Crop Circle Code: Messages in a Cosmic Bottle

'Eye of God', 8000 light years distant, Hourglass Nebula in constellation Musca

Mysteries have always intrigued us, the human species. It isn’t difficult to see that if someone ‘out there’ wants to send us a message, one of the quickest ways to get our attention is to say it in code.

Crop circles in the last few years have been full of it.

Compared with complex designs appearing in crop circles between 2001 and 2007, however, the summers of 2008 and 2009 have been spectacular in attracting an array of this now universally-known phenomenon. We discussed the rather esoteric code delivered in 2002 in a field of swirling wheat and barley next to the radio telescope of Chilbolton. This was clearly a reply to the Arecibo message sent to the stars. One year earlier to the day in the same field another message in binary code was accompanied by a ‘face’, as though making animate the urgency of the transmission. The 2001 message, decoded, read:

Beware the bearers of false gifts and broken promises; much pain but there is still time; believe there is good out there; we oppose deceit (the deceivers); conduit is closing.

It seems we weren’t listening.

In May and June this year the earth stood within a solar minimum; no sunspot activity at all. At that time one crop circle in particular at Waden Hill, Avebury, Wiltshire appeared to predict a sudden coronal mass ejection (CME) for July 7th to coincide with the first of three eclipses. Scepticism surged. Astronomers could not agree. Solar minima didn’t traditionally spurt out a CME in the middle of a solar calm.

But that’s exactly what happened.

All day July 6th and during the total lunar eclipse of July 7, 2009, a large CME blasted out from the sun’s prominences and headed for Earth.

There had been another message in a crop circle bottle, summarily dismissed along with the July 7th prediction as ‘unlikely’ by astronomers: this crop circle suggested an even larger solar flare for the second occultation, a total solar eclipse over Asia on July 22, 2009. Recorders went back to the ‘bottle’ to see what it contained.

On July 22nd during totality, a solar flare did not materialize, but something different, something much greater, did.

It is difficult to understand the size of the plasma ejection which poured into the jet stream on that day and for subsequent 72 hours.

Butterfly nebula M2-9 in constellation Scorpius

A massive energy outburst of this magnitude is usually associated with deep space; not our little sun. It is the kind of cosmic halo which surrounds the explosion of a supernova, a high energy source such as a black hole, the last expression of a dying star like the beautiful butterfly nebula, 4000-light-years distant, or the creation of a stellar collision like the hourglass nebula featured (top).

Yet such a plasma outburst occurred within the energy emission at approximately 12 hours Universal Time on July 22, 2009 and its effects were felt on Earth for the next two months.

The message in the bottle was fairly direct. It materialized. So why aren’t we paying much closer attention?

Sextant Crop Circle, Alton Barnes, solstice, June 2009

There have been other communications. Like the sextant as a guide to the stars which appeared on three successive nights in wheat at Alton Barnes, Wiltshire on June 23, 2009; and the swallow series. Swallows with even more convoluted Mayan code attached to their tails.

Swallow crop circles appeared at Milk Hill, Adam’s Grave, Wiltshire in August 2003 in wheat; a simple circular formation was created at Wexcombe Down, Wiltshire in May 2007; a double formation of swallows created in two overnight phases appeared in July 2008 in South Field, Alton Priors, Wiltshire. A year later in the same field, a gigantic Swallow crop circle appeared on June 27, 2009 with apparent Mayan-style codex symbols streaming in its wake.

Swallows come to save Earth: Hopi believe they are messengers from Great Spirit

Swallow in totemism signifies ‘light in the darkness’, objectivity and perspective; even on the most prosaic rustic level, the arrival of swallows in country barns and farm steadings heralds the onset of summer; implies protection and warmth in the home. When swallows depart, summer is gone too.

A bird in flight is the universal symbol of spirit and spiritual ascension. In New Age spiritual terms, humanity’s unified presence takes the form of a vast white bird: it flies in formation with a host of smaller birds as One. It has been called the Merkabah, the Birdstar, the Swallow. It is our vehicle for mass ascension.

There are those who would prognosticate doom and gloom as the message in the myriad crop formations over the last few years connected with the Great Cycle of the Maya, completing in 2012. That is material for several blogs in itself. Others point out that, while swallows arrived in Britain 10 days early this year, they left at equinox: an unprecedented five weeks early. Separation anxiety, war, famine, pestilence, plague.

Conversely, New Age teaching advocates the coming together of humanity as like-minds, like-bodies, like-spirits; suggesting the sooner we begin to feel our unification as a species, the sooner shall we ascend to the next level of evolution. The coming of swallows in crop circles seems to predict an event where we rise as One and grasp our power as individuals and as a Race. The Swallow, the Bird Star is not some fantasy starship or alien vessel come to call; the swallow is the symbol of our Unified Presence as the Mind of the Planet.

Judging by messages in 2008-2009 crop circles, coded or otherwise, their predictions are being fulfilled within a brief timespan of their imprint in the earth.

It would be a illuminating to believe that the message in the spiritual bottle brought by the swallows suggests that we, humanity, are standing on the threshold of a new dawn; that we are about to shed our earthbound worries, fears, doubts, differences and fledge as One over the New Earth.

Like the Buffalo, Heading into the Wind

Last of the harvest

Equinox is approaching; light shines for fewer hours; the Earth’s northern hemisphere cools. A hinge on the doorway of the seasons swings to a close.
Time reaches the halfway point between solstice and solstice; it pauses, giving all of us equal hours of day and night at once, at one. There is still hope. Then the door closes.

There is definitely a feeling of closure around right now. In turbulent times we resort to gathering in of faculties, pulling in the feelers after a tentative burst of faith and hope that the world would change overnight. Did we believe that by our being blasted with Cosmic Rays, messages from ET, a flurry of spiritual internet (and out-of-planet) communication, that we might find a quick fix, a rescue remedy to reach the Promised Land? After the pinnacles of 09/09/09, three eclipses, admonitions to prepare for a Life Change, a Planetary Shift, Shift of the Ages, there now seems a finality to each day, a touch of chill descends at night. The summer of 2009 gently pulls down its curtain and allows us to retreat from the elements, to enter our caves for the winter.

Many cultures of ancient tradition take this time to go inward spiritually. Eastern philosophies turn from waning light without and focus on the light within. Autumn lecture tours by gurus and autumnal spiritual retreats abound. Others in the West find solace in working to consolidate one’s own projects, to take stock and assimilate knowledge, insight, light gained over summer.
For a writer this should be a glorious time: more access to internet and computer hours to satisfy even a librarian.

This writer is a gardener though and the gardener in her demurs. Doesn’t want to let go of the light; the feeling of summer still warm on the skin is seductive, there is a longing for a reprise, a need made more poignant by the last rays of the sun, the gathering of swallows.

Not all of us, however, may like grasshoppers flee the wintertime. Change is often a call to the human urge to move on. We need to heed the call.

Fall was traditionally – and in some places still is – a time of migration. Food supplies dry up with shortening days, earth has given her all: the wise move on. Swallows, songbirds, geese are the last in Europe to leave, while their fellow residents still gather in the harvest: human farmers barley and wheat, animal residents nuts and berries. In the Pacific NW mammals of the old regime are urged by primeval instinct to move to winter grounds. Wolf, elk, bear, caribou, mountain lion and moose all have to find more food, shelter, winter quarters.

Farther south there used to be buffalo.

Heading into the Wind

Now with little territory of their own, bison (political correctness of terminolgy goes with manipulation of animals) have nowhere to move. They are herded like other domestic beasts, subject to humanity. We are now trying to do the same with wolves.

The Wolf, unlike the Buffalo, is fighting back. There is a current initiative to overturn Washington’s recent shortsighted alteration to the Endangered Species Act.

They say our only way forward as a Race is to follow our inner urge to move with the times. That we should trust our guidance by our Higher (inner, wiser) Self to bring us out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves and our planet into. The Earth is, after all, reaching out to show us how to do it.

At autumnal equinox, the beauty of light, growth in its final stature (before the fall) and abundance of fruit, prolific increase in bird and vegetable kingdoms, all give us hope to nurture us through the winter, to protect us from wilds of weather and wind. As well as gathering in the harvest, we are being asked to ‘gather into the fold’, to foster in ourselves a spirit of endurance.

Mountain lion, cougar or Kelly's Cat, wild cat is a survivor

In all older traditions there was one totem animal that embodied endurance. Russia had Bear; Norway, Sweden, Finland have Reindeer; Central Europe (used to) have the Wolf; North Africa and the Middle East the Camel; Central Africa the Cat; both Americas had the Eagle. But in addition to Native American’s respect for Eagle, his admiration went out to Buffalo.

When all of surrounding humankind is packing up tipi, provisions, families and goods to find winter hunting grounds, following migrant animals was a way of life. It more often than not included hardship and trek over difficult terrain to get there. Death, survival and jubilation on arrival were common in both man and animal. Native American wisdom says that animal teaches Man how to live.

When all else failed, the buffalo headed out from sunny summer plains and through what seems like insuperable odds, braved wind, hail and snow to reach better ground.

We are being asked to do the same. Human nature has the power of endurance, the intellect and spirit to survive and ensure survival. Along with our fellow earth residents, we have an obligation to care for both summer plains and winter feeding grounds. Without our care, they won’t be there next fall.

Buffalo hooves are not made for concrete

We as a species are being asked to hold firm to what we believe. That we should show gratitude for the gift we have been given of this unique planet. That heaven-on-earth is as we make it. Nature will help, but we have to want to cooperate, not bully her into it.

We as a species are being asked to become custodians again: to care for our home like responsible animals; not trash it like hyenas and wild dogs: This is no longer simply wise; it is a necessity. Like the animal kingdom, we are being asked to look after our territory for ourselves, for our children, our families, our piece of the planet, and in combination with others, the planet as a whole.

This project we are taking on will not be easy. But we have been genetically engineered to overcome our past and endure its consequences. The journey will have its pitfalls. We may not arrive as we started out. But we will get there. If we do it together.

In order to get there, though, to make sure we reach our goal, by immersing ourselves in transition from medieval to superstellar species we, like the Buffalo, may have to head into the Wind.

We are Stardust taking Destiny into our own hands

Sacred geometry, sacred comfort zone

The crop circle phenomenon is really rocking the boat; even though there have been no further crop circles imprinted on Wiltshire farms (or elsewhere) since August 29th this year, world interest is piqued and they’ve picked up the baton and won’t put it down. Even Google, when I opened my mailbox this morning, had ‘Google’ written in croppie image in the bookmarks bar. If Google knows about crop circles, I assure you the whole world knows.

What is less certain is why we have become obsessed with these beautiful creations.

A very small percentage of world population lives in rural Wiltshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire, but that is where the crop circles are: each summer another series more sophisticated and intriguing than the summer before.

Holland and Germany, Scotland and the NW Pacific states of the U.S. have had a smattering, but the bulk of appearances has occurred within the sacred precinct of ancient tombs and temples in the Cotswolds and Marlborough Downs. They are often accompanied by high frequency sound and more-than-average people-friendly feelings.

There are already an enormous number of electro-magnetic nodes in this rolling countryside. They attract fluctuations in compass readings, making dowsers mightily confused: cell-phones are turned off because their signals are useless; camera batteries recharge spontaneously. The magnetic nodes are what Neolithic farmers noticed in the land; it inspired them to build solar doorways made of stone: lunar alignments in megalithic grandeur stretch as far as the eye can see.

Now a more cosmic imprint appears in this anomalous zone. And it is affecting visitors who have described sensations of ‘deep peace’, a desire to be ‘at one with’ and share their experience with others in the circle, an ‘inner glow’.

Is it too far-fetched to call them messages from the stars?

Before he died in 1996, American astrophysicist and quantum astronomer Carl Sagan was convinced we as an evolving race were capable of using our intelligence and technology to reach the stars. He would have been the first to express jubilation at the fact that the stars may be reaching out to us in return.

‘We are stardust taking our destiny into our own hands’: his words.

One of his ‘babies’ was SETI, the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence; he spent years devising mathematical code which could be sent in pulses via (in his day) the world’s largest radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. He envisioned pulses returning from a distant intelligence, advanced enough to understand and use mathematical signatures as a common cosmic language. When Sagan died of bone-marrow cancer in 1996, computers were large, but the internet was in its infancy. He could only dream that a radio beam of binary pulses would elicit a response from a stellar region in the middle of the Milky Way; of how a mere 13 years later computer code would be the new means of communication. He might have guessed.

He called the essence of number the ‘Rosetta stone’, the common language of science and mathematics. He was prophetic when he described distant intelligence as ‘someone fond of mathematics’, using our own knowledge to beam back to us a message we too might understand.

Fractal Wave image near Avebury Wiltshire June 2008

Sacred geometry and music have much in common: harmony of sound is reflected in the harmony expressed in mathematical Fibonacci numbers – or a cascade of increasing dimensions seen as visually perfect, the Golden Mean. After 2007, a year of curvaceous designs leading the eye and enhancing the land, 2008 brought patterns that upped the ante: in June a Pythagorean Comma graced a Yatesbury field near the ancient sacred site of Avebury. This ‘standing wave fractal’ was described by University of York electronics expert James Lyons as a pictorial rendition of the harmonic scale on a piano. “The Universe is a glorious keyboard with strings between every atom of matter (holographic) and by implication all mankind!” In July a crop circle depicting swallows (the totem bird of perspective) had a second layer added on a successive night. There were other ‘multiple’ sequential patterns. August culminated in a magnificent sacred ‘rose window’ motif (top) and several indications of the number eight or viewed laterally, infinity. Visitors to August formations were seen to kneel in prayer, sound the ‘Om’ and share food, water and animated conversation with their fellows in the barley.

The 2009 season has been heavily laced with 2012 images from the calendar of the Maya: the single remaining earth civilization still to count mankind’s progression in ‘Ages’. We humans are nearing the end of the final Mayan ‘Great Cycle’, scheduled to complete on 12 December 2012 (12/12/12). Also a record number of cropcircles in 2009 produced images of Fibonacci sequences, DNA strands of our own double helix as well as an enhanced multi-strand variation (significant, below), and a plethora of holograms or three-dimensional material bridging the divide between sound, mathematics, philosophy and spirituality.

In all this splendour, a little croppie found in a Chilbolton field in Hampshire in 2001 may have been overlooked:

Binary sequence sent from Arecibo

The Arecibo message sent on November 16th 1974 by Carl Sagan and his SETI cohorts was by design formulated as a sequence of 1679 pulses of sound in binary code (zeros and ones). It was beamed at the M13 stellar cluster in the constellation of Hercules, 25,000 light years distant. Because SETI was attempting to communicate with high caliber intelligence by means of a cosmic language (feet, meters, inches would have no meaning) it used the combination of two prime numbers, 23 and 73, as the logical format: 23 columns of 73 rows (23×73=1679) figure at left. For clarity, the zeros and ones are shown as black and white.

The message was brief. It gave in simple terms the numbers 1 – 10; Atomic numbers 1,6,7,8,15 of the elements of Life, Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen and Phosphorus; a larger section describing the sugars and bases in the nucleotides of DNA with its double helix; a human figure (stick man) with a height of 5ft9ins expressed in ‘wavelength units’; earth’s then population of 4.29 billion (1974 value); a diagram of the solar system, nine planets and sun, with Earth placed above the others to indicate origin of the code; and a curved diagram of the radio telescope from which it was sent.

In 2001, 27 years after transmission, an answer came back. With a few differences. Binary code of zeros and ones highlighted in black and white, appears below, right. Differences are highlighted in red. On the left is the ‘answer’ which arrived on the night of August 21st, 2001 in Chilbolton, Hampshire in a field next to the Chilbolton radio telescope. (Arecibo has no barley fields; it’s on a mountain top). At Chilbolton, flattened crop are zeros, standing stalks are ones.

Chilbolton variations on an Arecibo theme

Numbers 1 – 10 return unaltered. In the second sequence, the atomic weight, 14, of silicon has been added in its correct position on the Periodic Table. [Silicon is the constituent of crystalline structure; this should excite light beings and crystal consciousness supporters everywhere]. There is a change in the number of nucleotides in DNA, which is coincidentally given an additional strand. Our stick man is replaced by a shorter being (3ft 4ins) with larger head. The ‘population’ figure in decoded binary sequence equates to 21.3 billion. In addition to Earth, the fourth and fifth planets are highlighted.

Chilbolton radio telescope and crop circle

Perhaps the population figure is intended to cover all three planets. Or it may represent a distant planetary system where the fourth and fifth are the ones with life. ET doesn’t say. The final sequence depicts not a radio telescope, but a crop formation occurring in the same field the year before. Their previous communication (2000) had fallen on deaf ears. ET was hoping this one didn’t.

While there was a flurry of interest shown in astrophysical circles at the time of the Chilbolton appearance, the general public was unaware of its significance. Criticism ensued from astronomers who knew that a radio transmission would take hundreds of years to reach a distant star system. The crop circle response was generally discredited.

It is interesting to note, however, that after Carl Sagan died, Arecibo sent a second transmission in 1999, this time aimed at the Vega, Deneb, Altair triangle and at the time there were several solar system planets and the moon in the transmission ‘window’. If the code happened to get fielded by ET in the Jupiter moon system, or one of Saturn’s orbiting bodies, the time lapse for a response is less fantastical, more worthy of consideration.

Any transmission from the stellar regions is worth our consideration, don’t you think? Our world may be about to change beyond all recognition. Our future may depend on it. Carl Sagan come out, come out, wherever you are.

Much of the research on the Chilbolton crop circle was carried out by Paul Vigay, a talented mathematician and electronics wizard, to whom this blog is dedicated. He died suddenly in 2008.