TI RIMANGONO APPENA PER LEGGERE "IL LIBRO"

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THE REAL EVENTS
from clara.net

.. Conclusions based on technical merit cannot be made unless the original is released for testing. .. In addition, the video shown the day the formation arrived is claimed to differ significantly from the video which is now in circulation and undergoing attempts at analysis.

.. COLIN ANDREWS: On Sunday, 11th of August, I returned late at night to several phone messages in the CPR-UK office from my two colleagues, Jane Ross, CPR-US co-ordinator, and Freddy Silva, researcher and Infra Red analyst. .. The man who showed them the video, John Weyleigh, claims to have been camping out on the Oliver's Castle hill, near Devizes, for a sky watch when he filmed it.

.. "It was about 15 seconds long. The first image was a shot of the ground as though the camera was rolling while someone holding it was walking along. This lasted several seconds. Then there was a split second of video static indicating a place where the video had been stopped. The next section, began with a frame containing a high angle shot of a field with a crop circle already formed. Suddenly two pairs of luminous balls of light appeared from the bottom right hand corner of the frame. The first set moved clockwise over the formation; the second set seemed to hover erratically as though "inspecting" or "reconnoitering" the circle. At the end of the segment a fifth ball of light shot rapidly through the center of the frame between the two pairs of light balls. .. At no time did we see a crop circle being formed or laid down, with or without balls of light maneuvering over it."

.. When I returned from Wales there were several messages on my machine from John Weyleigh asking to meet. .. I arrived with Synthia and immediately felt something was wrong. It seemed to me that we were watched from the minute we arrived until we left in a seemingly intentional way by other people in the pub. John was already there, sitting at a table, was extremely nervous and was initially unsettled by Synthia's presence. .. John was very tense and went on to say that afterwards, as he was leaving the hill, 10 military men on an exercise came around the top of the hill. The commander looked at John as they passed and asked "Did you get what you came for?" John told us that he was afraid that if he said yes they would steal his camera so he told them that his camera hadn't functioned. .. John went on to tell us that he was a graduate Student at Nottingham University, majoring in American Studies and was headed to the States in the fall to teach. He said he could only be reached by mobile phone until he was in the States. He also made sure we understood that the mobile phone did not belong to him, but to a friend. He was very nervous, said that since the event he had been getting hang-up calls on his mobile phone (in fact he received one as we sat there) and claimed he was afraid of the possible military interest in his video He then said that all he wanted was for me to analyze the film and verify it's authenticity, then to use it as I saw fit. He wanted to stay completely out of the public eye. He came equipped with a handwritten contract to that effect. Written into the contract was that any money made on the film should be deposited into his bank account and that I was authorized to keep 10 percent. I was given a bank account number and bank code. I signed the contract and Synthia witnessed. At Synthia's suggestion, John also signed. He faxed me a copy later that day from a public facility. John refused to stay and answer questions, leaving abruptly as soon as the contract was signed, leaving me with a copy of the film, a bank code number and authorization to use the film any way I wanted. .. Since this meeting I have been unable at any time to reach John Weyleigh. I have left messages on his mobile phone answering service which have never been returned. He told me that " I just want to know what's going on, if it's real" yet he has never provided a way in which I could supply that information to him nor has he tried to contact me.

.. As already mentioned, attempts to verify the video are inconclusive without the original. Mr. Weyleigh has not come forward with it. .. Several experts have analyzed the film, from NASA technical contractors to special effects professionals and most are unwilling to put their names on a final result. [But] let's return to Freddy and Jane's account:

"It is imperative to note that the film we were shown on the night of August the 11th is not the same film given to Colin Andrews 6 days later by John Weyleigh. The film given to Colin, which is being analyzed by various experts, and talked about continuously on the internet, is simply not the same film that was shown to us at the Barge Inn. .. Many researchers have insisted that Freddy and I simply missed the circles forming, however what we saw began with a completed formation which was then joined by balls of light. There was no point where the formation was not in the field. .. The following morning .. Freddy went to Oliver's Castle to shoot infrared film of the formation [and] to conduct field research. Despite it's being formed only 36 hours previously and in a remote location limiting potential damage from visitors, it was immediately apparent upon entering the formation that it's construction and condition were extremely poor. The lay of the floor everywhere, especially in the center circle, was irregular in flow, trampled in various directions, and flattened with innumerable broken stalks in every location. The edges were ill-defined throughout the formation and most of the arms or avenues were miss aligned. The overall impression was of a man-made formation. This was supported subsequently by the results of the infra red photos which showed no abnormal heat dispersion usually associated with genuine formations. .."

COLIN: .. The bank account and mobile phone traced back to a third individual whose name was also John [and whose] last name was very similar to Weyleigh. We will call him John X. The detective found no John Weyleigh at Nottingham University, although there was a John Weyleigh at Trent University in Nottingham. He did find that John X had been a student at Nottingham University and had majored in American Studies, but six years earlier than Weyleigh had told us. At this point we do not know whether John Weyleigh and John X are the same person, or whether John Weyleigh was acting on behalf of John X. .. Either way John X is involved via the phone and bank . He lives in Bath and is a co-owner of a video editing and TV producing firm in Bristol. Calls to his company were intercepted by his partner .. who refused to divulge any information or pass the call to John.

.. Several graphic design specialists say that yes, this video could have been generated by computer, with two qualifications. It would take time and money. Because the video was being shown by the evening of the same day the formation arrived, the timing suggested a real event. However, if the video being shown in the pub the first night was not the same version being shown six days later, which I have every reason to believe is true, the time constraint is considerably altered.

.. Only two things are clear; nobody agrees on anything and nothing is conclusive. Those who are convinced it is real look for conformation of their belief, as do those who feel it is a hoax. .. Until the original video surfaces, there is no definitive answer. .. If it is a hoax, there are several possible motives:

1. Set up researchers
2. Damage the credibility of the phenomenon.
3. Make a lot of money.
4. All of the above.

.. However, the evidence of proof is in John's hand. If he is being wrongly done by, he needs only to come forward with the original video for analysis and all questions can be answered. ..

REPORT ON "OLIVER'S CASTLE" CROP-CIRCLE VIDEO
by Dan Drasin, October 17, 1996

.. The so-called "Oliver's Castle" videotape [is] a short (about 20-second) clip taken in southern England during the Summer of 1996, that appears to show the actual forming of a snowflake-shaped crop circle. Also depicted are four rapidly moving balls of light ("BOLs") whose presence seems connected in some way with the forming of the crop circle. ..

ABOUT MY BACKGROUND
I've spent over 35 years as a documentary cinematographer, videographer and still photographer. I have a reasonably solid understanding of motion-picture special effects, computer-graphics and computer-video techniques. ..

CONDITION OF THE VIDEO
The silent VHS copy I viewed was at least third-generation, and had evidently been converted from 50-frame/sec PAL to the 60-frame/sec American NTSC video standard. It was fairly noisy ("grainy"), partly due to having been shot in low light with what was undoubtedly not a broadcast-quality camera or recorder. Therefore I will refrain from any technical "microanalysis". ..

DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTION
The clip starts with a panoramic shot taken from a high vantage point, looking down towards several cultivated fields separated by trees and hedgerows. It appears to be early morning, and the sky is overcast so that the lighting is uniform and no clear shadows are visible. In this panoramic shot one can see an unattended second camera-probably a semi-professional camcorder with an interchangeable zoom or telephoto lens-mounted on an amateur or semiprofessional tripod with its centre column extended, .. pointing off to the right, perhaps aimed at an adjacent field. It is in the second shot that all of the action takes place. In this shot the camera starts with a wide-angle view of the largest and most central field and then zooms in as two glowing BOLs (very rough estimate: 3 to 6 feet in diameter, and maintaining perhaps 30-50 feet altitude throughout) appear at the far centre of the frame and loop around the right side into the foreground where they proceed right-to-left, apparently circling or "framing" the central portion of the field. They continue to loop around to the far left, still circling clockwise. As they pass over the far-CENTER of the field, a small "disturbance" appears in the crop. This disturbance expands into a definite, progressive, outward spiraling motion that appears to lay down the crop stalks in a circular fashion, starting at the CENTER, working its way outward through several revolutions, and abruptly terminating at the outer edge of what has now become a central circle. The entire process takes approximately one second. Just before the central circle is completed, six "satellite circles" appear to form simultaneously in a similar fashion. These smaller circles are connected to the central circle by six "spokes" that have formed at the same time. Total elapsed time is approximately two to three seconds. At this point the two BOLs are heading away toward the far right edge of the frame, but are still in view. Now a third BOL appears, coming into the frame from about the same direction as the first two and following a similar path, looping around to the right and momentarily going out of frame. When the BOL reappears in the foreground it is being followed by a companion BOL, smaller and less luminous, which may have split off from the original one-though this is not clear, since the split would have occurred while the BOL was outside the frame. (This should be checked with an under scanned monitor, which displays the entire frame inside the picture tube in the manner of most computer monitors. Unfortunately I did not have one at my disposal for this viewing.) Eventually all four BOLs leave the frame, and the recording cuts to the third shot, which is a zoom-out from a close-up of the crop circle to a broader shot of the field. At the widest extent of the zoom one can again see the second camera, which appears not to have changed its position.

SOME SPECIFIC OBSERVATIONS

• LIGHT REFLECTION
  The manner in which the light from the sky reflects from the floors of the main and satellite circles is consistent with the reflectivity pattern of swirled grass. In all cases the leftmost portion of each circle is brightest and the rightmost darkest. This reflection pattern is visible from the very first moment at which the central circle begins to be formed.

• QUALITIES OF MOTION
  The quality of motion of the pairs of BOLs would best be described as "elegant." In other words, their movements were flowing and non-mechanical, and possessed a rhythmic "aliveness". .. Similarly, the process of formation of the crop circle maintained a smoothness of action that was "all of a piece"-it was one continuous, progressive motion with no jerkiness or discontinuity to it.

• PERSPECTIVE
  As would be expected of real objects, the BOLs appeared proportionately larger when in the foreground, and grew smaller as they receded towards the background.

• CAMERA MOTION
  The camera's panning and tilting movements tended to be somewhat irregular and jerky, which is characteristic of the use of a lightweight tripod that does not have a fluid-action head. For purposes of this analysis, this is significant for the following reasons:
  • To hoax BOLs and a forming circle by means of matting or superimposition would, in theory .. be fairly do-able, assuming a fixed background shot; i.e., with the camera stationary and locked off in a static framing.
  • To similarly hoax the BOLs and the circle over a smoothly and uniformly moving background shot would be orders of magnitude more expensive and complex. Hollywood can do this kind of thing by computer-controlling the camera's movements, and then likewise computer-controlling the movements of the superimposed artifacts (i.e., BOLs and Circle) in sync with the camera's programmed motion.
  • To similarly hoax the BOLs and the circle over the kind of random camera jiggle displayed in this video clip would probably require additional orders of magnitude of time and expense. This is not to say that it couldn't be done, only that it would require a very hefty budget, top-notch expertise and plenty of planning and lead-time.

• THE BOLs' LUMINANCE
  It has been pointed out by several observers that the BOLs seem momentarily to decrease in brightness as they pass over the hedgerow at the far end of the field. This could be a result of careless superimposition, but it could as easily be a result of the BOLs' intensity saturating the camera's image sensor and "blooming" slightly (seeming larger than their true size). Then as they pass over the darker hedgerow the "bloom" area is reduced due to the lower total light level reaching that part of the image sensor.
  If this scene had been caught on 35mm motion picture film or the very finest video equipment it might have been possible to observe or measure the light thrown by the BOLs onto the field below-assuming, of course, that they were real, and radiating this light downward as well as upward into the camera, which can't be determined in this video. In any case, the graininess of the video I saw seems to preclude any such observations. .. Note that the BOLs were perhaps 40 feet in the air, and that they were simply glowing, not casting focused beams onto the ground.

• THE MIRROR TRICK?
  One way to superimpose moving lights on a scene that was shot with a jerky camera, would be to place the camera inside a dark tent and put a half-silvered mirror in front of the lens so that it reflected into the lens what was happening off to the side. Then flashlights could be manipulated in such a way as to give the impression that the lights were maintaining a natural relationship to the background, regardless of the camera jiggle.
  .. To begin with, as you tilted the camera (say, vertically), the outermost part of the lens (which sticks out in front of the camera) would be displaced vertically, imparting excessive vertical motion to the (closer) lights, relative to the apparent vertical motion of the (more distant) background. The same disproportionate exaggeration of of the lights' motion would occur in the horizontal dimension as well.
  .. You'd have to pivot the camera on the end of its lens, which would produce a kind of camera motion quite unlike that produced by a tripod head.
  Then there's that ineffable question of quality of motion. To synthesise the "aliveness" of these BOLs would require something a lot more sophisticated than flashlights-perhaps some laborious computer animation, and a computer screen with extremely high resolution exactly synchronised to the relatively slow frame-rate of the video system. Possible? Yes, theoretically.
  So you could conceivably superimpose lights. But wait a minute-you can't superimpose dark areas this way. Oops... some parts of the crop circle are darker than the original, undisturbed field. ..

• EDITING?
  Since the essential action takes place in one continuous scene, editing is not an issue.

• QUESTIONS OF TIMING AND CIRCUMSTANCE
  If the actual crop circle were hoaxed, one would, I think, have to assume the following:
  • The first part of the main scene would have had to be shot before the circle was produced.
  • The latter part would have had to be shot after the circle was produced.
  • Somehow the creation of the circle would have had to be simulated by computer animation in such a fashion as to match perfectly the actual circle, in its precise position and orientation on the field, as viewed from precisely that camera position, and in such a way as to be inserted into the scene seamlessly, in the midst of random camera motion and zooming, with no visible cuts or dissolves in the background scene, and with no change of light level or quality or direction over a period of at least several hours.
  
  Such a sequence of events would, I think, stretch the credulity of even the most sophisticated special-effects consultant.

• ANY FAUX PAS?
  .. For example, in the controversial "Alien Autopsy" film, the corpse appears essentially human-like and looks from the outside as if it should have a reasonably humanoid or mammalian skeletal structure. But at least as far as I can recall .. when the chest is opened there is no ribcage whatsoever. .. Nor anything even approaching, say, some cartilaginous equivalent. No hard tissue of any kind that would support the anterior thorax and its internal organs. Of course, who is to say what an alien's skeleton should look like? Still, one smells a pungent rat.
  .. In this Oliver's Castle video clip I observe no such telltale red flags.

• WHY THE BOLs?
  Assuming that the video is not a hoax, one can only speculate as to the purpose of the BOLs. There seems no way to tell whether they were directly involved in the formation of the circle. [One] might say they could have been there to focus the observer's attention to the place where the circle was to be formed. ..

• SOME FURTHER POSSIBLE AVENUES OF RESEARCH
  Perhaps some of these have already been done, and if so it would be interesting to find out the results:
  • Check the direction of the swirls and the compass orientation of the spokes in the video against those of the actual circle as photographed and measured by others later.
  • Co-ordinate the reported date and time of the video shoot with that of the actual appearance of the circle.
  • Check weather records and see if they coincide with the conditions depicted in the video.
  • Determine whether earlier generations of this tape had a sound track. (Often the human reactions recorded on the soundtracks of UFO-sighting videos can be as telling and evidential as the images.)

CONCLUSION
It would be .. unscientific to declare that this video absolutely could not have been hoaxed. Still, .. if someone were to come forward and claim this video as their own hoax, I would certainly insist on very solid proof of that claim .. and absolutely demand an actual demonstration or replication of how it was done.

[Also notice that] the hardest thing to hoax is a hand-held shot, since the hoaxed superimposition would have to track the random, shaky movements of the camera precisely. This would theoretically be possible to do with the right software, but even Hollywood avoids this kind of thing. Complex special effects are done either over static background shots or with carefully computer-controlled camera movements. ..

JOHN'S STORY
from CropCircleConnector.COM, Tuesday 7th January 1997

.. Jim Dilettoso .. is the president of a company which, in addition to other clients, does work for government labs. It has a state-of-the-art lab with top-of-the-line equipment, including a Cray 6400 computer. .. He uses a supercomputer to analyse video footage when he deems it necessary. .. His work also entails very advanced image processing. He is the 'expert' analyst [of] national television programs .. call upon to verify the 'purity' of, in particular, UFO tapes and photos. He's been doing this work for twenty years.

Jim made it clear to me that while it might be possible for a team of people with the experience, the appropriate equipment, and the time to come up with a similar video, he stated emphatically that THIS tape showed no signs of computer enhancement, splicing, depth cueing, or fields-per-frame anomalies. He used terms like 'subcarrier' and 'blanking pulse' to describe facets of his analysis. He said the Balls Of Light (BOLs) were NOT spherical but were appropriately distorted (as actual movement would distort them as opposed to animation-generated movement). [Patrick's evaluation of the BOLs (below) not only agrees with Jim's, but goes even further.]

.. Jim also noted .. that (especially) the central Circle can be seen to 'open' because the crop goes down blazingly quickly IN SPIRALS around the centre of it. Some have claimed that the crop movement appears to be 'animated' and seems to 'jump forward' in the quadrant nearest the camera. Such is NOT the case, both according to what I've seen, and what Jim's observed. He was especially impressed by the 'action' documented in the main Circle.

When I questioned Jim about the 'shadows' at the far bases of the Circles, he immediately replied that they were most probably an artifact, the result of a camcorder technical phenomenon called 'blooming'.

.. He told me that creating the BOLs and their flight paths would not be difficult to do .. by a computer animation person with the right equipment. .. He wasn't so sure about how one might go about computerising the 'laying' of the Formation itself, for he thought it would be an especially complex, highly technical, .. time-consuming procedure.

But the most important point which separates this tape from a computer-generated or -enhanced one, in Jim's professional opinion, is that he doesn't see how the SEAMLESS MESHING of (what would have to be) two separate 'tracks' .. could be accomplished without leaving telltale clues in the output. [One 'track' would have to consist of the Formation opening, and the second would be of the BOLs - and each 'half' would have to have the camera-shake synchronised identically on each of the two fields per frame.] .. There has also been discussion that the paths are laid after all the Circles appear. This is a misperception, as stills from the video confirm.

.. A second analysis of this tape was completed by 'special effects expert' Laurel Click, .. and she's unable to even guess how it might have been created. She stated that it would probably take a team of highly qualified computer and video experts MANY hours to produce similar footage - if it were indeed possible at all. In her professional opinion, the tape offers no indication of artificiality.

The .. third analyst, .. a keen '3D Modeller', Patrick Wilson [mailto:patrickw@mistral.co.uk], [says:] "I digitised [the OCVid] using a Miromotion video capture board on a Macintosh9500/200. I am pretty sure that the film is not faked having examined the film frame by frame. I reckon it would be very hard to draw moving objects onto the frames with such accuracy and with consistent lighting. Not to mention that the objects' motion paths [are] integral to the scene despite camera wobble etc. There are 400 frames in the 16 seconds of action (at 25fps)."

.. My especial area of study over the last five years has been the crop lays. .. The alternating 'tubes' of crop laid in spirals, the perimeter stalks, the alignment of the seedheads, the off-centre 'centres', the simultaneous creation of all parts of a Pattern (as determined by what's on top of what), the Lights reported by some witnesses, the blazing speed that's been reported by all witnesses, the 'twitching' seen by the earliest visitors to a newly formed Circle - they're all confirmed on this tape. Incredibly, what I'm hearing from those not ready to accept what this footage documents is that what we see meets all previously documented criteria SO WELL that it can't be real! (These are some of the same folks who call ME 'irrational'!)

[HOW THE VIDEO WAS SHOT]

.. On the morning of August 11, John was sleeping in his sleeping bag on the hillside next to Oliver's Castle. At around 5am, he was awakened by 'Sounds'. .. He saw Balls of Light moving deliberately over a localised area. He watched them briefly before they disappeared from his sight. .. John dove for his video camera tucked into the foot of his sleeping bag. He frantically tried to turn the camera on, turn the camera on, but the humidity sensor had prohibited it from working. John then noticed that the Lights had returned to the field. Frantically, he tried again to turn the camera on. Suddenly, it came to life in his hands. John aimed it into the field holding it as steady as his trembling hands would allow. He was breathing heavily (his breaths can be heard on the tape). He dared not move. He barely dared breathe. He was mesmerised, transfixed. At one point he's heard to whisper, "Ohh, that's amazing ..."

.. Finally (actually, a mere 18 SECONDS after he first turns his camera on), the Lights leave. John keeps the tape rolling. He realises after a while that the Lights have indeed completed their work. He shuts his camera off. [Later] he turns his camera on again, and shoots the Formation, zooming in on it, then zooming out, [then] he pans to his right, across the field in which the Crescents arrived in '95 at the foot of Oliver's Castle, and continues the pan to the earthworks, then pans left, back to the Formation. He shoots, and keeps shooting and shooting, until it begins raining. Finally he shuts his camera down and puts it away.

After he left the area, the first thing he did was make a copy of the tape he'd just recorded, and then he locked up the master for safe-keeping. .. Approximately six hours later, he called The Barge pub, looking for a videographer he'd never met but had heard about. He wanted to show the tape to Peter Sorensen. .. He was unable to locate Peter during his visit to the pub that evening, but began, allegedly with trembling hands, to show those who were inside the pub the copy of his tape through the viewfinder of his camera. ..

THE CONTROVERSY EXPOSED
statement by Lee Winterson, July 23, 1997

.. Peter Sorenson and Lee Winterson, in cooperation with Nippon (Japanese) Television, went into the First Cut post production studios located in Bristol, England in a guerrilla style attempt to get the suspected maker of this video- the alleged John Whaley, real name John Wabe. .. From the beginning, John Wabe used his pseudonym when presenting his amazing "footage". Yet, the phone number he gave was traced to belong to a John Wabe. Thus, from this name Lee tracked John down to First Cut studios in Bristol after many months. .. Lee and his business partner John Huckvale .. took in a camcorder under the pretense of "seeing the facility". While innocently taking shots of the equipment, John and Lee covertly focused on a framed photograph on the wall inside the office. This photo is in actuality a portrait of John Whaley, .. the very same man who brought in the Oliver's Castle footage nearly a year ago at a meeting with Peter Sorenson, at the Wagon and Horses pub, Avebury, England. Peter .. confirmed the identity of John Wabe (however John had changed his hair and grown a beard since their meeting).

.. The business partner of John Wabe, John Lomas, was shown the footage by the TV crew and confronted about John Wabe's connection to it. He said that "Yes, John was involved", but that the film crew would have to talk to John Wabe personally. John Lomas left the room at this point to consult with John Wabe, [and] John Wabe fled out of his office, leaving a client there on the spot.

.. After this daring escapade, .. John Wabe has been in phone contact, stating he WAS involved in the production of this video but could not comment further due to an exclusive contract with a broadcast production, DISCOVERY CHANNEL, USA. He did make it clear that he would like this all to "Just go away". He is not hiding the fact that it IS a HOAX. In our opinion he has been paid well to perform this duty, and he almost got away with it.

.. The woman heading the Discovery Channel production team named "Jane" has talked to us by phone, but is reluctant to give the real production name, or WHO is really behind it. ..

ANALYSIS OF THE 'INFAMOUS' VIDEO SEQUENCE
from Enigma Journal #11, Autumn 1996

.. The first apparent flaws I noticed in the video concern the actual view of the field. At all times during the creation and subsequent flight of the balls of light, the camera remains stationary fixed at a preset zoom. By coincidence the zoom is exactly set so that the completed crop formation exactly fills the field of view without having to zoom out or move the camera. .. The balls of light fly out of view a couple of times and no attempt is made to follow their movement - surprising if the cameraman was witnessing actual UFOs flying around. .. How did JW know where the crop formation was going to appear in order to preset the zoom on his camera before it appeared? Why didn't he naturally follow the balls of light around the field? After all, they could be about to create another crop formation in a nearby field.

Both myself and Peter Sorensen decided to analyse the film in greater detail. We played it through on a high quality, single frame video. The first thing I noticed was that freezing on a single frame revealed that the balls of light were perfectly formed with no motion blur. As they were moving quite rapidly across the field of view, you would expect to see some kind of blur on a single frame.

.. A video film is made up of a number of frames, individual images being shown in quick succession, .. at 25 frames per second. .. A TV picture .. is made up from a great many lines going vertically down the screen. 625 in all, forming a complete picture. These 625 lines form two fields - one consisting of all the evenly numbered lines and the other with all the odd numbered lines. The two fields together form what is known as an 'interlaced' picture.

The initial sequence of the video, ie. that showing the zoom, seems to be interlaced. ie. both fields are present. However, the animation bit (where the crop circle actually appears) seems to be non-interlaced, only consisting of a single field. This then reverts back to interlaced at the end of the sequence. This is highly suspicious and would imply that some kind of computer effect could have been used to generate the crop circle appearing - with no interlace.

.. I decided to produce my own video, just to see how difficult to make it really would be. .. To my surprise, my end result was quite acceptable, and would be even higher quality had I given myself more time. As it happened, I completed it in just under three hours.

.. Being a computer programmer I was able to write my own animation software as I couldn't find any suitable 'commercial' software. This may be one reason why people say it can't be done. [Poor objection, since JW is not a computer-programmer..]

I took a sequence of footage from my original 8mm tape and digitised it into the computer to obtain a static colour 'scan' of the field in question - in broad daylight and containing the completed crop circle. I then darkened the video to make it look like early morning. This was easy, using a standard 'grey' fade set to approx 85% fadeout. I then re-scanned this into the computer and 'painted' out the crop circle using a paintbox package - so as to obtain a field with no crop circle in it.

Having obtained a 'blank' field in the computer, I then wrote a small program to take a real-time video source (my original 8mm tape) and do a circular fade of the computer image with no crop formation. .. I recorded the output .. onto standard VHS tape and not professional tape so that the graininess of the copy would make the end result look more authentic. This gave me a VHS video copy of the crop formation appearing in the field.

.. Adding the balls of light was the easiest job, again, having written my own computer software. I played the VHS tape of the crop formation appearing (in approx 3 seconds) through the computer and whilst it was going through the computer I moved the mouse around the screen to trace out the movement I wanted the balls to take. I could edit the path if I made mistakes. The computer stored the mouse movements and allowed me to replay the sequence, substituting a 'ball of light' for the previous mouse movements. I then replayed it and edited it until I liked the result. At this stage I could also edit the fade between video and computer, to make the balls of light seemingly grow dim or brighter depending on position. It would also be possible using my software to add 'random' X/Y movements to the path of the balls, to simulate camera shake.

.. From a technical viewpoint, the video is very well made. The movement of the balls of light is very 'fluid' and smooth. .. I estimate you could do it with under £3000.00 worth of equipment. However, it is well made and was obviously planned. ..

YET MORE HOCUS-POCUS by George Wingfield, February 1997 In an e-mail letter sent to Erik Beckjord on 29th January 1997, Colin wrote: ".. The man who is in the center of it all, Mr John Wabe, just 'maybe' .. has been put to work on his first disinformation job by people in high places whom he met while at Nottingham Univerity, studying for a degree in, of all things, 'American Studies' - Naughty Uncle Sam at work again!!!!!! .. I spent an hour with my detective agent in UK recently and it is clear that something very well planned is involved. It is also clear that more than one film version is involved." .. Steve Alexander shot a video film of a bright object moving over cropfields near the great Milk Hill pictogram of July 1990, .. and the genuineness of Steve's film was confirmed months later by a tractor driver (whose tractor appears in the footage) who said he had seen the unidentified object pass above him. .. On the [Oliver Castle] video .. the straight pathways are seen to form last, despite the fact that it could be clearly seen on the ground at the time that these pathways were underneath the lay of the crop in the satellite circles and must have been laid down earlier. .. Circlefaker Robert Irving .. forged a photograph of a flying saucer in an aircraft hangar at a NATO base in Italy (which was published in 'Fortean Times') using computer techniques to combine two digitised images. ..

MORE STATEMENTS

• By what I discerned even in the light of the initial evidence, and what anyone with the required technical knowledge can recognise as an obvious hoax: a troublingly deceptive hoax, .. damaging to the public perception of the very real and profound phenomenon we are experiencing. .. After the spectacularly stunning formations of 96 the only crop circle coverage we saw in the States was multiple coverage of this dubious video! To me that's a tragic misdirection of attention in what might have been a eye-opening year for the world at large, had the Julia Set or Windmill Hill formations received comparable attention. .. The hand-held motion used as evidence in support of the video has looked, from my first viewing, like a simple post effect: added after the animation was done; I suspect to mask the irregularities in the animation that are apparent when viewed frame by frame. .. And lastly, since most formations are roughly circular the lights animation could work with the majority of them. One would only need to wait for a suitable one to appear (or just make one) and do a quick composite with the prepared footage. ..

  (Kris Weber Sherwood of Millennium Research - July 5, 1997)

• After all the debate about the "Oliver's Castle Video", I decided to pull the weather data for Saturday 10th August and Sunday, 11th August. .. If we look at the first few seconds of the video showing fields in the distance, we will see a piece of grass in the foreground moving across the lense from left to right. This indicates that the wind was from the south west when the shot was taken. .. The shadows are on the top right hand corner of the circles, which means the light is coming from the north west, therefore the shot was taken in the late evening time. We know that the wind was also coming from the south west on the evening of Saturday, 10th. August. These two factors indicate very strongly, therefore, that the footage was not taken on the morning of Sunday, 11th. August, but on the evening of Saturday, 10th. August, thus giving anybody plenty of time to computerise the "lights" that we see on the video and create the illusion of the formation appearing. .. John Weyleigh" said it was 5am. on Sunday - I suggest it was about 7.30pm. on Saturday. ..

  (Busty Taylor)

• Real crop circles have a tendency to be created by a blueprint based on regenerative geometry which encompasses the systems of sacred geometry (akin to John Martineau's early work). By appling this to hoaxes it is clear that man made designs do not comply with these fixed mathematical laws. .. The Oliver's Castle formation .. cannot follow the fixed rules of a hexagonal framework. In the case of the NE arm, the discrepancy is some 14 feet from true alignment. .. The media is currently undergoing a major new effort to debunk the whole phenomenon once again. We will do ourselves, and the Circlemakers, a really big favour by .. admitting that sometimes WE DO GET IT WRONG. There's no shame in that. The important thing is to learn, and then put forward a solid argument that counterbalances the disinformation now being fed to the public. There are many crucial pieces of evidence that prove we are dealing with a real phenomenon. The OC video is not one of them. Let's move on.

  (Freddy Silva)

• Today I have again tried to obtain permission to make copies of the video sent to me, showing John Wabe confessing to fraudulently making the Oliver's Castle video. My request has been apologetically refused. .. I do sense a larger plan, which this confession does not explain. .. No paranoia here I can assure you, just observation of events. .. I would say it appears a body of people larger than just one TV studio in England seems to have planned for this video to be seen by the public. They have tried to jump start it after an unexpected and early grounding. Cleverly, the pace makers are not crop circle researchers but are well placed professionals.

  (Colin Andrews - March 5, 1999)

  

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