英国威尔特郡自古以来就是“麦田怪圈”的高发地,每年从4月至9月,频繁出现的神秘怪圈能为当地带来数百万英镑的旅游收入。2009年6月2日,一个长约183米的巨型水母状怪圈在英国牛津郡的一处麦田里被发现。数量曾一度呈减少趋势的“麦田怪圈”再次变得引人注目起来。
现在,全世界每年大约会出现250个“麦田怪圈”,其图案也已不再局限于严格意义上的圆圈。蜜蜂、长方形等复杂图案都曾出现过,甚至还有三维立体图形。不过,令人遗憾的是,对于“麦田怪圈”的成因,科学界至今仍存在争议。
Adrian Potts, 2)landlord of the Barge Inn in 3)Wiltshire, was pretty cheerful recently. The pub is the center of the British crop circle industry and each year, starting in early May and 4)running for about four months, circle fans (and circle-makers) turn up from round the world. The backroom of the pub has circles on the ceiling, news of the latest formations is posted, and the chat 5)revolves around the images that have been appearing for more than 20 years in the fields of southern England.
The 2009 season began in April with an unprecedented six formations. The first was a series of simple circles in a field of 6)rape; then came a 350ft yin-yang symbol in a 7)barley field near 8)Devizes. Three ambitious formations were reported over the last 9)bank holiday and on June 2nd a giant 600ft 10)jellyfish was found in a barley field in 11)Oxfordshire.
As of yesterday(June 4th), there have been more than 20 major formations spotted. Potts, who could claim to be something of an expert on the subject, has a 12)hunch that this will be a good summer for circles: “The crops are not true enough yet. Weather permitting, I’d say the best ones will start now. In the next two weeks there should be a burst of activity.”
Francine Blake, who founded the Wiltshire crop circle study group in 1995, shares Potts’s optimism. She and other 13)self-appointed investigators identify, measure, photograph, and report on all formations. They go circle-spotting at night in 14)likely places, send crop 15)stalks for chemical analysis in university laboratories (yes, really), and have more than 6,000 crop circles on their database.
She was excited by the jellyfish: “It’s fantastic. When we look at it, it’s got seven small circles, or moon shapes. It’s describing the 16)magnetic field of Earth,” she says. She too is optimistic about the summer ahead: “This year started much earlier. There’s one every day now. It is very intense already. I have never seen such complex designs in rape in all my years of studying this subject. Usually, the season starts with a nice little pattern, a tri-petal flower or such like, one or maybe two in rape if we are lucky. But this year they are big, complex and numerous right from the start.”
“What does this mean?” Blake asks on her blog. “It means that we have to take note that something extraordinary is happening. Crop circles are not normal occurrences; they do not fit in too well with our usual beliefs. This of course is not 17)to everyone’s liking—it is not easy to face the unknown.”
From this you may gather that Blake 18)eschews more 19)prosaic explanations for the circles. In fact the professional circle world divides neatly. One 20)hemisphere is occupied by21)questors, 22)spiritualists and 23)paranormalists, such as Blake; the other by makers, tricksters and artists.
The first group can tell from 24)post-holes, foot tracks, and other clear signs that the majority are made by humans. But they argue that many crop circles—perhaps 20%—defy rational explanation. Their research suggests that “true circles” are created in a very few minutes by a blast of energy. According to some, the crop cells become swollen and are bent down at the 25)nodes. Others say the26)cellular structure of the plants is affected and that the composition of the soil is altered. A few circles, they say, display a27)phenomenal level of complexity and would be difficult to draw on paper, let alone in a field after dark. When they cannot explain what they see, they turn to UFOs, aliens, symbols, 28)alchemy, ancient wisdom, sacred geometry, whirlwinds, and other unknown “29)entities” to explain what they say are messages from 30)extraterrestrials or signs and 31)portents of the times.
The second group is made up of artists and 32)pranksters. What began in the late 1970s with two Wiltshire watercolor artists, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley, going into the fields for a 33)laugh to create simple circles to tease those who believe in UFOs, was 34)picked up by London-based artists and sculptors in the mid-1990s.One group, now calling themselves the Circlemakers, includes 35)situationist artists Rod Dickinson, the sculptor Gavin Turk, Rob Irving and others. They say on their website that they 36)latched on to the circle believers, created images from reading the same books that the believers read, and that they now team up with other teams of circle-makers to create ambitious formations. Together they say they have made crop circles an essential part of our popular culture, part of the myth of the English countryside.
For a long time the Circlemakers kept their identities secret but they now openly claim to have made many hundreds of circles. However, they play the game that there is some 37)inexplicable force out there by not claiming to have made them all, and never revealing which particular ones they created.
最近,英格兰威尔特郡“驳船”酒馆的老板艾德里安·波茨特别高兴。这家酒吧是英国“麦田怪圈”界的聚集中心。每年,从5月初开始,在持续约四个月的时间里,来自世界各地的“麦田怪圈”迷们(以及怪圈制造者们)会聚集于此。酒馆内后屋的天花板上有怪圈图案,墙上贴着关于最新发现的怪圈的消息,人们谈论着20多年前便已开始在英格兰南部麦田里出现的怪圈图案。
2009年“麦田怪圈季”从4月开始,且前所未有地出现了6个怪圈。第一个怪圈是在一片油菜田里,由一系列简单的圆圈组成;接着是在迪威齐斯镇附近的大麦田里出现了一个长达350英尺(约107米)的阴阳标志怪圈。然后是在上个银行公休假日发现的3个制作过程艰巨的怪圈。而6月2日,一个长达600英尺(约183米)的巨型水母状怪圈在牛津郡一处大麦田里被发现。
截至昨日(6月4日),英格兰已经出现了20多个巨大的怪圈。堪称怪圈专家的波茨称,他有一种预感,今年夏天将会出现大量怪圈。“那些麦田还没真正长到时候。如果天气良好,我敢说今年的最佳怪圈即将出现。接下来的两个星期里,怪圈数量应该会猛增。”
弗朗辛·布莱克,1995年创立了威尔特郡“麦田怪圈”现象研究小组。她和波茨一样乐观。她与其他自封的研究人员们对所有的怪圈都进行了鉴定、测量、拍照和记录。夜间,他们专门前往怪圈可能出现的地方,采集麦秆并将其送往各大学的实验室进行化学分析(是的,真的)。他们的数据库里已经有6000多个怪圈的记录。
对于那个水母状的怪圈,布莱克兴奋不已。“这太神奇了!当我们查看它时,可以发现七个小圆圈,或者说是圆月图案。它所展现的正是地球的磁场。”她说。对于接下来的夏季会出现大量怪圈这一预测,她也十分乐观。“今年的怪圈出现得要早一些。现在,每天都会有一个怪圈出现。这已经很高频率了。在我研究‘麦田怪圈’的这么多年里,我从来没见过油菜地里有如此复杂的图案。通常,怪圈季是以一个漂亮的小图案开场,比如三瓣花之类的。运气好的话,油菜田里会出现一两个怪圈。但今年刚一开始,就出现了这么多又大又复杂的怪圈!”
“这意味着什么呢?”布莱克在她的博客里写道,“这意味着我们必须注意到一些特别的事情正在发生。‘麦田怪圈’的出现并不寻常,它的出现给我们通常的观念带来了冲击。当然,并不是所有人都喜欢这样——面对未知事物绝非易事。”
从这些话里你或许能发现,布莱克不愿从乏味的凡俗角度来解释这些怪圈。实际上,“麦田怪圈”界可截然分为两派:一类是探秘者、唯心论者和灵异现象研究者,例如布莱克;另一类则是怪圈制造者、恶作剧玩家和艺术家们。
第一类人凭着田里的坑洞、脚印足迹和其他明显痕迹就能判断大部分怪圈都是人为的。但是他们认为,许多“麦田怪圈”——大约20%——无法得到理性的解释。他们的研究表明,那些“真正的怪圈”是某股能量在短短几分钟之内创造出来的。有一些人说,麦子的细胞膨胀变大,麦秆在节点处向下弯曲。另一些人说作物的细胞结构也受到了影响,同时土壤成份也改变了。他们说,有些怪圈所呈现的图案复杂得出奇,画在纸上都困难,更不用说黑暗中在田地里人为制作。当他们无法解释自己所看到的怪圈时,他们便转向用不明飞行物、外星人、符号、魔力、古代智慧、神秘几何学、旋风等其他未知“实体” 去阐释,说它们是“来自地球之外的预言”或者“时代的标记和征兆”。
第二类人是一些艺术家和恶作剧玩家。最开始是在20世纪70年代,威尔特郡的两个水彩画家道·鲍尔和戴夫·乔利跑到麦田里去制作了几个简单的圆形怪圈,只为找点乐子并嘲弄那些相信不明飞行物的人。随后,在20世纪90年代中期,许多伦敦的艺术家和雕刻家常常效仿这一做法。一个包括情境画家罗 德·狄金森、雕刻家加文·特克,罗布·欧文等人在内的团体自称为“怪圈制造者”。他们在他们的网站上说,他们拥有大批怪圈信徒,根据这些信徒所读的书籍他们创造了许多图案。现在他们与其他怪圈制造者合作,打算一同创造众多制作过程艰巨的“怪圈”。同时他们还认为,他们已经使“麦田怪圈”现象成为了流行文化的一个重要部分,也成了英国乡村的一大神话。
很长一段时间里,怪圈制造者们从不暴露自己的身份。但是现在,他们公开宣称制造了成百上千个怪圈。尽管如此,他们也故弄玄虚——并没有声称所有的怪圈都是由他们制造的,也从不透露他们创造了哪些特别的怪圈——从而让人们觉得的确存在某种无法解释的力量。
How to Make a Crop Circle
1. Prepare a detailed drawing. Keep it simple. Circles and triangles are relatively easy to make. Advanced curves, spirals, straight lines, fractals(不规则碎片形) and pictures can take a long time to mark out(规划) and work.
2. You will need helpers; decide who will do what and in what order the image needs to be constructed.
3. You will need a marked rope or a 100ft measuring tape(卷尺) to mark out the site, and a foot-wide wooden board about 4ft long to do the flattening(整平). The board should have ropes attached to each end so you can loop it over your neck.
4. Ask permission from a farmer and be prepared to pay compensation. A crop circle can cause hundreds of pounds of damage.
5. Wait for a moonlit night when it is dry. Enter the field by the tramlines(条痕,纵痕), or marks left by tractors.
6. Mark out the field carefully. Some circle makers use sticks or poles but these can leave tell-tale(泄露内情的) holes of human intervention.
7. Put the rope round your neck, with the board on the ground in front of you; press down with your right foot, move it forward, press it down again, and so on.
8. Leave the field the same way you entered.
9. Hide your tracks.
