook de Dutch CCCS opdagen voor onderzoek. (De metingen en resultaten zijn uitgebreid verslagen in Eltjo Haselhoffs boek: Het Raadsel van de Graancirkels.) De voorzitter van de Dutch CCCS werd de avond voor de bekendmaking, telefonisch door de boerin benaderd. Wij waren uiteraard erg benieuwd naar het oordeel van de 'echte onderzoekers'. De voorzitter zei in dit telefoongesprek 'Het zou ons ten zeerste verbazen als dit mensenwerk zou zijn.' Nadien is deze uitspraak ontkend en aangezien wij de dag erop via een persbericht bekend maakten dat wij de daders waren, keken ze wel uit om verdere bevestigende uitspraken te doen. De bekendmaking dat deze graancirkel —die op internet tot 'the best Dutch cropcircle in the world ever' was uitgeroepen— slechts het werk was van sterfelijke aardse zielen deed de rust verrassend snel wederkeren. ... De gekte die in België ontstond na de ontdekking was nog groter dan in Nederland. Het VRT-journaal moest er zelfs aan te pas komen om bekend te maken dat het slechts mensenwerk was. Het veld was ondertussen door de politie al enkele dagen voor auto's afgezet. Zelfs enkele hoogwaardigheidsbekleders hadden het veld inmiddels bezocht. ... Mijn derde en meest ambitieuze project tot dusver is Fe-Male. Wederom was Schouwen-Duiveland de plek waar het ging gebeuren. ..." |
||||||||||||||
| [56] | xld-sign.com/projecten (accessed: April 12, 2016): "2008 | Alien Sex. Het populair wetenschappelijke maandblad Quest was hier de opdrachtgever. ... 2006 | Editie NL. Editie NL wilde als ludieke actie een graancirkel laten maken in de vorm van hun logo. ... 2005 | Men Only. De Belgische tak van Amnesty International heeft in 2005 de aandacht gevraagd voor de discriminatie van vrouwelijke asielzoekers. ... 2005 | ABN AMRO ... 2002 | Samsung. ... 1998 | De Droom Driehoek. Het ontwerp van de Droom Driehoek is aangedragen door de Vlaamse Radio en Televisie. ..." | ||||||||||||||
| [57] | This is based on Delfgaauw's listed dimensions on xld-sign.com/projecten compared to my own estimates based on the usual/average distance between tramlines. For example, Delfgaauw lists his Butterfly Man as being 540 meters by 450 meters. However, I only count the long side of the design spanning 12 tramlines. Even if I take a giant 25 meters in between two tramlines (ordinary I take 15, which appears to provide the most accurate averages), that is still only 300 meters, or 45% less than what Delfgaauw claims. If I take the average of 15 meters, which would come down to an overstatement of 300%. With Project Fe-male I see the design spanning almost 9 tramlines, giving us an estimated diameter of close to 135 meters. However, Delfgaauw lists it as having been 200 meters. It's possible that the tramlines are about 22 meters apart, but the overstatement with regard to the Butterfly Man makes me doubt this. His 1997 Golden Tunnel design is listed as 100 meters in diameter. That can only be if the tramlines are 25 meters apart, basically the absolute maximum possible. I suspect about 15 meters would be more accurate, although I can only be certain with the Butterfly Man that the dimensions have been vastly overstated. |
||||||||||||||
| [58] | *) December 4, 1999, Remko Delfgaauw for Skepter (Skepsis.nl), 'Party hard in the grain; The sensation of crop circle making' ('Uit je dak in het graan; De sensatie van het graancirkels maken'). *) xld-sign.com/projecten/bekijk/De-gulden-tunnel (accessed: April 12, 2016): "1997 | De gulden tunnel Allereerste graancirkel projekt van Remko Delfgaauw. Tevens de grootste graancirkel die tot die tijd in Nederland is gevonden. De Gulden Tunnel (qua symmetrie en opbouw volledig gebaseerd op de Gulden Snede) is tot stand gekomen in de zomer van 1997. ... Deelnemers: 6. Datum: ... juli 1997 ... De voornaamste reden om het projekt te starten was om te kijken wat de uitwerking op pers, publiek en wetenschappers zou zijn als er ergens in Nederland \'out of the blue\' een complexe graancirkel zou ontstaan die zich kon meten met de complexe structuren zoals die in Zuid-Engeland werden gevonden in die tijd. Tevens waren de makers (Remko Delfgaauw en 3 vrienden) benieuwd naar de reakties als, enkele weken na ontdekking, door de makers naar buiten werd getreden en onomstotelijk duidelijk werd gemaakt dat e.e.a. mensenwerk was. De reakties, zowel in eerste als in 2e instantie overtroffen alle verwachtingen." |
||||||||||||||
| [59] | xld-sign.com/projecten/bekijk/Project-Fe-Male: "1999 | Project Fe-Male. Aanvankelijk is dit project gestart als aanvraag van reklame-bureau Saatchi & Saatchi om een graancirkel te maken als teambuilding project t.b.v. van 3 met elkaar fuserende bedrijven. Deze fusie-gedachte vormde de inspriatiebron voor het ontwerp. Nadat de opdrachtgever van Saatchi & Saatchi afhaakte, is dit project in afgeslankte vorm alsnog uitgevoerd als teambuilding project ten behoeve van het Nederlandse bedrijf Bever Innovations. Project Fe-Male is de grootste graancirkel ooit, die buiten Engeland is gemaakt Project naam Project Fe-Male. Ontwerp: Remko Delfgaauw. Opdrachtgever: Bever Innovations uit Zierikzee. Doel: Teambuilding. Deelnemers: 15. Datum: 27 juli 1999. Lokatie: Nederland, provincie Zeeland, op het eiland Schouwen-Duiveland. Gewas: Zomertarwe. Grootte: 200 x 200 meter. Bijzonderheden: Een reklame-bureau uit Amsterdam heeft bij de boer de oogst van het veld opgekocht om hier als reklame-stunt 'space-cookies' van te bakken (die overigens prima smaakten)." |
||||||||||||||
| [60] | nl.linkedin.com/in/remko-delfgaauw-16b56711 (accessed: September 29, 2016): "Remko Delfgaauw: Board Advisor at Bever Innovations ... Started Bever Innovations in 1996 with Michel de Brabander and developed this company in 16 years to a 10KK+ euro highly innovative electronics company with a full focus on Petrol Retailers around the globe." | ||||||||||||||
| [61] | xld-sign.com/projecten/bekijk/Atlas (accessed: April 12, 2016): "2009 | Atlas. Deze graancirkel, met de projectnaam Atlas, is een zeer bijzonder graankunstwerk. Atlas is de grootste graancirkel ter wereld. Doel was niet alleen de grootste graancirkel ter wereld te maken, maar ook om het beeld een boodschap uit te laten dragen waarbij de schoonheid en de kwetsbaarheid van de mens naar voren komen. Project naam: Atlas. Ontwerp: XL D-Sign. Opdrachtgever: XL D-Sign. Doel: Promotie. Deelnemers [Participants]: 60. Datum: 07 Augustus 2009. Lokatie: Nederland, provincie Zeeland, Zuid-Beveland, Wilhelminapolder. Gewas: Wintertarwe. Grootte: 530 x 450 meter. Bijzonderheden: De grootste graancirkel ter wereld en dus ook van XL D-Sign tot dusver, met een oppervlak van bijna 25 hectare." |
||||||||||||||
| [62] | August 8, 2009, Nibiru.nl (original with title not available anymore): "We zijn zojuist gebeld door Peter Vanlaerhoven, die met zijn collega Sjaak Damen van DCCA, poolshoogte zijn gaan nemen in Goes. Ze troffen deze formatie aan en is dus niet gephotoshopped, zoals sommigen bij voorbaat suggereerden. Peter en Sjaak hebben de eigenaar van het graanveld gesproken en deze vertelde hen wat er precies aan de hand is. Het blijkt te gaan om een project van een designerbureau, die met behulp van GPS in 2 dagen deze formatie hebben gemaakt, speciaal voor het 200 jarig bestaan van de Wilhelminapolder. Ter ere hiervan vindt er een evenement plaats waarbij verschillende demonstraties en uitvoeringen worden gegeven. Er zijn 'heksenkringen' en zelfs een labyrinth ingezaaid en deze graancirkel is daar ook een onderdeel van en als 'grote verrassing' bedoeld. Op de website kmwp.nl staat het volgende te lezen: "Met het langverwachtte Landart-project sluiten wij ons feestjaar af. Vanaf oktober is het speciaal hiervoor gemaakte kunstwerk te zien in ons deel van het mooie Zeeuwse landschap." Op de site Maximaal.nl staat vermeld dat BNN betrokken is bij deze 'stunt', maar dat zij niet willen zeggen wat de bedoeling ervan is. De boer ontkent overigens stellig dat BNN er iets mee te maken heeft." |
||||||||||||||
| [63] | April 22, 2012, Scientias.nl, 'Losgaan in het Graan: Remko Delfgaauw': "Dat graancirkels door mensen, en niet door buitenaardse wezens worden gemaakt, bewijst Delfgaauw (46) maar weer eens. Hij was de eerste die er eerlijk voor uitkwam dat de creaties door mensen zelf werden gemaakt. Hoewel hij daar als kind nog aan twijfelde. "Vroeger had ik al een fascinatie voor vliegende schotels. Ik hield er destijds op school een spreekbeurt over. Graancirkels waren toen veel in het nieuws, ze doken vooral in Engeland op en iedereen dacht toen nog dat ze door aliens werden gemaakt," vertelt Delfgaauw aan Scientias.nl." | ||||||||||||||
| [64] | xld-sign.com/projecten/bekijk/Atlas (accessed: April 12, 2016): "2009 | Atlas. Deze graancirkel, met de projectnaam Atlas [was also designed] ook om het beeld een boodschap uit te laten dragen waarbij de schoonheid en de kwetsbaarheid van de mens naar voren komen." | ||||||||||||||
| [65] | September 1994, no. 33, Marcus Allen for the Sussex Circular 'Behind the Hoaxers - Physicists, Scientists, Stompers and the Secret History of Circle Faking': "By the summer of 1991, a TV programme, 'The Strange Case of the Crop Circles' transmitted under the Channel 4 'Equinox' banner had been made by Juniper Productions. This contained a long sequence involving the Wessex Skeptics, Dr. Robin Allen and Dr. Martin Hempstead, physicists from the University of Southampton, who were depicted in Fortean Time No. 63 as "an anti-paranormal group", deliberately hoaxing to catch out serious circle be flattened. A garden roller and some planks sufficed to crush the crop into a small circle which was then used to lure Dr. Meaden and Busty Taylor into inadvisable pronouncements of authenticity. These were then relentlessly exploited by the programme makers to give the impression that solutions had been found for all crop circles. Doug and Dave were also on the bandwagon with their "capers in the corn". Another mystery had been solved by the fearless investigators of 'MBF Services', who in truth had cynically set up Pat Delgado with a deliberately planned deception. (Interesting to note that D & D were also based in Southampton - Ed.) The Wessex Skeptics, without the protection of a TV crew, found circle faking rather more difficult on their own. They were caught red-handed at Cheesefoot Head by crop watchers in 1991. Not having previously obtained the farmer's permission and having been caught, they subsequently decided to send an anonymous donation to the farmer." |
||||||||||||||
| [66] | 2009, Richard D. Hall, 'Crop Circles: The Hidden Truth' (alternative TV special), 31:00. | ||||||||||||||
| [67] | January 22, 1995, MUFON Ontario, 'The Wiltshire Crop Circle Farce': "This claim [of massive hoaxing] is supported by the fact that many of the 1994 formations were based on a common theme - the so-called Scorpion - and that some of these designs appear in a booklet titled "A Beginners Guide to Crop Circle Making", which has been produced by the Wiltshire Circlemakers..." | ||||||||||||||
| [68] | Example from a 1997 press release of John Lundberg and Rod Dickinson: circlemakers.org/press.html (September 30, 2016): "Our years of experience enable us to construct crop formations of a scale and complexity which lead many people to believe they are beyond human endeavor." | ||||||||||||||
| [69] | June 26, 2007 YouTube upload, 'Circlemakers pt3 of 18 documentary', (youtube.com/watch?v=DEu3PoB_eAQ), comment of Matt Williams on his own crop circle documentary: "Ouch, actors eh.... yes, we are all members of Equity and get paid a MI5 men in black hourly rate... har har har ;-) Matt" | ||||||||||||||
| [70] | *) bufora.org.uk/congress.htm (January 28, 1997; speakers were changed a lot): "The 9th BUFORA International UFO Congress Advance Notice 16/17th August 1997 ... Provisional Speakers Paul Devereux (UK), Nick Redfern (UK) , Michael Lindermann (USA), John Mack (USA), Budd Hopkins (USA), Jenny Randles (UK), Odd Gunner Reod (SWE) ..." *) bufora.org.uk/congress.htm (February 2, 1998): "The 9th BUFORA International UFO Congress... 16/17th August 1997 ... Speakers now include: Don Ecker (Crash Retrievals) ... David Percy (Moon Hoax Photos); Nick Redfern (MOD Cover-Up: A Covert Agenda) ... Matthew Williams (New Cover-Up Evidence) ... Derrel Sims (Alien Implants)..." *) October 8, 2003, Rense.com, 'First Annual UFO Crash Retrieval Conference Soon': " Majestic Documents announced it is holding the first ever UFO conference focused exclusively on Crash Retrievals. ... Confirmed speakers: ... Budd Hopkins [C2C AM]... Nick Redfern [C2C AM] ... Matthew Williams - The "British Area 51" & Computer Hacker Matthew Bevan ... Linda M. Howe [C2C AM] ... Stanton Friedman [C2C AM] ... Greg Bishop [C2C AM] ... Nick Redfern & Ryan Wood [C2C AM] ... Robert Wood [C2C AM] ... Grant Cameron [C2C AM] ... Friday, November 14th, 2003 [to] Sunday, November 16th, 2003." *) November 9-11, 2007, Matt Williams introduction, 5th Crash Retrieval Conference in Las Vegas (youtube.com/watch?v=Gf5uek-vSQE): "Matthew Williams is a former investigator with the British government's Customs and Excise. After a personal UFO encounter in Wales in the early 1990s, he began to actively investigate the subject and focused his research on the link between secret government UFO programs and underground military bases in the UK. The former editor of Truthseekers Review magazine, Williams has appeared on many British and overseas documentaries about UFOs. Please help us welcome, Mr. Matthew Williams." In his speech he promoted the Gary McKinnon [C2C AM] case and praised Steven Greer's Super-disinformative Disclosure Project (also of C2C AM). The video also reveals that Rockefeller man Daniel Sheehan [C2C AM] was in the audience. Kerry Cassidy [C2C AM] and Bill Ryan of the super-disinformative Project Camelot Productions are known to have attended the November 2005 conference. |
||||||||||||||
| [71] | 1992, Andrew Collins, 'The New Circlemakers: Insights Into the Crop Circle Mystery', p. 5. | ||||||||||||||
| [72] | 1993, Jim Schnabel, 'Round in Circles', pp. 247-248: "One night at a hotel bar in Glastonbury, Rob Irving ran into Andy Collins, the author of The Black Alchemist. Irving introduced himself as a crop circles enthusiast. Collins too was interested in the circles. Irving mentioned the White Crow letters. Collins had received some similar letters... Since [Rita Goold's] Shadow entities [which allegedly were behind the White Crow Letters] were interested in psychic questing, the messages usually provided clues to the whereabouts of this or that historical artefact, which Collins, Goold, and occasionally other occult journalists would then set out together to find. The letters would get them close, and subsequently Goold, with her psychic powers, would direct them to the exact spot..." |
||||||||||||||
| [73] | *) Circlemakers.org/new_documents.html (accessed: December 7, 2000 (Webarchive)): "[Banner on top of the page:] A career in the Secret Service? www,MI5.gov.uk. © Crown Copyright 1998." *) Circlemakers.org/new_documents.html (accessed: December 7, 2000 (Webarchive): "[Source code:] <META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="mi5, security service, serious crime, british security service, spy, security, intelligence, terrorism, espionage, proliferation, corn circles, circlemakers, circle makers, crop circles, pictograms, cerealogy, fractals, weird shit, aliens, ufo, hoaxers, hoax, hoaxing, fake, fakers, faking, paranormal, weird, fortean, cerealogy, John Lundberg, Rod Dickinson, Wil Russell, Robert Irving, Jim Schnabel, Julian Richardson, Doug and Dave, Doug Bower, Dave Chorley, CIA, MI5, MBF services, MIB, men in black, apocalypse, 2000, aliens, UFOs, black watch, landscape art"> <META NAME="Description" CONTENT="circlemakers: Home of England's crop circle makers. Making the world a more interesting place.">"*) Circlemakers.org/new_documents.html (accessed: September 15,2014): Exactly the same. Also: "NEWS UPDATE 25-06-2014: Circlemakers Commander-in-chief Doug Bower - who swirled his first circle in 1976 - is 90 years young today."*) Circlemakers.org/new_documents.html (accessed: September 15, 2014): "News update 06-03-2004: Well, it looks like veteran crop circle researcher Colin Andrews (pictured right) might be forced to go get a real job! He's posted an urgent appeal for funds on his website stating that "unless funds are secured within the next four weeks, the complete operation will close". If you want to help Colin out, you can make a tax deductible donation via his website. We'll be meeting up with Colin at the edge of a field in Wiltshire in the next few days to hand over a brown envelope "stuffed with cash". We hope he can sort out his finances, because if he does bow out of the crop circle research field he would leave a huge void in his wake. Colin, can we suggest that you give Freddy Silva a call, as - if he is to be believed - sales of his crop circle screed "Secrets in the Fields" have now topped twenty thousand, I'm sure he'd love to plough some of the profits from the book back into crop circle research, eh Freddy? If all else fails maybe Colin could join MI5's psy-ops department and retrain as a crop circle maker..." *) Circlemakers.org/new_documents.html (accessed: September 15, 2014): "you'd be surprised how expensive running a successful website can be, don't panic, we're not going to ask you for money - but if you want to show you appreciation for 10 years of circlemaking thrills and spills go splash some cash in our shop - no, our retainer from sources we'd rather not disclose has kept our virtual head above water, but sadly this isn't that case for other such sites. Crop circle 'researcher' Paul Vigay (pictured above studying his bank statement) who runs the rather good cropcircleresearch.com website has hit some choppy financial waters and is appealing for ten thousand dollars "as a matter of urgency" in order to keep his website online. Assuming you haven't donated all of your disposable income to the tsunami appeal, Paul has set up a page where you can send him some cash." *) 2009, Richard D. Hall, 'Crop Circles: The Hidden Truth' (alternative TV special): "I decided to check out Lundberg's residence, which is an apartment in London. I decided to run some land registry checks on the apartment and I came up with some bizarre findings. The block where Lundberg lives built in 1995 contains about 40 apartments. Lundberg's apartment does not appear on the land registry database. ... There's no record of it ever being bought or sold. I telephoned the Land Registry service. They said it must have never been sold since it was built. There are three more properties neighboring Lundberg's that have this exact same anomaly. I telephoned the Housing Association, which was listed as the owner of these properties and asked if they had any apartments for rent in that block. They said they have four and that the tenants in those properties were, quote, "a different type of tenant than our normal tenant." I asked what they meant by this and she said the rent was not paid by the tenants. They were either leased or paid for by the council. I checked out the identities of the residents of the other three properties and judging by what they do for a living, I would not expect them to be entitled to housing benefits. Therefore the rents are not being paid for by the council. Could it be that I have uncovered three more people who were associated with the same organization? ... In carrying out this work, I now believe I have the identities of seven MI5 agents [probably 3 couples and Lundberg] operating in various professions, predominantly the media, one of whom is a household name. For my own personal safety this information has been shared with a number of trusted individuals who are holding the information at this time. "2009, Richard D. Hall, 'Crop Circles: The Hidden Truth' (alternative TV special): "I decided to check out Lundberg's residence, which is an apartment in London. I decided to run some land registry checks on the apartment and I came up with some bizarre findings. The block where Lundberg lives built in 1995 contains about 40 apartments. Lundberg's apartment does not appear on the land registry database. ... There's no record of it ever being bought or sold. I telephoned the Land Registry service. They said it must have never been sold since it was built. There are three more properties neighboring Lundberg's that have this exact same anomaly. I telephoned the Housing Association, which was listed as the owner of these properties and asked if they had any apartments for rent in that block. They said they have four and that the tenants in those properties were, quote, "a different type of tenant than our normal tenant." I asked what they meant by this and she said the rent was not paid by the tenants. They were either leased or paid for by the council. I checked out the identities of the residents of the other three properties and judging by what they do for a living, I would not expect them to be entitled to housing benefits. Therefore the rents are not being paid for by the council. Could it be that I have uncovered three more people who were associated with the same organization? ... In carrying out this work, I now believe I have the identities of seven MI5 agents [probably 3 couples and Lundberg] operating in various professions, predominantly the media, one of whom is a household name. For my own personal safety this information has been shared with a number of trusted individuals who are holding the information at this time." |
||||||||||||||
| [74] | Ibid. | ||||||||||||||
| [75] | See biography and sources on Jim Schnabel. Also for the MI5 ties. | ||||||||||||||
| [76] | *) Ibid. *) January 1993, Houston UFO Journal (HUFON), 'Crop Circles, Sinister Development' (full Schnabel tape transcript): " [Telephone rings] Sch: Hello. Vic: Mr Schnabel? Sch: Yes. Vic: This is Mr Ntumba. Sch: Oh, hi. Hallo. Vic: I'm sorry to bother you at this time of the night. ..." |
||||||||||||||
| [77] | *) 2012, Elizabeth Zollinger, 'Crop Circles: An Open Case', p. 53: "As Andy Thomas reports in his book, Jim Schnabel made some strange accusations to the 'Centre for Crop Circle Studies', claiming the CCCS being "a front for a black magic coven known as the 'Friends of Hekate" (Andy Thomas). As a researcher had discovered, Jim Schnabel had once been in a 'Opus Dei' school (an extremist Catholic Church organisation)." *) September 1996, Fortean Times, John Lundberg of Circlemakers.org (colleague and friend of Schnabel), 'The Henry X File', part 2 of 3: "Armen Victorian Interviews a Member of That Security Service (UFO Audio Tape #15)." The first tape played at the 1992 Leeds conference featured the voice of a young American sociology student, based at Lincoln College, Oxford - that traditional aegis of spies - whom Azadehdel believed to be operating undercover for the CIA. As The Guardian rightly predicted, it featured the getting-to-know-you banter of recruitment: STUDENT: "NATO? Well, Germany is involved... Gasps were heard from the audience as Azadehdel revealed that the student/agent lived within a short distance of the Oxford' headquarters of the right-wing Jesuit order Opus Dei." *) January 1993, Houston UFO Journal (HUFON), 'Crop Circles, Sinister Development' (full Schnabel tape transcript): "[Schnabel:] I don't know whether you are Christian man or not...? ... Well, yes, yes, so am I [Catholic]..." |
||||||||||||||
| [78] | *) January 1993, Bill Eatwell for the HUFON Report, 'Crop Circle Update - Field of Schemes I': "According to George [Wingfield], the following (suppressed) interview was made and recorded by Dr. Armen Victorian (AKA: Henry Azadehdel, Dr. Alan Jones, and for this interview, Cassava Ntumba). George says that there was no time lapse between Victorian's prior call to a Robert Irving, and Jim Schnabel. Why is this important? Because, Schnabel claims that Irving called him to warn of Victorian's question line and the two of them conspired to lead Victorian, as Ntumba, down the old proverbial false disinformation trail." *) 1993, Jim Schnabel, 'Round in Circles', pp. 290-291: "One day Wingfield's friend Henry Azadehdel phoned up Irving, pretending to be an African gentleman, a 'Mr Ntumba', who was interested in crop circles. Was Mr Irving working for any intelligence organization? asked Ntumba innocently. Irving replied with equal sincerity that he did consider himself to be intelligent. Eventually, Ntumba phoned me, asking whether Irving was a spy, and I discreetly let on that we were both members of a secret organization spanning the globe and comprising, among other sub-agencies, the CIA, MI6, the Vatican, and the Trilateral Commission. Azadehdel taped it, and passed the tapes on to Wingfield, who began to send out faxes hinting that he had cracked the crop circles conspiracy at last. Eventually I explained to Wingfield that the whole thing was a wind-up. But Wingfield refused to believe me, and stormed across the cerealogical and ufological lecture circuits of Britain and America, denouncing Rob Irving and me as spies (Pam Price was annoyed that she had been left out)." |
||||||||||||||
| [79] | I have no clue anymore in which article I read this, but at the time of the Crop Circle Making competition of 1992 (organized by The Guardian, The Cerealogist, the Arthur Koestler Foundation and later Coast to Coast AM guest Rupert Sheldrake), and in which Jim Schnabel made second place, Schnabel was interviewed, at which point he explained that all complex circles were fake, but that potentially a number of basic, old circles might be genuine. | ||||||||||||||
| [80] | *) circlemakers.org/ever.html (accessed: September 30, 2016): "This year, perhaps as a result of waning interest in the formations themselves, the excitement seems to revolve around paranormal ephemera, particularly the mysterious balls of light (BOLs) seen on so many occasions. ... Everybody takes the BOLs seriously, even Rob Irving. It was a sighting over East Field in the early 90s that first drew him into the circle scene. Photographer Steve Alexander famously filmed one flying over a tractor near Milk Hill in 1990; the driver reported it independently. ... More recently Colin Andrews shot footage of a BOL pursued by an MOD helicopter..." *) circlemakers.org/ever.html (accessed: September 30, 2016): "Back inside I met Will, a circlemaker of some repute. Immediately likeable, with the quiet confidence of one who knows, Will confessed that he'd been addicted to his art for six years, making up to ten formations each season. This year he'd done "a few", though he wasn't going to say which. Mystery, says Irving, is part of the art. Most of the circlemakers know what other groups are doing, but there would always be newcomers and unknowns, as there were this year. Like many circlemakers, Will has experienced plenty of strangeness. Flashes and balls of light are common, rarer was an apparent column of light that others in his team saw descending from a cloud one night. Though his back was turned, Will did sense a strong metallic taste at the same moment. There have also been premonitions: "I've drawn something and imagined going out later to make it in the field, then found the same pattern already in place, right where I was going to put mine. All the instances of paranormal activity have some element of truth. Then they're built upon, catalysing others." ... Special thanks to Ed Davey and Rob Irving." *) circlemakers.org/weird_shit.html (accessed: September 30, 2016; excludes links with more details and pictures): " - Whilst making what was at the time the most ambitious crop circle ever attempted Julian Richardson and his team were witness to a strange orange ball of light. ... - Rod Dickinson describes how he inadvertently photographed a small white disk in 1991. The negatives were subsequently analysed by Ufologist Andy Collins. - One of four photographic anomalies photographed by Rod Dickinson at a crop circle site in Dorchester, Dorset in 1993. - These photographs were taken on April 26th 1996 by Rod Dickinson at Chibolton Observatory after he was instructed to go there." *) By John Lundberg: circlemakers.org/alien.html (accessed: September 30, 2016): "Part-way through the construction of the formation, there was a powerful burst of light; we all stopped, looked around, and after a bit of head scratching continued the formation. This was followed soon afterwards by an identical burst of light. I later described the experience as analogous to having a flash gun let off in my face, with the light momentarily blinding. ... Later that same week, Rod and I were out making another formation in the same area. During its construction in heavy rain, we both witnessed a series of bright flashes. Unlike the previous all-encompassing bursts of light, these emanated from behind the bushes at the edge of the field, and were accompanied by a loud crackling noise. ... Once more during the same week, I was out circlemaking with a friend in the same locale. After four hours in the field, as the formation was nearing completion, I was suddenly overcome by a strong sense of foreboding... shortly followed by a similar burst of light. Not wanting to chance a meeting with the source of the flashes, we left. I decided to make that my last formation of 1994. Earlier this year, we took another journalist out with us. During our conversations we described the flashes of light to him, but [later Coast to Coast AM guest] Andy [Collins] initially seemed unconvinced. This is what he later wrote in his article for The Face magazine: "About thirty minutes before, John had turned to me as we were a few feet away on the outer ring, 'Did you pick out that flash,' he asked, excitedly. 'No,' I told him, wondering if he was trying to spook me. Ten minutes later John asked again, nothing. Now I'm pacing the other side of the ring on my own and I get one. A bright flash that seemed to emanate from the back of my own retina. From nowhere at all in fact. I ran to where John is standing. 'You saw that one?' 'Yeah,' I say, though saw isn't the right word. Ten minutes later I pick up a second." ... The circles-prone area of Wiltshire could be referred to as a psychic landscape. ... The proximity of many circles to established sacred sites, such as Avebury or Silbury Hill only adds to this sensation. In 1991, Rob Irving described the crop circles as being "temporary sacred sites." Last year, we created a number of these. Many people visited them. Some came to meditate; some came to dance; others came to decipher, and still others came simply to view these huge "...cathedral-like floor plans." Numerous visitors reported a diverse assortment of anomalies associated with these sites. " |
||||||||||||||
| [81] | February 5, 2003, Coast to Coast AM, Simeon Hein program summary: ""I think of myself as an intergalactic sociologist," said Wednesday night's guest Dr. Simeon Hein, the Director of the Institute for Resonance. Hein is an expert in both crop circles and remote viewing. Calling crop circles a kind of "natural magic," he believes a group of 30-40 circle makers are mostly behind the phenomenon. ... He believes while the circles may be man-made they seem to attract unusual energy patterns and balls of light. ... With the publicity for the movie Signs, which opened in August 2002, in high gear, many thought the attention to the phenomenon might increase the possibility for hoaxers. Certainly one of the most controversial and spectacular circles was what was dubbed the 'Scary Alien Formation' in a report on the Crop Circle Connector." |
||||||||||||||
| [82] | *) 2009, Theo Chalmers' On The Edge podcast, 'On the Edge: The Crop Circle Man: The Incredible Tales of a Crop Circle Maker', with Matthew Williams, 5:00, 8:00, 10:45, 37:00, 44:30, etc. Williams is talking on the podcast about being in the field with circlemakers as Coast to Coast AM's Simeon Hein and anomalies as drained batteries, spontaneous healings, flashes, lights, UFO experiences, and even full-blown time warps. *) 2007, Matthew "Matt" Williams, 'The Circlemakers' (interview with Danny, who at one point ended up in an episode of Celebrity Wife Swap): "[In 1997] I sort of sold everything that I had, bought a tent and a rucksack and just hitchhiked up to the area and started like camping out. And crop circles started turning up where I was sleeping, and special coincidences, and synchronist dreams, and just a really magical air. ... [I went] from a belief from it's all made by aliens into realizing that they're made by humans but there's still something magical there. Because I knew magical things had happened to me while I was interacting with them and it didn't change when I started making them either. It just seemed to get more and more strange. [In the first Silbury Hill crop circle I visited] I ended up speaking to about 8, 9 people who were sitting there and speaking in different languages. There's French, Belgium [Dutch], and German, so there's really a sort of cosmopolitan atmosphere. And everybody was sitting down and talking about love and life and the hypocricis of life and spiritual ideals and all these wonderful things. And I remarked at one point to everybody, "Ah, isn't it fantastic that we're all here talking as a group, as a unified bunch of people. And the next day, when I see an aerial photograph, there's in the lay of the crop two doves of peace, kissing. So that was like very significant for me, because I had made that statement during a crop circle... I have seen balls of light in the field while making and just while staying in the area. Ah, crikey. Weird things happened with time. And like, you say something and a relevant crop circle will turn up, you know. Or you'll have a dream about something ... and that will be relevant to a crop circle and turns up. Or a drawing of some sort and a crop circle will turn up ... exact what you drew. ... Connections were made from seemingly unassociated things: people over vast distances and over time and with events that were happening around the world. People in fields right next to each other without knowing each other were there, making circles in the same place, you know. And people making the same circle in different places in similar time frame. It all gave the increasing idea that all gaps and divides were illusionary - that everybody and everything was connected in some way or shape. Wauw, I bumped into a very naughty person once, called Matthew Williams, who led me astray, away from all the believers ... to this much more concise and much more into the phenomenon. ... It seemed to flower even more after that. .. All sorts of new kinds of magic starting manifesting. ... amazing, coincidental and synchronous and telepathic... I think circle makers could be unconscious channellers. ... There does seem to be another consciousness interacting with both the circlemakers and the believers at some level, kinda having a giggle with people. ... I can certainly see it spreading to different countries and involving an enormous amount of people. ... We ask for protection before we start. I think it's good to hold on to that while you're making it. ... We do an invocation before we start. We ask for certain things. We ask for permission to be protected, help in being guided, that everything goes smoothly. And also we ask that hopefully people may benefit in some way, shape, or form. ... We say hello to the spirits, whoever may be important to us, or whatever energy may be significant towards us." |
||||||||||||||
| [83] | 2007, Matthew "Matt" Williams, 'The Circlemakers', Doug Bower interview (first interview in the documentary). | ||||||||||||||
| [84] | colinandrews.net/Japan-NuclearAlertUpdates-2012-Debate-Colin-Andrews.html: "Comments by Colin Andrews: Having had experience with Remote Viewing and having spent time with the experts like Dr. Simeon Hein [Coast to Coast AM] and indeed Ed Dames [Coast to Coast AM] himself (see photo below), I have great respect for the subject. After many years with the experience I am always in awe of the material and how it works: VIDEO NOTE: In 2003 and 2004, Major Ed Dames announced on Japanese TV and US radio (Coast to Coast AM) that a massive earthquake would strike Japan and a nuclear reactor would "break", causing what he described to the host (Art Bell) as a "mini Chernobyl" or, at least, the worse nuclear disaster since then. [Transpired in March 2011. Japan is the earthquake and tsunami country in the world and these worries already existed.] ... There are events also seen that have not yet taken place and that are considered by viewers to be precursors to what Dames calls 'The Kill Shot'. Fear should always be avoided. Make of this video what you will. This is a subject which I have some ability and a lot of interest and Dames has gotten a good record but like ALL viewers, not 100%." |
||||||||||||||
| [85] | *) May 18, 1999, Western Daily Press, 'Rockefeller's quest to solve crop circle riddle': "Laurance Rockefeller is funding research into the puzzling patterns ... [He] has hired former local government officer Colin Andrews to dig deeper into the riddle. ... Mr Andrews, formerly of Andover but now based in Connecticut, will be flying surveillance flights over Wiltshire next month hoping to record new discoveries. He has compiled the largest database on the subject and advised several governments on his findings. He was asked to present his work at the United Nations headquarters in New York in 1994 when his close friend Reg Presley, lead singer with The Troggs, flew to America to attend. ... Speaking from America yesterday, former Test Valley borough council engineer Mr Andrews said: "He asked me if I would like to submit some research projects to him which he might be able to help finance. "With his help we engaged staff in my Connecticut offices and also flew regular flights in aircraft over Wiltshire and Hampshire last year. ... "Numerous farmers have shown concern over the level of hoaxing. This is a problem but is not only a matter of criminal activity but also something a little deeper. Hoaxers themselves have confidentially stated that strange light phenomena have been experienced around them while they have been making crop circles during the hours of darkness. "Some have even been certain that that within minutes of finishing a crop formation, additions have mysteriously been added before sunrise." *) August 10, 2000, AAP Newsfeed, 'UK: New theory says crop circles caused by magnetic fields': "A researcher funded by American billionaire Laurance Rockefeller -- a man known for his interest in the paranormal -- has presented the new theory that fluctuations in the earth's magnetic fields lead to corn fields being "electrocuted", collapsing in patterns. Former local government engineer Colin Andrews..." |
||||||||||||||
| [86] | Claimed divine intervention was responsible for him figuring out the "Wessex Triangle" of crop circle activity in 1986, despite the fact that Pat Delgado had already described this exact same Warminster-Winchester-Wantage triangle in a 1983 Flying Saucer Review article. ******) November 1983, Vol. 29, No. 1, Pat Delgado for Flying Saucer Magazine, 'Mystery Rings Again at Cheesefoot Head, 1983': "Further rings of identical pattern have appeared at Westbury in Wilshire, and at Wantage in Oxfordshire. It is interesting to note that these three locations form an equilateral triangle on the map. (Is it purley coincidental that all three place-names, Winchester, Westbury, and Wantage, commence with a "W"?)" Photocopies: page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4. ******) 2003, Colin Andrews, 'Crop Circles: Signs of Contact', pp. 42-44: "[Picture:] Colin Andrews in the office where he discovered the Wessex Triangle crop circle alignment. [Andrews:] During one field trip to a crop circle in Wantage, England on September 4, 1986, I took a soil sample from inside the formation, and then left the area precisely at 4:15 p.m. ... [Subsequently] intruder alarm activations began to occur at my home at precisely 4:15 in the morning. ... ... Then it hit me. In a moment of insight ... I realized that the locations of the crop formations ... formed a perfect equilateral triangle. The three points of the triangle were Wantage ... Winchester ... and Warminster... The 4:15 alarm activations ceased that very day. Experiencing this revelation reached deep inside me, and moved me almost beyond words." |
||||||||||||||
| [87] | Colin Andrews claims he became involved in crop circle research in Wiltshire, South England, in 1983. Not really. As he explained way in the beginning, he first got involved in July 1985 and met up with Terence Meaden and Pat Delgado in mid 1986, after attending a (Ministry of Defence-linked) British UFO Association (BUFORA) meeting. Soon Pat Delgado and Andrews, respectively in 1986 and 1987, joined the scammy Flying Saucer Review of MI6/Foreign Service officer Gordon Creighton. ******) July 1993, Crop Watcher, issue 18, Paul Fuller: "Last Andrews claims he began investigating crop circles in 1983 and that "Circular Evidence" was the "first book written on the subject". Both of these claims are also untrue - Colin did not begin regularly visiting crop circles until 1986 (he has never published proof of his alleged visit to crop circles in 1983), and the honour for writing the first book about crop circles goes to BUFORA - for their 1986 report "Mystery of the Circles"." ******) September 30, 1996, New Haven New Earth, 'A NHNE Special Interview: Crop Circles: Colin Andrews & Joyce Murphy' (Andrews' claim of starting out in 1983 is universal; this is just one random source): "I became involved after spotting five circles in the form of a cross in a field near Winchester, Hampshire, England in July 1983. ... I formed the CPR INTERNATIONAL organization in 1983." ******) November 1987, Colin Andrews in his first article for Flying Saucer Review, 'Circles in the Corn: Strong Evidence of a "UFO Connection"': "My own interest in these matters had started a year before, on the night of Saturday, July 6, 1985... A few hours [after the UFO], just over the hill towards the north-west, a five-ring set of circles was found..." |
||||||||||||||
| [88] | July 1993, Crop Watcher, issue 18, Paul Fuller: "Perhaps we should offer a prize to the reader who detects the highest number of falsehoods in this outrageous trash! Readers will know from Jim Schnabel's "Round in Circles" that Colin Andrews was NOT a "senior officer" at Test Valley Boreough Council. Nor was he "Chief Electrical Engineer". According to legal correspondence in my possession he was the "Technical Support Services Officer" not the "Chief Electrical Engineer". In 1990 his boss, a Mr Orchard, was deputy to Mr Burvil - the Director of Test Valley Boreough Council Technical Services Department (a proper Chief Officer). Thus Mr Andrewss was two stages removed from a Chief Officer position. We have also been informed by Gary Kandinsky - a District Auditor - that at one stage Colin Andrews was actually a storeman. Next Mr Andrews claims that he "advised the British government on the circles phenomenon, supplying technical and scientific reports to the Undersecretary of State for the Margaret Thatcher Government." This too is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts by Mr Andrews. We accept that Mr Andrews may well have supplied reports to the then Environment Minister Nicholas Ridley, but we believe he was never officially requested to supply reports to the Ministry and no evidence has ever been produced which proves that Nicholas Ridley read Andrews' submissions. Mr Andrews goes on to claim that "as a result of his persistence, the subject was raised in the House of Commons". This is simply a lie, for it was in response to questions from myself and Jenny Randles that questions were asked in Commons by Sir Teddy Taylor (Con, Southend) and Michael Colvin (Con, Romsey and Waterside). Andrews had nothing whatsoever to do with these questions. Last Andrews claims he began investigating crop circles in 1983 and that "Circular Evidence" was the "first book written on the subject". Both of these claims are also untrue - Colin did not begin regularly visiting crop circles until 1986 (he has never published proof of his alleged visit to crop circles in 1983), and the honour for writing the first book about crop circles goes to BUFORA - for their 1986 report "Mystery of the Circles"." |
||||||||||||||
| [89] | September 1994, #33, Marcus Allen for The Sussex Circular, 'Behind the hoaxers -- physicists, scientists, stompers and the secret history of circle faking': "It is a regrettable fact that some intelligent and literate people, amongst whom [Jim] Schnabel can be numbered, must continually leave hints as to how clever they are. Hints which can usually only be picked up by those 'in the know'. So, for his article in 'Fortean Times' No.69 (June/July 93) as part of their 'Hoax!' series, the names all the main supposed crop circle hoaxing groups with, amongst other details, their 'alleged conspiratorial affiliations'. Seven groups are listed and four of them have "affiliations" to be expected from he snide style of Schnabel's presentation: 1) Doug and Dave - Today newspaper, MBF Service (MI5) ... 4) UBI (United Bureau of Investigation) - CCCS [new age, like the other two; united most known researchers: Lucy Pringle, George Wingfield, Paul Vigay], [Colin Andrews'] CPR, [Steven Greer's] CSETI. [Schnabel then names himself and friend Rob Irving, both of Circlemakers.org] " |
||||||||||||||
| [90] | *) Steven Greer: new.cseti.org/members-section/59-art-cseti-history: "July 20-30 [1992]. Southern England. Alton Barnes region. A CSETI RMIT team joins Colin Andrews' Crop Circle Phenomena Research (CPR) International to study a possible link between UFO activity and the crop circle creations. One of the most significant events in the history of UFOlogy transpires. Using the Contact Trilogy, the two teams visualize and illuminate in the sky an equilateral triangle with circles at each point. The next day such a formation is found within a direct line from the CSETI-CPR research site. During the ten-day period, many anomalous lights are seen. An unusual CE-5 is multiply witnessed by Greer and others on July 27 when a structured craft made a near landing only 400 yards from the team." *) Colin Andrews: colinandrews.net/Greer-Event.html: "In the Greer event we stood on the top of a hill overlooking crop circles in a field at Alton Barnes, England during July 1992. Dr. Greer and I had assembled a group of about 50 people who were following Greer's protocols that, according to his personal experience, enhance the possibility of direct UFO interaction. It was a cloudy night, and I thought there was little chance of seeing anything. But after we stood there for a while, suddenly out of nowhere, I saw a small but quite bright, fuzzy, white light darting towards us at speed. As it reached overhead it split into two, one piece moving over us to the left, and the other to the right. The light appeared to be traveling inside the lower edge of the clouds and was diffuse. Everyone present saw and described this the same way, BUT significantly about 25 of us saw it as white and the other 25 saw it as bright red." |
||||||||||||||
| [91] | *) July 1992, CSETI event, 'Different Perspectives': circlemakers.org/ever2.html: "CSETI leader Steven Greer actually communicated with [a ball of light] in 1992, coincidentally the same night that [Rob] Irving and Jim Schnabel [of Circlemakers] were flying an illuminated helium balloon." | ||||||||||||||
| [92] | *) August 1998, Dennis Stacy for The Anomalist, 'Like Ball Lightning: A Memory of Ralph Noyes': "Sunday evening [July 19, 1992] found us back in the Swindon and Alton Barnes area. Monday it mostly rained. Tuesday, Steven Greer and crew arrived. The following night [July 22, 1992] we trooped up to the top of Woodborough Hill to see what Greer's group, CSETI – Center for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelliegence – was all about. Best I could tell CSETI was much ado about nothing. There was some sitting in circles and meditating, and some shining of powerful flashlights (half-million to a million candle-power only please) skyward, and about that much candlepower of wishful thinking, from what I could determine. ... Certainly the expectation of contact was imminent. In the darkness, Noyes and I found ourselves in a circle of five or six sitters, mostly female, who oohed and oohed in unison each time a ghostly disc-shaped light routinely swept into view. Our pointing out that said disc was a military searchlight regularly illuminating the broken cloud cover over head was not well received (let alone believed). But not to worry, the following evening Greer and his group achieved 'contact', albeit with what I suspect was a balloon launched by Robert Irving and others, although I could never prove it in court. On the other hand, Greer could never prove his case in court, either. ... I can't even say the experience was instrumental in Noyes's own decision, shortly thereafter, to resign as Hon. Secretary of the CCCS. Maybe the confessions of Doug and Dave were equally to blame. Point is, just as we could see the searchlight beam on the clouds that night, we could also see the handwriting on the wall. Whatever the circles were first touted as being, it was becoming increasingly evident that what the supposed supernatural circlemakers could do, so could our equally inventive fellow humans." |
||||||||||||||
| [93] | 1981, Vol. 27, No. 5, Pat Delgado for Flying Saucer Magazine, 'Cheesefoot Head Mystery Rings, 1983': "It was on Wednesday, August 19th, 1981, that I first heard about the discovery of mysterious flattened rings in a cornfield at the beauty spot of Cheesefoot Head "punch bowl", near Winchester in Hampshire. I was at Alresford Golf Club with some friends when two other golfers, well-known to us, asked if we could explain the phenomenon which they had seen a couple of days earlier. Needless to say there was a variety of suggestions as to how the three rings came to be there, ranging from practical jokers, and schoolchil dren, and rutting deer, to whirlwinds. As the site of the rings lies only a few miles from my home, I went to see them for myself on Saturday, August 22, 1981. The road runs close to, a nd well above, the cornfield, and there were the rings in full view. ... On Monday afternoon, August 24th, I telephoned BBC TV Southampton, and told their news editor about the rings. He was interested enough to ask me to write a letter to him about the affair. So I rang 11V Southampton, and the news editor there was also extremely interested. Indeed, she arranged for a camera crew to go to the site right away, and an item a bout the rings was accordingly featured in their Day by Day programme on Tuesday August 25th, 1981. Alerted by the 11V programme, the local newspapers got in on the story. The Hampshire Chronicle, on August 28th, published a photograph of the site, gave details. and mentioned that UFO enthusiasts were visiting the site. ... According to the Southern Evening Echo, there was a more sophisticated, albeit noisier, explanation: a Royal Air Force Chinook twin-rotor helicopter - a type based at Odiham, Hampshire. ... Mr. Rowsell had dismissed, as ... "a load of tripe", a claim by the chairman of the British UFO Society that the circles at Cheesefoot Head were caused by UFOs On September 10th came the RAF disavowal, as reported in the Winchester Extra. "Highly unlikely" said the spokesman, adding that the pilots were under strict instructions not to fly or hover low over cornfields in summer. ... The accompanying photographs are prints made from colour transparencies taken by Mr. Kit Neilson of the Alton Herald." *) The above article was reproduced in: November 1983, Vol. 29, No. 1, Pat Delgado for Flying Saucer Magazine, 'Mystery Rings Again at Cheesefoot Head, 1983': "Further rings of identical pattern have appeared at Westbury in Wilshire, and at Wantage in Oxfordshire. It is interesting to note that these three locations form an equilateral triangle on the map. (Is it purley coincidental that all three place-names, Winchester, Westbury, and Wantage, commence with a "W"?)" Photocopies: page 1 | page 2 | page 3 | page 4. |
||||||||||||||
| [94] | *) July 1993, Paul Fuller's Crop Watcher, issue 18, 'Then Came Ken Brown, A Study of the Cheesefoot Head Pictograms', pp. 32-35: "I first became interested in crop circles in 1986 when my father and I were driving back from Petersfield one evening along the A272 and through the Cheesefoot Head area. Passing the car park and looking down into the now famous Devils Punch Bowl I was amazed to see two flattened, ringed depressions in the cornfield below us. We stopped the car and took several photos before returning home. The impression this left in my mind at the tender age of 14 was incredible, so much so that I knew I wanted to get more involved with the phenomenon in the future, but it wasn't until four years later, when I had passed my driving test, that I got the chance to investigate the subject in any depth. In my eagerness to see the circles when they were fresh and not damaged by admirers, I started to visit Cheesefoot Head first thing in the morning from around the beginning of May 1990, just before going to College in Winchester. It was on these morning runs that I started to meet all the main researchers who were doing similar sorties around this area. These included Richard Andrews, Busty Taylor and George Wingfield, but it wasn't until the appearance of the first circle in the Punch Bowl that I met Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews. I found this circle very impressive and wanted to go down into the field to get a closer look, but Pat and Colin advised me against this, warning that the land owner would not welcome my presence. I took their advice and visited the circle at night and under the cover of darkness measured the circle with my good friend Nigel Beckett. A few days later I decided to show a few of my other friends the giant Doughnut circle and was driving up the road from the Percy Hobbs pub when we noticed a massive crowd of people standing by the side of the road at Chilcomb Farm. Pulling up behind a BBC film crew's van we ran up to the boundary fence to see what all the fuss was about. Looking over we could hardly believe our eyes - there was an amazing pattern in the field, and unlike any previous ones this one had pathways and boxes ! Our first impressions were "its got to be man-made", but my thoughts were changed when Pat Delgado later walked out from inside the circle and proclaimed it "genuine". I have great respect for Pat and his judgement of the circles, after all he's been researching them longer than almost anyone else in the business. After all the fuss had died down Nigel and myself started to measure and observe the formation. We noticed a few odd details. Between the boxes and central path were a few bent stems of crop which seemed to show where someone had walked into each box. We ignored these putting them down to all the people who were visiting the circle. Another thing we noticed was that each box measured four feet in width and had a strip of crop running down one edge in the opposite direction of flow to the rest of the box. Just as we were about to leave the formation an old fellow with a 'cine 8' camera walked in filming. His name was Doug Bower and he said he was a sound recordist of wildlife and had spotted the pattern from the road. After chatting about crop circles in general and asking us what we thought had caused this pattern he drove off and left us. This was May 23rd, the same day that the formation had been discovered. On 24th May Pat Delgado rang to inform me of a new circle at Morestead, near Cheesefoot Head. Nigel and myself visited the circle later that day and it was here that Nigel discovered some underlays of corn coming from the tramlines to the circle centre and back out from the centre to the edge of the circle underneath the main flow of corn. We both accepted these as part and parcel of a genuine circle as we had heard them mentioned briefly by the "experts". Over the next few months I discovered several circles in the Cheesefoot Head area and found similar dimension correlations involving four foot pathways and rings and similar ring and box spacings and underlays. I also met Doug Bower and his friend Dave Chorley on numerous occasions. They had the canny knack of showing up just after the circles had appeared - give or take a day or two. On one occasion I visited Cheesefoot Head at approximately 11.00 pm. to measure up some recent formations and to my surprise found Doug and Dave near the Punchbowl. When I told them I had come to measure some circles in the dark due to problems with land owners they wished me luck and departed after talking to me for half an hour or so about tales of UFOs that people had related to them in connection with the circles. Through my involvement in the crop circle scene, Nigel and myself became members of a local group called the Cheesefoot Head Monitoring Group - a silly name as only Nigel and I seemed to go up there on a regular basis ! I found the views in this group interesting but realised that they really only wanted to talk about UFOs and "cover-ups". It was only when Ken Brown joined the group in late 1990 that I found someone who I could relate to in terms of their views about the phenomenon. As far as I was concerned he brought in some northern down-to-earth thinking and sanity that the group needed to keep its feet on the ground. 1991 started with a bang at Cheesefoot Head with the second "laddergram" of the year on Chilcomb Down fields. I discovered this formation at approximately 6.00 am on 7 June and was almost certainly the first to enter it due to heavy rain and mist keeping people from firstly, seeing it very easily and secondly, getting soaked by entering the field. After taking a few photographs outside the pattern I walked into the large ring and was surprised at what I found. There was a very obvious "stepping" effect around the edges of the circles and rings and also several broken stems especially around the edges and centres, but most of all in the ladder section which, although complicated in flow directions, was quite rough in places (not "undamaged" as told by the "experts"). I also noted that the magic four foot dimensions were present in all pathways and indeed some of the circles seemed to have multiples of four as their dimensions, but not always. Mud was also on the surface of some of the crop. I brought up this dimension consistency on numerous occasions at crop circle meetings but seemed to be wasting my time as everyone else had gone metric and had not noticed ! So I decided that the "circle makers" used Imperial dimensions; that was the extent of my theory. Then came Ken Brown. Ken had also noticed the underlays and consistencies that I had found, but by the end of 1991 - just days before Doug and Dave went public - Ken had formulated a much more terminal theory from the same evidence, so by the time the Doug and Dave story broke he was 100 per cent sure they were telling the truth, and after I had seen the research Ken had done into their story, so was I. The fact that I had seen them up there on so many occasions just after circles had formed was almost enough to convince me alone. The nail in the coffin was the second "flower" pattern at Cheesefoot Head. I studied Technical Drawing to "A" Level and knew straight away when I saw this flower pattern how it had been constructed and what a "cock-up" had been made of it. With the radius dimension being measured incorrectly the creators had stepped the distance around the circumference of the circle and discovered that the points did not meet where they should have done, thus creating thin arcs between several petals. This formation also had the characteristic stepping effect on its rings and "signatures" and also several underlays for which Ken has a detailed model. So it appears that Doug and Dave are telling the truth about the circles in the Cheesefoot Head area. As far as circles in other areas I cannot comment as it doesn't look that good for any other pictograms wherever they may be. As for plain circles, if they have underlays or stepped patterns I would be very suspicious of human origin. Do "genuine" crop circles exist ? We may never find out. Matthew J. Lawrence, Winchester" *) July 1993, Crop Watcher, issue 18, 'Doug Bower at the Nafferton Hall, Marlborough, July 28th, 1993': "Nafferton Hall was difficult to find, located a dark unlit alleyway... The doors had just opened and already all the seats were taken! I guess there were less than a hundred people in the room and I struggled to reach friends... Many tried to inspect the two large display boards that Ken Brown and Doug Bower had obviously spent a good deal of time preparing. ... What I saw on that board convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was no "fraudulent sham" as George Wingfield would have it but a well-organised presentation of Doug and Dave's case. With some misgivings I soon realized that I was possibly the most senior "cerealogist" there. Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews were conspicuous by their absence, as was Michael Green, Jim Schnabel (back at CIA headquarters in the States) and Terence Meaden (sunning himself at his luxurious French Villa - paid for by MI5 of course). Also missing was George Wingfield... Ken Brown welcomed everyone to the meeting, which began promptly at 7.30. ... Brown explained that he was Doug Bower's "amanuensis" - his "taker of notes" - and that he had realized that all circles were hoaxes after discovering underlying tracks at the 1991 double-ringed flower at Cheesefoot Head [and subsequently spent a lot of time with Chorley]. ... Ken Brown then made an astonishing statement, about the absence of Dave Chorley, stating that Chorley had deliberately not been asked to attend the meeting [for his memory issues]..." *) July 1993, Crop Watcher, issue 18, 'Doug Bower at the Nafferton Hall, Marlborough, July 28th, 1993': "Taking each year in turn Ken Brown prompted Doug Bower to recount his story. There were many new revelations... Bower described how he and Chorley began their crop circle career in 1975, not the 1981 previously referred to in the TODAY newspaper. Here are some of these revelations: ... (2) Doug was the catalyst for the circle-making, drawing up the plans beforehand, making all the circle making equipment, even providing Dave Chorley with a pair of Wellington Boots and a waterproof coat! (3) Doug initiated every circle by (almost always) constructing the centre first and then working outwards. ... (11) Dave Chorley's ex-wife Terry knew nothing about the circle-making until she saw the "Today" exclusive. ... (13) Doug used to telephone Colin Andrews the morning after he had made a circle to tell him about it! ... (19) The first non Doug and Dave circle was beneath the White Horse at Westbury in August 1987 - but the circles were too far from the hillside to be Doug and Dave's efforts. This was the year that they made "copycats:. Ken Brown claimed that he had a list of "over a dozen" circles from 1987 which were not D&D's circles and that - somewhat paradoxically - "maybe they were genuine". ... (26) It was one of Dave Chorley's sons who accidentally let the Doug and Dave story out of the bag to a reporter from the Daily Mirror. D&D owned up on 3rd September 1991 to the Daily Mirror, who were not interested in the story, and then to the TODAY newspaper. (27) Ilene discovered Doug Bower's circle-making activities in 1984. Thereafter Doug was able to go out making circles on several nights of the week." |
||||||||||||||
| [95] | September 9, 1991, Today, 'Men who conned the world: Exposed: Two artists admit they pulled off the great corn circles hoax for 13 years'. | ||||||||||||||
| [96] | July 1993, The Crop Watcher, #18, Paul Fuller, 'Doug Bower at the Nafferton Hall, Marlborough, July 28th 1993': "Lucy Pringle and Pat Delgado are alleged to have stated that Ken Brown was playing with people's "faiths" and "irrationalities" and that by investigating the Doug and Dave [hoaxing] claim [which Delgado and Andrews had been playing into by labeling many of their creations "genuine] there was a "danger" that Brown was destroying the beliefs of "90 per cent of the crop circle believers". Brown alleged that Delgado and Pringle were keen to hush up the truth about the Doug and Dave claim..." | ||||||||||||||
| [97] | September 11, 2001, Vol. 1, No. 2, UFO News UK, 'Jon King interviewing Colin Andrews: The CIA and the crop circles': "A man who announced himself as working for the CIA back in, I think, June or July of 1989, approached me and said he had been assigned to 'bring me into a plan', or more precisely, 'buy me into a plan'. ... He told me that certain individuals, all of whom you know, Jon - Richard Andrews, Terence Meaden, Pat Delgado, to name a few - he told me that the CIA were about to promote each major researcher in turn and then publicly debunk them. He said this was a ploy that was frequently used. He said they would give them a stage, encourage them to declare their hand and, one by one, take them out. He said that I would then be left with a 'role' that he later revealed to me. ... Well, when he first arrived, Pat and I were asked to go up to Pebble Mill television studios in Birmingham to take part in a programme called Daytime Live. It was a kind of live TV debate situation. They were going to air the sequence that contained the mysterious sound detected in a crop formation and recorded by the BBC - the sound that destroyed a hundred thousand pounds' worth of TV camera (equipment) one sunny afternoon at a crop circle site in Wiltshire! As we came on air, they were running this particular sequence. ... When we arrived at the studios we were told that this man [whom had earlier in the day called the studio about having seen a crop circle formation form] had been flown directly in to Birmingham and that we would not be able to meet him because they wanted it to be an absolutely first-time contact on air. As we came on air they panned to the studio audience, and this man [introduced himself as Sandy Reid] described what he'd seen, live on TV. ... Well, some weeks later there was a rap on my door, and when I answered it I immediately recognised the man standing there. It was the 'fox-study' man. He said that he'd come to tell me something ... he wanted me to get Pat Delgado over to my place because he wanted to talk to both of us. ... The guy accompanied me to the door to see Pat out (I didn't know whether he was going to leave as well - I was rather hoping he would, because I was pretty bloody angry about it, too) but as Pat left and I closed the door the man just spun round on me and said: 'Get your jacket on. I want to tell you something.' ... We wandered down towards Andover town centre, then back up Salisbury Road, back and forth, back and forth, questions and more questions, most of a fairly general nature, but none of the questions were about me. Rather they were to do with things like, you know: Where were the circles? Who were we in touch with? What did we know, particularly about the Russians? That kind of thing. He was asking every question you could possibly think of that an intelligence agent would probably ask. But the conversation wasn't going anywhere at all. As for myself I was furious, but I didn't quite have the courage to walk away. ... When we eventually started to walk back towards my home he stopped on the pavement and said: 'You are now one of us.' So I said: 'What do you mean by that?' He said, simply: 'CIA.' When I asked him for ID he just laughed and said: 'You really think a CIA agent would carry identification?' And then he laughed again. He told me I would never see his boss, and that he never saw his boss's boss. He said that was the way it worked. He said that from here on in I was 'one of them'. He gave me no say in the matter whatever. He never asked me if I wanted to be associated with the CIA - he just told me that from then on I was to consider myself one of them. Following this he named a lot of people - most of whom were my colleagues in crop circle research - who were to be eliminated from the research programme (he did not mean that they were to be killed or anything quite like that, but they were nevertheless to be taken off the stage, so to speak). And they have been. I have watched the process in operation for some years now - a process he openly told me about on that night. And every name he named that night has since been 'got at', and everything that he said would happen has happened. ... Well, for instance, the following year Terence Meaden was never out of the newspapers. Nobody else could get a look in. This is exactly what he told me would happen. But where is Terence Meaden now? Who knows what Terence Meaden's latest ideas are? Answer: no one. Because, presumably, his stage has been taken from him - he's been 'taken out'. Pat Delgado was next, and we all know what happened to him. [Author's note: sadly, Pat Delgado was so taken in by the 'Doug and Dave' episode, and so distraught because of it, that he retired from crop circle research soon thereafter.] ... He did, yes. The CIA guy told me that, so far as they were concerned, I seemed to have a particular affinity and contact with the public. 'You have a way,' is what he said. The public identify with you.' ... There were really only two people in those days, Pat and myself. We'd written a book and it had sold a lot of copies. We were getting a lot of TV and radio coverage. But a decision seemed to be made that night that I was the one. I mean, if you look at it logically, it could have been either one of us. So this man must have been in a position to make a decision. He must have carried some authority within his agency. ... Once they had taken these other researchers out of the frame, so to speak, they wanted me to do something for them. He said I was to carry on being Colin Andrews, researching the phenomenon, just doing my thing, and at some point in the near future I would be asked to do one interview which would enjoy maximum, saturated media coverage. During the course of this interview I was to make one statement, and one statement only. They wanted me to state publicly that the crop circle phenomenon was a hoax. When we got back to my home he said that he would show me how to say it and what to say. In return for this I was offered a bank account in Switzerland, in which would be enough money that I would never need to even think about money ever again. On top of this he said that they were in possession of some kind of 'instrument' which they would send to me within two weeks. He said that this instrument would allow me to identify immediately a real crop circle from a hoax - something that, presumably, could measure some or other microwave residue, or some other residual effect. He told me: 'You will then be in a privileged position, and we will put you right out there as the number one crop circle expert.' He then said that they would send me to a certain college. . . (which I know to be a government establishment, so my ears pricked up at this point). . . where you will be familiarised with coding structures. I mean, this is an absolute bloody horror story I'm hearing ... I mean, I was . . . God, no one will ever know how I felt that night. I was terrified. I even cried. I was completely and utterly bloody freaked. I even saw my daughter the next day and I broke down while I was talking to her, too. I said to her: 'Darling, I want you to forget everything I've ever told you about crop circles. I think I'm in terrible trouble. You know, I'm in bloody trouble.' Of course, she didn't know what I was talking about but I just wanted my family out of it. It took everything I knew to get over that ordeal and carry on a relatively normal life... (At this point Colin took a few moments to himself. It was obvious that the ordeal had affected him very deeply - indeed, that the memory was as painful as the ordeal itself. A short while later we resumed.) ... ... So anyway ... I was told that there would be another couple of contacts made and that these would be 'voice-only' contacts via the telephone. And sure enough they phoned me, but by this time I'd had time to think about the situation and I'd decided I was going to take his head off, you know. There was no way I was going to give them what they wanted. ... I was given a contact number at the Ministry of Defence [after I tried to figure out what to do] and I rang that number and told them that I'd had this approach, but I was told they had no jurisdiction. Can you believe that? A British subject was being harassed by a member of US Intelligence and the MoD had no jurisdiction to protect me! My God! I mean, it really made me ashamed to be British. Anyway, they also told me that I was not to be concerned, that I should simply refuse to co-operate with them. They said that if I refused to go along with it there should not be any danger to me. Hah! I thought: Thanks for the invaluable assistance!' ... In the event, yes. That's precisely what I did. I literally ignored the phone calls. And I guess, in retrospect, it might just have saved my life, the fact that I'd contacted the MoD. Perhaps they have a little more jurisdiction than they admitted to. Perhaps the fact that I contacted the MoD meant that the CIA dared not harm me in any way. ... Oh, it was them, all right. The guy was on the answer machine saying: 'Pick up the phone. Pick up the phone.' But I didn't. I just let it go. Then the voice said: 'Ring me back at this number.' And then they gave a number, but I didn't ring back. A few days later they phoned again, and this time what they said was vile, and frightening. But my answer was: 'Sorry, I'm not playing.' And that was that so far as I was concerned. Like I said, perhaps they knew I'd contacted the MoD. Maybe, just maybe, this was enough for them to leave me alone. ... Well, nothing quite like that. But I have certainly been approached, yes. A computer analyst at the Pentagon, for example, approached me with a person called [name deleted] Pretty soon this woman, [name deleted], sought [name deleted] out and asked to see her in her office. Now this meant that my new office - which I used to share with [name deleted] - had already been infiltrated by people who we now know for sure were CIA. I have since had several approaches by both of these people." |
||||||||||||||
| [98] | An interview with Colin Andrews in which he talked about the Sandy Reid affair was available for some time on YouTube. I have not been able to find it back, but in it Andrews because visibly upset and even sheds a few tears as he recalls the Sandy Reid affair. | ||||||||||||||
| [99] | 1993, Jim Schnabel, 'Round in Circles', pp. 91, 99: "[Colin Andrews] seemed to have a knack for organizing this kind of thing, assembling the equipment, the manpower, the big names like Archie Roy. And when he was like this, it was as if the other Colin Andrews - the harassed proto-shaman with his black flashes and neuralgic implants and poltergeists and Templars from Malta - didn't even exist. There was only strait-laced, hard-nosed, down-to-earth Colin Andrews. ... For Andrews that must have been a relief. The headaches weren't because of a neuralgic implant. They were because of the energies. They were a good sign. A sign of progress." |
||||||||||||||
| [100] | Summer 1993, volume 38, no. 2, Pat Delgado for Flying Saucer Review, 'The valley of death: Cattle mutilations in Wiltshire, England (1992)'. | ||||||||||||||
| [101] | March/April 1993, issue 16, Paul Fuller for his Crop Watcher, 'Book Review: Dowsing, New Light on an Ancient Art': "Readers will know that in CW7 Jenny Randles and myself withdrew our support for the concept that "genuine" crop circles have some kind of residual field energy which can be successfully dowsed. This followed Busty Taylor's unfortunate experience on the Channel 4 "Equinox" programme when he successfully dowsed the Wessex Skeptics' hoax at Clench Common." | ||||||||||||||
| [102] | July 1993, Crop Watcher, issue 18, 'Then Came Ken Brown, A Study of the Cheesefoot Head Pictograms', pp. 32-35. In the article it is described how Colin Andrews and Pat Delgado were proclaiming very clear crop circle hoaxes (mud on plants, imperial dimensions, major flaws, etc.) as genuine. | ||||||||||||||
| [103] | *) March 21, 1991, BBC 1, People Today: "Back at Operation Blackbird, the hoaxes were still coming, this time what appeared to be a UFO. Later claims of close encounter with the Virgin kind with Richard Branson at the helm of the mothership. ..." The broadcast shows a clip of Branson's balloon. *) 2003, Colin Andrews, 'Crop Circles: Signs of Contact', p. 134: "A reporter then said to me, "I'm sure you have the nation agog. Are you quite sure you couldn't have been the victim of some elaborate hoax last night?" To which I replied: "No, not indeed. We have high quality equipment here, and we have indeed secured on high-quality equipment a major event....We do have something here of great, great significance. Yes, we have everything on film, and we do have, as I say, a formed object over the field..." My words are now recorded forever in the annals of crop circle history, and I can only say that it was a regrettable milestone in my research career. Aside from my obvious error in stating unequivocally that this was an authentic event, the essence of my answer [was:] A crop formation now existed in the field, unusual lights had been witnessed, and we were continuing to analyze the information. The lights turned out to be of the most pedestrian nature: British millionaire Richard Branson had flown a hot air balloon over the field during the night and his running lights were interpreted as being something out of the ordinary. One needed to ask, was Branson a part of the hoax? Was Branson asked or paid to fly a silent "aircraft" in pitch darkness over a field where surveillance equipment had been set up on the particular evening when his flight would be noticed? Branson stated emphatically that his was nothing but a curiosity trip and that he had not intended to disrupt an operation, nor annoy the crop circle researchers. So be it. When the sun finally rose on that illfated day, we could see clearly what we had in the field. ... I and some of my colleagues entered the field to investigate the crop formation. What we discovered was a disgrace to the British government, and to everyone else involved in the perpetration of one of the biggest deceits in crop circle history. Oh yes, there was a crop formation in the field beneath Bratton Castle, but it was not only obviously manmade, but it was quite obviously poorly manmade. We had been set up. The crop circle that had been constructed was ragged, and unlike anything we had seen before. There was considerable damage to the crops, noticeable irregularities in the lines and circles, and, gilding the lily in a way only a bureaucracy could conceive of doing, there were items deliberately placed in the middle of the main circle, including a horoscope game board, and a wooden cross." |
||||||||||||||
| [104] | November 1, 2011, The Mirror (UK), 'Billionaires to bequeath 500m to charity as part of Legacy10 scheme': "Sir Richard Branson, Charles Dunstone and Jacob Rothschild are to bequeath 10% of their wealth to charities as part of the Legacy10 initiative." | ||||||||||||||
| [105] | Examples of UFO interest/financing mentioned in ISGP's Cult of National Security Trolls article include Laurance Rockefeller, Senator Claiborne Pell, Rockefeller and Maurice Strong-ally Joe Firmage, and Prince Philip. On the conservative side we most certainly have Senator Barry Goldwater and General Curtis LeMay involving Roswell and the "Blue Room", as well as James Woolsey's connection to Steven Greer and the Arlington Institute. Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein, despite being a 1001 Club member close to the Pell family, might be counted as a conservative as well due to his alleged links to Opus Dei. | ||||||||||||||
| [106] | December 8, 1993, paranet.fidonet.org newsletter, Dan Smith and Rosemary Ellen Guiley, 'The Aquarium Conspiracy': "Rumor has it that we are working for the CIA, and specifically the Aviary, to spread disinformation throughout the crop circle-ufology fields. Lately, we have been named as part of an alleged international disinformation conspiracy in "Schnabelgate," the Jim Schnabel-Robert Irving-George Wingfield- Henry Azadehdel tape circus that hit crop circles last fall. ... Now about the CIA lunch with George Wingfield. It was organized by Dan as a networking effort, and took place on April 15, 1992 in a restaurant in Arlington, Virginia. Besides ourselves and George, participants included George's wife, Gloria, three employees of the CIA and an outside colleague of theirs. None of us knew in advance what would be discussed. Conversation centered on eschatology, crop circles, and an explanation of the Aviary given to George by "The Pelican." [note: Ron Pandolfi; why not give his name?] There were no requests, no offers. Afterward, George wondered what it was all about. The answers are obvious, but they won't be found in rumors." |
||||||||||||||
| [107] | See biographies and sources on Rosemary Ellen Guiley and Dan Smith. Also see ISGP's The Supranational Suspects of 9/11 article, The CIA Counter-Terrorist Center and Blackwater chapter. | ||||||||||||||
| [108] | See biography and sources on Lucy Pringle. | ||||||||||||||
| [109] | 1993, Jim Schnabel, 'Round in Circles', pp. 92-96, 136, 243-246. | ||||||||||||||
| [110] | The Satanic scare of the 1980s and 1990s is largely summarized in ISGP's Alex Jones article, and specifically in its Franklin Affair section. | ||||||||||||||
| [111] | 2001, Charles Walker, 'Black Magic In Clapham and Sussex' mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/occult/black-magic-in-clapham-and-sussex.html |
||||||||||||||
| [112] | Sarah Miles (British actor), 'Blake's Jerusalem' (as cited in: November 12, 2012, Theconversation.org, 'A milestone for the crop circles'): "I have been down our English country lanes experiencing crop circles for over quarter of a century; always curious for more investigation, for more understanding; forever keen to revel in the continuing mystery. I seek the freshly fallen pictograms, as they are sometimes known. It is fascinating to experience the diversity of conflicting energies within these fresh creations because, in that first day of their falling, the energy is at its most potent; as the days go by, it seems to dissipate. Usually a pictogram's potency is benign, often profoundly uplifting. Yet there were some, mainly the insect shaped formations that came down about a decade ago, that made some people nauseous and a few complained of migraines. Indeed, I once came out of one with a hefty headache myself. I put it down to the energies within them being too dense for us mere mortals to assimilate quite yet. I might be fairly sensitive to different energies - (there's nothing remotely clever in this by the way, it's simply a fact, just like the wrinkles massing on the backs of my hands) - but there are a few individuals whose sensitivity to a variety of different energies is truly astounding. In the early nineties I went regularly to Malta to study with a small esoteric group. Andrew Bertie was one of the group members and at that time he was the Grand Master of Malta as well as a Cardinal in the Vatican. Andrew didn't believe crop circles were created from outer space because, from his viewpoint, "belief" was too frail a word. Apparently they used to have open debates on crop circles in the Vatican. Oh, how I dream of the day when England might follow suit and begin open debates! Another member of the group, George De Trafford, was quite an extraordinary fellow. So highly regarded was George for his sensitivity to energy in the late '80s and 1990s, most of England's crop circle fraternity would send photos of crop circles to Malta for George to test. They believed that George had the miraculous gift of being able to feel energetically whether a crop circle was a hoax or the real McCoy. In the summer of 1992, I was driving with George along the A272. He had his right palm up like a dog sniffing the air. Quite suddenly he boomed out, "Stop the car!" He leapt out and scampered off, and there, about a quarter of a mile from the A272, hidden from view behind a hedge, was a fresh crop circle. "It's a virgin!" he exclaimed excitedly, picking a bunch of crop stems and gallivanting off up the field. He turned round to face the circle roughly eight feet away and proceeded to set fire to his cluster of stems. Once a healthy spew of smoke had been created, he stamped out the remaining stems quite ferociously. "Arson won't help to keep the farmers on side, they're off side enough already!" he joked, and after more foot stamping he began scrutinizing the belch of smoke as it traveled downwind towards the circle. "If it's a hoax the smoke trail will travel straight across the circle, but if it's a genuine circle, the smoke will be unable to penetrate the outer wall of energy surrounding the circle; it will simply climb upwards, perpendicular, higher and higher into the air until it drifts up, out of sight." And so it did. George gave me a huge gift that day: proof with my own eyes that perhaps I wasn't deluding myself over experiencing certain energies after all. There were some formations that fell several years back, where the birds refused to fly through the outer wall of energy. I once took the famous medium and healer Betty Shine and a zither player into a fresh formation. We recorded him playing while we all sang along. When we heard it back outside the circle, we were puzzled. An eerie, hollow echo reverberated on the tape, making it sound as if both the zither and our singing were coming from a recording studio made entirely of glass. We checked if there was something wrong with the tape recorder. We did some recording outside the circle for a few minutes and everything was normal. We went back inside and the same echo effect appeared again! Another way of distinguishing the genuine article from a hoax is the way the crop has been laid out with its varying styles of crisscross weaving to create the artwork. Whatever the crop, no stem would be crushed or broken. Each stem would be gently bent into its basket weaving, and still growing as if caressed flat by some gentle wind of intelligence. What I find so bewildering is the fact that they are right here, these monumentally uplifting art forms, in greater numbers than anywhere else in the entire world - and using England's most glorious Wessex countryside as their canvas. Even if we assume, at a conservative estimate, that two thirds of them are hoaxes, it still leaves us many geometrically perfect art designs to revel in. How come there is no mention anywhere of how privileged we are that they are here? Some believe Blake's Jerusalem may be right here on our doorstep, upon England's green and pleasant land, and we may never even know it." | ||||||||||||||
| [113] | August 9, 1985, Andover Advertiser, Colin Andrews for Colinandrews.net, 'It's The Great Andover Flying Saucer Mystery' (see note 8 for details). | ||||||||||||||
| [114] | See note 14. | ||||||||||||||
| [115] | May 28, 2011, Huffington Post, 'UK UFO Files Show High Level Officials Were Concerned': "Ralph Noyes, who retired as the Undersecretary of State [for Defence] in 1977, was another British government official whose letters petitioning that the UFO matter be taken serious can also be found in the UK UFO files. In 1969 he was head of Defense Secretariat 8 (DS8), and one of his responsibilities was to answer public questions about UFOs. He says he was not able to share his true opinions on the subject. In the files he states, "It is only since I left the MOD (in 1977) that I have seriously tried to consider what may possibly lie behind the 'UFO phenomenon'. It was impossible to discuss it seriously within the Department: I would merely have 'rubbished' my working relationship with the RAF and scientific colleagues if I had disclosed the interest I felt in the better reports which reached us. What I retain from my MOD experience — greatly reinforced by much that I have since read — is that the 'phenomenon' is veridical and important"." | ||||||||||||||
| [116] | August 2008 (March 2008 original), Dr. David Clarke of the Department of Journalism and Communication, Sheffield Hallam University for the NationalArchives.gov.uk, 'Briefing document: Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs)': "These files contain papers from a number of MoD secretariats. S4 (Air) was replaced by DS8 (Defence Secretariat 8) in 1979. In turn DS8's UFO responsibility passed to Secretariat (Air Staff) 2 or Sec (AS) in 1985. DEFE 24 also contains a series of "edited copies" of UFO reports received by MoD, covering the years 1975-1980. These are duplicates of the main reports series, prepared at a time when the MoD first considered the release of UFO material to the public. The identities and home addresses of observers have been deleted from the edited reports. A MoD proposal to make selected reports available on request to members of the public was reversed in 1984 by defence minister John Stanley on the grounds of cost (DEFE 24/1517). A total of 17 DS8 and Sec (AS) files were opened under the Freedom of Information Act during 2008." |
||||||||||||||
| [117] | *) May 1989, Dave Clarke and Andy Roberts, 'Interview with Ralph Noyes': "I reached a fairly senior grade in the MoD and had access to whatever documents were necessary to my responsibilities. These included Top Secret material generally, as well as many other papers of a still more restricted character (for example, operational orders specifying how and when the Prime Minister would be advised to consider the British response to a nuclear threat to this country). But I'm also perfectly clear that much else was going on in the MoD... More important than my own testimony, however, is the fact that Admiral of the Fleet the Lord Hill-Norton, who was the Chief of Defence Staff from 1971 to 1973, never had the smallest indication of ET contact. He was the Defence "supremo"; nothing of Defence significance would have been kept from him; I'm clear from several discussions with him that he knew nothing of any extraterrestrial approach up to the date of his retirement in the mid-1970s. ... In the several capacities which brought me into touch with UFO reports during my 28 years in the MoD I encountered several reports, particularly those from military establishments, which indicated "high strangeness." I, and military colleagues, had little doubt something had taken place for which we had no explanation. The classic instance is Bentwaters/Lakenheath in 1956 (and other cases are entering the public domain as files are released under the 30 years' rule). Not once, however, was there the faintest suggestion that extraterrestrials might be in question. We suspected the Russians... The immediate recipients of reports of any disturbing phenomena in British airspace were always the Air Staff - the Royal Air Force officers who lived on the same MoD corridor as myself. They would have shouted very loudly to me - as the civilian colleague able to get them the ear of Ministers and/or necessary funds - if they had detected anything needing funds or Cabinet backing. They never did. ... I can't imagine that any government department, however ill-intentioned, would be so silly as to conduct a propaganda campaign about "UFOs", however covert. Let's suppose that the MoD and the Pentagon really do have evidence of extraterrestrial visitation ... would they really take the risk of putting "disinformation" into the public domain? Would they succeed if they tried? ... We would never have been so stupid as to engage in active lying. Quite apart from questions of morality (which certainly operated in my own time), no competent official would have taken the risk of being detected! It was simpler and safer to keep quiet. There is no doubt at all that the MoD played a thoroughly dishonest game over the [1981] Rendlesham affair. I have already put some of my reasons on record in the afterword to my science fiction novel A Secret Property, and in a paper, UFO Lands in Suffolk, printed in Timothy Good's UFO Annual 1990 (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1989). ... We would probably still be faced with this bland denial [regarding the 1981 Rendlesham Forest UFO report of Colonel Charles I. Halt, the deputy base commander of RAF Bentwaters] but for the action taken by American citizens under the US Freedom of Information Act in 1983. In response to enquiries made to the USAF by CAUS (Citizens Against UFO Secrecy) the USAF obtained a copy of Halt's report from the MoD and released it into the public domain in mid-1983. ... My only immediate point is that the MoD have resisted all attempt to obtain a sensible statement, even under sustained pressure to the Defence Secretary from Lord Hill-Norton. Why? Simply, I think, because it embarrasses them. ... It is only since I left the MoD (in 1977) that I have seriously tried to consider what may possibly lie behind the "UFO phenomenon." It was impossible to discuss it seriously within the Department: I would merely have "rubbished' my working relationship with the RAF and scientific colleagues if I had disclosed the interest I felt in the better reports which reached us. What I retained from my MoD experience - greatly reinforced by much that I have since read - is that the "phenomenon" is veridical and important, and that the expert methodology developed over the past century by scholarly people in the field of the so-called "paranormal" may possibly be relevant. I wouldn' put it higher than that at present. I can't even define "paranormal" to my own satisfaction! All I can be quite sure of is that we, in UFOlogy, are dealing with transient and somewhat insubstantial events of a bizarre character, and that we are not alone in doing so." *) 2004, Nick Redfern, 'A Covert Agenda: The British Government's UFO Top Secrets Exposed', p. 88: "Although Jenney Randles (among others) has frequently paid me the exciting compliment of supposing that I was 'the former Head of the MOD's UFO department', my Division, DS8... was nothing of the kind. DS8's job was to act in support of RAF operations. We only received reports of unidentified aerial phenomena lest they should, perchance, indicate that our air defence capabilities were less adequate than we hoped." |
||||||||||||||
| [118] | Ibid. | ||||||||||||||
| [119] | 2011, Bill Schwarz, 'The White Man's World', p. 433: "The [Monday] Club [of Wall] allied itself with the Western Goals Institute, an offshoot of the World Anti-Communist League, whose purpose was to whitewash various tyrannies, particularly those in central America during the years of the Contra counter-insurgency. Patrick Wall, meanwhile, spent the last decade of his life as president of the British UFO Association." *) October 1989, issue 258, Walt Andrus for MUFON UFO Journal, p. 27, 'Fifth London International UFO Congress': "The Fifth International UFO Congress was held July 14, 15 and 16, 1989 at the London Business School... sponsored by ICUR, BUFORA and MUFON. ... The opening address was delivered by Sir Patrick Wall, MC, VRD, RM (Ret.), President of the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA). ... Led by Jenny Randles, the ICUR Abduction Committee met independently several times during the Congress to formulate a systematic series of questions and identifiable characteristics related to potential abductees so as to provide guidelines to investigators when regressive hypnosis should be recommended. This was one of the most significant accomplishments of the Congress." |
||||||||||||||
| [120] | SIR PATRICK WALL BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS: *) October 23, 2011, The Independent, 'Obituary: Major Sir Patrick Wall' (1916-1998): "Patrick Henry Bligh Wall, politician and Marine officer, born 19 october 1916; commissioned in the Royal Marines 1935, Acting Major 1943, Major 1949; MC 1945; MP (Conservative) for Haltemprice Division of Hull 1954-55, for Haltemprice Division of East Yorkshire 1955-83, for Beverley 1983-87; Chairman, Monday Club 1978-80. ... Educated in Switzerland and at the famous Roman Catholic public school Downside, he rose in later life to become chairman of Pro Fide, the well-known international Catholic organisation." *) In addition: UK delegate to the United Nations General Assembly in 1962, Select Committee on Defence 1965-1977, chairman British-South Africa Parliamentary Group 1970-1987, chair of the British-Portuguese Parliamentary Group 1979-1987, and leader of the British delegation to the North Atlantic Assembly 1979-1987, of which he was president 1983-1985. *) Member of the Conservative Monday Club since 1963, executive council member and national chair 1978-1980. Friend of Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith and a supporter of British colonial policies. Ally of the 5th Marques of Salisbury (Robert Cecil) of the Monday Club in blocking sanctions against Ian Smith's Rhodesia in 1965. In February 1972 he called for a government crackdown on striking miners. *) 1984, no. 7, Lobster magazine: "In Lobster 5 we asked for information on Peter Dally, Chairman of the British Anti-Communist Council. The British Anti-Communist Council (BACC) is based at 31 Seneca Way, Cheltenham, GL50 4SF, and is the British affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League. The Tory MP Sir Patrick Wall is the BACC Hon. President. BACC joined the WACL in 1983. Dally is ex-RAF, and was an agent for the Conservative Party for 11 years. He worked for something called Intelligence International Ltd. from 1969 to 1984. BACC recently published a book by Dally, The Hong Kong Time Bomb." *) September 1986, no. 12, Lobster magazine: "John Biggs-Davison, Julian Amery and Patrick Wall - all of them Monday Club members in the sixties and supporters/members of the Anglo-Rhodesian Society. Other Anglo-Rhodesian Society members were Monday Clubbers Ronald Bell, Stephen Hastings and Harold Soref, who were on its Council." *) http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/ark:/99166/w6wr5b5r (accessed: November 10, 2016): "Sir Patrick Wall: ... A Roman Catholic, he founded and chaired the Pro Fide movement [which began] in 1970. This national body has numerous high level national and international contacts. ... Sir Patrick was knighted for his political services in 1981. He had earlier been made a Knight of the Sovereign Order of Malta... From the guide to the PAPERS OF SIR PATRICK WALL (1916 - 1998), 1890 - 1992, (Hull University, Brynmor Jones Library)." |
||||||||||||||
| [121] | *) March 2000, issue 70, Magonia magazine, 'Eyes Right: The Curious Politics of British Ufology': "That as President of the organisation, BUFORA proudly raised aloft the figure of Patrick Wall, arguably the most racist and reactionary post-Suez Tory MP of them all, a far more powerful and sinister character than the Harrington. You might think that an organisation which accepts a notorious racist as its President wants watching, but I couldn't possibly comment." *) February 7, 2006, issue 60, Magonia magazine's Magonia Supplement: "For example, you will not read in any of these books of how the Provisional IRA was set up by the CIA in 1969 with the connivance of the Irish government, and the at least tacit support of the British security services, and was supplied by funds from Saudi Arabia and Taiwan through an organisation called the World Anti-Communist League (British head, Patrick Wall, MP who later became President of BUFORA). The motivation was that the existing Official IRA was pro-Cuban and believed to be a front for the Irish Workers (i.e. Communist) Party. Given the situation there was going to an IRA anyway it was better that it was a good old Green Catholic IRA rather than a Red one." |
||||||||||||||
| [122] | June 21, 2009, Peter Robbins and Rendlesham witness John Burroughs on the Paracast, 45:00 (words of Peter Robbins): "[Colonel Charles Halt] left with an honorable discharge in May of '81 and by '82 was completely obsessed with this... He ultimately made contact with a fairly well known and respected UFO investigator ... Larry Fossett. ... This information [of Halt as collected by Fossett] was taken and Bob Todd, who was working for CAUS at the time, Citizens Against UFO Secrecy, put it together in the form of a Freedom of Information Act request [leading] to the release of this one single document which we now call the Halt document. ... When this story broke, it wasn't because of Larry Warren or Larry Fossett. Fossett had forwarded a copy of the Halt document, this single page report, to a colleague in England: Jenny Randles, who then, without permission or even the curtosy of even telling them that she was doing it, sold the document for quite a hefty amount I understand to News of the World. ... I like and respect a lot of Jenny's work, but this was not an appropriate way to behave and with the thousands of pounds that she made, she kept it all. As I understand, certainly Fossett or Warren never got any of it. The point being that the story broke on the first Sunday of October in 1983 in the News of the World." theparacast.com/podcasts/paracast_090621.mp3 |
||||||||||||||
| [123] | Author Sterling Seagrave, August 22, 2007, 06:43 PM, post on the JFK-related educationforum.ipbhost.com: "Bill Casey was one of the key men in the acquisition of media after WW2. It was one of his proteges (a young German immigrant to the US) who was sent back to Germany after the war to take over Bertelsmann and build it up. Rupert Murdoch was very tight with Shackley, which is how he got launched on his global acquisitions and has now taken over the WSJ. Murdoch was running a failed national newspaper in Australia while Shackley was station chief in Oz. Then suddenly he becomes a US citizen literally overnight and goes on an endless buying spree. Shackley's pockets were infinitely deep. At the time, Murdoch was facing the likely closure of his newspaper THE AUSTRALIAN. His ticket out was Shackley. This also explains why Murdoch was allowed to break all the rules in acquisition of media in America." | ||||||||||||||
| [124] | 1984, Jenny Randles for Flying Saucer Review, vol. 29, no. 6, 'More about the adventures of a very peculiar lighthouse', p. 5. | ||||||||||||||
| [125] | May-June 1955, Vol. 1, No. 2, Flying Saucer Review, p. 1: "Last month something happened to give rise to the belief that Whitehall did in fact have the U.F.O. answer. The Air Ministry announced that the results of a five-year probe into Flying Saucers by the Royal Air Force had been submitted to high-ranking officers but that it was never to be revealed to the public for security reasons. ... Following the announcement, Major Patrick Wall (Conservative, Haltemprice) asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air, Mr George Ward, whether the Air Ministry inquiry had been completed and whether he proposed to publish a report." | ||||||||||||||
| [126] | *) November-December 1979, vol. 25, no. 6, Flying Saucer Review, pp. 1-2: "Editor: Charles Bowen. Consultants: Gordon Creighton... C. Maxwell Cade... Bernard E. Finch... Charles H. Gibbs-Smith... Overseas: J. Allen Hynek... Secretarial assistant: Jenny Randles... Contents: Physical Assualt by unidentified objects at Livingston: M. Keatman & A. [Andrews] Collins....2..." Winter 1991, vol. 36, no. 4, Flying Saucer Review, p. ii: "Editor: Gordon Creighton... Consultants and Correspondents: ... Dr. Bernard E. Finch... Omar Fowler (SIGAP -- UK)... Timothy Good (UK). Rita Goold (UK)... Cecil Harper... John A. Keel ... William L. Moore ... Dr. R. Leo Sprinkle ... Don Tuersley (UK). Dr. Jacques Vallee... George Wingfield." |
||||||||||||||
| [127] | Summer 1993, volume 38, no. 2, Flying Saucer Review, pp. 1-7, 24, Linda [Cortile]'s UFO abduction: "The Case of the Century"' (by George Wingfield on Budd Hopkins' work), 'Book Review: Dr. David Jacob's "Secret Life"', 'The Valley of Death: Cattle Mutilations in Wiltshire, England, (1992).' (by Pat Delgado). | ||||||||||||||
| [128] | 2014, Chic Londres, 'Sciences-Po [Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris] Alumni flock to Westminster!': "Described by The Economist in 2001 as "the grandest of the grandes écoles which, since Napoleon, have provided France with its political, administrative and business elite", Sciences Po (or "Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris", its official name) has long been considered as a national and global leaders' "factory". Established in Paris in 1872 to modernise the training of politicians, Sciences Po alumni include 28 past and present French Primes ministers and Presidents (François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac amongst them, as well as Nicolas Sarkozy who studied there) and 12 past or present foreign heads of State or government, as well as many prominent politicians ... While nearly every French high ranking politician or diplomat has attended Sciences Po since its inception, the institution's global reach is far wider, notably in International Relations..." | ||||||||||||||
| [129] | Autumn 1991, volume 36, no. 3, Flying Saucer Review, Gordon Creighton biography (PDF). | ||||||||||||||
| [130] | Ibid. | ||||||||||||||
| [131] | Ibid. | ||||||||||||||
| [132] | August 16, 2003, The Times, 'Gordon Creighton: A diplomatic approach to alien visitors'. | ||||||||||||||
| [133] | *) December 1968, No. 19, SIGAP newsletter: "Gordon Creighton, President of B.U.F.O.R.A... " *) June 3, 1992, Paranet, 'The Current Status of British Ufology': "FSR was first published in 1955 and for many years was the world leader amongst UFO journals. The current editor of FSR is Gordon Creighton, who is also a former President of BUFORA." |
||||||||||||||
| [134] | See note 122. | ||||||||||||||
| [135] | *) October 19, 2013 YouTube upload, Sirius Disclosure (of Steven Greer), 'The Lord Admiral on Bentwaters': "There are only two explanations for what happened that night at Suffolk [at the Rendlesham Forest outside Bentwaters]: The first is of what the people concern including Colonel Halt who was at the time the deputy commander of the base, and a lot of his soldiers, or airmen, they claim that something from outside the Earth's atmosphere landed at the air force base. They stood by it, they inspected it, they photographed it... That is one explanation: that it actually happened as Colonel Halt reported.
The other explanation is that it didn't and in that case one is bound to assume that Colonel Halt and all his men were hallucinating." *) October 28, 2011, Huffington Post, 'UK UFO Files Show High Level Officials Were Concerned': "The highest ranking among those hounding the MOD about UFOs was Baron Hill-Norton, former Admiral of the Fleet (1970-71), Chief of the Defence Staff (1971-73), and head of NATO's military committee (1974-77). Two years after his retirement in 1977, Peter Hill-Norton was made Baron and a member of the House of Lords." |
||||||||||||||
| [136] | 1999 (2008 revision), Glen Yeadon, 'The Nazi Hydra in America': "According to Howard Hunt, the CIA subsidized Regnery Publishing because of its because of its pro-Nazi stance." | ||||||||||||||
| [137] | fsr.org.uk/fsrcover.htm, 'About our Cover' (accessed: October 31, 2016): "In all, FSR has had a total of five editors, viz., Derek Dempster, Brinsley le Poer Trench, Waveny Girvan, Charles Bowen and myself. And of all these the longest serving was Charles Bowen, from issue No.10/6 (1964) to 28/1 (1982), a total of 18 years and 103 issues! Charles was assuredly our hardest-working and most severely harassed editor,for he managed all this while still performing his full-time ten-to-five job in the Finance Dept, of the South African Embassy in London." | ||||||||||||||
| [138] | *) See note 118. *) March 2000, issue 70, Magonia magazine, 'Eyes Right: The Curious Politics of British Ufology': "Then there is the [former] editor of Flying Saucer Review Gordon Creighton, who goes round telling people that UFOs are run by card carrying communist demons, and produces editorials on his crusade against the peace movement. Previous editors have included an employee of the South African apartheid state, a right wing ex-Liberal parliamentary candidate, an hereditary peer who varied his campaigns on behalf of the space brothers with support for the Smith regime in Rhodesia, and an aviation historian who had at least a touch of the intelligence department about him. We could go on and on, and we have done so at length in the past. I could also mention how many UFO and fortean groups gave publicity to a 'conspiracy conference' a few years ago, in which one of the main speakers was the notorious anti-Semite Eustace Mullins." |
||||||||||||||
| [139] | *) See note 132. *) 1989, Timothy Good, 'Above Top Secret', p. 36: "Salandin immediately reported the [UFO] sighting by radio to North Weald. After landing he related further details to Derek Dempster, 604 Squadron's intelligence officer, who was fortuitously to become the first editor of Flying Saucer Review in 1955. The report was sent to the Air Ministry but nothing further was heard about it. Had it not been for Derek Dempster the story might never have come to light. Derek has told me that he is absolutely convinced of Salandin's sincerity, having known him well as a fellow pilot in 604 Squadron." |
||||||||||||||
| [140] | *) See note 132. *) henrywilliamson.co.uk/bibliography/a-lifes-work/a-bibliography-of-the-works-of-henry-williamson (accessed: October 31, 2016): "The son of a military doctor, Ian Waveney Girvan was born in 1908, and spent some of his early life in the West Country where his father was stationed. He trained as an accountant but did not find this congenial and, apparently with some private means, wanted to be involved in the book world." |
||||||||||||||
| [141] | *) Basic info from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Brinsley_Le_Poer_Trench,_ 8th_Earl_of_Clancarty (accessed: October 31, 2016). *) May 21, 1995, Cropcircleresearch.com, 'Enigma Issue 6: Obituary - Lord Clancarty': "Lord Clancarty, formerly the Hon. (William Francis) Brinsley le Poer Trench, died in his 84th year on May 18th. Born Sept 18th 1911 in London, England, he succeeded his brother as the 8th Earl of Clancarty in 1975. ... From 1956 to 1959, Clancarty was Editor of Flying Saucer Review (FSR). In 1967 he founded the world-wide UFO organisation Contact International, of which he was president. At that time he was also vice-president of the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) and a honorary life member of the Ancient Astronaut Society. In 1979 he introduced a three-hour debate on UFOs in the House of Lords [leading to] a House of Lords All Party study group was formed at the time. .. [he] retained his connection with FSR under the present editorship of Gordon Creighton." |
||||||||||||||
| [142] | 1977, Gordon Creighton in the 'Out Of This World' documentary. | ||||||||||||||
| [143] | October 1983, vol. 29, no. 1, Gordon Creighton for this Flying Saucer Review, 'A Brief Account Of The True Nature Of The 'UFO Entities''. | ||||||||||||||
| [144] | November 10, 2006, Daily Mail, ''Aliens could attack at any time' warns former MoD chief' (Pope has been published much more since then by the Daily Mail). | ||||||||||||||
| [145] | Ibid. | ||||||||||||||
| [146] | See note 38. | ||||||||||||||
| [147] | Nancy Talbott at bltresearch.com/fieldreports/uk2009.php, 'Plant Abnormalities Indicate Plasma Discharge in 2009 UK Crop Circles'. | ||||||||||||||
| [148] | See note 17. | ||||||||||||||
| [149] | See note 36. | ||||||||||||||
| [150] | Nancy Talbott apperances on Rense: December 5 and December 20, 1999; October 15, 2000; November 24, 2001 ("Nancy Talbott Saw Crop Circle Formed"); March 10 and March 16, 2003; September 25 and September 28, 2003; Februari 17 and February 21, 2004; March 12 and March 13, 2004 ("X-Ray Diffraction Tests Of Crop Circle Soil"); May 10 and May 16, 2004 ("World Exclusive Photo Of Tall Grey?"); May 28, 2004; June 2, 2004; July 18, 2005; June 22 and June 25, 2006; March 7, 2007; November 20, 2007; June 9, 2008 | ||||||||||||||
| [151] | *) January 13, 2007, Nancy Talbott for Rense.com, 'Eyewitness Report Of A Crop Circle Forming In The Netherlands': "I (Nancy Talbott) first learned of Robbert and his family in 1997 because of an incident involving a large light-ball (BOL) and some white powder which the BOL had left behind. I was asked if the BLT Research Team could identify the powder and we were able to establish, through EDS and infrared spectroscopy, that the material was a very pure magnesium carbonate. Following a lecture in Amsterdam in 1998 I spent some time with the family and, since then, have stayed at their home for several weeks during the ensuing summers. ... Among other things, in 2001 Robbert and I witnessed three brilliant, incredibly forceful tubes of light creating a crop circle in the field behind his home (see www.bltresearch.com, "Eyewitness Reports," Case #1). It was the first time I had ever seen a crop circle being created and, I expected, it would be the last. But now, five years later, it has happened again. ... [New] Event Time: Around 12 Midnight, Oct. 19-20th, 2006 ..." *) bltresearch.com/robbert.php (accessed: October 31, 2016): "Robbert v/d Broeke has, since the mid-1970s, visually seen dozens of crop circles form, but he is usually alone when they occur. In 2001 & 2006 Nancy saw new circles form while with Robbert and in 2008 & 2013 Robbert's friend Stan also saw circles form while with Robbert. Now Roy Boschman is another witness, watching as 5 circles open up only meters in front of him & Robbert, in a brilliant flash of light." |
||||||||||||||
| [152] | May 5, 2012, ColinAndrews.com, 'The Family of Deceased Crop Circle Researcher Pat Delgado Issues a Statement Following Claims by a Medium, Robbert van den Broeke and Paranormal Researcher Nancy Talbott To Have Made Contact with him - "Its Trickery they said".': "Images exactly as filmed by BBC South Today during 1991. [note: not an exact match]..." | ||||||||||||||
| [153] | February 12, 2006, Nu.nl, 'Robbert van den Broeke niet meer op tv': "Medium Robbert van den Broeke is niet meer te zien op RTL4. De herhalingen van zijn programma 'Er is zoveel meer' zijn geschrapt en er komt geen vervolgserie. ... In december kwam medium Van den Broeke in opspraak. De stichting Skepsis, die kritisch publiceert over het bovennatuurlijke, beschuldigde Van den Broeke van malafide praktijken. Volgens Skepsis haalde Van den Broeke zijn informatie van internet. In een uitzending bezoekt het medium met presentatrice Irene Moors een vrouw. Zij zou in een vorig leven Hillegien Rozeboom hebben geheten en haar man was 'genverbrander', zei Van den Broeke. De informatie over Rozeboom bleek letterlijk op internet te staan, inclusief de spelfout in genverbrander, dat geneverbrander (jeneverbrander) moest zijn." |
||||||||||||||
| [154] | 1990, RTL 4, "De Stoel" program with Ans Hoornweg. Clip: June 3, 2010, YouTube upload, 'Lief en Leed - Ans Hoornweg' (youtube.com/watch?v=tAK6jmTmVds). | ||||||||||||||
| [155] | *) November 13, 2015 YouTube upload, 'Robbert van den Broeke ontmoet Ans Hoornweg' (youtube.com/watch?v=rMp-ol1KD-Y): "[Robbert:] Now, it is very special that we are now meeting each other after 25 years, isn't it, Ans?" *) May 11, 2016 YouTube upload, 'Robbert van den Broeke en Ans Hoornweg in gesprek en bijzondere foto's' (youtube.com/watch?v=nXuub8eS4D4). |
||||||||||||||
| [156] | April 2, 2012 YouTube upload by HealingSoundMovement (duurzaam24.tv / translates as "sustainable24.tv), 'HealingSoundMovement TV aflevering 16 Robbert van den Broeke deel 2' (youtube.com/watch?v=gr-thxuqulo). | ||||||||||||||
| [157] | See note 147. | ||||||||||||||
| [158] | April 2, 2012 YouTube upload by HealingSoundMovement (duurzaam24.tv / translates as "sustainable24.tv), 'HealingSoundMovement TV aflevering 16 Robbert van den Broeke deel 2' (youtube.com/watch?v=gr-thxuqulo): "[Robbert:] I have seen that [crop circles] are made by balls of light..." | ||||||||||||||
| [159] | *) skepsis.nl/wonderman/: "Dr. Eltjo Haselhoff, die tot mei 2005 voorzitter was van het Dutch Center for Crop Circle Studies, had vanaf 1996 regelmatig contact met Robbert en kwam ook vaak bij de familie Van den Broeke op bezoek. Naarmate hij Robbert en zijn ouders beter leerde kennen, kon hij zich absoluut niet meer voorstellen dat de jongen hem bij de neus nam. Haselhoff (1998) schreef: 'Dit blijkt tevens uit zijn enorme nieuwsgierigheid naar het fenomeen en diverse onbewuste uitspraken, zoals bijvoorbeeld “maar bij déze heb ik niet gezien hoe hij ontstond, hoor!”'. Robbert leek goudeerlijk en bescheiden. Hij was net zo verbaasd en enthousiast als de onderzoekers wanneer hij weer wat nieuws op het spoor kwam. En hij begreep zelf ook niet waarom hij het epicentrum vormde. Haselhoff raakte zeer onder de indruk van een onooglijk pictogram dat Robbert in een wortelveld ontdekte. ... [Robbert] beweerde meermaals te hebben gezien hoe de cirkels werden gevormd door zwevende lichtbollen die snel door het graan draaiden." *) robbertvandenbroeke.com/wonderful-events: "In 1999, Eltjo Haselhoff (PHD in physics) investigated a crop circle in Hoeven, behind the house of Robbert van den Broeke. The findings have been peer reviewed and published in a scientific journal. (Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol.28, no.1, 2014)" |
||||||||||||||
| [160] | April 3, 2013, Algemeen Dagblad (major Dutch newspaper), 'Joran ziet gedaante van paragnost in cel verschijnen': "Joran van der Sloot has been 'visited' in his cell by Robbert van den Broeke. Not in person, no, the self-described medium from the Netherlands would have appeared in spirit before Joran. This is what Hart van Nederland is reporting on the basis of a letter to Joran. His lawyer would have sent the letter to the editors of the news program." | ||||||||||||||
| [161] | July 2, 2015, De Telegraaf, 'Joran van der Sloot bedreigt paragnost': "Robbert, vooral bekend van Irene Moors' tv-programma Er is zoveel meer, dat van de buis werd gehaald nadat bleek dat Robbert met name goed was in 'paranormaal' googelen, werd een paar jaar geleden penvriendjes met Joran. Wat hen zou binden is dat ze beiden beweren paranormaal begaafd te zijn. Joran sprak tegen Robbert de wens uit een boek te willen schrijven over zijn eigen paranormale gaven. Robbert vond dat een puik idee en sponsorde hem met maar liefst 35.000 euro. En daarmee begon de ellende... Robbert vertelt aan Shownieuws dat hij nu door Joran wordt bedreigd. Als hij niet meer geld naar Joran overmaakt zal hij onder meer "bommen" op hem laten vallen, schrijft hij in een dreigbrief." | ||||||||||||||
| [162] | April 20, 2016, BN De Stem, 'Joran bedelt om hulp en geld bij vriend van paragnost Robbert van den Broeke': "Joran (28) en Robbert (35) hebben een gezamenlijke vriend, Stan (27), die de veroordeelde Arubaan in het verleden vaker financieel steunde. ... Deze krant beschikt over een kopie van die handgeschreven brief van Joran van der Sloot, die schrijft dat hij sinds het uitlekken van de opnames 'erger in de problemen zit'. De brief op ruitjespapier die zijn vrouw Leidy digitaal als document verstuurde, is gericht aan Lieve Stan. Deze Stan (volledige naam bekend bij redactie) en Joran kennen elkaar oorspronkelijk van het internetpokeren om grote bedragen. Volgens Van den Broeke maakte de jonge Limburger jaren terug forse sommen - in totaal zo'n 35.000 euro - over uit medelijden om Jorans' leven draaglijker te maken. Deze onlangs naar Spanje uitgeweken Stan (27) is innig bevriend met de omstreden paragnost en graancirkelontdekker Robbert van den Broeke." |
||||||||||||||
| [163] | April 3, 2013, Algemeen Dagblad (major Dutch newspaper), 'Joran ziet gedaante van paragnost in cel verschijnen': "Van den Broeke is not uncontroversial. In 2005 he appeared in the TV program 'There is so much more' of Irene Moors. Van den Broeke demonstrated his paranormal abilities here. Later it was revealed that he had gotten this information from the internet. The letter from Joran about Robbert van den Broeke is not the only link between the medium and the murderer of Stephany Flores. For some time now van den Broeke has been working with Stan P. Right before the murder on Flores this Limburger, also a highly sensitive person, according to Van den Broeke, plotted with his poker buddy Joran a conspiracy to blackmail a homosexual man, about whom they knew he had child pornography on his computer." | ||||||||||||||
| [164] | *) January 19, 2012, spiritualiteit.blog.nl, 'Robbert van den Broeke "afgemaakt en vernederd door de pers"' (June 4, 2012 comment of a certain Sander): "Robbert van den broeke, tja wat zal ik daar over zeggen. Ik heb Robbert zo'n 3 jaar gekend..In het begin leek hij heel aardig te zijn. Laat ik wel zeggen dat deze man heel slecht tegen kritiek kan. Als je kritiek uit naar hem wordt deze man heel gemeen. Hij wenst je alle ziektes van de wereld toe, hij wenst je vooral kanker toe, hij hoopt dat je vermoord zal worden, hij hoopt dat je zal sterven, hij heeft een enorme hekel aan mensen die homosexueel zijn, terwijl Robbert zelf ook homosexueel is. Hij hoopt zelfs dat homosexuelen die vrij vrouwelijk in elkaar zitten, uitgeroeid zullen worden, of in elkaar geslagen zullen worden. Daarbij komt ook nog dat Robbert zelf een fetisch heeft op sexueel gebied, namelijk poep sex, en hij kickt op het opsnuiven van scheten van andere mannen. Ik ben niet de enige die hij dit soort dingen heeft toegewenst! Op verschillende dating sites is hij niet meer welkom! Is verplicht verwijderd omdat hij dit soort dingen mensen toewenst, en erger nog bedreigd met de dood!! Ik heb veel mailtjes van hem gekregen met dreigementen die ik zo kan aantonen, copieen van deze mailtjes liggen ook bij de politie, waarbij zelfs de politie mij vertelde dat er veel meer van deze meldingen liggen bij de politie! Zo zijn er nog tal van dingen die ik op kan noemen, maar diegene die dit lezen en die dit ook met hem meegemaakt hebben, die weten precies wat ik bedoel.." *) June 25, 2006, two combined comments, Forum.fok.nl: "Op woensdag 25 januari 2006 09:54 schreef Stenny het volgende: "[..] Ik kreeg net een mail van een jongeman die zich nog niet kan registreren op Fok. Hij zegt dat hij een homovriend heeft die naar een coming out was gegaan en dat Robbert daar ook was. Dit bericht lijkt me betrouwbaar." Die berichten heb ik ook gehoord ja, maar veranderd dat dan iets aan zijn geloofwaardigheid als medium?" |
||||||||||||||
| [165] | June 27, 2012, robbertvandenbroeke.nl, 'Robbert uit de kast' (robbertvandenbroeke.nl/nieuws/Robbert_uit_de_kast (accessed: April 21, 2013)): "Ik heb een zeer zware, en bij tijden gruwelijke jeugd gehad. Als kind was ik al hypergevoelig, en kreeg alle informatie van de mensen om me heen binnen. Toen ik 13 was ontdekte ik bovendien dat ik me meer aangetrokken voelde tot jongens. Ik heb dit in eerste instantie voor mezelf gehouden, uit angst en schaamte. Toen ik 17 was vertelde ik het aan mijn moeder. Ik kon het niet langer voor me houden, ik wilde nu eens gaan voor mijn geluk. Ik droomde er toen al van om een relatie met een stoere jongen te hebben. Ik ben nu 32 en heb nog nooit een vriend gehad, nog nooit een relatie, helemaal niks. Ik heb van jongs af aan een zeer verstoorde jeugd gehad. Zoals gezegd, ik ben zeer gevoelig en niet begrensd tegen de informatie van andere mensen. Daarnaast had ik - in mijn puberteit, jong volwassenheid en op latere leeftijd - mijn (homo)seksuele frustraties. Soms kwamen ineens al mijn frustraties eruit en ging ik heel hard huilen, of soms heel hard gillen. Mijn omgeving kon hier echter niet altijd mee omgaan. Ik heb vrij veel geweld ervaren, waardoor ik niet goed voor mezelf heb leren opkomen. Ik vind het belangrijk om iets te zeggen over mijn voorgeschiedenis, omdat die mij zeer angstig heeft gemaakt. Ik zat in een harnas van pijn, en van emotionele en seksuele frustraties. Ik ben opgegroeid in een gezin met twee spetters van zussen, en met spetters bedoel ik erg knap, met als gevolg dat zij wel thuiskwamen met knappe, stoere vriendjes, terwijl ik daar alleen maar van kon dromen. Ik heb vele malen alleen onder de kerstboom gezeten terwijl mijn zusjes hun vrienden op bezoek hadden. Het was vaak vernederend en pijnlijk omdat ik dit zelf ook graag wilde en nooit waar kon maken. Als mijn bord dan leeg was, ging ik altijd snel naar mijn kamertje, om af te koelen van mijn boosheid en frustratie. Natuurlijk was ik niet boos op mijn zusjes, want die kunnen er ook niks aan doen, en ik gunde hun van harte dat ze die knappe, stoere, vriend hadden en hebben. Maar ik kon het zelf niet krijgen. Ik wenst vurig dat ik een stoere vriend zou krijgen, en dat gebeurde niet. Ik wilde zo graag een partij achter me die me zou beschermen. ... Wel ben ik problemen weg gaan eten, om nog een beetje een aardse kick in mijn hersenen te ervaren, waardoor ik een buikje heb gekregen. Hierdoor ben ik erg onzeker geworden en is de drempel hoger geworden om te daten etc. Ik wil niet altijd meneer pastoor zijn,. Ik heb nu al 15 jaar mijn praktijk en zag daar ook vaak meiden komen en gaan met hun stoere vriend; dit ervoer ik vaak als kwetsend, omdat ik zelf een zeer eenzaam thuisfront had. Ik hielp mensen met liefde en plezier, en dat zal ik in de toekomst zeker ook blijven doen. Ik maakte echter vele mensen gelukkig, terwijl mijn eigen leven een hel is/was. Ik vond het een vernederende positie om als meneer pastoor altijd weer de stellen de zegen te mogen geven en zelf niks te hebben. ... De depressies groeien vaak enorm, doordat ik die verbinding met een ander mens niet heb. Ik betrapte mezelf vaak op de gedachte: "Hoe kan ik mezelf zo snel en goed mogelijk van kant maken", omdat het echt ondraaglijk werd. ... Ik breng dit nu pas naar buiten omdat ik dit altijd voor mezelf heb gehouden. Ik wilde niemand belasten met mijn pijnen en frustraties." |
||||||||||||||
| [166] | See note 157. | ||||||||||||||
| [167] | April 20, 2016, BN De Stem, 'Joran bedelt om hulp en geld bij vriend van paragnost Robbert van den Broeke': "Joran (28) en Robbert (35) hebben een gezamenlijke vriend, Stan (27), die de veroordeelde Arubaan in het verleden vaker financieel steunde. In een recente brief, die via internet ook terecht is gekomen bij de Bosschenhoofdse 'paragnost' zegt Van der Sloot dat hij is 'genaaid' door misdaadverslaggever John van den Heuvel. ... Van der Sloot vraagt Stan niet alleen om financiële hulp, maar ook om steun voor wraak op Van den Heuvel die beelden zou hebben gemanipuleerd om hem in slecht daglicht te stellen en zijn reportage te verkopen aan onder meer een Amerikaans televisiekanaal. Van den Broeke over de brief van Joran: „Hij heeft altijd geld nodig. Voor drugs, om mensen om te kopen, zijn advocaat, voor het huis dat hij voor Leidy heeft gekocht..."" |
||||||||||||||
| [168] | December 27, 2015 YouTube upload by Robbert van den Broeke 'kerstlezing Robbert van den Broeke 23 December 2015' (youtube.com/watch?v=fsI2Emvjiw4) | ||||||||||||||
| [169] | Ibid. Femke Bloem opening statement: "So from one day to the next when I was 21 I could play the harp and sing while before that I had never played an instrument. Yeah, that's a miracle. ... Robbert and I have been a little bit in the same business and I've also already known for a while. I interviewed once for the website Niburu and already then we had a very strong connection." | ||||||||||||||
| [170] | March 27, 2014, YouTube upload, 'New Reality Show Femke Bloem' (youtube.com/watch?v=kjUa0emmGQI). Bloem is interviewed here by Elias Hering, her former co-host of Niburu TV who went over to Niburu offshoot NineForeNews.nl and its New Reality Show. | ||||||||||||||
| [171] | January 19, 2015, Omroep Brabant, 'Medium Robbert van den Broeke ontkent versturen gruwelijke foto's en bedreigingen: 'Dit ben ik niet'': "Wie zijn ontbijt deze ochtend binnen wil houden, moet vooral niet het Twitteraccount van medium Robbert van den Broeke uit Bosschenhoofd bekijken. De werkelijk afschuwelijke bloederige foto's, zouden doen vermoeden dat Van den Broeke psychopathische trekken vertoont. De dreigmails en doodsverwensingen die vanuit zijn Twitteraccount en mailadres worden verstuurd, lijken het beeld te bevestigen. "Maar", zo zegt het medium: "Dit ben ik absoluut niet. Ik vind het verschrikkelijk." Volgens Van den Broeke zijn zijn mail- en Twitteraccount (Schokkende beelden. Red.) gehackt. "Dat gebeurde in 2012 en 2013 al een keer. Toen hebben we mijn computer opnieuw beveiligd en hield het op. Sinds een week of twee is het weer begonnen." Onder meer een lid van Stichting Skepsis is slachtoffer van de haatmails. Stichting Skepsis bekritiseert Van den Broeke al jaren en gelooft niet zo in de onschuld van het medium. ... De laatste tweet is van Constantia Oomen. Zij is al jaren kritisch op het werk van Van den Broeke, is ook betrokken bij Stichting Skepsis en was op internetfora, zoals Fok.nl zeer kritisch over het West-Brabantse medium. Oomen krijgt al ruim twee jaar dreigmails van het mailadres van Van den Broeke. "Het gaat niet om een paar keer, maar ik krijg doorlopend dreigementen. Ik heb geen aangifte gedaan, omdat ik in Amerika woon, maar ik heb alle dreigmails bewaard." Oomen heeft ruim twee jaar aan dreigmails verzameld in Dropbox (voor Dropbox is een account nodig, veel van de documenten zijn schokkend, Red.) en heeft het maandag openbaar gemaakt. Oomen is ervan overtuigd dat Robbert zelf, mogelijk samen met een vriend van hem, achter de dreigmails zit. Dat hij de dreigementen nu zo in het openbaar op Twitter uit, is volgens Oomen een wanhoopsdaad. "Ik heb de afgelopen dagen contact gezocht met verschillende media. Hij doet dit nu in een krampachtige poging om mensen te laten geloven dat zijn account is gehackt." Daarbij vindt Oomen het raar dat hij tussen de gruwelijke foto's en tweets door, mensen wel op Twitter waarschuwt dat zijn account is gehackt en dat die berichten niet van hem afkomstig zijn. "Dan kun je dus blijkbaar nog wel inloggen op je account. Waarom verwijder je dan niet al die gruwelijke foto's of stop je met het account?" Volgens Van den Broeke is zijn instelling zodanig dat hetgeen op Facebook wordt gedeeld ook automatisch op Twitter wordt geplaatst. Ook Pepijn van Erp, bestuurslid van Skepsis, vindt het verhaal dat een hacker achter de dreigmails en tweets zou zitten erg ongeloofwaardig. "Ik heb alleen contact met Oomen gehad via mail en ik ken haar niet persoonlijk, maar zij is niet de enige die de afgelopen jaren dreigmails kreeg. Wij hebben ook van andere mensen die kritisch op hem waren, onder meer uit Engeland, soortgelijke berichten gehoord. Ook bij ons op het blog liet hij jaren geleden dreigende reacties achter. Die waren te herleiden tot zijn ip-adres." ... Het medium laat weten dat zijn sceptici niet de enige slachtoffers zijn. "Ook vrienden en kennissen van mij krijgen deze gruwelijke mails. Ik ben er helemaal kapot van."" |
||||||||||||||
| [172] | *) January 22, 2006, Forum.fok.nl (http://forum.fok.nl/topic/808700/3/25): "Stenny: Jur [Jurgen Deleye], je website wordt genoemd! Grenswetenschap. ... seriewoordenaar: Ah, leuk." *) ufowijzer.nl/eregalerij/JurgenDeleye.html (accessed: November 4, 2016): "UFOWIJZER ERELID: JURGEN DELEYE Jurgen Deleye (alias Seriewoordenaar) is een onafhankelijk onderzoeker... [picture with John Major Jenkins, a leading Coast to Coast AM disinformer on 2012] Zonder zich ergens op vast te willen pinnen behandelt hij uitvoerig de Maya 2012-einddatum... Jurgen heeft een tijdje terug www.grenswetenschap.nl opgezet. Samen met Frank Barkel (voorheen DossierX) en met enkele toegewijde redacteuren probeert hij nu de grenswetenschappen bekend te maken..." |
||||||||||||||
| [173] | See note 167. | ||||||||||||||
| [174] | constantiaoomen.wordpress.com /2015/07/14/achter-de-schermen-bij-robbert-van-den-broeke-2/ (accesed: November 10, 2016): "Stan Pluijmen begon me te mailen in 2012 en is sindsdien nooit meer gestopt. Hij probeerde me er altijd van te overtuigen dat alles wat Robbert deed en doet, écht is, en dat ik nu eindelijk mijn skeptische instelling eens achter me moest laten... Zowel de haatmails van Robbert als de ‘normale’ mails van Stan (dat zijn er inmiddels honderden) werden op een gegeven moment steeds meer van hetzelfde. ... [Hij is] vrijwel altijd extreem vriendelijk en blijkbaar van een welwillende, goedgehumeurde en optimistische aard. ... Hij stuurde me ‘overtuigende’ (*niet*) bewijzen in de vorm van videoclips en audiofragmenten, en probeerde altijd met echt bewijs te komen, wat het helaas nooit was." | ||||||||||||||
| [175] | *) See note 167. *) January 22, 2006, Forum.fok.nl (http://forum.fok.nl/topic/808700/3/25): "Stenny [Constantina Oomens): Jur [Jurgen Deleye], je website wordt genoemd! Grenswetenschap. ... seriewoordenaar: Ah, leuk." *) January 24, 2016, Pulzzar on forum.fok.nl (forum.fok.nl/topic/2276858/2/25): "Die Constantia Oomen was ook FOK!er totdat ze van Yvonne een permban kreeg tijdens die Robbert van den Broeke-hype. Zij maar ook een heel hoop andere users werden heel opdringerig en obsessief van het betreffende issue en bijna alleen daardoor zou het TRU-subforum opgeheven worden." *) kloptdatwel.nl/2015/10/05/skepsis-congres-2015-expert-gezocht/ (accessed: November 5, 2016): "Constantia Oomen 5 October 2015: ... Kan ik nog steeds de moderatoren van Kloptdatwel niet ontmoeten. En JW moet ik ook al missen, die heb ik diverse keren in levende lijve op Skepsis congressen mogen aanschouwen." |
||||||||||||||
| [176] | February 10, 2016, Omroep Brabant, 'Medium Robbert van den Broeke bekent foute uitspraken op bandopname: 'God straft Irene Moors'': "BOSSCHENHOOFD - "Het lijkt me leuk om haar in coma te trappen met stalen neuzen." Omroep Brabant heeft een bandopname in bezit gekregen, waarop het recent opgepakte medium Robbert van den Broeke vreselijke dingen zegt over Irene Moors en criticaster Constantia Oomen. Geconfronteerd met de opnamen bekent Van den Broeke dat het inderdaad zijn stem is, die op de band te horen is. "Absoluut, dat ben ik", vertelt hij in een exclusief gesprek met Omroep Brabant. ... Van den Broeke zegt dat hij tijdens het opgenomen gesprek 'berichten van een hacker' nadeed. "Dat was heel dom, heel klunzig van me. Dat was meligheid. Een hele foute grap zoals iedereen weleens foute grappen maakt. Maar het was dom, want het werkt niet echt in mijn voordeel en dat snap ik."" (A video interview with more information is included with the article.) |
||||||||||||||
| [177] | January 18, 2016, rtlnieuws.nl, 'Medium Robbert van den Broeke opgepakt na dreigmails' (displayed email of a certain "Emile" [Ratelband] - but almost certainly a Robbert van den Broeke email): "Me and Robbert will kidnap and then murder Rob Muntz and Moon [Ratelband]. That is no bluf, we will behead them. We are also working with assassins."" Ibid. (Robbert mail): "Emile and I have now arranged that Moon and Rob Muntz and Bert Brussen will be murdered in a hideaous manner. It will be kidnapping with torture beforehand and beheading after that. This is no bluff. It will happen, just wait and see!!" |
||||||||||||||
| [178] | Ibid. (video accompanying article): "[Narrator:] When he files a complaint against the medium, he receives an unusual request: [Henk Verhaeren:] Yes, they wanted me to sign a secrecy agreement at the request of the prosecutor's office." | ||||||||||||||
| [179] | September 17, 2015, Show.nl, 'Video: Emile Ratelband op de vuist bij rechtbank'. show.nl/video/clips/2015/video-emile-ratelband-op-de-vuist-bij-rechtbank/ (accessed: November 5, 2016). | ||||||||||||||
| [180] | February 5, 2009 YouTube upload, 'Rob Muntz vs Emile Ratelband'. youtube.com/watch?v=weZe6ezNHtg (accessed: November 5, 2016). Later on, Verhaeren, pretending to be completely innocent, is interviewed by De Telegraaf, explaining that he is considering to file a complaint to the police about Ratelband. | ||||||||||||||
| [181] | September 17, 2015, rtlnieuws.nl, 'Video: Schokkende audiotapes Emile Ratelband onthuld': ""Ik doe geen pijn, mama stelt zich gewoon aan, zoals altijd aanstellen". "Je gaat eraan", zegt Emile later. "Papa, niet schoppen", is later te horen in de tape. Moon laat weten dat ze Emile niet zo maar kan laten rusten want hij blijft tenslotte de vader van haar kinderen. Maar door de geluidsopnames krijgen we wel een heel ander beeld van de positiviteitsgoeroe. Zo doet hij de volgende onthutsende uitspraken tegen zijn kinderen: "Weet je hoe jij verwekt bent, met voorbedachten rade voor centjes voor mama, hè? Ja, dat is mama, hè! En nu heeft ze weer een ander neukertje, hè. Buiten de deur neuken, lekker voor mama, hè. Gewoon een hoertje. Kom aankleden nu."" |
||||||||||||||
| [182] | September 17, 2015, AD.nl, 'Vrijspraak en geldboete voor Emile Ratelband': "De rechtbank in Dordrecht heeft positiviteitsgoeroe Emile Ratelband donderdag deels vrijgesproken van mishandeling en bedreiging van zijn ex-vrouw. De 66-jarige Ratelband werd niet veroordeeld voor bedreiging. Wel kreeg hij een geldboete van 750 euro, omdat hij zijn voormalige echtgenote Moon van Buuren heeft geschopt." | ||||||||||||||
| [183] | kloptdatwel.nl/2015/07/15/de-duistere-kanten-van-robbert-van-den-broeke/ (accessed: November 5, 2016): "Constantia Oomen 8 October 2015 - 06:56:00 - (link) En maar weer een korte update. Robbert van den Broeke en co teisteren en bedreigen een groeiende groep mensen. Naast de 'gewone' doelwitten (zoals Andy Russell en ik) lijken er steeds meer mensen bij te komen. Robbert & 'vrienden' maken er nu bijvoorbeeld ook melding van dat ze Rinke Jacobs hebben lastig gevallen. Voor degenen die dat niet weten: Rinke Jacobs was ook op een Skepsis congres (waar ik ook was), hij deed leuke mentalistenacts en hij was een groot succes aldaar." | ||||||||||||||
| [184] | January 26, 2008, GeenStijl, 'Skeptische goochelaar in show Uri Geller': "Spannend! Vanavond begint bij SBS6 'De Nieuwe Uri Geller', waarin de bekende lepelbuiger Geller op zoek gaat naar een opvolger. ... Geller selecteerde de paranormale deelnemers voor zijn show namelijk eigenhandig en zeer zorgvuldig, en een van de gelukkigen is niemand minder dan Uri-adept Rinke Jacobs. Beroep: GOOCHELAAR. Rinke windt er geen doekjes om dat hij een man van de truukjes is... Door deze eerlijkheid mocht Rinke in 2006 zelfs optreden op het wetenschappelijke congres van... stichting Skepsis." *) May 15, 2010, SBS6, 'De Nieuwe Uri Geller', RInke Jacobs in the final (youtube.com/watch?v=46fKiFixRVk). |
||||||||||||||
| [185] | January 19, 2016, mainstream TV medium Liesbeth van Dijk in the video accompying the Show.nl article 'Robbert van den Broeke opgepakt voor bedreigingen': "Hundreds of email and many dispicable pictures. My mother had just died and a photo arrived that my mother was hanging on a burning cross and that my two children were laying underneath here without limbs. ... My feeling is right, if I look at him he indeed has been hacked. I will NEVER believe that he he did that." | ||||||||||||||
| [186] | February 12, 2006, Nu.nl, 'Robbert van den Broeke niet meer op tv'. | ||||||||||||||
| [187] | bltresearch.com/robbert.php (accessed: November 5, 2016): "Now Roy Boschman is another witness, watching as 5 circles open up only meters in front of him & Robbert, in a brilliant flash of light." | ||||||||||||||
| [188] | Ibid. (accessed: November 5, 2016): "February, 2015: Hack alert, "impossible" camera malfunctions & "Genverbrander" discussion. ... For many years Robbert and his family endured scurrilous & tasteless public attacks. Now these attempts to discredit Robbert have escalated. ... Most of the earlier debunking was aimed primarily at Robbert's Dutch supporters, but since moving to his own apartment his computer has been repeatedly "hacked" -- and in the last few years Nancy Talbott's computer has been affected also. Nasty emails have been sent... In 2013 it became clear that Robbert & Nancy's Skype conversations are also being monitored and a series of curious -- and then unwelcome -- images & messages began appearing through Nancy's Skype." | ||||||||||||||
| [189] | *) Ibid. (accessed: November 5, 2016): "August, 2016: Robbert sees light-ball & "Laser beams" create "messy" genuine crop circles." *) September 16, 2016 YouTube upload of Robbert van den Broeke, 'Robbert films orb over a field (the story and the video)' (video at the very end). |
||||||||||||||
| [190] | Ibid. (accessed: November 5, 2016): "October, 2016: Witnesses report Robbert "bi-locating," & now we have a photo." | ||||||||||||||
| [191] | May 25, 2016, The Express, 'WATCH: Shocking claim 'perfect flying saucer' was filmed after man SUMMONED aliens'. | ||||||||||||||
| [192] | colinandrews.net/Robbert-van-den-Broeke-Message-Colin_Andrews.html (accessed: November 5, 2016). | ||||||||||||||
| [193] | January 19, 2016 YouTube upload of Truthseekers666 (Matt Williams), 'Robbert Van Der Broeke Arrested update and Talbott Tantrums' (youtube.com/watch?v=V2IYXdMKSlU). | ||||||||||||||
| [194] | April 11, 2014, Frontierworld.nl, Frontier Radio interview with Robbert van den Broeke and Stan Pluijmen (note: sounds gay as well), 10:00: "I sat there when I was a little of boy of 12-13-years-old. I was very much attached to my mother. ... I was only allowed to go home for a weekend once every two weeks while other kids were allowed every weekend. They were convinced I was psychotic and that the images I was seeing - they absolutely weren't open to the possibility that another dimension could exist through paranormal observation. That was the institute where I was, the Hondsberg. That was eventually decided by a psychiatric aid from Breda [to sent me there]. ... "Yeah, he needs to get medicines. He'll get Hybron [?!]." ... That was a very strong medicine. "And you have to ignore what he says." That the images that I saw were hallucinations. ... When I was there for six months there was a woman who fell in as attendant and she said, "yes, but listen, you are not crazy. You aren't sick. You are [paranormally] gifted." She then pleaded for this with the psychiatric team that I had to leave there. She was even fired over that. Eventually my parents ended up with Rens Hendriks in Nijmegen. That's a psychologist who himself is extremely paranomally gifted. He helped me at a distance. I could also feel it when he helped me at a distance. My parents didn't tell me when they visited him, but I still felt when that was. ... That's when I was dented out and even blossomed up. Then it stayed quiet until my I was 15. That's when the crop circles returned in full intensity." | ||||||||||||||
| [195] | *) skepsis.nl/robbertvandenbroeke/ (accessed: November 5, 2016): "Robberts vader, Peter van den Broeke, die directeur is van de Rabobank van Loon op Zand, schermt zijn zoon af tegen iedereen die een beetje verstand heeft van onderzoek. Hij laat wel journalisten toe en belde naar tv-zenders om zijn zoon op de buis te krijgen. Hij is ook de ghostwriter van een boek dat Robbert onlangs uitbracht. Hoewel Robbert beweert dat hij wil bewijzen dat zijn wonderen echt zijn, heeft de familie Van den Broeke geen belang bij serieus onderzoek, en hetzelfde geldt voor Irene Moors." *) skepsis.nl/wonderman/ (accessed: November 5, 2016): "Peter van den Broeke was thuis uren bezig om zijn zoontje de tafels van vermenigvuldiging in het hoofd te stampen, maar de jongen scheen niet te begrijpen wat daar de bedoeling van was. ... Toch had Robbert wel talenten. Zijn jongere zus Madelon kan zich nog goed herinneren hoe hij vaak poppenkast voor haar speelde. Hij kon mooie verhalen verzinnen. Robbert vond het nog leuker om als pastoor de mis op te dragen. Hij stond dan voor het altaartje met Mariabeelden dat zijn ouders voor hem hadden gemaakt, terwijl zijn zusje als trouwe kerkganger aan zijn lippen hing. ... De hoopvolle boodschap en spirituele begeleiding van Rens gingen er bij de heer Van den Broeke goed in. Dankzij de ziener zag hij zijn zoon niet langer als een mislukkeling... Robbert schuwde de publiciteit niet. In het najaar van 1996 nam hij voor het eerst contact op met de lokale televisie TV8, die besloot een item te wijden aan de cirkels die hij in een veld met wintergerst had gevonden. Hij belde ook regelmatig naar lokale kranten als er weer wat nieuws te melden was. Er verschenen steeds meer berichten over Robbert en op zijn achttiende zat hij al twee keer in een talkshow van Catherine Keyl op RTL4. Peter van den Broeke hield nauwkeurig bij wat zijn zoon allemaal ontdekte en wat er over hem geschreven werd. Hij nam vaak de maten van de gewasfiguren op en maakte er schematische tekeningen van. Ook Madelon toonde interesse en ging elke keer mee om te kijken. Als ze in een cirkel van Robbert stapte, voelde ze de energie, die haar moe en draaierig maakte." |
||||||||||||||
| [196] | *) skepsis.nl/robbertvandenbroeke/ (accessed: November 5, 2016): "Robberts vader, Peter van den Broeke, die directeur is van de Rabobank van Loon op Zand..." *) July 10, 1995, Rabokrant, p. 19: "Peter van den Broeke, directeur van de Rabobank Hoeven-Oudenbosch..." *) August 5, 1997, Rabokrant, front page: "Twee bankdirecteuren, Peter van den Broeke van Rabobank Diessen..." *) December 31, 1997, Rabokrant: "Peter van den Broeke [director] van de [Rabo]bank Kaatsheuvel [still here in 2001]..." *) August 24, 2004, Leids ch Dagblad, ''Ze mogen alles onderzoeken': Paranormaal begaafde directeurszoon fotografeert onzichtbare wezens': "De tegenstelling lijkt onwerkelijk: vader Peter van den Broeke (53) verdient zijn boterham als directeur van de Rabobank in Loon op Zand." |
||||||||||||||
| [197] | May 8, 2015, WeAreChangeRotterdam YouTube upload, '"Ik vond het niks!" Herman Wijffels over Bilderberg 1997'. See ISGP's Pim Fortuyn assassination article for a lengthy translated citation. |
||||||||||||||
| [198] | parlement.com/id/vgn12ti9dnnh/h_h_f_herman_wijffels (accessed: November 8, 2016): " - lid directie Rabobank Nederland, van 1981 tot 1986. - voorzitter hoofddirectie Coöperatieve Centrale Rabobank Nederland, van 1986 tot maart 1999." |
||||||||||||||
| [199] | Winter 2012, Skepsis.nl/ufos-bestaan/, 'UFO's bestaan gewoon: De wetenschappelijke visie van Coen Vermeeren' ('UFO's simply exist: The scientific vision of Coen vermeeren') (translated from Dutch): "The aeroplane and space engineer Dr. Ir. Coen Vermeeren became very popular among conspiracy theorists ... According to Dr. Herman Wijffels [Vermeeren] has succeeded well in that, because the famous economist praises the book on the back cover: "Even though for many years we have been hearing about unknown objects in our airspace, Vermeeren's challenging oversight of what we know and not know about this brings us to an important conclusion: We have to take the many witnesses seriously and have our scientists do research into this." A longer translated citation can be found in ISGP's Coast to Coast AM article. |
||||||||||||||
| [200] | Ibid. | ||||||||||||||
| [201] | circularsite.com/work2.htm, 'Weekend-Workshop Graancirkels, UFO's en Buitenaardsen' (accessed: November 14, 2013; translated from Dutch to English). | ||||||||||||||
| [202] | devegetarischeslager.nl/ons/since-1962 (accessed: November 7, 2016): "Op 11 september 1962 wordt in het West-Brabantse Langeweg op het gemengde boerenbedrijf van Gerrit en Janny Korteweg een jongetje geboren: Jaap Korteweg. ... De uitbraak van de varkenspest in 1998 zorgt voor in ieder geval één vegetariër meer. Jaap besluit geen dieren meer te eten. Hij blijft echter heimwee houden naar de smaak, de bite en de structuur van vlees. Er wordt contact gelegd met producenten van plantaardige eiwitten en wetenschappers om een nieuwe generatie vleesvervangers te ontwikkelen, niet van vlees te onderscheiden." |
||||||||||||||
| [203] | February 18, 2015, Quotenet.nl, 'Nieuwsoverzicht o.a. Man van Marianne Thieme laat vegetarische winkel sluiten en Rolls Royce lanceert vette SUV': "Jaap Korteweg, de man van Marianne Thieme en eigenaar van het concept De Vegetarische Slager dat verbiedt." |