More crop circle weirdness

Over the past several years, we've seen a small but consistent amount of malfunctions in our cameras and electronic equipment when we go into crop circles during our tour in England. It's happened to camcorders, measuring devices, and laptops. This year was no exception. The first video shows Dan, an electrical engineer and one of the tour participants, explaining how his electronic compass failed in the Ridgeway formation. This happened on July 14th, 2008. The compass recovered about one hour later and worked fine for the rest of the tour. But for most of the time in the formation, it would not find true North and had North and South only ninety degrees apart, instead of one-hundred and eighty.



The second video shows Dan measuring the wavy looking Westwoods formation with our electrostatic meter. While filming him, my Sony camera starts blurring and then refocusing, as if it can't lock onto the objects in its field of view with the auto-focus feature. It's never done that before, anywhere. A few minutes later it was fine and remained so for the rest of the tour.



Once again, crop formations are creating mysterious effects on our equipment. These anomalies don't happen everyday, but at the same time, I've never seen them happen anywhere but in crop formations. And that goes for most people whom I've talked to who have experienced the same, strange phenomena.

Crop Circles of 2008

They're back! New crop patterns of mind-blowing size and sophistication are appearing in England and other countries as well. Keep up with the latest photos, stories, and rumors at the Crop Circle Connector. (scroll down a bit to see the photos.)This year's formations are quite an eclectic lot with quality, classic designs and motifs appearing early in the season. If this is any indication, it promises to be a banner year for crop circles. See them all at the above link. Enjoy!

Crop Circles of Google Earth

This neat music video shows crop circles, mostly from England, from various years, all put together for you in a Google Earth tour. As Google updates it's images at varying times, some of these circle photos are as old as ten years, and some are younger. Here they all appear together in one montage. Enjoy!

(To watch in a higher quality display mode go to the original URL,
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-C-_Nr4kJcg and select "watch in high
quality" right below the display window.)




(And don't forget to visit CropCircles.org to see these types of formations close up and personal on our English crop circle tour in July.)

Earth Cinema Circle--Access Your Planetary Intelligence through Film

If you are looking for movies that enhance your environmental awareness and sense of wonder about our planet, check out the Earth Cinema Circle. This bi-monthly DVD club embodies the idea of planetary intelligence. They screen thousands of environmental movies every year and send you the best of them every other month. The films have wide-ranging themes from building homes from garbage and conservation, to celebrations of the diversity and magnitude of our Earth's natural beauty.
I like the whole concept behind this club as it increases our awareness of the connections between ourselves and all the different aspects of our universe. I'd feel better if they offered a free or low-cost trial month, but until then you can see free previews of these films at their website.

UFO Hunters on History Channel

I've been enjoying History Channel's new show "UFO Hunters" for some weeks now, shown on Wednesday nights. The program displays a blend of openmindedness and skepticism that is unusual for television shows. We've had our share of UFO shows that start out with fresh information in the first part of the show only to debunk that same information in the second half. But UFO Hunters is different. Headed up by Bill Byrnes of UFO Magazine, the show features a cast of believers and skeptics who go to different locations around the world each week to research past and present UFO mysteries. You'll never know exactly what they'll find in the various locales they visit, and in some cases, like the Rendelsham Forest/Bentwaters case in England in 1981, they found new eye-witnesses who contributed valuable information. My favorite part of the show is when they attempt to recreate weird effects experienced near UFO encounters with experiments producer Jon Tindle. In one case they were able to stop an engine in the lab with a strong, directed magnetic field duplicating the experience of UFOs affecting aircraft and car engines. In another, they temporarily disabled a personal computer with a blast from a Tesla field coil, showing how a UFO could theoretically disarm the control panel of a fighter aircraft. Some of the more interesting cases they have looked at include Catalina Island in 1980, Iran in 1976, and the recent Stephenville, TX sightings last January. The History Channel is to be commended for putting together such a fresh, educational, and fascinating TV show.

Opening Minds Interview -- 48 Update

Here's an interview with 48 Update, a public access channel show in Philadelphia, that first aired in 2003. The host, Katharine Pew, asks about the ideas I discuss in Opening Minds and to introduce the ideas of remote viewing, crop circles, and other topics covered in the book. She did a great job with the interview especially given that these concepts were mostly brand new to her.

Fox News Clip on Crop Circles

The media can often put out disastrously incomplete information about alternative science topics. In this case though, Fox News did a good job covering the weirdness and beauty of crop circles. This was originally broadcast in 2001. (The volume is a little low here so turn up your speakers.)