Tuesday, July 28, 2009

The Mystery of Crop Circles

It was a moonlit night of 1972. Two Englishmen, Arthur Shuttlewood and Bryce Bond, driven by the several
reports of sight of the strange unidentified flying craft, were sitting on the slope of Star Hill
near Warminster, England, hoping to catch a glimpse of it. But instead of the UFO, what they witnessed
that night was much more thrilling to them, to the logical world as well. Nearly a hundred feet away they
saw an imprint take shape, a large circular area of plants that collapsed like a lady opening a fan.

Since then a lot of eyewitnesses from as far away as British Columbia have reported the formation of a crop circle,
which takes less than twenty seconds to materialize, often accompanied by sightings of unusual lights and structured
craft beaming shafts of light onto the field the night before.

But what is a crop circle?
Crop circles are nothing but complicated geometrical patterns, usually in wheat fields.
I crop circles, crop is mysteriously found laid flat, in patterns, that did not exist in daylight the previous day.
Till date there have been over 9000 reported and documented crop circles throughout the world, with some 90% of them coming from England.

But who creates crop circles?
Some people believe that the patterns are left by the imprint of an extra-terrestrial craft, or that they are a message
from extra-terrestrials themselves. Another theory is that natural forces such as tornadoes, heat or strong winds create
the patterns by flattering the crops, but the regular shape of most crop circles makes this unlikely.
The most likely explanation is that the circles are made by people as a hoax. They gradually build up a design
by flattening the wheat, using very basic equipment such a rope and planks of wood.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Stonehenge

This time it is England friends. Stonehenge, a World Heritage site eight miles north of Salisbury in Wiltshire, is one of the world's most famous prehistoric monuments. The reason it has such a name is that it is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones. English word ‘stan’ means stone and ‘hencg’ means hinge. More than nine hundred stone rings exist there, and archaeologists estimate that twice that number may originally have been built. Though it is nearly impossible to precisely date the stone rings, scholars believe the standing stones were erected around 2200 BC and the surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. These megalithic structures should be referred to as rings rather than circles since only 2 percent of the structures are in the shape of true circles; the other 98 percent are constructed in a variety of elliptical shapes.


But who built it?

Why did they build it?

More than 5000 years ago, technology was merely known to mankind.

Then how did they build it?

A walk around Stonehenge only provokes more and strange feelings, more and more queries to be answered. It taunts us with its mystery. For over 5000 years it has stood silent vigil over the earth. It has been excavated, x-rayed, measured, and surveyed. Yet despite all that has been learned about its age and construction, its purpose still remains one of the great mysteries of the world. People believe that Stonehenge was used to predicting events of the night sky, although it’s probably a futile effort to try to understand the motives behind the construction.


The site and its surroundings were added to the UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986 in a co-listing with Avebury henge monument, and it is also a legally protected Scheduled Ancient Monument. Stonehenge itself is owned by the State and managed by English Heritage while the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.