ParaNet BBS/crops

ParaNet BBS/crops

File Name:	crops.txt
Author:	Unknown
Date:	Unknown
Posting BBS:	Unknown
BBS Main Page:	ParaNet Main Page
Key Words:	ParaNet, UFO, Ufology

(11369) Tue 22 Sep 92 12:14p
By: Chris Rutkowski
To: All
Re: The End Of The Crop Circles?
St:
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@UFGATE newsin 1.27
From: rutkows@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Chris Rutkowski)
Date: 20 Sep 92 19:18:27 GMT
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Message-ID: <1992Sep20.191827.8298@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic

Well, good news! (I think :) !)

In the latest issue of THE CROP Watcher, a circlezine from England,
editor Paul Fuller has this to say:

"Even the paranormally-inclined cerealogists have admitted that 1992
produced fakes galore, with few prepared to stick their necks out and
claim that a single (NB!) British circle qualified as 'genuine'.  In
some ways, this restrained response could be construed as an
over-reaction to last summer's hoax revelations, but in reality the
awful truth has dawned on cerealogists everywhere - that most modern
crop circles really are man-made hoaxes and that if there ever was a
'genuine' phenomenon in the first place it has now been utterly swamped
by a smokescreen of wishful thinking and media-inspired mythology.  Sad
words indeed but a fact which most researchers now seem to be accepting
with some reluctance."

Later on, Paul notes that "leading cerealogists accept that they have
lost the crop circle battle and that it is time to flee the sinking
ship."  A number of cerealogists are said to be emigrating to the USA!

As for the remaining "meteorologically-caused" circles, Terence Meaden,
that theory's main proponent has now stated that: "Anything other than
a sinple circle is definitely a hoax", and he has now restricted the
number of 'genuine circles' to "fewer than a dozen a year".  Paul
further notes: "It remains to be seen whether Meaden's meteorological
theory can survive such trauma."

Later in the issue, there appears a map of England, showing the
locations of "Known Crop Circle (Groups of) Hoaxes".  I can't reproduce
it here, but to give newsgroup readers a flavour for what's on it, the
editor notes that "there are so many known hoaxers that we couldn't
squeeze them all in!"  Good old Doug and Dave, who got all the
publicity, are on there wih their small number of formations.

In North America, we know that Rob Day made a few hoaxed circles in
Alberta, a farmhand was caught by my colleagues and I in Manitoba, and
at least one set of hoaxers admitted to some circles in the American
midwest.

So, we wonder, echoing Paul Fuller:

Is cerealogy (or, to quote some, "crop circle mania") finally DEAD?

--
Chris Rutkowski - rutkows@ccu.umanitoba.ca
Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
University of Manitoba - Winnipeg, Canada

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