1 of 19

Write now Article Tools

Page 3 of 3

learning about the human mind by "interpreting" them, not the wisdom of aliens.

6) Alien contact is generally unlikely, and the physical contact required to make crop circles is even less likely than other methods of contact. While many prominent astronomers and physicists admit that life is likely to emerge elsewhere in the universe, a civilization advanced enough to reach us would be unfathomably rare.

Just think: the alien planet would have to be in a temperate zone around the sun it orbits; it would have to contain the right amounts of the chemical components necessary for life; and the life would have to last long enough to grow far, far more advanced than anything on earth, surviving not only its own consequences (like war and overpopulation), but the hazards of meteor impacts and the end of its sun in the process. After all this, it would have to amass enough resources to not only contact humans, but to do so with a level of physical impact.

The expenditure of energy required to do this would be unimaginable. If we are ever to be contacted by aliens, it is more likely that they will use radio or other signals, which require far, far less energy and can reasonably reach greater distances than physical transport. Creating crop circles would be wholly uneconomical for an alien civilization.

7) Extraterrestrials wouldn't be biased in favor of particular cultures or seasons. The trend of crop circle appearances coincides with the ethnicity of surrounding populations. While crop circles have appeared in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and India, the vast majority cluster in southern England. Not only are these supposed aliens biased toward English-speaking first-world nations, but they appear to prefer nice weather and nighttime: crop circles mostly show up between April and September, at night when the fields are out of sight.

Intelligent life would care about reaching all human life, if any - not just rich, first-world nations, and not just in those conditions humans find most comfortable and secretive for long periods of time. Would they be likely to bother, while at the same time trying to contact us, intentionally making it look like humans created their messages instead? Aliens with so strong a compulsion to work against themselves would never even have gotten off their home planet.

8) The human mind lends itself to being fooled. We're all cursed (and blessed) with excessive creativity. While we usually find this talent incredibly useful, our pattern- and meaning-seeking minds can lead us to find plans, conspiracies, and stories where none exist, which are often much more complex than need be. The belief that crop circles were created by aliens is an example of this: we want to be aware, and a part, of something special, and what could be more special than alien contact? We want meaning, we want understanding, and sometimes our reasoning errors lead us astray from these things in our enthusiasm.

Humans are by no means perfect. While we have evolved to make use of our surroundings for survival, the same processes which have helped us can inhibit our ability to accurately perceive reality. Logic and reason, paired with experimentation, created the scientific method: the method we use to bypass the failings of our adaptive, and usually useful, mental shortcuts. Looking with a logical and scientific eye at the issue of crop circles shows us the more likely answer: crop circles are, without a reasonable doubt, wholly of human creation, and thus provide no evidence for alien life whatsoever.

Learn more about this author, Currie Jean.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

• << previous page
• 1
• 2
• 3

Add your voice

Know something about Are crop circles evidence of UFOs??
We want to hear your view. Write now!