Crop circles
I just love the way that the media almost always covers any “paranormal” event:
- Interview some people that believe in it.
- Interview some skeptics. (This step is optional.)
- Declare that no one knows the truth.
Case in point, this article on ABCNews.com about crop circles, which features this little gem:
From crop circle designers and top-level researchers to the baffled farmers who usually find them, nobody really knows the origin of crop circles.
Really? Because I believe there are plenty of people that do. For more information, see this entry from James Randi’s An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural.
The article continues:
Remember, as the Gallup Polls tell, three-fourths of people in this country believe in paranormal activity.
Just in case that affects whom you choose to believe.
It does not. But thank you for sharing that statistic. It’s bogus by the way because the percentage of people that believe in the paranormal is much higher than that, so the people being polled must not have considered some of their beliefs to be paranormal. Like for example… um… God anyone? One out of every four Americans is not an atheist. Even if you exclude religion (despite the fact that it meets the definition of paranormal), I still bet if you had questioned everyone in more detail about their beliefs, you would have gotten a higher figure. I was going to use some examples but I probably ticked off enough people already so I’ll move on.
The point is, crop circles are a hoax. They always have been a hoax. There have been patterns that were supposedly “proven” to not be man-made that… guess what… were later proven to be man-made. By the people that made them. These are no different. Even if you don’t know how they were made, it’s stupid to conclude that men couldn’t have done it. But of course a reporter can’t just come out and say that. They have to shut off their brain and just conclude that it must be unknowable because people have different opinions on it.