Tuesday 7 January 2014

Crop Circle in California

It's the middle of winter so you may be wondering why I'm writing about crop circles now; that's usually a strictly seasonal activity for me. This is because an amazing crop circle has appeared in a field, but this time in California, USA; see: http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2013/chualar/chualar2013a.html. The matrix is mature barley and the formation was first reported on the 30th of December in Chualar, Monterrey County. It's attracted visitors from miles around, causing some concern for the farmer who has employed a chartered security firm to prevent onlookers from entering the field. Of course this is not the first time a crop circle has appeared in that part of the world. The phenomenon is centred on southern England, but is today a truly a global one. However this particular formation is unusual for its intricacy, it shows a developed sophistication usually confined to the English ones. Its theme combines nested squares and oblongs framed by a large ring broken by smaller circles. There's a hint of relief or perspective in the relationship between the outer ring and the circles placed on it. To my eyes it resembles a microprocessor; and appropriately Silicon Valley is not far away from the location. The most interesting part is the centre oblong because its textured interior spells out a message in Braille, the tactile script by which blind people can read. The text reads: "192, 192, B, 192, 1, 192. 192". I don't know what this means, however if you imagine the outer ring to be a clock face then the circles are placed where the numbers 1, 9 and 2 would be.

A video was released anonymously on YouTube which shows two men driving along the road by the field in the early hours of the morning when the camera captures a series of bright green flashes of light in the field where the crop circle appears. The driver stops the car and the men enter the field to see the newly formed crop circle, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eoz0QUYU45o. However since then another video has been released by the Nvidia Corporation claiming that the Chualar crop circle was actually made by them as a viral marketing ploy to announce their new Tegra K1 mobile chip. The video includes interviews with the man-made circle makers "Rob" and "John" who were employed by Nvidia to create the circle, with the farmer's cooperation, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LJCTnNmT48. This could mean that the mystery has now been solved. However, it's possible that the crop circle is genuine and that somebody decided that a cover-up was in order. They then persuaded Nvidia to come on board, hastily produce the above video and pretend it was their idea from the start. In the world of disinformation this trick is known as "backfilling". The Chualar crop circle was sadly obliterated by the farmer the following day; this is an all too common occurrence nowadays, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/are-crop-circles-being-erased.html. Most farmers in England seem to have reluctantly come to terms with the crop circle phenomenon, but not so in other places. Then again, if this formation was indeed commissioned by Nvidia then the destruction of it, after just twenty-four hours, might have been part of the deal. 

4 comments:

Trystan said...

Rob and Jon are part of the Circlemakers.org team who have been responsible for the bulk of commissioned crop circles for quite a long time now. And with good reason. As soon as I saw the rather wooden video heralding this circle's arrival I guessed it was a commissioned work.

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Hi Trystan, I thought I recognized Jon. I used to be a member of Jon Ronson's old forum. If he was behind that formation then it's a lovely piece of work.

Dave Hodrien said...

It's an advertisement specially created for the new Nvidia Tegra K1 mobile phone processor http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/Android/Nvidia+news/news.asp?c=56405

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Hi Dave. Yes, that's by far the most likely explanation.