Crop Circles Are Earth Burps

A new crop circle appeared overnight in Wiltshire England. This one has concentric shapes that represent the famous equation of pi. For those who don’t remember your math, pi is the precise ratio of the lemon filling to the meringue.

Many people attribute crop circles, variously, to extra-terrestrials, beings from other dimensions, mother earth, and other entities trying to send us messages of some urgency. These messages could be about the survival of mankind, or changes in planetary consciousness, or the Quidditch scores at Hogwarts.

I never gave a thought to crop circles before I caught a lecture by an “expert.” Admittedly, it was fascinating, and to his credit, the expert didn’t offer any definitive explanations, preferring to leave that to M. Night Shyamalan.

But now, thanks to an expensive college education and Occams Razor (the principle that all things being equal, the simplest explanation is always the dog ate my homework), I have deduced the explanation: Crop Circles are Earth Burps. Or, if you live in Philadelphia: Earth Farts.

Seriously! Read on..

For the uninitiated (like myself), crop circles appear quite suddenly in amazing geometric patterns. Sort of like marching bands at halftime. They have measurable magnetic energy changes in their immediate areas. (If they were in Iraq, this would be indisputable evidence of WMDs.) They leave traces of intense heat that bends the crops in a certain bizarre way but does not destroy them. Exactly like when I try to microwave a Stouffer’s spinach souffle.

They also tend to appear in the same general locations over time. Often these become “sacred sites” where people throughout history have built stone circles, cathedrals, and later, shopping malls. These sites, our expert mentioned, happen to be places in the British Isles and the Canadian plains where the bedrock is usually softer limestone. Also where the natives drink a lot of beer.

Having majored in geology (I was confused, I wanted to be a rock star), this made my ears prick up. Especially because at the same conference we had just seen demonstrations of how sound waves leave distinctive geometric patterns in sand. Which explains why after a Metallica concert your brain makes the world looks like a Picasso painting for three days.

So here’s my brilliant reasoning. We know very little about the inner earth, but we do know that it has a solid inner core of metal, surrounded by a molten outer core, covered by a crusty mantle. Not unlike Dick Cheney. And this stuff is very hot. (If you don’t believe me, stick your finger in a volcano.) We know that liquid in motion produces waves. We know that waves have specific geometric signatures. So this hot, molten outer core is constantly producing intense, heated, vibrational outbursts with unpredictable results. Not unlike Dick Cheney.

What I figure is that every once in awhile when the conditions are right, one of these intensely hot wave vibrations makes it all the way to the surface through some of the softer rock, and erupts through Wallace and Gromit’s plowed field, leaving behind a puzzling, often indecipherable geometric pattern. Like tattoos on an NBA player.

Thus, crop circles are Earth Burps! Or if you live in Kansas City and eat a lot of barbeque, Earth Acid Reflux.

Either that, or the ETs have been watching too many Marx Brothers movies.

© 2008 Greg Tamblyn