August’s remarkable formation at Crabwood, near Winchester, a grid of lines portraying an alien holding up an information disk of some kind, is causing predictable controversy, with several researchers dismissing it as a very clever man-made design, but others pointing out the difficulty of creating such an effect on the ground. If anyone out there wants to put the case for why it must be man-made, we’ll be happy to hear from you, but here MARTIN NOAKES gives his reasons as to why he personally believes the formation to be genuine…


Here we are again at almost the same spot we were last year after receiving the Arecibo reply and face at Chilbolton, another obvious and unambiguous image, beautifully and masterfully etched into a field of wheat in England.

I have absolutely no hesitation or doubt that this formation is NOT A HOAX. Who, what and why, are still open to speculation. For my part, I tend to think that the intelligence behind crop circles is non-human, but I don’t rule out the possibility that it could be an intelligence that is not currently recognised as being linked to us. This would include human consciousness playing a part in creating physical manifestations (ie. crop circles, balls of light, etc). It could be anything! Except ropes, boards and string, an explanation which no longer stands up to scrutiny.

Two years ago, in 2000, we had a formation at Chilbolton. Then, almost a year to the day later, in the same field and almost in the same location, the Arecibo reply arrived, which also incorporated a schematic diagram of the 2000 formation.

This year we have another face, exactly a year after the first face turned up.

The original face was constructed using a newspaper-like half-tone technique, ie. varying sized dots, very clever and complex (there are plenty of articles on the Net for those that haven’t read up on it http://amo.net/Contact/) and only comprehensible from the air.

The new face of 2002 appears to represent a being of some kind. Some people are suggesting that the being looks malevolent. I would disagree, and point out that to analyse a picture of any unknown species, we would be unable to decipher the emotional state of the subject, unless we were able to communicate with it.

The being is holding out a CD-type disk containing binary data, which has now been decoded. The disk is, in fact, made up of a tight spiral. The rest of the image is created using a totally unused method to date - horizontal lines that vary in width. This is the method used to create television pictures (the actual width is constant, but the colours vary the perceptible width of the line, thereby creating detail).

Due to the fact that there are missing lines in the image, it is an interlaced image. This is EXACTLY how your TV works (for more info see http://www.howstuffworks.com/tv.htm). To me, this is a logical progression; newspaper technology last year, TV technology this year, nothing surprising. And yet some researchers are suggesting that this is one of the reasons it has to be faked. My feeling is that the three dots on the left hand side are a representation of Orion’s belt, but others suggest they may represent the three coloured tubes of a television set, or that they are UFO’s. My favourite theory is Barry Reynolds’s suggestion that, in fact, the three dots are the fingers on its right hand, with a fourth dot near the shoulder being it’s thumb. It may be meant to work on many levels.

The data in the CD-type disc decodes easily into ASCII computer text as follows, using 8 bit binary:

*

"Beware the bearers of FALSE gifts & their BROKEN PROMISES. Much PAIN but still time. (Damaged Word). There is GOOD out there. We OPpose DECEPTION. Conduit CLOSING (BELL SOUND)”

*

The damaged word would appear to be intended as “BELIEVE”.

Personally, I find the message to be unspecific and unnaturally composed. The capitalisation is all over the place, and I have a gut feeling that the message is multi-layered. One researcher is even suggesting that there is a further message contained in the disk encoded in trinary (search for trinary in www.google.com and you will find plenty of articles), using squares, triangles, and flattened crop. Currently we have only deciphered the basic code, but I feel sure there’s more to come.

I have thought of little else since this formation appeared, and have to admit that I wasn’t exactly surprised to see this image in the field (this could be interpreted as us influencing what appears in the fields).

Apart from the mathematically complex spiral and general layout of the formation (which I will leave to someone else to discuss), it has been designed to be seen on at least two levels.

1) Clearly, so that the code on the CD can be accurately read and deciphered.

2) Blurred, so that the image becomes the “real” photograph/picture/rendered image that probably originally was! (see images).

On the blurred images (see http://www.electricwarrior.com/expose/ewExpose0007.htm for the work that inspired my own efforts here), look at the detail, it is truly astonishing. The image becomes three-dimensional. Look at the fingers holding the CD, look at the chest, the nose. The eyes even have pupils (which, incidentally, archetypal ET’s don’t, they have dark black eyes with no visible pupil. However, there is speculation that the black part of the eye is in fact a removable covering, to protect against bright light, much like our sunglasses). An Adam’s apple is even visible. The disk now becomes a light source illuminating the beings face. Could this be a representation of the Sun? Or maybe it’s one of the balls of light often seen in and around crop circles? After blurring, it really appears to be a genuine still photograph/image! At the very least it may be a computer-generated rendered image. The graduation between features is absolutely smooth and the shadowing is perfect. (Study the shaded area of the face - the crop was hardly touched, and yet the detail is amazing.)

A researcher called Jay Goldner, (who has what promises to be an fascinating book coming out in October called “Messages From Space”), discovered that the formation contains two prime numbers: 59 standing lines and 17 sections from the centre of the CD out to the perimeter. (Prime numbers are unique numbers that are divisible only by 1 or by themselves). Scientists have always argued that this is the kind of thing that a non-human intelligence would use to attract our attention, as we would recognise these numbers to be special.

I would like to go on record as stating that I believe it to be an impossibility to create this image using planks/boards or any other method so far claimed to have been used. I would even go as far as to say that it’s an impossibility to re-create this image even after studying its construction. Come on alleged hoaxers, let’s see what you’re made of.

I challenge anyone to even draw it using a piece of A4 paper, using rulers and compasses and pre-calculated mathematical measurements, without making a mistake. On paper, remember, you have the massive advantage of being able to see the whole sheet, whereas one wouldn’t have a clue about perspective or how it was looking when out in the field.

An “unidentified” lady reported the formation from Sarum Road, which led to people becoming suspicious, as it was not actually visible from any surrounding road. It now transpires that she was riding a horse and the extra height meant that she would, in fact, be able to see the formation. A radio traffic reporter called Pippa Head confirmed the formation was there the same day. For more info see: http://home.clara.net/lucypringle/

The formation WAS made in at least two stages. The farmer’s tractor driver saw the frame (which simply stopped where the disk would later appear), and no more than six lines across the top on Wednesday 14th August. The formation wasn’t discovered until the 15th, but this doesn’t mean it was created over two nights - it could have been in the process of going down when the tractor driver spotted it. After all, no one else has reported seeing it incomplete. I would speculate that it was, in fact, finished during daylight hours on the 14th. We have no concrete evidence that formations need to be created using one method only, and I would suggest that there are varying techniques used, due to the fact that the skies/fields of southern England aren’t noticeably being illuminated as frequently as would otherwise be expected. I would therefore argue that balls of light, etc. are not essential to the creation of a formation.

I have been pursuing a line of thought that says the radio mast at the bottom of the field may have been equipped with CCTV and/or motion sensors, but to no avail so far.

A throbbing noise was heard for around 10–20 minutes during the night of the 14th, which sounded either like a generator or a helicopter. This was heard by Mary Hill who lives in one of the farmhouses at the bottom of the field. Again, see: http://home.clara.net/lucypringle/ for more info.

Other researchers are arguing that the formation contains too much human logic. Well, tell me this: Where’s the human logic in creating masterpieces year after year, in very unpleasant circumstances, even during heavy rain? (Many of us have stayed up all night crop watching throughout the years) It’s cold, damp, and usually uncomfortable. Then to never claim your work, which must take hours and hours, not including planning time and expenses (some of these chaps come all the way from London you know!). To top it all, photographers openly and blatantly sell your work to newspapers and the general public, and still you create more formations the next year to enable them to make money out of your work. When was the last time you experienced anyone letting you make money out of them, without them making a penny, or getting any recognition?

It’s time to bite the bullet and acknowledge this phenomenon for what it is: a genuine mystery. I realise that researchers are a bit nervous of committing themselves one way or the other, due to the fact that the blockbuster Hollywood movie ‘Signs’ has been released. But we need to stay with the facts.

Should the biggest questions revolve around a discarded or dropped LED device (some such tool was found near the formation), which is questionable evidence anyway, or a mysterious woman reporting the formation, or even the possibility that part of it was there a day earlier? No, of course not. The biggest question is: Could YOU or ANYONE YOU KNOW re-create this image using pre-calculated mathematical measurements, (as opposed to drawing it freehand)? I can quite confidently say you couldn’t, and neither could those you know!

To return to the damaged word in the decoding of the initial message, I feel that it’s time we stopped just BELIEVING and started QUESTIONING!