Post by uforn on Jun 19, 2011 0:38:42 GMT 1
Going against the grain
by Billy Cox
Ever since Doug Bower and Dave Chorley took credit for staging the UK’s crop circle hoaxes 20 years ago, www.museumofhoaxes.com/dougdave.html the media pretty much went away and left it for roadkill. But the science continued. At least for awhile. And no one is more frustrated by the impasse than Nancy Talbot of Cambridge, Mass.
Talbot is the director of the BLT Research Team, or rather, what’s left of it. Beginning in the Nineties, scientists led by biophysicist W.C. Levengood attempted to look beyond the sprawling geometric patterns and into what was happening to the targeted flora themselves. BLT got decent financing, most notably from philanthropist Laurance Rockefeller, whose interest in UFOs was no secret. www.paradigmresearchgroup.org/Rockefeller%20Documents/Rockefeller_Initiative_Documents.htm#OSTP
The expulsion cavities of blown wheat nodes sometimes suggest the application of heat at a magnitude to make a plant's internal moisture literally erupt/CREDIT: hercolano2.blogspot.com
The result: Three articles in peer-reviewed journals,http://www.bltresearch.com/xrd.php two in Physiologia Plantarum and another in the Journal of Scientific Exploration. All identified dramatic heat-related physiological alterations in grain samples gathered from Europe and North America that couldn’t be explained by pranksters pressing simple wooden boards into the fields.
In many cases, plants were exposed to temperatures so intense, super-heated internal moisture blew seams through the stalk-joint nodes. Effects varied according to the type of plant, its age, distance from the center of the circle, etc. But Dr. Robert Reynolds, the former president of the Clay Minerals Society and Dartmouth College professor emeritus of geology and mineralogy, was utterly stumped by the transformation of crystalline structures in the surface soil beneath the stricken crops. The changes he observed would’ve required temps of between 1,500 and 1,800 degrees F, sustained over a period of hours. But that type of heat should’ve incinerated the plants.
Germination rates varied as well. But the most fascinating observations on BLT’s Web site involve this specific category:
www.bltresearch.com/plantab.php
“… When crop circles occur in mature plants with fully formed seeds, these seeds often exhibit a statistically significant, massive increase in growth rate and vigor, with growth-rate up to five times the rate of the control seeds. Further, these seedlings can tolerate extreme stress (lack of water and/or light) for considerable periods of time without apparent harm.”
You might want to re-read that.
At one point, Reynolds was shepherding this material toward a juried forum. But he died in 2004. So did Rockefeller. Levengood is in his mid 80s and slowing down. Money is tight. So let’s roll ahead to 2011.
Too little bread, too many hands -- the future becomes the present/CREDIT: uniteandstate.com
Among the many factors driving the so-called Arab Spring are skyrocketing food prices, now fueling what the Washington Post recently described as the “world’s worst food crisis since the 1970s.” So far, we’ve been insulated from food riots erupting from Africa to Asia, but with resources shrinking and consumer demand on the rise from emerging middle classes in China and India, you don’t need to be a genius to figure out we’re running out of room.
Are we really supposed to ignore, without formal analysis, data that hints at a way to increase food supply? Kinda makes you wonder about the tens of millions Paul Allen has donated to the radio search for extraterrestrials, which has no data at all. But China’s got mouths to feed, and it’s floating more than a trillion dollars in U.S. debt. You’d think the rainmakers in Beijing could afford to throw it a bone. They’re pragmatists.
There’s a lot more to this story, but Talbot knows better than to mention the U-word around strangers, so she attempts to make connections to plasma discharges and microwaves of unknown etiology. But she’s not delusional about the future of crop circles in the mass mind.
“Oh, people make calendars and take pictures and do tours and talk about spiritual stuff. And that may be true,” she says. “But that’s about as far as anybody will take it. The media idiotically says crop circles have to be made by aliens or hoaxers. But nobody’s looking at what’s going on inside the plants, the genetic changes, the nutritional value, all that. It’s depressing.”
Source:
devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/11953/going-against-the-grain/?pa=1&tc=pg