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A GenePoool.com Essay
Crop Circles
I love this story.
I don't think I can come up with a better example of how stubborn people are than the saga of crop circles. It illustrates one of the most significant recurring themes in these columns, namely, that strongly held beliefs are very very difficult to change.
There are degrees of belief. I could, say, believe that last week I had a turkey sandwich for lunch. If someone were to prove to me that I could not have possibly had a turkey sandwich last week, I'd probably change my opinion, because I am not particularly emotionally invested in my belief of turkey sandwiches in regards to my digestive system. At the other end of the spectrum, I could be convinced that I witnessed an alien space craft last week. You may be able to convince me otherwise by pointing out my proximity that evening to an air force base and the likelihood of jets flying in a formation I might mistake for an alien craft. But if I WANT to believe I saw a space ship, you're not going to get very far. I'm emotionally committed to it. My desire to be a "witness" overrides my ability to reason.
What does this have to do with crop circles? Everything.
Starting in 1979, people in the U.K. began to notice strange patterns appearing in grain crops. The patterns ranged from the very simple to the uncommonly complex. They didn't really seem to SAY anything; they were just there. Before long "experts" (its in quotes because I can't imagine how someone could claim to be a genuine expert of a nascent phenomenon) were announcing there was simply no way a human being could possibly be responsible for them. The reasoning was simple enough. First, the designs only looked like designs from the air, therefore something in the air made them. Second, they were just too complex for a human being to accomplish. Third, there was no evidence of anyone having traversed to or from the design. No footprints meant no people. All three of these assumptions are logically bankrupt, but nobody seemed to notice.
Meteorologists were consulted to discuss possible weather conditions which could create such patterns, but there seemed to be no natural explanation either. It was a mystery, and as the circles became more commonplace, the more attention the mystery drew.
Gradually, the conclusion emerged that aliens were responsible for the crop circles, which meant it was time for an entirely new branch of pseudoscience to emerge, as people calling themselves cereologists (!) started to pop up and make pronouncements. The craze continued to grow. Otherwise ordinary citizens had get-togethers up on hillsides trying to catch a glimpse of a space ship making a pattern. In some cases, under the dark of night, crop circles formed only a few hundred yards from hills teeming with people. None of them noticed a UFO, which suggests perhaps the aliens know when to turn their headlights off.
The world was baffled. And the only thing anybody could agree on was that the crop circles were not man-made.
But of course they were.
This is what happens when initial assumptions are accepted without prejudice. Here's the root syllogism:
Something is causing the crop circles.
I cannot figure out how to make these circles myself.
Therefore, they are not man-made.
This is not entirely dissimilar to belief that real magic is taking place when a magician performs an act, i.e., I cannot figure out how the magician picked my card, therefore, it is magic.
What we have here is an enormous prank. The first circles were done by two retired English gentlemen who had way too much spare time on their hands. They decided (over a pint, naturally) to start making the circles just to see what would happen. They knew two things. First, wet crops bend easily without breaking. Second, it would take only a few minutes of math, a tape measure, and a compass, to make a design that would look interesting from the air. It didn't take too long after the circles had begun to get noticed for local schoolchildren to pick up the habit. And not longer after that, schoolchildren across the U.K. were getting in on it. As the phenomenon grew, the original pranksters realized they'd better come forward before it got completely out of control. But it was already too late.
When their hoax was revealed, the cereologists quickly pointed out that the man-made circles were much cruder than the "real" ones. Naturally, if there was a distinction to be made, and the cereologists could tell the difference, there was still a mystery to solve and they didn't look like total jackasses for having fallen for a simple prank.
To test the theory, a local newspaper sent a reporter out with a few crop circle makers to make a new circle in secret. A day or so later, the reporter-assisted circle was hailed as genuine by all of the "experts." This experiment was repeated several times by several journalists. One well-documented man-made design even ended up on the cover of a credulous book on crop circles.
Crop circles started popping up in other countries, which could have been an indication of genuinness, except that people in those countries also volunteered that they had made them. My favorite story took place in Hungary. When a large crop circle showed up there it created a great deal of attention. Two experts were called in to solemnly declare that it was a genuine construction of extraterrestrials, and could absolutely positively NOT be the work of humans. One of them, a gentleman named Gyorgy Kisfaludy-- who calls himself a "time scientist", whatever the hell that means-- announced that he could look at the crop circle "in six dimensions" and solve the coded message enclosed. This is the sort of proclamation that makes me giggle late at night, especially in this case. A few months after the honored crop circle made its appearance, two seventeen year old students from Budepest introduced themselves in front of a T.V. audience (and a couple of solemn "experts") and announced that they had created the circle themselves. Furthermore, they had extensive proof in the form of photographs and videotapes, including before and after shots. I wish I had a copy of that show, just to see the expressions on the faces of the cereologists.
Other amusements abound. When a local weatherman in England did a report on crop circles and announced that it was very significant that the crops were always matted down counter-clockwise, a week later a circle was found with an inner ring done clockwise and an outer one counter-clockwise. When the men who originally started the crop circle craze realized there were other people joining in on the fun, they did a design that included the words "we are not alone." This was somehow interpreted as an important alien message by the enthusiasts, (although "YOU are not alone" would make a whole lot more sense,) when it was actually a message from one set of circle makers to another.
Right now the only designs cereologists have left to cling to are the ones that nobody confessed to making, but they're ignoring the fact that they can't tell the difference between a "fake" circle and a "genuine" circle. There IS no difference.
So why bother to cling to it at all? Well, this is my point. No amount of proof will dissuade a true believer. They believe because they want to believe, and once they're emotionally invested, all logic and reason goes out the window.
One proponent suggested to me once that just because human beings CAN make them, doesn't mean ALL of them were made by human beings. This sort of reasoning can be found in lots of different pseudoscientific beliefs, and it never fails to annoy me. By applying the exact same reasoning I can conclude that every single thing in my home that I did not personally witness being made was constructed by extraterrestrials, or by psychic power, perhaps, or by demons. For example, I know my computer was designed and built by people, because I know humans are capable of building computers. If I'm going to argue that my computer was built by aliens, and my only proof is that I did not personally witness THIS particular computer being built, then I'm not employing logic at all. I'm engaging in wish-fulfillment.
Isn't this obvious?
© 2000, Gene Doucette
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