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INTERNATIONAL CROP CIRCLES OF 2000 |
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Roanoke, Virginia. USA. Reported 22nd May.
Updated Thursday 1st June 2000
A 2nd randomly-downed crop formation has been reported south of Roanoke,
VA, this one very similar to the Milan, TN event of a few weeks ago. The crop went down the night of May 20-21 and was found the morning of May
22nd. Several small fields lined up in a row are all affected, with
large areas of downed crop throughout them; the crop is rye, about 2-1/2 to 3 ft. tall, still green, and there are many standing tufts throughout
the downed areas. Crisp edges occur throughout these downed areas and both expulsion cavities & very elongated nodes are present in the
downed crop (none in the standing, external control areas). I haven't yet seen the plants, but the fieldworker and the couple who reported the
event state that the downed plant stem nodes are at least twice as long as the standing controls. The fieldworker reports that a metal detector
gave responses at several small indented impressions in one of the fields, where the plants were missing altogether and just the dirt was
showing; compasses checked when the metal detector was going off did not deviate from North. Both plant and soil samples have been taken and
will be sent to BLT for further analyses.
UPDATE
Roanoke, VA: apparently formed night of May 21-22; found morning of May 22. Crop
reported to be rye. A small field with large areas of randomly-downed (non-geometric) crop, with standing tufts, swirled lays and crisp edges interspersed
throughout downed areas. Once in the air, it was discovered that 3 fields in a row
were so-affected, as were 2 others nearby. From several years of testing plants and
soils in similar randomly-downed (or chaotically-downed) crop areas--both in fields
where geometric formations also existed and in fields where no geometric events existed--BLT has found that the plant and soil anomalies in both types of events are
often the same. Some randomly-downed crop does not show these anomalies and these events are most likely related to weather damage; but often this less
geometrically-downed crop (akin to the "dragon's feet" observed regularly years ago
in the UK in the same regions where the geometric (events occur regularly) appears
to have the same causative agency. We suspect that local weather conditions may
play a role here, in that local atmospheric turbulence may disrupt or override the
factor(s) responsible for the appearance of the more organized, geometric, events.
In this case, fieldworkers reported clearly visible and massive node enlargement
(reported to be at least 100%) in the downed crop, and ground photos clearly reveal
standing tufts and swirled lays throughout the downed crop areas. They further
reported that the control crop (standing crop both near and at some distance away
from the downed areas) showed no node enlargement. Until the plants have arrived
at our lab & the testing and statistical evaluation has been carried out we cannot be
certain but, based on the field report and ground photos emailed to us, it appears
that this case is likely to be classified as the "real McCoy." It should also be pointed out that in many cases where geometric formations have
occurred, either immediately afterwards or at some later date the same field will be
found to have randomly-downed crop near or adjacent to the patterned event; sometimes both situations occur simultaneously. There are also cases (Cherhill,
July 1998, the "dead fly" formation) where the formations are neither entirely geometric nor entirely random, but a little bit of both. Generally, from our database, it
appears that the plant changes overall are more severe in the randomly-downed events.
Reported by Nancy Talbott/BLT Research Team
