Date: Thu Sep 16 1993 09:38:12 Subj: Pranksters UFO - `Crop Circles' Their Prank, 2 Briton

Date:   Thu Sep 16 1993  09:38:12
From:   Sheppard Gordon
Subj:   Pranksters
UFO                            -------------------------------

`Crop Circles' Their Prank, 2 Britons Say
Hoax: The scientific puzzle may have been solved. Painters show how
they flattened corn to form patterns.
09/10/91
THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

One of the most puzzling contemporary scientific mysteries in
Britain may have been solved Monday when two men asserted that they
were responsible for the phenomena popularly known as "crop
circles."
The strange patterns, found in southern England's grain fields,
have been attributed to alien visitors, electromagnetic impulses
and erratic weather conditions. The designs in wheat, corn and
barley fields have been widely photographed, with the images
published in newspapers and magazines without any definitive,
expert explanation given as to their origin.
In recent weeks, scientists from Japan, as well as Sweden, have
arrived in the English countryside to join concerned British
defense experts and local specialists-all of whom set up a group to
try to get to the bottom of the puzzle. Patrick Delgado, a retired
radar expert who has written profitable books on the arcane
subject, has insisted that the circles must have been created by
some higher intelligence.
But on Monday, British painters Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, 62,
claimed that for 13 years, they have been responsible for the
circles that first appeared in southern England. Their hoax, they
indicated, may have been improved on by other pranksters in other
parts of the country-or overseas.
In the presence of reporters from the London newspaper, Today,
they created circles in grain fields in the southeast county of
Kent using only flat, four-foot planks, which they pulled around by
hand with reins, thus toppling over grain stalks.
The newspaper then took Delgado to view the circles, and,
according to the paper, he said of the designs: "No human being
could have done this. These crops are laid down in these
sensational patterns by an energy that remains unexplained and is
of a high level of intelligence."
The paper then introduced the men to author Delgado, who
admitted: "We have been conned. This is a dirty trick. Thousands of
lives are going to be wrecked over this."
But later Delgado denied that the circles had been created as a
hoax.
Delgado and his co-author, Colin Andrews, plan to hold a press
conference today with others interested in the crop circles.
As for Bower and Chorley, they asserted that they went out into
the fields at night, using tractor paths to disguise their own
footsteps, and made the patterns. They created, they said, about
2,000 circles and allied patterns in Wiltshire, Hampshire and Kent
counties. The patterns were undoubtedly copied by others elsewhere,
they suggested.
The artists decided to reveal their prank, they said, because,
as Bower, 67, pointed out: "We are not getting any younger."
Besides, said Chorley, they were tired of others profiting from
their long-running prank. It was not discovered for more than 13
years, he said, commenting on the researchers: "If they want to go
on with the charade, that is up to them."
Terry Meaden, formerly associate professor of physics at
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, said Monday that the
claim by Bower and Chorley didn't explain everything, the
Associated Press reported.
Meaden, who heads the crop circle study group CERES (Circle
Effect Research, with the "ES" added in honor of the Roman goddess
of agriculture), claims to have proved that they are caused by
eddies of wind running along hillsides.
"I have no doubt that Bower and Chorley are responsible for some
hoaxes. . . . But we are quite certain that crop circles are a
natural phenomenon and will carry on appearing whatever these two
get up to," Meaden said.
The sourest note came from farmer Peter Renwick, who had made
his field available to Bower and Chorley, the AP reported.
"I said they could do a small demonstration and the next thing I
know 16 million people turn up," Renwick said. "All I want to do is
to get my harvest in."


--- Maximus/2 2.01wb
 * Origin: UFOria (Clifton, VA) 703-803-6420 (1:109/369)