Most critical observers, and the scientific mainstream, are convinced that crop circles are sniggles or hoaxes engineered by humans. This explanation, supported by the documentation produced by some crop-circle hoaxers, has the advantage of not requiring us first to assume the existence of flying saucers or other as-yet-unobserved phenomena. However, there are many contending hypotheses which assume that at least some crop circles are not the products of mundane hoaxers; these hypotheses vary in their degree of scientific rigor, but all fall to some extent outside the mainstream.
One modern unscientific belief, is that crop circles are created by flying saucers landing in fields and flattening a neat circle in the crop. However, the increasing complexity of formations from the 1980s on, and the implausibility of the idea that extraterrestrial beings would travel to Earth for the sole apparent reason of flattening crops, make this conjecture seem unlikely.
Some pseudoscientifically inclined enthusiasts suggest that an explanation more plausible than flying saucers might be cymatics, the visualisation of vibration or sound. According to this hypothesis, the complex patterns are two-dimensional geometric or visual representations of sound frequencies, with higher sound frequencies producing more complex shapes similar to both mandalas and crop circle designs.
Another pseudoscientific hypothesis is that a man-made satellite in Earth orbit is using some kind of beam (e.g., microwaves) to create the designs. Heating stems of wheat with a short intense burst of microwave energy can produce wilting similar to that in a crop circle. Flattened stems often have the bend just below a stem-node, and also may feature blackened burn holes indicative of intense heating. Microwave heating has been shown to be capable of producing these effects. It is postulated by believers of this theory that the U.S. Pentagon's "Star Wars" programme has a satellite capable of delivering such a microwave beam.
Often touted as evidence for the mystic origin of crop circles is the coincidence that many circles in the Avebury area of southern England occur near ancient sites such as earth barrows or mounds, white horses carved in the chalk hills, and stone circles. Other ideas on their formation have been proposed include tornadoes, freak wind patterns, ball lightning, and something called "plasma vortices".
A number of witnesses claim to have observed circles being created, saying that it takes a few seconds and the corn falls flat like a fan being opened – though these accounts are always anecdotal and have never been supported by any evidence beyond the claimants' assertions. Crop circle enthusiasts, though they do not always have scientific backgrounds or credentials, claim that there are other features of crop circles that undercut the hoax theory. They say that bends in the corn in many circles occur just below a joint, while the flattening of the corn by hoaxers produces a crack at any point in the stem, and some scientific studies on apical nodes bear them out. Also they say that flattened corn often lies in groomed layers, rather than random crushings. While there have been cases in which believers declared crop circles to be 'the real thing', only to be confronted soon after with the people who created the circle and documented the fraud, the bending issue remains in dispute. For this reason, skeptics prefer the explanation that there are simply different hoaxers employing different techniques.
In 1991, more than a decade after the phenomena began, two men announced that many crop circles were a hoax of their doing. Doug Bower and Dave Chorley revealed that they had been making crop circles since 1978 using planks, rope, hats and wire as their only tools. Bower and Chorley stated to reporters that a small group of people can stomp down a sizeable area of crop in a single night. "Stomp" does not mean using the feet: simple tools to make crop circles have been demonstrated. [2].
Circlemakers.org, the most famous group of crop circle makers founded by John Lundberg have demonstrated that making what self-appointed cerealogist experts state are "unfakeable" crop circles is possible. One such cerealogist, G. Terence Meaden, was filmed claiming that a crop circle was genuine when the night before the making of that crop circle by humans was filmed. On the night of July 11-12, 1992, a crop-circle making competition, for a prize of several thousand pounds (partly funded by the Arthur Koestler Foundation), was held in Berkshire. The winning entry was produced by three helicopter engineers, using rope, PVC pipe, a trestle and a ladder. Another competitor used a small garden roller, a plank and some rope. The size and complexity of the designs produced demonstrated the minimal equipment and preparation required to produce a crop design, lending even more credence to the hypothesis that this phenomenon is purely and solely the result of humans playing pranks.
Scientific American published an article by Matt Ridley (August 2002, p. 25), who started making crop circles in Texas in 1991. He wrote about how easy it is to develop techniques using simple tools that can easily fool (later) observers. He reported on "expert" sources such as the Wall Street Journal who had been easily fooled, and mused about why people want to believe supernatural explanations for phenomena that are not yet explained.
Methods to create a hoaxed crop circle have been well-documented on the Internet.
A counter argument to hoaxing is that where circles appear in crops mature enough that they carry seeds (as they do so often) seed-pods are unbroken, whereas trampling causes seed-pod breakage. Crop circle hoaxers counter that it is easy to leave dry seed pods unbroken during stomping and also leave no trace of entrance and egress trampling when the plants and ground are both dry and some care is taken while walking. Several crop circles that were later to have been determined to be hoaxes were at first certified as being genuine by cerealogists due to the lack of seed pod breakage. Entry to a field without leaving traces is also easy, since there always are several tracks made by the machines used to spray insecticides on the crop that people can use.
Some claim that the circles might still have merit as a social phenomenon regardless of their legitimacy. New Age experts have expressed interest in researching the shapes and symbols depicted.
Circlemaker Matthew Williams was the first circlemaker ever to be arrested and charged with criminal damage to farmland in 2000. Since then, Matthew has gone on to give many public demonstrations on how circles are made in complete darkness with simple tools such as a tape measure and board.
It should also be noted that some crop-circle photographs are actually hoaxes created using image manipulation.
Circles researchers who have tried to test how to make circle formations (not always circular) have found that it takes hours and hours of bumbling about in the dark, always fearing they might get shot at by an angry farmer, since permission is required to be on private land. They then find in the morning light, that many errors are made that cannot be undone, since wheat will not stand back up once tramped down. Genuine formations are made in seconds, according to witnesses, and not in hours or days. Furthermore, hoaxers who have been challenged to make formations in broad daylight, with permission, invariably make errors in orientation, direction, size and style. In some very dishonest TV documentaries, producers pay hoaxers to make formations, and then shoot the final shot of what was done in such a way as to obscure the errors, and then cut away to the hoaxers, standing out in false triumph.(The formation made for National Geographic took five hours to make, and was made in full daylight, with no farmer's dogs barking and no shots fired from farmer's shotguns. It therefore proves nothing. Source for details: http://www.circlemakers.org/natgeo.html No hoaxers have ever been able to demonstrate satisfactorially any expertise in doing this under conditions of total darkness, in a time under 30 minutes, in a complex manner, and with __no__ permission from the farmer to ruin some 200 pounds sterling of his crop. However, on the other hand, two farmers in Holland have seen a UFO sending down light beams to lay down crop in a brief time, on each of two farms. In one case, it was researcher Nancy Talbot from BLT research who was present for this awesome event. Approx. 1996. The other event occurred in 1999. References - http://www.cropcircle connector.com, and http://www.bltresearch.com
Carl Sagan, in his book The Demon-Haunted World, noted after the exposure of Bower and Chorley's ongoing prank that "you might think that never again would it be argued that a sustained hoax over many years is impossible, and never again would we hear that no one could possibly be motivated to deceive the gullible into thinking that aliens exist."
(It is totally unscientific to accept a mere talk story from two old men, and it is suprising that a scientist of the rank of Sagan would buy into this without proof. Skeptics need to be skeptical of other skeptics.) The Cerealogist, May 1998.
Farmers tend as a rule to be unhappy with crop circles, as they prevent the harvest of grain that has been flattened. Occasionally, perpetrators have damaged fences or other parts of farms on which they have trespassed. However people who visit the circles claim enchantment, healing, and a variety of phenomena, so whether these events are wonderful or terrible depends on particular points of view and how much one believes the farmer in question did not desire the attention.
Crop circle "believers" purport that there remain stubbornly odd phenomena around the circles. Some being that some circles have occurred in waist-high thistle fields that would have discouraged the most ardent hoaxer, and that there exist rigorous detailed scientific studies (see link below) examining apical node elongations and X-ray crystal diffractions in circle soil versus unaffected soil which indicate statistically unlikely non-thermal high-energy effects. However, skeptics counter that the studies are done by private organizations who have a heavy bias and who are unrespected in the academic scientific community.
Some suggest that there are both "natural" and hoaxed circles. They claim that "natural" circles tend to be simpler, and have unusual electromagnetic properties, while hoax circles are more complex and show definite signs of manhandling. On the other hand, simple circles are easy for humans to reproduce, while some of the more compex circles have not yet been duplicated by humans under observation.
However, there is absolutely no valid evidence for hoaxed formations in any number over 5% per year. Claims are not evidence.The remainder are neither proven nor unproven. The Circular, June 2000.
The best logic for declaring formations (not always circular) as being real and not hoaxed is severalfold: 1) the burden of proof is on hoaxers to prove via neutral witnesses, that it is they who have made the majority of formations, unpaid, under unpleasant conditions, as much as 200 a season. 2) What is ignored in most articles on this topic is the sheer size and complexity involved. Sine waves, parabolas, higher math formations involving fractal geometry, lengths of 1/3 mile and 1/2 mile, huge numbers, over 200,of smaller circles linked together, such that given three days, and unlimited __permission__, in full daylight, they could not be done. Criticism of these formations and this topic by non-participants is extremely lacking in basic logic. (The Cerealogist, Nov. 1995.)