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This is a useful way to investigate the circles; through interconnecting disciplines which can all throw
light on the subject.
5. Science and the Circles
This chapter looks at the various attempts that have been made to conduct scientific investigation of
the circles. We have already seen that a scientist, Dr Meaden was amongst the first to take an interest
in the subject, but others have tried to apply scientific methods of investigation, with varying degrees
of success.
One of the goals of this research has been to find a 'test' which would allow 'real' circles to be
distinguished from man-made events, a 'litmus test' for the circles. To this end, much of the scientific
work that has been carried out involves testing of samples, either soil or crop, to determine if
significant differences can be detected between circle samples and controls from the same field.
Plasma Research
We begin by returning to Dr Meaden's ideas about circle formation. These are described in Chapter 4.
Here we are concerned with what experimental evidence can show about his theories. As his ideas
developed to include the concept that plasmas are involved, he was contacted by Japanese researchers
one of whom, Yoshi-Hiko Ohtsuki, had been experimenting with the production of small plasma balls
in a laboratory at the University of Waseda.
In 1991 Ohtsuki was contacted by an employee of the Tokyo underground system, who thought he
would be interested in a discovery that had been made by maintenance workers; circular markings left
in the dirt on the walls of the tunnels, some of which had rings.
Back in his laboratory, he was able to reproduce a similar effect, through a simple refinement to his
existing equipment for generating and observing plasma balls, or 'plasmoids': by placing a tray of
aluminium in the microwave chamber, he was able to record the imprint left by the plasmoids. The
importance of this was in confirming experimentally that plasma balls could, in a suitable medium,
produce rings and circles just as Dr Meaden suggested.
These were very small-scale events, barely comparable with the size of even small circles. However,
some of the eye-witness accounts of larger glowing masses in association with subsequent circles,
correspond well to what a scaled-up event of this kind could appear like. The unpredictable nature of
such events makes detection and recording extremely difficult, as the surveillance attempts described
in earlier chapters demonstrate. At Dr Meaden's 1990 conference at Oxford some possible radar
evidence of a large plasmoid moving at speed, detected on a ship's radar, was presented.
Crop and soil research
The advantage of research directed at samples of crops or soil is in being able to control more of the
variables and in being able to apply the results unambiguously to the circle in question.
In 1990 Colin Andrews referred to experiments that demonstrated a 'molecular change' had occurred
in samples of grain from a circle. This was later published, as photographs in The Latest Evidence,
with text asserting that this was proof that any meteorological explanation was 'dead'. Unfortunately,
this was to prove as premature as his announcement of a 'major event' at Bratton Castle, since the
'laboratory' in question, in Stroud, Gloucestershire, proved unable to disclose the exact nature of the
process used to obtain the 'energy pattern of the crystals' from the sample grain. Subsequent
correspondence from Lord Haddington to the lab operators, on behalf of the Centre for Crop Circle
Studies, went unanswered.
Andrews' colleague, Pat Delgado, had sent samples to an American, biophysicist W. C. Levengood, in
the same season, and the early reports from his analysis were of more significance. They appeared to
demonstrate that plants from within a formation were affected by a rare genetic abnormality, which
was absent in control samples from the same field.
The following year a more serious effort, under the direction of Michael Chorost, was undertaken.
During the season he collected samples from a number of formations in Wiltshire and, on returning to
the United States, subjected these to a variety of tests, on which some fairly sensational claims were
based.
Early in the 1991 season, a sample of barley stem from a circle in Cornwall had been examined by a
biologist, Kay Larsen. He reported that the nodes of the stem were swollen and the cells appeared to
have been subject to an intense heat in a short burst. Chorost's samples, when tested by Dr W. C.
Levengood, appeared to confirm this when photographs were produced showing microscopic
alterations to the cell walls and a blackening effect where the leaf surface had been carbonized. Both [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]