Ghost Crop circle, a subject often discussed in the arguments on crop circles phenomena , I could say so much talked as little investigated or perhaps, better to say, absolutely not investigated by people who think that this might be an extraordinary event .

For many years, flying over the traditional English places that have crop circles inside (Wiltshire, Hampshire, Sussex etc…) we have been aware that sometimes, where last year a crop existed, after one year, when a new plant have grown, we have been able to catch the sight, from above, of "signs" that mark off those plant areas that had been impressed in the soil for the pattern outline.

This can be seen mainly from above, at a ground level the phenomenon is almost difficult to distinguish.

The BLT, Research Team Inc, for several years, have been including the phenomenology of ghost crop circle in the page dedicated to the "OTHER FACTS" that are the physical appearances of a crop but for these they have assumed that is not possible to give, at present, a rational explanation; why not?

I can deduce that the questions on the crop circles are so many that a research group, for their surveys, should certainly make a choice of “priority” and the ghost crop circles, obviously, can wait a little more; We trust in the coming “news”.

In the meantime, as researchers "good for nothing" we can try to tell something about these "ghost".

Even this year the phenomenology has appeared again and makes the best of itself in one of the best websites in the world fully dedicated to the crop circles i.e. http://cropcircleconnector.com  on the page 

http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2004/West%20Stowell%20Ghost/weststowellghost2003.html 

I do not think, by quoting it, to fall on the objection of those who may say it is a website notoriously crop-sceptical because, of sure, it is not! Yet, on that page, the phenomenon is mentioned by now  as a usual and recurring curiosity and it does not contain anything mysterious, although an extraordinary event, it is seen as absolutely natural.

Often  (but not always) the ghost crop circles appear in spring, why? The reasons are two:

·         They appear on early seeding plants (like the rapeseed oil)

·         They are present on fallowness soils.

It is noted among the farmers and agronomists as the rapeseed, having a very thin seed, does not require what we call a “deep ploughing” of the soil. If the lands are not bad structured some simplified systems of ploughing can be applied, replacing the ploughing by a surface process; The sowing time is at the end of August or early in September and, as well said by Stuart Dike on his page in Crop Circle Connector, the remaining straw of the flat crop spikes, interfere both in the quantity of seed fallen inside of those areas and  in the ordinary capacity of growth. That’s, if seen from the sky, the plants disposition and their growing  (thicker/less thick, scrubby/less scrubby) re-creates,  partly, the crop circles previously in that soil.

An example extremely important of all this may be obtained looking at this picture by Peter Sorensen

© by Peter Sorensen

Here the rapeseed oil has been taken in its full flourishing , when the plants achieved the maximum growth in width and the "ghost" appears less definite than the ghost crop of the page above mentioned but this depends exclusively on the period when the picture was taken.

This phenomenon is absolutely known to the farmers and to the agronomists as well and I am sure that the explanation given by Stuart Dike, in his report, has been taken by a specific survey "on the field".

But  the year 2004 gave us a second ghost crop that can show us the right explanatory  way of the phenomenon and it is exactly the ghost of a crop circle appeared at Avebury.

This is not a rapeseed field  but a “fallowness” field, where they let grow the fodder grass  that, as noted by the agronomists, can provide the soil with the nourishing substances it lost during the intensive exploitation of the fields in the past years.

The green areas correspond to the spikes flattening, at the time of the crop existence.

There, a different sowing has not taken place at all : the “compressed” area, had the weeds grown, all at the same time but in different periods rather than in the surrounding land.

If we look carefully to the picture we will see the same phenomenon on the up left side as well, where, some mechanical means should have passed, over and over again, causing this variety of growth.… yet the farm tractor has no inexplicable power….

We were telling, above, that the ghost-crop are present even in the “fallowness” fields as per a particular phenomenon showing the  proliferation of green weeds in the flat areas.

A clear example is this ghost

© by Peter Sorensen

The effect, so well  "captured" by Sorensen’s camera (as well as by his skilfulness, as he declared, to highlight the details of a photo as he likes) is caused by another natural event.

Here, the field, after the reaping, was not farmed at all but it was lied fallow. However the plants on the ground are, both in short and long times, (and as well further particular wet conditions, rains etc…) an ideal environment for the growth of herbaceous plants. It is noted, moreover, that the decomposition of the “straw” (I mean the remaining of the flat plants) becomes a strong fertiliser penetrating in the soil at    a considerable depth (this is a data that we will have to remind further).

Another example of this phenomenon is from America, Ohio, (Serpent Mound – Peebles)

© Mark Tolle for the Defender

© Mark Tolle for the Defender – Seen from the lower side

Such phenomenon has taken place this springtime  and you can read about it at link http://www.peoplesdefender.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=3199

In the article the reporter of "The People’s Defender" tell the ufologist version (who speaks of anomalous event of crop circles) and the one by Richard McCarty, Preserve Manager of "Nature Conservancy at The Edge of Appalachia", (the crop circles place) and who states that this event is known by those who observe the natural phenomena ; he points out as some plants get benefit of certain conditions and as , in that period of the year, is easy to note that, where in the past a transit of mechanical means occurred , therefore a "flattening" happened,  greener and more luxuriant grass grew than in the surrounding parts.

But from Gramineae to Gramineae, from crop to crop etc..?

Although rarely, the notable changes in the soil structure due to “surfaces” causes can produce more blooming plants even on the ploughed soil. Such soil, however, for long time, have been able to interact with the “straw” getting from it  some alterations (it is correct to remind that, if mushrooms or parasites grew on it they would have a totally opposite effect , that is of decrease not of increase)

© by Peter Sorensen

To someone it could seem absurd but the least changes have amazing bio-chemical reactions.

The same structure of the soil inside can change few centimetres of land conditioning the plants although not concerning at all with the crop circles. Asking to the farmers they will be able to tell of areas where the plants grow, however, in different way rather than the near plants in spite of the same parasitic and fertiliser treatments. If we took the trouble to look at them from above may be we would discover an odd geometry.

An Italian case that remarks what already discussed is the  "crop" known as "the sail" of Vische that is an area of a particular sail shape where the plants, for geological order, grow less wide than in the remaining field and this , in the Italian year of the crop ( 2003) raised from the top the doubt it was a crop circle.

Something like this happens in England in the historical places  "of tumuli and stones". Here, perhaps, for hydrogeological and archaeological reasons, a similar phenomenon takes place and from above it is expressed as follows :

© by Peter Sorensen

It is true, all this is not so much odd but ,we could, after all, get involved in the nature and think that the ghost exists, a silent ghost hidden in the soil, a ghost that comes to life and rises again with the seeming of  the living creature that “ dares" to be born on it.

Margherita Campaniolo