(Robert Hale Ltd, Hardback Edition, 219 pages, 15 b&w
photos, numerous illustrations)
Readers will know that in CW7 Jenny Randles and myself
withdrew our support for the concept that "genuine"
crop circles have some kind of residual field energy which can be
successfully dowsed. This followed Busty Taylor's unfortunate
experience on the Channel 4 Equinox programme when he
successfully dowsed the Wessex Skeptics' hoax at Clench Common.
Oh dear ! What a pity this book didn't come out when Doug and
Dave were hitting the headlines, perhaps then we wouldn't have
been quite so dismissive of Taylor's failure !
This is really the best book I've read about an anomaly for
some time. Williamson has spent all his life studying dowsing - a
skill (??) his father used extensively throughout East Africa to
earn a living - and Williamson is well qualified to evaluate the
dowsing literature, having studied geology at Oxford and then
working at the Science Museum specializing in climatology and the
history of medicine. Although Williamson is a proponent of
dowsing he doesn't let his scientific scepticism cloud his
thinking - frequently dismissing the claims of researchers whose
work could be used to support the concept of dowsing but whose
public statements are less than scientific. The great strength of
this book is its extensive presentation of case histories and its
demonstration of the scientific method at its best. I well recall
my astonishment at the Wessex Skeptics' vehemently outright
hostility to dowsing -"the negative literature totally
outweighs the positive results" and "there have been no
successful double-blind experiments" - well not any more
they aren't !
Williamson begins with a fascinating tour through the history
of dowsing, beginning in the mines of Northern Germany in the
sixteenth century but spreading throughout Europe, a practice
that - like many modern-day scientific anomalies - was soon
labelled by the authorities as an anti-scientific actitivity that
led to imprisonment and even death for some of its early
proponents. This historical section is important for it shows how
Dowsing - like many scientific anomalies - was marginalised by
science because of the fear that the mere concept of invisible
earth energies evoked. Of course, Science itself is a power
system, so this negative response was all too predictable.
Nowhere is this more ably demonstrated that in Chapter 3, which
examines the alleged link between radon, cancer and dowsing.
Williamson demonstrates how the concept of dowsable "earth
rays" was hijacked by the more esoteric dowsers and used by
scientists to dismiss the whole subject. The result was fifty
years of scientific ignorance and stagnation. Now where have I
heard that kind of story before ?
It is important to distinguish between different claimed
effects. In Chapter 4 Williamson discusses archaeological dowsing
whilst Chapter 5 summarises the latest scientific research into
the effect. Williamson blasts the skeptics with an impressive
documentation of double-blind experiments where the best dowsers
scored remarkably high results that statistically would only
occur very very rarely by statistical chance alone. Here
Williamson is at his best, debating the strengths and weaknesses
of different trials, emphasising the importance of removing all
visual cues and explaining how best to interpret complex
statistical results. I was particularly impressed with his
discussion of the Utah State University tests and the
"waggon" tests conducted by the Munich group of
scientists (pages 77-85).
Chapters 7 to 10 examine a variety of possible mechanisms for
the Dowsing Effect - eg. infrasonic vibrations from within the
earth's crust, electromagnetism, fault zones, and even UFOs
feature in this fascinating review of the literature.
Part II of the book extends Williamson's search for the answer
to the Dowsing Effect with a review of many subjects well known
to UFOlogists - ionisation of the air, earthquake lights,
piezoelectrical effects, and that old favourite, earthlights.
They're all here. Unfortunately so are crop circles - and
although there is an important first hand account of the 1963
Charlton Crater (pages 164-6) some of the evidence in this
chapter is now a little redundant. Sadly Williamson accepted our
claims that most circles were not man-made and goes on to
consider two possibilities - that crop circle dowsers are simply
responding to visual cues -the crop circles themselves - or that
they are detecting a residual energy field. This rather spoils
his otherwise scholarly approach. His final chapter attempts to
draw together all the disparate fields of study discussed
throughout his book in a kind of grand unifying theory (which
includes Meaden's ideas about stone circles and their
relationship with crop circle vortices). For my liking this is a
little over-ambitious but nevertheless this is a fine book which
I recommend to anyone who adopts an open mind towards anomalies.
PF.
Case 124, Nov 16, 1958. SWEDEN, Upland. Dusk.
Two men found their car stopping and lights going out when
they were three miles from Vaddo, their destination. In the next
moment they caught sight of a shining object, about 17 yards long
and 8-9 yards high, which swooped down from their right and
landed about 60 yards away. It was circular and blue, with a
shining yellow rim which lit up a circular area of 90-100 yards.
After about three minutes on the ground, the object begun to
move, then vanished into the air. After checking their car, which
now started easily, the men drove to the spot where the
"light" had been. They noticed a heaviness and
"closeness" of the air, and saw that the grass was
either pressed down or blown down . When they lighted the area
with a flashlight, they discovered a bright, flat, thin
"stone", which felt warm to their hands. (CUFOS)
[This case was featured on page 159 of Crop Circles, A
Mystery Solved as a potential plasma-vortex case. Note the
reference to the unusual atmospheric sensations. This too is a
clue to the natural origin of the effect being described. We
suggest that the failure of the car engine is due to intense
ionisation of the air. PF]
Case 126, December 20th, 1958. FRANCE,
Clermont-Ferrand. 1600 Hrs.
A disc 70 foot in diameter was observed and caused damage to
the ground. (VALLEE III)
Case 127, December 28th, 1958. IRELAND, County Antrim.
Joseph Bennett, a farmer, heard a strange noise and he looked
up and saw a dark, round object 7 feet in diameter about 20 foot
above the ground. It travelled NW and went above a row of trees.
A 40 foot high oak tree, 2 foot in diameter was knocked to the
ground, 8 foot above the surface. (VALLEE III)
Case 128, 1959. U.S.A., Turner, ME.
A woman was in her driveway when she heard a humming sound.
She glanced across the road and saw strange lights flying low
over a field about 1,000 foot away. The object [sic] hovered and
descended to the ground; the lights went out. Another object
[sic] crossed the field and hovered above the landed UFO. The
objects were disk-shaped with blue lights around a central rim.
The landed object ascended and the two flew away at high speed. A
small area of singed grass was found the next morning. (John
Fuller, Incident at Exeter)
[It is interesting to compare the behaviour and appearance of
these UFOs with those mentioned in the Upland case - both were
disc-shaped with brilliantly lit rims, and both landed on the
ground for a minute or two. The Turner case was part of a more
complex sequence of UFO events spanning several weeks but in this
particular case the witnesses were obviously too far away to
experience any of the effects described in the Upland case. PF.]
Case 129, 1959. DENMARK, Kolding. Midnight.
"Sucking marks" found in the snow. Farmer Nielsen
reported a strange light in his field. (FSR)
[OK then readers, what kind of light leaves "sucking
marks" ? How about one generated by some obscure vortex
mechanism surrounded by an electro-static field of some kind ? PF.]
Case 130, May 20th 1959. ARGENTINA, Tres Lomas.
Two hunters saw a disc-shaped object on the ground 500 feet
away. It appeared to be aluminium and about 9 foot high with a
dome. Grass was flattened. (VALLEE III)
[An intriguing case. How much of the description is
objectively reported and how much is conditioned by witnesses
cultural stereotype of what they are supposed to be seeing ?]
Case 131, July 23rd, 1959. NEW ZEALAND, Piri Piri.
Ring shaped trace. (UFOIC).
Case 686, August 1959. U.S.S.R., Georgia.
In the vicinity of an unnamed village in Georgia, a UFO was
said to have exploded, the event being witnessed by a 43-year-old
labourer Vasily Dubischev. There were no remains apart from one
strangely charred piece. A certain Dr. Fyodor Petrov was said to
have claimed it was not made of carbon but silicon. (UFOs from
behind the Iron Curtain, page 282, quoting Robert Charroux,
"Le Livre Des Mondes Oubliques", Paris 1971).
[If memory serves me correctly this case was later admitted to
be a hoax. PF.]
Case 132, August 12th, 1959. SPAIN, Brion.
A 60-year-old farmer saw an egg-shaped object come down at
high speed and land in a field near a river. It took off
vertically, with an engine noise, not similar to a helicopter.
Traces [found]. (VALLEE III)
Case 133, September 7th, 1959. WALLINGFORD, KY. 0230
Hrs.
Disc shaped object hovered near the ground, took off
vertically, moved away horizontally. A 13 foot stained ring was
found. A spectro-analysis of the soil of the ring shows the
sample contained chromium, iron and manganese not normally found
in the clay soil of the area. (The UFO Investigator, March
1960).
[If this case can be counted as a crop circle then it was one
I didn't know about. We'll certainly try to track down more
information about it and report back. PF.]
Case 134s, October 1959. SWEDEN, Mariannelund. 1855
Hrs.
The electrical power in the three witnesses' houses failed;
when they ran outside they saw a blinding white light, it stopped
and hovered. The object started to move, slowly descended and
turned to the right, hitting and smashing a portion of a maple
tree (top section), it then descended towards the ground. The
witness was 10 foot from it. Through a large window he could see
two occupants, with large eyes; the heads were high-crowned. The
occupants were small in size. The object was oval, about 12 feet
long and 8 feet high. It was found that a gray-white substance
covered power lines. The witness was Gideon Johansson, his wife
and his son. (FSR, 11:70).
[PF. OK, this one has me gazumped.]
Case 736, 1960. ROMANIA, Baciu.
Imprints in a triangle, 3.2m x 2.4m x 2.4m, burnt grass. (Skylook)
Case 135p, April 12th, 1960. U.S.A., Lacamp, LA. 2100
Hrs.
A witness reported a disc, red in colour, flying swiftly from
the south. It touched the ground about 1,000 feet away with a
loud explosion heard by many people. A flame was seen. It bounced
in an easterly direction, ascended, turned west and disappeared.
The ground was scarred in nine places and a substance like
metallic paint was found. (Science & Mechanics)
Case 136, May 14th, 1960. BRAZIL, Paracura. 0400 Hrs.
A witness saw two landed discs on a beach, and several small,
pale-looking humanlike entities standing near them. They beckoned
to the witness, who turned and fled in fright. Returning later
with other men he found marks in the sand where the discs had
rested. (APRO).
[I find this case dubious in the extreme. Don't you ? PF.]
Case 137, May 24th, 1960. VENEZUELA, Ocumare del Tuy.
Diamond-shaped scorched marks found. (NICAP)
Case 138, June 10th, 1960. ENGLAND, Evenlode.
Two circles [ie rings, PF.], one inside the other, were
discovered by Bill Edwards. The outer circle [ring, PF] is 23
foot across. Smaller ring 16 foot across, width 1.5 inches. (FSR
10:60)
[This is the classic Evenlode case discussed in all our
published work. PF.]
Case 139, July 22nd, 1960. U.S.A., Martin, TN/ 2200
Hrs.
Shirley Sisk, aged 13, saw a hovering disc with a small
rudder- like attachment on one side. Large oily circles with a
black substance were found. (Saucers, Space & Science,
Canada.)
Case 140, August 1960. ARGENTINA, 1030 Hrs.
Four Italian engineers saw a luminous disc land or hover close
to the ground. It was 1,000 feet away. It then ascended and a
circular area of grass 90 foot in diameter was found. (FSR)
Case 149, 1962. CANADA, Wooler, Ontario.
25 foot circle was found, formed by an 18 inch ring. No other
details. (H.H. McKay)
[PF. Here's another historical case which could be a
fairy ring or a crop circle. I'll try and find out as much as
possible for a future article.]
Case 150, 1962. U.S.A., Minot, ND.
A witness was driving from Grand Forks to Minot when an object
flew across in front of her car and followed it. The next day a
bowl-shaped imprint in which all the grass was crushed was found.
Three indentations were clearly marked within the depressed area.
Plants and grass had radiation of the subterranean roots. (Data-
Net).
Case 151, 1962. ARGENTINA, Bahia Blanca.
Three truck drivers saw a luminous object ahead of them. It
remained on the ground for one minute. Where the object had been
they found a wet, greyish substance. (FSR 10:62)
Case 152, May 12th, 1962. ARGENTINA, Pampa Province.
0410 Hrs.
V. and G. Tomasini and H. Zenobi saw an object on the ground
350 feet away. It looked like a railroad car and was illuminated.
As they approached it, the object ascended, crossed low over the
road, rose with a flame and separated into two sections that flew
away in separate directions. A humming noise was heard. It was
seen on the ground for one minute. A circle was burned, insects
were carbonized and the ground was petrified. (VALLEE III)
[Could the humming noise been due to an electro-static field ?
The "circle" could have been caused by considerable air
pressure inside the vortex. Or do you have any better ideas ? PF.]
That's all for now. Readers may be interested to learn that
Keith Basterfield and Bill Chalker have sent me a draft of A
Catalogue of Australian Physical Ground Effect Cases, which
contains 136 cases of Unusual Ground Markings dating back to
1927. We will review this in a future issue when it has been
fully published.
