3.1 Credibility of the story
We have sifted through much of D&D's testimony and the evidence presented. The fact is, when we start looking more closely at how they presented their case, and the stories they weave, it starts to become apparent that much of their account is either mis-informed or just absurd. Questions arise at several junctures - let's see some examples.
Pole vaulting
The field, left, displays a phenomenon known as 'grapeshot' - a liberal smattering of tiny circles peppering the crop, usually found around a larger formation. These grapeshot circles were quite common in 1990-91, and many were found in the middle of standing crop, with no tracks in or out.
How did Doug and Dave make these? We have a range of answers to choose from. Writing in The Cereologist (issue 7, p16), James Chapman recounted, "When I spoke to Doug again, in June, his answer was very different. 'We have never created any grapeshot circles'." This follows an earlier quote from Chapman, in which he states, "When I asked how he and Dave created [grapeshot circles] he replied, 'It's easy. You just jump in and jump out." This is not direct testimony, of course, and nor is this, from the London meeting of 1993: "In response to another question Ken Brown stated his belief that Doug and Dave had never made any 'grapeshot' circles - the smallest circles they had ever made were only 8 feet across because the width of the security bar from Doug's shop was only four feet long." But here's the best answer, as printed in the book, The Field Guide... "We did pole vaulting ... you should have seen us running down the [tractor] tram lines and then sticking it in and sailing over the top of the crops, it was absolutely marvellous." This is interestng. Why did Bower mention "running down the tramlines"? Obviously, because one would need substantial momentum. Athletes like the one pictured left take considerable run-ups just to gain momentum, so it's not arguable that a run-up is needed. One problem, though - If they did indeed pole vault to get any distance into the standing crop, they would need momentum at a significant angle to the tram lines, to traverse across into the field. Yet they would only be generating momentum in the same direction they were running - not sideways. |
Moreover, when D&D pole vaulted into the standing crop and made the small grapeshot circles - how did they get out again? There's no means of taking a run up form there, so either they are able to navigate over standing crop without leaving a trace - in which case, why claim they had to run down the tram lines and pole valult at all? To put it nicely, one would have to seriously question the validity of this story.
The 'DD' signature
Some of the formations of 1991 are of note for their accompanying DD “signature”. Bower’s celebrated claim is that this device was the result of two artists signing their work: “Have you noticed two Ds marked on all the ’91 circles?... that’s for ‘Doug and Dave’. We’ve signed every one!” (BBC radio debate, 1991).
The DD device showed up on 12 July, 1991, in a field next to Stonehenge. Most people think that was the first time it was ever seen, and practically all the books will show that formation as the earliest to incorporate the signature. It is instructive for a moment to hear comments made by Bower during the interview conducted by Clas Svahn: “We didn’t go to Devon or Cornwall, we went to Hampshire, Wiltshire, Berkshire and Sussex, and that would be about [all] the counties that we were travelling in.” This is useful information, since we can say with a degree of justification that nothing outside of the four counties cited was being claimed. |
Now, returning to the DD device, Bower would not have known that, prior to the Stonehenge formation, there had already been a barely-known circle not in Hampshire, but in Dorset, which had the signature present (see press cutting above). That formation was found on July 8 and is outside of D&D’s stomping ground. The location, Sixpenny Handley, is not a million miles from their Southampton home (about the same distance as Andover, as the crow flies), but is in an area they are not known to have ever visited, and in a county Bower did not identify as one they were active in.
D&D’s supporters often have to fill in blanks to justify the duo, and here is a typical case. One has to generate of one’s own volition the idea that they veered out to Dorset one time, made the first DD signature, and in a unique configuration too, and didn’t ever mention it again - or the story collapses. Note well though, D&D have never claimed any of this.
D&D’s supporters often have to fill in blanks to justify the duo, and here is a typical case. One has to generate of one’s own volition the idea that they veered out to Dorset one time, made the first DD signature, and in a unique configuration too, and didn’t ever mention it again - or the story collapses. Note well though, D&D have never claimed any of this.
Dangers
I invite readers to consider a question: suppose you were asked, “what are the main dangers you would face while out circling?” (other than being lynched by croppies). I would guess most would say getting caught by the police, or being shot by angry farmers. These are exactly the sort of clichéd hazards people would instantly think of, even though both are unlikely. This is what we find in D&D’s account published in TODAY:
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You might decide that you believe these hackneyed tales, that there were police loitering in the fields, and farmers were out shooting in the corn. It’s up to you.
Getting hit by toilet waste
An even stranger tale was told in the same original newspaper story. Bower claims he was struck on the head while out in the fields, by a frozen piece of toilet waste whch fell from a passing aircraft!
First though, there's a precursor to this, as recounted by George Wingfield in The Cerealogist issue 5, p6, in which Bower (then just an anonymous circles enthusiast, but later recognised as the same person), was told by Julie Varden about a strange jelly which had been found in a crop circle. This was some time before he gave his story to the press, and his reaction is interesting: "'I know what it was', said Doug. 'It's the discharge from an aircraft toilet.' 'No', said Julie, 'That's not what he was talking about'. 'Oh yes it is, it must have been', retorted Doug."
And so we went on to read in the TODAY report, a nice, amusing tale:
“Once, as he [Doug] was working on a circle with Dave, he was actually knocked unconscious by something which fell from space. ‘I managed to stagger back to the car and I could feel the blood trickling down my neck. But when we got into the light I saw that the mess on my head was frozen discharge from an aircraft toilet. I’m staggered when I think of the million-to-one chance of being hit like that’.”
Staggering it would be, if it were true. But for one thing, aircraft do not discharge toilet effluent while in flight – it is illegal, precisely because it would be very dangerous.
Can we dismiss this tale as just an elaboration thought up by the TODAY journalist, inserted for added amusement? Not at all. Bower has always stuck to this story. Of course derision was levelled when crop circle researchers first read this, and so Bower subsequently softened the blow by claiming that it was a warm night and that the 'ice' had melted on its way down, accounting for his not being critically injured. Here are some direct quotes from the Circlespeak DVD documentary:
“What, the night I was knocked unconscious? That was near Winchester one night. Dave and I were up on the hill, and, erm, we were doing a pattern. We got about half way through it, then suddenly I was hit on the head, and I was [knocked] out... You’d never see such a mess. My head, what I thought was blood, was all green chemical from a jumbo-jet’s toilet. And what had hit me was the toilet [waste] from the plane, and as it was quite a warm night, it must have started off as an ice block, but by the time it reached me it was just a soft lump, just [hard] enough to knock me out … what was actually in it, from the toilet, was all in my hair. It was a horrible mess."
If it had been jettisoned from the warm inside of the plane, on this 'warm night', at what point would it have become frozen? And in any case, how can Bower claim such a thing, when toilet waste is retained inside the aircraft rather than being dangerously jettisoned?
Easy! simply conflate toilet waste with ordinary ice, which can form on the outside of aeroplanes:
“But, I mean, since then we’ve seen in the newspapers [reports] of lumps of ice falling off of planes, going through the roofs of cottages, and there was a car at Eastleigh just near Southampton, that was, er, punctured through with a lump of ice. So, there it was."
We can make the observation that the terminal velocity of a skydiver (ie, the maximum speed they reach in freefall from a plane, before air resistance stops them accelerating any more) is upwards of 120 mph. For smaller masses, such as a frozen lump of ice, the velocity by the time it reached the ground would be far greater, since it presents a smaller area for the air to resist. This of course assumes its density to be the same as a human body, which is not the case. It's a bit less, but not much (both float on water). If a physicist is reading this, please tell us how fast you think a modestly sized lump of ice which fell from a plane would be moving – I am going to assume, conservatively, the same - upwards of 120 mph.
How long though would it take a lump of ordinary ice the size of, say, a cricket ball, to melt? Several hours? A lump of ice falling six miles (a typical altitude for a jet aircraft, lighter aircraft flying lower) at 120 mph would hit the ground in three minutes, so it would not have melted in any substantial way. Even an ice cube in a drink won't melt to a sludgy consistency that quickly. Yet in Bower’s account, the ice ball hurtled into his skull, and he suffered no after-effects, was not driven to A&E, to my knowledge exhibits no scarring, and simply made his way happily home again.
Can you imagine that someone being hit with a cricket-ball-like mass, travelling at over 120 mph – perhaps double the speed limit on a UK motorway – would survive – let alone suffer no noticeable injury? This is the type of event which Doug told us, would smash through cottage roofs and puncture metal cars. Take a hammer and see if you can puncture a hole in a car roof. Now imagine it's a human head!!
As Bower says, the chances of being hit like this are a million to one (even if such matter was released from planes, which it isn’t).
First though, there's a precursor to this, as recounted by George Wingfield in The Cerealogist issue 5, p6, in which Bower (then just an anonymous circles enthusiast, but later recognised as the same person), was told by Julie Varden about a strange jelly which had been found in a crop circle. This was some time before he gave his story to the press, and his reaction is interesting: "'I know what it was', said Doug. 'It's the discharge from an aircraft toilet.' 'No', said Julie, 'That's not what he was talking about'. 'Oh yes it is, it must have been', retorted Doug."
And so we went on to read in the TODAY report, a nice, amusing tale:
“Once, as he [Doug] was working on a circle with Dave, he was actually knocked unconscious by something which fell from space. ‘I managed to stagger back to the car and I could feel the blood trickling down my neck. But when we got into the light I saw that the mess on my head was frozen discharge from an aircraft toilet. I’m staggered when I think of the million-to-one chance of being hit like that’.”
Staggering it would be, if it were true. But for one thing, aircraft do not discharge toilet effluent while in flight – it is illegal, precisely because it would be very dangerous.
Can we dismiss this tale as just an elaboration thought up by the TODAY journalist, inserted for added amusement? Not at all. Bower has always stuck to this story. Of course derision was levelled when crop circle researchers first read this, and so Bower subsequently softened the blow by claiming that it was a warm night and that the 'ice' had melted on its way down, accounting for his not being critically injured. Here are some direct quotes from the Circlespeak DVD documentary:
“What, the night I was knocked unconscious? That was near Winchester one night. Dave and I were up on the hill, and, erm, we were doing a pattern. We got about half way through it, then suddenly I was hit on the head, and I was [knocked] out... You’d never see such a mess. My head, what I thought was blood, was all green chemical from a jumbo-jet’s toilet. And what had hit me was the toilet [waste] from the plane, and as it was quite a warm night, it must have started off as an ice block, but by the time it reached me it was just a soft lump, just [hard] enough to knock me out … what was actually in it, from the toilet, was all in my hair. It was a horrible mess."
If it had been jettisoned from the warm inside of the plane, on this 'warm night', at what point would it have become frozen? And in any case, how can Bower claim such a thing, when toilet waste is retained inside the aircraft rather than being dangerously jettisoned?
Easy! simply conflate toilet waste with ordinary ice, which can form on the outside of aeroplanes:
“But, I mean, since then we’ve seen in the newspapers [reports] of lumps of ice falling off of planes, going through the roofs of cottages, and there was a car at Eastleigh just near Southampton, that was, er, punctured through with a lump of ice. So, there it was."
We can make the observation that the terminal velocity of a skydiver (ie, the maximum speed they reach in freefall from a plane, before air resistance stops them accelerating any more) is upwards of 120 mph. For smaller masses, such as a frozen lump of ice, the velocity by the time it reached the ground would be far greater, since it presents a smaller area for the air to resist. This of course assumes its density to be the same as a human body, which is not the case. It's a bit less, but not much (both float on water). If a physicist is reading this, please tell us how fast you think a modestly sized lump of ice which fell from a plane would be moving – I am going to assume, conservatively, the same - upwards of 120 mph.
How long though would it take a lump of ordinary ice the size of, say, a cricket ball, to melt? Several hours? A lump of ice falling six miles (a typical altitude for a jet aircraft, lighter aircraft flying lower) at 120 mph would hit the ground in three minutes, so it would not have melted in any substantial way. Even an ice cube in a drink won't melt to a sludgy consistency that quickly. Yet in Bower’s account, the ice ball hurtled into his skull, and he suffered no after-effects, was not driven to A&E, to my knowledge exhibits no scarring, and simply made his way happily home again.
Can you imagine that someone being hit with a cricket-ball-like mass, travelling at over 120 mph – perhaps double the speed limit on a UK motorway – would survive – let alone suffer no noticeable injury? This is the type of event which Doug told us, would smash through cottage roofs and puncture metal cars. Take a hammer and see if you can puncture a hole in a car roof. Now imagine it's a human head!!
As Bower says, the chances of being hit like this are a million to one (even if such matter was released from planes, which it isn’t).
A 'sighting' device
One of the widely recognised characteristics of the crop circles is the exactness with which straight lines are executed, thought by many in 1991 to be indicative that the patterns were not hoaxed. So how did Doug Bower manage to create such precision?
He claimed to be using a photogenic, but otherwise useless device: a cap, with a wire loop hanging down from the peak. He explained how it was supposed to work in the Today story: “I lined up a tree on the horizon and by keeping it in my eye and looking through the hole in the wire I proceeded to walk through the corn walking in a straight line.”
The wire loop is supposed to act as a sighting tool, enabling him to move in an exact line by fixing his gaze through it, onto a distant object, and maintaining that alignment. Such a device will amuse the reader, lending to the idea that Doug is merely a jovial fool, running rings around “scientists”. |
Alas, such a wire loop device is of no practical use. Since the wire loop is fixed to the cap, it moves with the head, and since the loop is in front of the eye, it is, like the frame of a pair of spectacles, always in the same position relative to one’s line of vision. If the direction of one’s movement wanders off course, any distant object can still be viewed through the sight just by looking at it, because the neck is articulated.
You can look directly through such a loop at something way out of line, even at, say, 45 degrees to the direction you are moving. Keeping a distant object in the frame of the sight depends on what direction head and eye are pointing, not the direction the body and feet are moving. It is perfectly possible to walk in a straight line without one, which is why no other hoaxer uses them. To satisfy myself that I am correct, I made one and tried it myself. It does not work. Readers – try it out and see if Doug’s gadget is of any help at all, and let us know your results.
You can look directly through such a loop at something way out of line, even at, say, 45 degrees to the direction you are moving. Keeping a distant object in the frame of the sight depends on what direction head and eye are pointing, not the direction the body and feet are moving. It is perfectly possible to walk in a straight line without one, which is why no other hoaxer uses them. To satisfy myself that I am correct, I made one and tried it myself. It does not work. Readers – try it out and see if Doug’s gadget is of any help at all, and let us know your results.
The wooden iron bar
Bower has explained over and over, how he devised his first circle-flattening technique by using the iron security bar which was situated on his studio doors. This was his main implement, he said, from the start. The Circlemakers helpfully included a photo of it in The Field Guide (right). It's a long, straight length of iron, as you can see. Here are some of Bower's recollections:
TODAY newspaper report: "We did that first one with the iron bar I used to secure the back door of my shop in Southampton.” The Clas Svahn interview: "The first occasion when we started [we used] an iron bar which was about 5 feet long and we both could kneel down side by side and lifting the bar together." 2002 filmed interview: "So we started off by using my big heavy security bar that was on my workshop door, and our first few circles were made on our hands and knees with this security bar." Fair enough, you may think. Something odd though - in the Circlespeak documentary, he is pictured with this 'iron bar' and is directly quoted, "That’s the one we started with, 1978, that stick." We can see him holding his 'stick' which he used in 1978. Strangely, it's not made of iron. It's a battered old length of wood (see still, right). Hoaxer and supporter John Lundberg, co-author of The Field Guide where the above picture of the doors was printed, is right there, hearing and seeing this. It may mean nothing, but it illustrates once more that Bower can say practically anything he likes and his supporters will accept it, whether it's true or not. Was Bower just forgetting? Well, I wasn't there in 1978. It wasn't my iron bar, and I hadn't recounted the story multiple times before - but I recognised the problem immediately I heard Doug's latest claim. |
Not knowing the history...
Circular Evidence was published in 1989, but before the 1989 ‘season’. It therefore includes no circles from 1989 itself, just running up to the end of 1988. The authors, Andrews and Delgado, published nothing in the immediate wake of the 1989 season, their follow-up, The Latest Evidence, appearing after the sensational 1990 events.
In fact there is little on the crop circle bookshelf with any really substantial coverage of the 1989 season, all notable publications coming just after the 1990 pictograms – which were, understandably, overwhelmingly preferred. |
Crop Circles: The Latest Evidence is typical of the main literature on the subject. It covers both 1989 and 1990, but of 22 illustrated case studies included within, just four are from 1989, the rest from 1990. The impression one would get if one only knew what the books said was that 1989 was a poor year for circles.
If Doug Bower was central to the phenomenon, as he claims, his knowledge of the 1989 season would reflect the facts. So what do we find in Today? Bower says: “1989 was a bad year for the circles... so when the ‘experts’ announced they were mounting a week-long vigil [mid-June], Doug decided it was time for his first circle of the year.” (The ensuing circle was the 'Operation Whitecrow' formation.)
Let's hear from Paul Fuller (Crop Watcher issue 7, page 7), mulling this very point: "CERES has accounts of 94 circles appearing in May 1989 and 3 from June (all of which predated the 'Operation Whitecrow' circle). Clearly this is a major contradiction in their story."
In truth, 1989 was a fantastic year for circles, and undoubtedly the best ever at that stage, with the most articuate and numerous formations ever recorded - it's just that the post-1990 literature overwhelmingly focused on the 1990 pictograms, skirting past 1989.
We may also refer to Terence Meaden's remarks (in the comparatively little-known Circles From The Sky, page 128): “Altogether in 1989 sixteen circle sets based on the quintuplet design were discovered (!). One of these was modified as an unusual sextuplet and another as a nonuplet (!)…” Or, to get a perspective on scale, we may consult the 1992 edition of the Andrews Catalogue. Andrews documents 39 English crop circles in 1988, stepping up dramatically to 79 in 1989 (twice as many).
Here are a few, which match or excel anything seen before:
If Doug Bower was central to the phenomenon, as he claims, his knowledge of the 1989 season would reflect the facts. So what do we find in Today? Bower says: “1989 was a bad year for the circles... so when the ‘experts’ announced they were mounting a week-long vigil [mid-June], Doug decided it was time for his first circle of the year.” (The ensuing circle was the 'Operation Whitecrow' formation.)
Let's hear from Paul Fuller (Crop Watcher issue 7, page 7), mulling this very point: "CERES has accounts of 94 circles appearing in May 1989 and 3 from June (all of which predated the 'Operation Whitecrow' circle). Clearly this is a major contradiction in their story."
In truth, 1989 was a fantastic year for circles, and undoubtedly the best ever at that stage, with the most articuate and numerous formations ever recorded - it's just that the post-1990 literature overwhelmingly focused on the 1990 pictograms, skirting past 1989.
We may also refer to Terence Meaden's remarks (in the comparatively little-known Circles From The Sky, page 128): “Altogether in 1989 sixteen circle sets based on the quintuplet design were discovered (!). One of these was modified as an unusual sextuplet and another as a nonuplet (!)…” Or, to get a perspective on scale, we may consult the 1992 edition of the Andrews Catalogue. Andrews documents 39 English crop circles in 1988, stepping up dramatically to 79 in 1989 (twice as many).
Here are a few, which match or excel anything seen before:
Above: 1989 crop circles, including swastikas and crucifixes - two of the former appeared, and three of the latter. The circle with tail was dubbed “the tadpole”, while other inventive and original patterns were seen.
So if one troubles to actually dig deep into the literature, the picture of the 1989 season is one in which the diversity of 1988 was comfortably excelled, with new and exciting formation types found in abundance. Conversely, if we believe Doug’s account, then his first circle in this “bad” year was in mid-summer – and yet we know George Wingfield's survey of the 1989 season (UFO Report 1991, ed. Timothy Good), which agrees with Paul Fuller's (above) that, "The circles started to appear thick and fast from the middle of May" - a full month before Doug claims to have even got started! Quite obviously Bower did not know what was going on in the fields during 1989, but had browsed through the better-known crop circle books.
Meteorites
In the TODAY story, we find the following claim: “To keep the ‘experts’ puzzled this summer, Doug and Dave collected some meteorites and included them in a special circle at Stonehenge.”
This is an odd thing to include in the story. In fact, meteorites are pretty rare, and the first question which springs to mind is, how did D&D (without the internet in those days) manage to obtain them – and more than one, at that? The second question is, why would they place them in a crop circle? Yes, it might puzzle researchers if they somehow noticed and identified one, but they look much like ordinary stones (a genuine meteorite is pictured to the right). |
It's highly unlikely anyone would recognise one in such a setting, and even if they did, what would it matter? Meteorites just randomly fall.
As with the 'toilet waste' story above, there is circumstantial evidence that this tale was concocted from actual events which precede it. George Wingfield was able to shed light on this strange tale in his paper, "Chronicles of Deception 2: The Doug n Dave Scam" which appeared in Flying Saucer Review (vol 36, No 4, Winter 1991). Apparently, Doug and Dave had earlier (before they went public) bumped into circles researcher Nick Riley who knew them and showed them some unusual pieces of brown iron ore which he'd found at a circle site. The story goes that Bower had told him, and in fact insisted, that these were meteorites, despite Nick knowing perfectly well that they were not.
This was the episode which apparently inspired these claims in the subsequent TODAY story. In fact some ordinary stones were placed in the "special" circle at Stonehenge in 1991, but whether Bower really thought they were meteorites, or the journalist was merely creating a little extra "spice" for readers, is hard to know. Needless to say, meteorites have never been found inside a crop circle!
As with the 'toilet waste' story above, there is circumstantial evidence that this tale was concocted from actual events which precede it. George Wingfield was able to shed light on this strange tale in his paper, "Chronicles of Deception 2: The Doug n Dave Scam" which appeared in Flying Saucer Review (vol 36, No 4, Winter 1991). Apparently, Doug and Dave had earlier (before they went public) bumped into circles researcher Nick Riley who knew them and showed them some unusual pieces of brown iron ore which he'd found at a circle site. The story goes that Bower had told him, and in fact insisted, that these were meteorites, despite Nick knowing perfectly well that they were not.
This was the episode which apparently inspired these claims in the subsequent TODAY story. In fact some ordinary stones were placed in the "special" circle at Stonehenge in 1991, but whether Bower really thought they were meteorites, or the journalist was merely creating a little extra "spice" for readers, is hard to know. Needless to say, meteorites have never been found inside a crop circle!
Experts!
Bower and Chorley presented themselves as jovial, but simple folk, who were dumfounded by the so-called crop circle 'experts', of whom they made fun. For example, they stated on more than one occasion that the 'experts' were making up their own language, much to the amusement of Bower himself. To illustrate, in the Nicky Campbell interview we hear,
"The so-called experts have come out with a new language of their own, I mean there’s words they’re using that’s not even in the English dictionary. I can’t even repeat them, they’re so complicated, you know, and I mean they’re… people listening to them with open mouth, you know."
In the Up Front debate, Bower emphasises,
"They’ve developed a language of their own – words that are not even in the English dictionary!"
Bower presents himself as endlessly bemused. In the Crop CIrcle Communique video, he is racking his brains over 'ball lightning', puzzling, "The Japanese scientists have turned round and said that it's, erm, something-lightning, or something - bolt lightning, is it? Ball lightning?",
We believe Bower is far more clued up than he pretends. Feigning ignorance of the term 'ball lightning' seems to be a calculated ploy. It's logical, if his story were true, that he would be far more familiar than most, with such concepts. For example, he'd followed meterorologist Terence Meadon's research for many years, claiming that he (Bower) invented the quintuplet design as early as 1983, specifically to challenge Meaden's ongoing theories. How did Bower even know Dr Meaden's theories in 1983, if he was not well-read on the subject? Was he scouring the papers for data, or was he checking through Journal of Meteorology?
Bower claims to have 'infiltrated' research groups and listened to what they were saying, deliberately plotting to confound them. We know, for example, that he had prevously attended (at his own time and expense), BUFORA's 1987 Crop Circle Seminar in London (Crop Watcher issue 16, p13), and at least one of George Wingfield's lectures in Winchester (Cereologist, no. 5, p6) - and yet this simple old man doesn't know the term 'ball lightning', and is unable to repeat 'so complicated' words 'not in the English language' (presumably he means such alien terms as 'pictogram' or 'plasma vortex')!
"The so-called experts have come out with a new language of their own, I mean there’s words they’re using that’s not even in the English dictionary. I can’t even repeat them, they’re so complicated, you know, and I mean they’re… people listening to them with open mouth, you know."
In the Up Front debate, Bower emphasises,
"They’ve developed a language of their own – words that are not even in the English dictionary!"
Bower presents himself as endlessly bemused. In the Crop CIrcle Communique video, he is racking his brains over 'ball lightning', puzzling, "The Japanese scientists have turned round and said that it's, erm, something-lightning, or something - bolt lightning, is it? Ball lightning?",
We believe Bower is far more clued up than he pretends. Feigning ignorance of the term 'ball lightning' seems to be a calculated ploy. It's logical, if his story were true, that he would be far more familiar than most, with such concepts. For example, he'd followed meterorologist Terence Meadon's research for many years, claiming that he (Bower) invented the quintuplet design as early as 1983, specifically to challenge Meaden's ongoing theories. How did Bower even know Dr Meaden's theories in 1983, if he was not well-read on the subject? Was he scouring the papers for data, or was he checking through Journal of Meteorology?
Bower claims to have 'infiltrated' research groups and listened to what they were saying, deliberately plotting to confound them. We know, for example, that he had prevously attended (at his own time and expense), BUFORA's 1987 Crop Circle Seminar in London (Crop Watcher issue 16, p13), and at least one of George Wingfield's lectures in Winchester (Cereologist, no. 5, p6) - and yet this simple old man doesn't know the term 'ball lightning', and is unable to repeat 'so complicated' words 'not in the English language' (presumably he means such alien terms as 'pictogram' or 'plasma vortex')!
What they didn't tell us!
A final observation we might make here is that in all D&D's accounts, there is a glaring absence of any meaningful insight into circlemaking. They merely claim every major formation, and leave it there. I find this odd to say the least; you would have thought they could have taught us something from their vast experience? John Macnish went circle making with them, and in his only public statement (Crop Circle Apocalypse) he sheds light on, for example, the 'gap-seeking' phenomenon, whereby circle edges distort when they meet tramlines (p154), and how certain swirl patterns are created (p172-3) and how the stalks are kinked a few inches above the ground (p177). Even the Circlemakers can draw on their experience to point out, for example, that tape is a better tool than string when making circles, since it has much less tendency to tangle up on itself.
But what have D&D ever told us? Virtually nothing! There is one exception, but it fails to ring true on any level. This is their explanation of why circles are sometimes not perfectly round, and comes from the London meeting of 1993: “Doug Bower then explained that he had discovered that standing crop was often knotted into small patches where the wind had blown the crop to point against the direction he was pushing his 4 foot rod (the security bar from his picture framing shop). When this happened it was much harder work to push the rod through the crop as it had to be pushed at an angle. It was this angle which contributed towards the eccentricity of the overall crop circle.”
I have never in my time known the wind to knot crop stems into small patches.
But we do get "explanations" of the most mundane type for things which are already well-known from the literature but are easily explicable. For example, the circle with spur at Childrey (Wantage) in 1986 included an arrow-head shape at the end of the spur. Andrews and Delgado explain (Circular Evidence p44): “At the point of the arrow was a circular hole 0.35 metres in diameter. It was about 0.23 metres deep and dome or bowl shaped... the soil removed was nowhere to be seen.”
So, a bona-fide mystery. Bower has no problem providing answer for this one: “We dug a hole to make it look as if the Martians had landed and taken a soil sample away – when we went to Wantage, which was north of Newbury, we did a large circle there one night and we did a runway out from the circle and we dug a hole. We took a bag with us to put the soil in and we brought that back and we dumped it on the way back to Southampton.”
Hardly insightful, is it?
The points above are mainly my own personal impressions, from reading through D&D's testimony. Anyone is free to draw their own conclusions of course, but for me it is striking how implausible their account becomes, when one starts considering it for more than a moment. But if elements of their story are fictitious, or substantially so, we might wonder what motivated them to claim what they did.
ON TO PART 3.2 - 1978 >
But what have D&D ever told us? Virtually nothing! There is one exception, but it fails to ring true on any level. This is their explanation of why circles are sometimes not perfectly round, and comes from the London meeting of 1993: “Doug Bower then explained that he had discovered that standing crop was often knotted into small patches where the wind had blown the crop to point against the direction he was pushing his 4 foot rod (the security bar from his picture framing shop). When this happened it was much harder work to push the rod through the crop as it had to be pushed at an angle. It was this angle which contributed towards the eccentricity of the overall crop circle.”
I have never in my time known the wind to knot crop stems into small patches.
But we do get "explanations" of the most mundane type for things which are already well-known from the literature but are easily explicable. For example, the circle with spur at Childrey (Wantage) in 1986 included an arrow-head shape at the end of the spur. Andrews and Delgado explain (Circular Evidence p44): “At the point of the arrow was a circular hole 0.35 metres in diameter. It was about 0.23 metres deep and dome or bowl shaped... the soil removed was nowhere to be seen.”
So, a bona-fide mystery. Bower has no problem providing answer for this one: “We dug a hole to make it look as if the Martians had landed and taken a soil sample away – when we went to Wantage, which was north of Newbury, we did a large circle there one night and we did a runway out from the circle and we dug a hole. We took a bag with us to put the soil in and we brought that back and we dumped it on the way back to Southampton.”
Hardly insightful, is it?
The points above are mainly my own personal impressions, from reading through D&D's testimony. Anyone is free to draw their own conclusions of course, but for me it is striking how implausible their account becomes, when one starts considering it for more than a moment. But if elements of their story are fictitious, or substantially so, we might wonder what motivated them to claim what they did.
ON TO PART 3.2 - 1978 >