Travel Channel films camera failure in British crop circle.

In 1999, in an English crop formation (pictured at right) at Fyfield Down next to an ancient dolmen called the "Devil's Den," I had my first experience of multiple, unexplained battery and camera failures. Two camcorders, an electrostatic measuring device, and a GPS unit were strangely affected within a few minutes. They either had malfunctions or stopped working entirely.

This last July in England with Ron Russell tours (www.CropCircles.org), I was able to witness this same mysterious effect in different circles over three consecutive days. Ron had six participants on the tour this year and we all had an unusually high level of repeated camera and battery failure. Three lithium-ion batteries for digital cameras failed and would no longer recharge. My video camera experienced glitches on three successive days. In one case, the "system cleaning" warning activated even though the camera is almost new. This also happened in a new video camera in the 1999 Devil's Den formation. In another instance, one of the tour participants had the "time remaining" feature of his video camera go askew - the amount of remaining energy, shown in the graphic form of a small battery shape on the LCD screen, indicated no remaining battery life while the numerical indicator showed an impossibly high number of minutes remaining: there was a clear discrepancy between the graphical and numerical display. In another instance, a film camera rewound on its own without the rewind button being pushed: an effect I observed in 1998 next to East Field and again the following day at West Woods Lockeridge.

The Travel Channel had a crew in England to do a short piece on crop circles, among other stories, and happened to be in a circle with us near Silbury Hill when some of our cameras malfunctioned. Their cameras, as far as we know, did not appear to be affected. You may eventually get to see some of this footage on TV. Below are some of the locations, all near Avebury, where our equipment was affected.

Pictures ©2005 by Mitch Thompson

We have long been puzzled by these electrical anomalies and remain focused on investigating this aspect of the mystery. What is it about the crop circles that affects electronic devices and why? After many years of research, we suspect that the crystalline properties of crop formations, their shape and structure, create photonic effects from sunlight. The light comes in at one frequency, and is shifted to another by virtue of the even, regular lattice-work structure of the crop inside and outside the formation. The laid crop acts in contrast to the standing stalks. This even, organized pattern creates a "field circuit." In our theory, the large-scale structure of this crop pattern interacting with light creates a new type of energy. In effect, the crop formation is "harvesting light."
Another possibility is that the formation acts like a "Superlens" magnifying the amplitude of evanescent waves of sunlight before they disperse. Superlens phenomena are now the subject of considerable investigation for their ability to magnify nano-scale matter to a degree never before attained.

These are only some possible explanations. There may be other effects going on simultaneously in addition to those mentioned above. These include magnetic and quantum-scale phenomena. In any event, crop circles continue to be a genuine mystery with the promise of real scientific discovery down the road.
For more 2005 crop circle pictures see www.PeterSorensen.com

Simeon Hein, Ph.D.
Institute for Resonance
Boulder, CO