Sayonara

I'm still working on it - trying to correlate discontinuities between sites, and figure in some abberations (such as why some countries have had no circles appear). But here is the basic hypothesis: Consider an alien race that has the capacity to travel between star systems, and the will to meet other advanced races and study those which are too primitive to understand the concept of off-world life. If this race came across a planet suporting a civilisation which was clearly sentient, and making its first inroads into space exploration, how would contact be established? The immediate assumption is that any race sophisticated enough to travel between stars would be capable of interpreting our TV and radio signals, or building some sort of 'universal translator'. I am somewhat wary of this assumption, since the explorers would have no frame of reference with which to derive any meaning from such sources - particularly in our case as our planet uses hundreds of languages. This barrier to effective communication, along with our comparitively tribal global community, introduces a definite threat to any race that attempts to make physical first contact before establishing any form of mutually acceptable communication. So the safest and most practical way for an exploratory race to establish communications with a younger - and possibly dangerous - species, is to use faceless messages based around a concept that will be universally understood. There are three possibilities here: [*]Maths[*]DNA [*]Star systems [/list=1]There are good arguments for using both maths and DNA as a primary means of communication. However, in order to be clearly understood it is not only necessary that a first line of communication be encoded in a language that both parties potentially can understand. The initial message must also be both the language and the meaning. This brings us to (3): Star Systems. It is my belief that the crop circles, if indeed they are made by extraterrestrial intelligence, are not 'galactic graffiti' as some theorists have propounded. They are useless when considered individually, and need to be interpreted as a whole using our knowledge of the space around us as observed since the phenomenon began. In short, they are a star map. The date and time at which individual signs appear tells us which star system or anomaly is being marked out, probably based on a direct extension of the Earth's radius through the circle and out into space. Obviously this means a lot of work is needed to figure out which star is being 'highlighted'. It seems to me that the best way to create a map of places of interest that are moving within a three dimensional volume, is to put it on the outside of a sphere, with the centre of the sphere being the only fixed point of reference throughout time. Also, the complexity of different signs may give us some idea as to whether or not the star system is inhabited, whether special conditions exist, etc. Of course, this is all conjectural as we have no idea what actually causes the circles, but if they actually were a "Milky Way: Places to Go and Things to See" guide then that would just be the coolest. What do you think of my little hypothesis then?

No no no. Not 'rule 4', the fourth paragraph in the post as a whole I wouldn't call any of your post 'dogma', Zark. But it does all hinge on the validity of the Nineveh Constant and a bit of mathematical sleight of hand. Still, it is an interesting concept. And there a plenty of atsrological oddities that support the idea of the cosmos moving as one, if you will.

Yes I saw it.

Although it pains me to say this certain elements of that snippet are contiguous with my hypothesis. Although not in such an airy-fairy way

Careful. Remember paragraph IV.

So I understand. So..... "yes" then?

So did matter.

For some reason.

Yes, those two articles were very interesting. I look forward to hearing more about what lies beyond the stone hatch. Not to mention the alien encampment thingy.

I would suggest that the only way in which a culture directs science is by imposing short-term requirements, such as enhanced purity of drinking water or ideological defence (IE - war). Over long periods of time the relationship between a civilisation's technology and cultural environment is tenuous at worst, and subtle at best. Survivable civilisations, that is...

I was under the impression it was energy, not matter.

I would have thought it's perfectly obvious what the 'circles' represent. I'm astonished no one else here has twigged yet. Give me a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.

I disagree.

A new object has been located in near-Earth orbit, and it's possibly Earth's 3rd known natural satellite (yes we have two - Luna and Cruithne). More info here. (ta faf)

The problem with viewing these patterns from above is that you forget to look behind you *hint hint*. And I do think that the date of each circle's appearance is entirely significant to the meaning of the symbol.

Please try and keep up everyone

IE: Let's get back to the thread...

Oh I seeeeeeee. You mean he actually said that somewhere?

No. but it does read a bit like that, doesn't it? Sorry. I am at work and trying to make covert posts so maybe that explains why it was a bit to the point. That thing about the quote in your sig... that particular "quote" is one of my pet hates, because I see it everywhere. Usually used by people who think they're being cool, deep, and original, whereas actually they are just c*nts. It really gets to me for some reason. Anyway, I'm sure you aren't a c*nt. fafalone... ummmmm... who are you arguing with?

If I see that quote in your sig used on one more profile, signature or custom tag I think I might explode... ...anyway, back on topic. I'm asking you to suspend your disbelief and use your imagination. If you don't want to come up with a hypothetical reason for alien construction of crop circles, don't post.

So let's assume that crop cricles are produced by extra-terrestrial intelligence - what do they mean?

I have an idea as to why these exist, but I'd like to hear some other ideas first to see what sort of different attitudes people have towards the phenomenon. How are crop circles made? Do they have any meaning? Discuss.

What?____ Dragoon, your logic is flawed. Black Holes do not expend energy on pulling matter into themselves - their immense gravity well is responsible for trapping matter and some energy. Consider the core of a black hole. It is the entire mass of a star collapsed into a volume smaller than an atom. For all measurable purposes every bit of empty space in the star has been removed (the vast majority of this of course coming from within the atoms themselves), so no single subatomic entity would have anywhere to move to. Like fafalone said - the denser the structure, the less potential there is for molecular movement (and therefore heat). Additionally each subatomic entity must be immediately adjacent to perhaps thousands of others which will presumably exert a powerful net influence. I imagine it's some sort of compact lattice arrangement, unless the collapse due to gravitational pull is strong enough to force together opposing subatomic entities. If the latter case is correct then I think there's a good chance that energy would be released, although I'm not sure what sort of storage||transport mechanisms would take place under such conditions.