Old Circles, Same Answers

A few years ago there was a news story where an Australian archaeologist claimed that within the Google Earth 1945 pictorial overlay, there was evidence of crop circles thereby proving they weren’t a modern phenomena and as no-one was running around with boards and surveyors tape, there is a genuine phenomena. You can read that posting here. That was back in 2013. (Where does the time go?) Anyway, I thought that was all done and dusted until someone emailed me to say that this certainly was evidence of crop circles outside of the modern era and I was nothing more than an “Agent of Disinformation” (Honestly, I think I need a business card with that on). Now, considering I get regular emails claiming I work for MI5, or Satan is going to kill me or I am a reincarnation of a Bat-Priest from the Aztec-era hence my desire to allegedly mislead (all genuine emails), I ignored it at first. Then it really started to bug me. Who the hell was some stranger, lurking behind some obscure email address, telling me I was some Agent of Disinformation? Anyway, after a little perspective was gained, I was wandering around St. Nick’s market in Bristol, and I wandered into my favourite little second-hand book store. Whilst browsing, I came across the following book:

The Cosmic Joker obviously had been in-store ahead of me. Anyway, I swapped the book for a shiny 50p piece and came away. The book is contains some fantastic pictures of how, when the environmental conditions are correct, ancient earthworks can be revealed. As shown below:

Or this lovely example:

So, courtesy of your friendly and considerate Agent of Disinformation, further evidence that these aren’t the crop circles (circa 1945) you’re looking for. You can go about your business. (If you get the chance, grab a copy of this book, it’s a delight).

Ancient earthworks, not ancient crop circles…

A little while back I blogged about Australian archaeologist, Greg Jeffereys, who claimed to have discovered evidence of crop circles from aerial photographs circa 1945. The photographs were part of an overlay for google earth. Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, these were pictures of earthworks rather than crop circles. I have uncovered a number of photographs that show how prevalent these earthworks are.

In the UK, there are routine aerial surveys which tend to uncover ancient sites. The National Heritage website has a lot of information about these surveys. Below is a very early aerial photograph of Woodhenge, the predecessor to Stonehenge. Not only can we see the large circle of Woodhenge itself, but we can also see several circles in the foreground of the image which are smaller earthworks. The look identical to the ‘ancient crop circles’ claimed by Greg.

Early aerial survey of Woodhenge

These ancient earthworks are very evident in the landscape today. Below is an more modern aerial survey photograph which again not only shows circular earthworks but square earthworks and interconnecting lines.

Ancient earthworks in the landscape

Recently in the Amazon, due to the removal of some trees Ranchers discovered a circular earthwork from an ancient culture, as seen below.

Amazon earthworks

The following picture shows earthworks uncovered in Colorado, USA.

Earthworks, Colorado

This highlights the danger of internet-based research, it also highlights the danger of ‘it looks like a circle, so therefore it must be a crop circle’ frame of mind. Sadly, this doesn’t stop many croppies and some researchers thinking Greg is onto something.