Eric Hocking wrote:
Brian Sandle wrote in message ...
Eric Hocking wrote:
snip
Sorry to drop in out of lurking, but I always found it amusing to
watch ET cropcircle proponents squirm when I pointed out at
sci.skeptic that;
During the foot and mouth disease outbreak in the UK in 2001 the
government closed all countryside footpaths, effectively blocking any
but the farmer from crop fields.
During the ban no crop circles were recorded in the English
countryside.
The first crop circle in England to be recorded was the day after the
walking ban was lifted in that county.
Very community minded is our ET.
Any decent scientist knows
(a) correlation is not causation
Fine - put forward another explanation for the correlation between
lifting footpath bans and the late 2001 appearance of circles in
British crops.
(b) to check the data.
Ah, let's just do that shall we?
(a) About 90% of the walkways were open in September 1991 in Britain.
Since I specifically stated 2001, what has this to do with my post?
I meant 2001. It was in an offical PDF file which I cannot find again, with
the history of F&MD.
Feb 27 2001 announcement on footpath closures.
http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/newsrel/2001/010227d.htm
Linkname: CropCircleInvestigated
URL: http://www.geocities.com/hbccufo/Cro...estigated.html
snip
So that they occurred world over again at the end of foot and mouth in
Britain may or may not be just a coincidence.
I did not say worldwide - I quite specifically said "English" circles.
But I am pointing out it could be world wide.
The fact remains that the first cropcircles to appear in BRITAIN, were
found and probably created (as per the cropcircle database site) in
late/end of May. Just as the FMD footpath restrictions were being
eased.
Search your database for any country April 2001, there is only one result,
and that is an acknowledged art work.
So, what caused the cessation of circlemaking in Britain that year?
Surely footpath closures wouldn't have had any effect on airborne ET?
The only restriction was on *human* access on the ground to crop
fields. I'm sure it's purely coincidental that the lifting of those
restrictions correlate with the first appearance of new circles in
May.
They started appearing world over in May.
(b) Though I now confound myself somewhat by giving this:
Linkname: Weird Wiltshire - Crop Circles - News Archive
URL:
http://www.thisispewsey.co.uk/wiltsh...rd/231001.html
First published on October 23
THE foot and mouth epidemic may have hampered the search for crop circles
in Wiltshire's corn fields but the people who spend time looking for them
still managed to record some incredible formations.
All created in May after the FMD restrictions were eased.
That is correlation not proven causation.
This as per
the cropcircle database site:
http://www.cropcircleresearch.com/cgi-bin/CCdb?d=x&y=2001&c=UK&l=&k=&m=April
http://www.cropcircleresearch.com/cgi-bin/CCdb?d=x&y=2001&c=UK&l=&k=&m=May
[...]
In spite of the foot and mouth restrictions which meant that the croppies
had to keep away from fields and could not fly overland,
The above statement seems to imply that circles *might* have been
created prior to May 2001, but the croppies were unable to find them
merely due to to the fact that they were not allowed to do air
searches. That's patently untrue as per the Hansard record of May 9
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200001/cmhansrd/vo010509/text/10509w19.htm
The aviation bans were that you could not fly *below* 500ft over
infected land or *below* 1000ft over the livestock cremation sites.
There was nothing to stop croppies flying over at 1500ft plus scouring
for circles.
Maybe they misunderstood.
So to claim that there *might* have been circles created before May is
moot, since they can't prove it happened and I can't prove it didn't.
You like the correlation, and searching world wide back to Nov 2000 there are
very few. Just a couple on ice, one reported on ice too thin to walk on.
about 40
formations were officially recorded in Wiltshire.
The NUMBER of circles is irrelevant, it is WHEN they appeared. Here's
part of my post from 2001, one of the council links is dead and see
this link for May 2001
http://www.cropcircleresearch.com/cgi-bin/CCdb?d=x&y=2001&c=UK&l=&k=&m=May
"This is the Hampshire County Council notice regarding F&M
http://www.hants.gov.uk/hcc/emergency/footmouth.html
Guess when it's dated? You got it 11 May. It links to an emergency
plan for
Hants: http://www.hants.gov.uk/hcc/emergency/scudamore.html
dated March.
And of course, the first one in England turned up in? Hampshire - on
May
16. http://www.cropcircleresearch.com/cgi-bin/CCdb?d=uk01ab
When Wiltshire opened up
http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/download...411_order.html
Lo and Behold! A crop circle turns up in Wiltshire.
http://www.cropcircleresearch.com/cgi-bin/CCdb?d=uk01aq "
Not sure how they did it.
Waited in the pub until walking restrictions were lifted?
Somewhere I read it is admitted that some farmers create them as they get
grants for people to come on to their land.
Then the scientific tests should be different.