Cette page en français
Through the web forums, websites, TV and radio shows about crop circles that want to convince us that are not all of them are done by men, you find, among the numerous alleged arguments, that "genuine crop circles" and that "unquestionable scientific studies proved it".
I saw what such "unquestionable" scientific proof is really worth...
Michael Chorost is a writer. His book tells about his experience of getting from deafness to hearing thanks to the development of an implant. He also writes newspapers articles. His doctorate is a doctorate in social science, not in physical science. His site web is at www.michaelchorost.com.
J. Marshall Dudley is the owner of the www.execonn.com website where the report discussed here was published. In other pages, he propagates many false ideas on the matter of crop circles and some obvious lies about the original cricle makers Doug Bower and Dave Chorley. His website also shows "photographs of anomalies" related to crop circles. For example, a photograph which is probably an accidental double exposure is called a "temporal anomaly". He worked then as systems engineer at Tennelec Nucleus, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. This is a company that had their website at www.tennelec.com, it was a subsidiary company of Oxford Instruments and was an important developing and manufacturing company of radiation detection devices.
Both operated as a group named North American Circle (NAC), PO Box 61144, Durham, North Carolina, USA, their crop circles research group - not to confuse with another group, North American Institute for Crop Circle Research (NAICCR). Michael Chorost was the director. NAC began in 1991.
So this is not a matter of crop circles samples entrusted in some blind-test operation to scientists who did not take part in the controversy, but, once again, people already convinced there is a true crop circle mystery, entrusting their samples to other people also of a crop circle group also already convinced there is a true crop circle mystery.
Although written in a correct style, of academic tone, it is a simple text, an article.
This article was not published in any professional scientific journal.
It was never submitted to a peer-review process.
Instead of being submitted for a publication in a scientific journal, the text was directly published by the Fund for UFO Research (FUFOR), a group of ufology groups and ufologists whose mission is to distribute funding to ufologists with a defined study project.
According to Michael Chorost:
"NAC [North Americain Circle] brought the total funding to over $34,000 by May 1992. Significant contributions were made in particular by the Robert Bigelow Holding Corporation, the Fund for UFO Research and MUFON."
(Cf. www.beyondweird.com/ufos/Michael_Chorost_Project_Argus_Report.html )
The article indicates two authors, but clearly, Michael Chorost being simply the director of North American Circle, and without any qualification or experience on matters of radioactivity, it is an article whose main author is likely J. Marshall Dudley.
(Cf. http://www.execonn.com/cropcircles/isotopes.html )
In 1992, Michael Chorost, NAC, had written about the matter of radioactivity in crop circles, the synthesis of the work done that year.
He reminded the 1991 text, commenting the discovery ofradioactive isotopes in samples of a crop circle:
Briefly stated, the project's goal was to learn if some crop circles exhibited physical effects which would be difficult, if not impossible, to generate by casual human activity. Indications that there might be such effects in the form of short-lived radioactive residues in the soil and significant changes to the crops had turned up late in 1991, thanks largely to the dedicated work of Marshall Dudley and Dr. [*] W.C. Levengood.
[*] It should be noted that W.C. Levengood was never a PhD or a doctor, the title was usurped!
In the 1991 text, the conclusion stated indeed that to find some radioactivity in only one crop circle was perhaps not too convincing, so that it would be wise to check out more crop circles, in order to see whether this radioactivity is indeed real. This became Project Argus of 1992.
Alas, the Chorost's conclusion for this search for radioactive crop circles in 1992 was, in his own words:
B. No evidence of anomalous radioactive traces in any of the tested formations.
At this step, I could obviously say my work is done. Indeed we have a 1991 text that says one just not prematurely conclude on the basis of only one study of only one crop circle but see if this encouraging result can be confirmed by more studies of this kind in the future, and precisely, this supplement of study the next year reveals quite simply that not even one radioactive crop circle was found!
You could be astonished that the initial text was not updated, no follow-up, no information that the "necessary additional research" caused by the result encouraging of 1991 led to:
|
B. No evidence of anomalous radioactive traces in any of the tested formations. |
But this sort of things does not astonish me anymore. It is on the contrary a true constant with the "copr circle experts" to claim that some preliminary study is proof though the result are contradicted by a mor thorough study about which they do not say a word, leading their readers to be believe stuff that the initial authors know to be obsolete...
However I just will not stop tehre. The reason is that I have an explanation to propose to the odd 1991 discovery.
Let me first recall the "fact" to explain.
In 1991, a study finds radioactivity in samples taken in crop circles.
In 1992, there were much more studies on much more crop circles, and that led to: not one of them shows radioactivity.
Again, more in detail.
In 1991, in the USA, Dudley receives samples taken in a crop circle in Beckhampton, Wiltshire. There is radioactivity!
He concludes wisely: next year, in 1992, we must take along our instruments on location, to England, and repeat the same measurements on much more crop circles, to be sure...
And in 1992, on location: nothing. No radioactive crop circle!
Isn't this weird? Wasn't it more even more likely to find radioactivity on site with the instrument than in vitro in some not-that-fresh samples sent to other side of the ocean?
Well, no, it is precisely not weird.
To detect radioactivity in samples from crop circle, it was precisely necessary to be made travel across the ocean!
Why? Another clue:
To detect radioactivity in crop circle samples, it was necessary to be send them by airplane across the ocean, as on location they are not radioactive!
At this step, it must be asked: what could have occurred during the airplane transportation?
Obviously, what comes to mind is a contamination by cosmic radiations... But wait, it can't be it, since the authors thought about it and dismissed this possibility. Actuallay, and apparently, it seems they thought of any possible contamination cause. Contaminated containers, radioactivity from Cernobyl or nuclear weapons testing, airport detecting devices, all this was dismissed.
A small problem remains to be adressed too. The sort of small problem that becomes a big cause to the proponents of non-human crop circles...
How is it that the control samples apparently did not undergo the supposed natural contamination by plane transportation?
Here we have an apparently valid objection. A case of simple luck? Were the control samples perhaps quite simply, in the airplane, below the others, less exposed to comic radiations? Could it be so simple?
The answer is in the authors' text:
The sample set under discussion was airmailed. The other (the one with two controls) was packed in a carry-on bag.
Isn't this a fantastic scientific error? The transportation conditions were quite simply not the same! The radioactive samples were transported as freight, in the freight bay, the control samples and those samples that did not show radioactivity were transported by hand in the passengers cabin!
Unbelievable!
The alleged anomaly is already scientifically void. But let's continue with checking what happened in the researchers' heads that made them discards cosmic rays whereas they had thought about it...
Let's see closely how the authors excluded cosmic rays. In their paragraph explaining why they excluded this natural radiation, they say they checked on the matter in a paper which is given as (5) in their references, I quote:
Likewise, we have ruled out radionuclides which are the products of bombardment by cosmic rays. We checked an inventory of cosmogenic radionuclides, and none of them were or could have decayed into anything in Table 1. [5]
So, let's check reference 5. It is presented as, quote:
[5] "Environmental Radiation Measurements" (see note 4), 11.
So, reference [5] is the reference that is detailed in reference [4]. So, let's see that reference [4]. I quote it:
[4] The inventory of Chernobyl emissions is in "Cleanup of Large Areas Contaminated As A Result Of A Nuclear Accident," Technical Reports Series no. 300, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, 1989, p. 104. The inventory of widely distributed human-made radonuclides is in Environmental Radiation Measurements, National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements Report no. 50, Washington, D.C., 1976, pp. 12-14.
The inventory of Cernobyl emissions! Now, this is utterly crazy!
Indeed, this reference 5 "Environmental Radiation Measurements" is detailed into 4 as being an "Environmental Radiation Measurements", an inventory of radioactive stuffs of man-made activity as origin, not the produce of cosmic rays!
In other words, the authors claimed to have eliminated the cosmic rays using a document which in fact, is not about cosmic rays productions, but about radioactive pollution from human origin; which is inept!
It results from this that the cosmic rays are indeed a possible and even obvious cause of the "detected anomaly", that the rejection of this cause has no value.
Cosmic rays include, it should not be forgotten, not only highly energy particles from deep space, but also nce and heavy slow protons from solar flares, which precisely lead to the creation of isotopes, of radionuclides with short half-life, totally of the type of those described in the article! (see their ref. [ 1 ])
The kind of detected radioactivity? A fugacious radioactivity. Not that you would get by taking the samples close to the Chernobyl contaminated, just as the authors note it, but a radioactivity with short half-life. Real radioactivity, but very, very tiny, as the authors note:
Before going on with our discussion, we want to reassure readers that the presence of the short-lived isotopes does not appear to present any health threat. Even though the samples emitted higher percentages of radiation than the control, their total emissions were far below the danger threshold. This is because the radionuclides were present in such low concentrations that they could only be detected by exquisitely sensitive equipment. The absolute quantities of the radionuclides were so low that one would probably be exposed to more radioactivity by eating a banana (which contains the natural radionuclide potassium-40) than by spending 24 hours in a fairly new crop circle.
But there's more. Let's read:
Of the six we examined for elevated alpha/beta emissions, only two exhibited significant increases. Two others exhibited apparently significantly lower emissions, and the last two exhibited no significant differences.
Yes, you read well!
In 1991, the situation is not exactly that 1 crop circle is studied and found radioactive, but that 6 crops circles are checked, with only 2 showing the radioactivity, 2 others show it only hardly, and 2 others prove not radiactive at all!
It was thus enough that the samples of 2 of the 6 checked crop circles were at the "top of the stack" in the plane so that these 2 show this radioactivity, induced by the most important exposure to the cosmic rays, 2 others better protected below, and 2 others less still better protected at the bottom of the stack.
You could almost draw the stack of the samples in the plane based on their radioactivity data!
