adi » Tir Aug 18, 2009 10:54 pm
"Julia Set"-formasjonen fikk usedvanlig mye PR i media (britisk fjernsyn og presse) og fikk omtrent 10.000 besøkende i dagene etterpå (bonden tok inngangspenger). INGEN VITNER meldte seg som hadde sett mennesker lage den, selv om den ble til midt på blanke ettermiddagen, og selv om skeptikere, fjernsyn og presse etterlyste slike vitneutsagn.
Her er litt av Andy Thomas' redegjørelse for omstendighetene rundt denne kornsirkelen ved Stonehenge i 1996 (i boken "Vital Signs. A Complete Guide to the Crop Circle Mystery and Why It Is NOT a Hoax". Berkeley, 2002, s. 58-59). Sitatet er langt, men det er verd det.
THE STONEHENGE FRACTAL
One of the most significant circle events of all time took place on July 7th in the southerly field close to the A 303, the busiest road in Wiltshire, and opposite Stonehenge, the most visited ancient monument in England. There were many extraordinary things about the shape which appeared there.
(Ekstrem størrelse og presisjon:)
It was a fractal known as a "Julia Set", a centipede-like (tusenben-lignende) pattern of 151 circles resulting from the same series of reiterative calculations that produces the Mandelbrot Set. 915 feet (ca 300 meter) from top to tail, its spiral sweep was a representation of the "Golden Mean" (Det gylne snitt) in sacred geometry. The order in which the size of the circles grew and again diminished followed the "Fibonacci Sequence".
(Eksakt plassering i forhold til omgivelsene:)
When checked on a hunch by Michael Glickman and Patricia Murray, the whole design was found to be aligned with the north and west edges of the field — a line could be drawn from where they met, directly through the centers of the middle circle and to either side in the curl of the spiral. Two further lines could be drawn from the corner to tangent the outermost circles of the fractal, at perfect 36 degree angles. They also discovered that the largest circles were at the highest point of the field, which was very slightly domed, the smaller ones tailing off down the slpoes. Clearly, there was no randomness of execution here.
(Tidsrom på 45 minutter:)
And yet, the most amazing aspect to this formation was the time it appeared: between approximately 5:30 p.m. and 6:15 p.m. one Sunday afternoon. How was this known? A pilot was flying over the ancient stones at about 5:30 p.m. Used to seeing crop circles from the air, he swears there was no formation present. A few minutes earlier, at about 5:15 p.m., a Stonehenge security guard walked to the southern part of the complex and looked down on the relevant field. There was nothing unusual there, nor had there been all day. A farm worker also confirmed the absence of any shape there sthroughout that Sunday. Yet by the time the pilot came by again shortly after 6:00 p.m., the massive fractal had appeared.
(Umulig å lage 'for hånd' på så kort tid:)
Given the lengths of time taken to create the relatively small patterns in the 1992 hoaxing competition (det tok lang tid for hoaxere å lage ganske små mønstre under en konkurranse i 1992), that something this large, with so many extraordinary mathematical qualities, could be created by humans in such a short interval beggared belief.
Rough calculations showed that just to have created random (tilfeldige) circles would have taken whatever number of bodies (ukjent antall personer) making around three circles every minute or less – without allowing for the many HOURS which would be needed to lay them out so accurately.
To have performed such an incredible feat in full daylight without being seen would be impossible anyhow.
Så langt Andy Thomas, som i motsetning til Erik har vært der og satt seg inn i hva som skjedde.
(Det Erik skriver om Milk Hill 1991 i sitt svar, kommenterer jeg en annen gang. Jeg kjenner den gamle debatten hans på forumet her om areal og fortballbaner og skjevheter.)