Episodes
Thursday Feb 16, 2023
Crop circles are REAL...LY made by humans | A Cautionary Tale
Thursday Feb 16, 2023
Thursday Feb 16, 2023
Let's look back into skeptic history: Crop circles! What did people think about them before they knew about hoaxing methods, and what lessons can we draw from that for other extraordinary claims today.
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Citations/Sources:
Interview with Meaden: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12617230-900-airy-crop-circle-theory-faces-its-critics/
MUFON Article: https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/alien.ufo/UFOBBS/1000/1220.ufo
Richard Taylor's take on crop circles: https://physicsworld.com/a/coming-soon-to-a-field-near-you/
Reveal of Dave & Doug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYV_zpCXYtc
W. C. Levengood “Semi-Molten Meteroic iron Associated with a Crop Formation” published in the “Journal of Scientific Exploration”, 1995
W. C. Levengood “Dispersion of energies in worldwide crop formations” published in "Physiologia Plantarum", 1999
Microwave Calculations
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1A3s18tqs4FFsZwkXPPBIF8MdEv6COkCIA9CxjjOmWyE/edit?usp=sharing
John Capron published in Nature, 1880:
"The storms about this part of Surrey have been lately local and violent, and the effects produced in some instances curious. Visiting a neighbour's farm on Wednesday evening (21st), we found a field of standing wheat considerably knocked about, not as an entirety, but in patches forming, as viewed from a distance, circular spots.
Examined more closely, these all presented much the same character, viz., a few standing stalks as a center, some prostrate stalks with their heads arranged pretty evenly in a direction forming a circle round the center, and outside these a circular wall of stalks which had not suffered,
I sent a sketch made on the spot, giving an idea of the most perfect of these patches. The soil is a sandy loam upon the greensand, and the crop is vigorous, with strong stems, and I could not trace locally any circumstances accounting for the peculiar forms of the patches in the field, nor indicating whether it was wind or rain, or both combined, which had caused them, beyond the general evidence everywhere of heavy rainfall. They were suggestive to me of some cyclonic wind action, and may perhaps have been noticed elsewhere by some of your readers."
Timestamps
0:00 - Intro
2:00 - Why crop circles?
2:50 - What is a crop circle
4:40 - Crop circle history
8:30 - Modern crop circles
10:30 - Scientific explanations
14:00 - Diagnostic characteristics of "genuine" circles
17:20 - The Big Reveal
21:00 - A Cautionary Tale
26:50 - Remaining crop circle theories
31:45 - Alternative explanations
35:40 - Microwave calculations
38:15 - Outstanding questions
40:45 - Summary
41:33 - Fallacy of the Day: Begging the Question
44:45 - Outro
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