Ghosts | cropcirclefaction

Ghosts!

‘’Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, so beautiful, that when we grasp it — in a decade, a century, or a millennium — we will all say to each other, how could it have been otherwise?

How could we have been so stupid for so long?’’ – John Archibald Wheeler

So called crop circle “ghosts” are a very interesting feature of the crop circle phenomenon and this year (2018) we had some fine examples.

To be clear: I make a distinction between what I consider two types of ghosts.

Type 1: the imprint of the crop circle which is left in the field after the harvest

Type 2: the imprint in a field of a crop circle which was there the year before

I regard ghosts of Type 1 as reasonably 'normal': the visitors of the crop circle walk on the flattened crop which gets pressed down more in such a way that the knives of the harvester can't reach it anymore.

As a result the flattened crop is not cut and the shape of the crop circle is still visible.

A clear example of this can be seen in the video of the Mixon crop circle made by Drones & RC Flight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLoFMU2xPVM.

Another video of the same maker shows the Hackpen Hill 3 crop circle after being harvested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyuYnG5n8wA

We see here another aspect of ghost circles: the growth of young fresh crop which can be regarded as a quite 'normal' phenomenon: the feet of visitors trample the crop, the seeds drop off, get pushed in the ground and start to grow. The reason why some crop circles show this new growth and others don't has to do with the time of creation of the crop circle.

Hackpen Hill 3 was reported the 29th of July so there is a big chance that by the time the circle was made it had lots of more ripened seeds which after falling onto the soil germinated quickly.

Ghosts of Type 2 are of a more intriguing kind.

The last beautiful example of a ghost formation of this type is the one near Cley Hill reported at the end of April 2018 and it was formed in rapeseed. In the photo there is no yellow blossom yet.

The video made by 'Against The Grain' shows the beautiful yellow of the flowers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzLJNvbOmvE (unfortunately I can't embed this video but be shure to take a look at it!!)

The original crop formation was made in wheat and reported July 18th 2017 (left), the picture on the right shows the ghost after the harvest in 2017 (Type 1).

This is what makes a Type 2 ghost so special: It is an exact copy of the crop formation of a year before

but 'build' in another crop!

There is -of course- debate on the origin of ghost formations of Type 2.

The different theories trying to explain this phenomenon are (using my terminology):

The Down-To-Earth theory
The Earth Energies theory
The External Source theory

One of the Down-To-Earth explanations is that the farmer uses extra fertilization the next year on the spot where the crop formation has been. His does this to restore the damage caused by visitors treading on the crop.

As a consequence of the extra fertilization the next year's crop shows an increased growth rate.

Another Down-To-Earth explanation is that visitors trample on the crop which causes the seeds to drop off.

The seeds are pushed into the ground where they 'hibernate' and depending on the date the crop formation was formed (early or later in the season) the immature seeds of early CF's have a slower growing rate than the more mature seeds of later CF's.

The result is a ghost formation with a faster or slower growing rate.

There are a few things I don't understand of these Down-To-Earth explanations.

The soil -after the crop has been harvested- is burnt down, left for some time, turned, ploughed (several times?) and then left again to rest over the autumn and the beginning of winter. The seeds for the new growing season are -depending of the kind of crop- sown in the early months of the year.

HOW is it possible that a ghost formation which is an EXACT copy of the original appears in soil that has been turned over and ploughed (several times??).

You would expect that the plowing of the field destroys or at least disperses the young stalks which grow out of the trampled of seeds.

Destroying means no new stalks in the next season and when they still live and will grow you would at least expect a heavily distorted ghost image.

As you can see the ghost of Cley Hill is an almost perfect copy in a different crop than last year.

The extra fertilization theory lacks logic in this case as well because when the farmer would have put extra nutriants on the site the last year's seeds should now have have grown and been longer than the new sown crop because they simply had more time to grow.

The Down-To-Earth explanation does not explain ghost's of crop formations in a snowy field.

Next images show the ghost of the CF at Oliver's Cast in January 2009? (left) and the original from

August 16th 2008.

Later in that year 2009 the wheat ghost appears......

There is something else which intrigues me........

On the next image you see the snow ghost at Olivers Castle from another angle with in the foreground a round spot also without snow.

The round spot is a barrow and why doesn't it have snow on it either?

The Down-To-Earth explanation of snow ghosts: extra fertilization makes the soil warmer than places without fertilization (I can agree with that because adding extra nutrients in the form of chemicals or compost cause a chemical process which byproduct can be heat).

But: I cannot imagine that the farmer meticulously spreads extra nutrients exactly on the spot where the crop formation was. Regarding the use of large equipment in farming, the spreading of extra nutrients will be done over an area which is larger than the former crop formation. In other words: the fertilization will not exactly follow the form of the crop formation.

The result of this will be a more indistict “not snowy spot” where the design and outlines of the original crop formation are indiscernable.

The barrow near Oliver's Castle was also without snow: why would the farmer put extra nutrients on the barrow which is not used for farming, except in the year 2002 where there was not a barrow to be seen!?

This is very strange as well!

The next pictures are from Google Earth timeline:

31-12-2002 No Barrow 26-01-2005 Barrow! (Return of the Neolithians?)

31-12-2006 05-07-2017

The next picture shows the -rather vague contours of- Oliver's Castle crop formation of 2017 (discovered by chance while I was looking for the barrow) and this, I think, is not a ghost: it is the 'real thing' of which the photo is apparently taken or uploaded by Google in July 2017 (see time stamp 7-2017) so before the harvest.

I say “apparently taken or uploaded by Google”. Looking at the color of the crop (green) the photo has probably been taken in spring. When it was taken in July the crop would have been more yellow.

The red line by the way is the Michael Ley Line which runs through Oliver's Castle, the blue line is the mean of the Michael & Mary line.....

The other theories (earth energies and the external source) are intersting but need a lot more research.

The Earth Energies explanation says that crop formations are the result of the working of Earth energies (of which Ley Lines are the 'conductors') and that the energetic imprint of the crop formation can still be in the field years later.

When an external source is involved, ghost circles could the 'left overs' of the energy which created the crop formation.

Conclusion:

Lots of theories and still no definite answer.

The Down-To-Earth theory does not give me a satisfactory answer at all.

The other theories don't do this either -yet- because any satisfactory proof of earth energies or external sources which could create crop circles is still not there and a lot of research is needed.

The latter theories though speak more to the imagination and could hold promises for the future?

To close here are some examples of this year's Type 1 'after harvest ghosts': Mixon and Gurston Ashes.

Photo compilation of stills from the video's made by Drones & RC Flight: a Youtube channel where you can find great video's of crop circles and more crop circle ghosts!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxkrk1mvcIZkE01cSvNh0UA