Physicist Ditches Stick and String Theory on Crop Circles

An explanation has been offered as to how these incredible sprawling images can make their way onto landscapes in a matter of minutes – and that explanation is the employment of microwaves in their construction.  Rather than depending on the “sticks and string” theory of crop circles, the official story has made its way into the new millennium after years of falling into disrepair.  And if the original idea was strange, this one is even more incredible.

A professor of physics, Richard Taylor, claimed as covered by a recent article by the Daily Mail that the effect could be achieved by utilizing the magnetron of a standard kitchen microwave and a 12 volt battery.  The device, which was constructed at the University of Oregon, allegedly can cook a stalk of grass or wheat and then transform it in the way so commonly seen in crop circle reports.  Of course this has not been demonstrated, but that has not stopped a plethora of those who don’t want to believe from adding it to their arsenal.  Prepare for years of hearing about this mysterious device that can allegedly transform wheat from a distance and running from a modest 12 volt battery.

And several have already weighed in with their skepticism of this claim with the same unanswered questions left by all other incarnations of the manmade explanation.  Why are there no human errors in the formations?  Why has no one ever been caught with a stick and ropes in a field during their construction – or in this case with an improvised raygun cutting down the wheat?  And of course there’s the newer question, “Just how is this thing supposed to work?”  It seems plausible that a focused microwave could indeed target a single stalk of wheat or grass, and over time heat up the moisture in the cells at their base, and cause it to collapse under its own weight.  But how would one take a device such as this and use it to construct such a massive formation?  If microwaves were so dangerous to crops it seems the military would be vastly interested in its applications as it could render an entire field virtually unusable after utilizing a small battery and a few modified magnetrons.

Unfortunately, the explanation still does not address the crop circle phenomenon fully.  And indeed it also doesn’t address the reason the crop circle phenomenon is so popular.  As with many explanations in theory it works quite well, but would require so much preparation in practice that it may ultimately prove more outrageous than the idea that aliens came down and did it themselves.  Of course there’s also the problem with the designs themselves.  Many of them have proven to be mathematical discoveries previously at the very precipice of human knowledge – and while they didn’t influence science themselves, they did lead in directions that would ultimately cause scientists to scratch their heads in wonder at who would have used such a strange method to announce to the world their findings.  And while it does take the explanation in a new direction, it doesn’t close the casebook on these mysterious formations.