Frequent reports of strange balls of light (some captured on video) and sounds prior to the appearance of formations added fuel to the argument that they were being created by some as yet unknown, either natural or supernatural force.

Other odd occurrences have been reported, like electronic equipment failing to work inside the circles, then functioning normally once taken out and abnormal magnetic and radiation readings inside fresh circles. Not only does the physical appearance of the plants and soil seem to change, but there is change at the molecular level.


The Hoax Theory

The Plasma Vortex Theory
Various researches were conducted in this phenomenon and a number of observations have also been made over the years that finally seem to indicate that there are particular characteristics that "genuine" (or non-mandmade) formations appear to exhibit.

Research has been conducted over a ten year period with samples and thorough laboratory testing carried out by the biophysicist Dr. Levengood, Nancy Talbott, and John Burks -- the BLT Research Team, and a small army of volunteers worldwide. Their findings include from samples taken within the crop formations in contrast to the control samples taken from outside the circles.

Levengood studied biophysics at the University of Michigan in the late 1960s and holds several patents on his inventions to increase seed growth and vigor. He has studied biochemical and biophysical changes in crop formation seeds and plants for over a decade.

He has found out that the plants from more than 95% of the sampled events revealed either single or multiple anomalous and readily apparent structural alterations at the macroscopic level. In general, these consisted of significant enlargements of the cell walls, expulsion cavities in the nodes of the plant stalks, significantly extended node lengths, and changes to the soil composition (ie. vastly higher level of magnetite concentration) Significant changes in seed germination and development were also found. Affected plants also have characteristics suggesting the involvement of transient high temperatures. Not one of these clearly anomalous plant alterations had been mentioned – much less explained – by the proponents of the croppies theory, nor can they be accounted for by the supposed methods employed to create crop formations through claims made by the circle makers.

Levengood thinks what is creating the crop circle is a complex energy system that he describes as a "spinning plasma vortex" of ions with microwave frequencies that rapidly heat water in plants, causing them to collapse to the ground with stems not cracked or broken. Further, the microwave frequencies can heat up water in the plant's growth nodes which burst out, creating small holes that have often been found in extraordinary crop patterns. Those complex energies can also affect the seeds.

Levengood. W.C. 1994. Anatomical anomalies in crop formation plants. - Physiol. Plant. 92: 356-363.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~icircle/dcircles/Levengood_Physiologia.htm

“The affected plants have components which suggest the involvement of rapid air movement, ionization, electric fields and transient high temperatures combined with an oxidizing atmosphere. One naturally occurring and organized force incorporating each of these features is an ion plasma vortex, one very high energy example being a lightning discharge.

Atmospheric-associated plasma formations may plausibly originate in regions where there are clear indications of energy exchange between the ionosphere (60-100 km) and electrical storms in the upper atmosphere (Franz et al. 1990). Currently under consideration are ion plasma vortices which form in unstable regions and act as heat and angular momentum transporters. In fluid dynamics, gases, including air, are considered as having liquid properties (Prandtl and Tietjens 1957). In such a scheme the descent of a vortex through a liquid produces unstable secondary products which form complex, symmetrical patterns such as circles, rings, triangles, double lines and ovals with tubes or 'paths' extending from them (Levenoood 1958). In its descent to the crop surface the shaping of these features of vortex instability would be guided by variations in the Earth's magnetic field (Rossi and Jastrow 1961). At the crop surface the heat, ionization, associated electric fields and angular momentum would be transferred to the living plants. Taken as a whole, ionized air plasmas are electrically neutral, although internally, charge separation takes place and they can have high concentrations of positive ions and free electrons (Lehnert 1961), which in contact with plant tissue might produce transient heating and account for a number of the plant transformations.

The Electro-magnetic Field Theory

The UFO Theory

The Ley Lines Theory

Crop circles are often created near ancient sites, and according to some along ley lines. According to this theory, crop circles would be the result of abnormal burst of electro-magnetical energy from the Earth.
Ley lines, or Leys, are alignments of ancient sites stretching across the landscape. Ancient sites or holy places may be situated in a straight line ranging from one or two to several miles in length. A ley may be identified simply by an aligned placing of marker sites, or it might be visible on the ground for all or part of its length by the remnants of an old straight track.

Ley Lines were 're-discovered' in June 1921 by Alfred Watkins (1855-1935), a locally well-known and respected Herefordshire businessman, who while looking at a map for features of interest noticed a straight line that passed over hill tops through various points of interest, all of which were ancient. At the time of his discovery, Watkins had no theory about alignments but on that June afternoon saw "in a flash" a whole pattern of lines stretching across the landscape. Four years later, in 1925, he described his vision in a book he titled The Old Straight Track:


"Imagine a fairy chain stretched from mountain peak to mountain peak, as far as the eye could reach, and paid out until it reached the 'high places' of the earth at a number of ridges, banks, and knowls. Then visualise a mound, circular earthwork, or clump of trees, planted on these high points, and in low points in the valley other mounds ringed around with water to be seen from a distance. Then great standing stones brought to mark the way at intervals, and on a bank leading up to a mountain ridge or down to a ford the track cut deep so as to form a guiding notch on the skyline as you come up.... Here and there, at two ends of the way, a beacon fire used to lay out the track. With ponds dug on the line, or streams banked up into 'flashes' to form reflecting points on the beacon track so that it might be checked when at least once a year the beacon was fired on the traditional day. All these works exactly on the sighting line."

In 1936, the British occultist Dion Fortune wrote a fictional book, a novel, called The Goat-Foot God, in which she put forward the notion of 'lines of force' connecting megalithic sites such as Avebury and Stonehenge in southern England. In 1938, Arthur Lawton, a member of the Straight Track Club, wrote a paper in which he claimed that leys were lines of cosmic force which could be dowsed. Through the 1970s and the 1980s, the idea of energy lines grew and grew and became a part of the New Age movement.

New agers claim that ley lines correspond to energy currents that cross the Earth and that the alleged energy is connected to changes in magnetic fields. Ancients built their temples on special places wher they could tap the energy.



From Places of Power, by Paul Devereux:

''The ancient sites of power were sometimes found, and sometimes deliberately constructed to mimic or enhance what could be found in nature. In either case, the forces of the natural world were used. And they were used for a variety of purposes, such as the promotion of fertility and for healing. But the over-riding purpos was the need to have gateways through which contact with spirit could be achieved. In the ancient world there were certain people who knew how to work with the physical world in order to create access to the spiritual.''
The Natural Music Theory


The Electro-magnetic Field Theory

According to Dr Colin Andrews, who has studied crop circles for 17 years, about 20% are caused by eddie currents in the earth's magnetic field - a mysterious shift in the electro-magnetic field creates a current that flattens the crops in its path.

That could probably explain the numerous reports of electronic equipment failing in crop circles and compasses spinning out of control in and over the crop circles (even when flying over in aircraft).







The UFO Theory

Crop circle formation is similar to alleged UFO landing site reports where a circular swirling pattern is formed in grass, the grass remains unharmed, and is in inaccessible locations for vehicles.

Channelers and ufologists pretend that crop circles are not symbols intended as a 'message to man.' These deliberately created pictographs are signposts, or reference marks produced by aliens moving in space and time (back and forth/in and out), who are monitoring the course of event trajectories. The pictographs serve primarily as reference markings and for 'event line' orientation and are deliberately embedded in a short-lived, perishable medium so that man's attention would not be attracted to specific locations.

Production of the circles occurs via two primary mechanisms:

Macroscale: external area effects; heat and overpressure
Microscale: internal plant stem effects; pressure changes and cellular damage.
Ultrasonics are produced as gasses escape the plant stem. The concominent drop in turgor pressure within the stem causes the plant to bend over. there is a gentle 'swish swish' sound as this effect is induced, en masse.

Some craft halt in the vicinity of the circles for what appears to be communications checks. On occasion, craft temporarily stop and conduct exploratory probing/testing in the vicinity of the circles.

It must be added that circles have given rise historically to various beliefs connected with the supernatural. for instance, the circles inspired the idea of the 'elves' green rings. The Nazca lines and, most noteworthy, Navajo sand paintings, were ideas born of attempts to copy the 'marks of the Gods', so as to evoke a visitation or response.





The Whirlwind Theory

The official government explanation is that whirlwinds, created by heat thermals, are the true cause of the crop circle anomaly. But whirlwinds or Mini-tornadoes are not static, they travel around and it is very unlikely that they would create such intricate and symmetrical patterns.





Natural Music

Hawkins observed that the circle patterns embodied geometric theorems that expressed specific relationships among the areas of the various circles, triangles, and other shapes. These patterns displayed "exact numerical relationships" (i.e., diatonic ratios) similar to those found in a scale of musical notes. For example, if a circle within a formation is 90 degrees and another is 80 degrees, the ratio is 9/8 which is the same ratio between the notes C and D, C being the eighth note of the diatonic scale and D being the ninth. These are the same ratios that are found in popular music, or in playing the white notes on the piano.

According to Stephen J. Smith, a paranormal investigator and amateur composer, these ratios are not the result of chance "because the numbers have to be very precise in order to be a diatonic ratio. This is why music sounds like music instead of noise, because it is built on precise ratios."

To derive music from the crop circles, Smith used a fractal music-generating computer program. He entered photographs of the formations into the computer, which ëreadí the photographs and generated music from the photos, using the crop circle scales to play it back.

Curiously, not all crop circles embody diatonic rations in their formations. Hence, some do not have musical qualities. Possibly, Smith says, the real circles have diatonic ratios, and the faked ones do not. Further, diatonic ratios may be only a part of the overall geometry of the formations.