With the 2004 UK crop circle season well and truly closed, we asked our resident 2012 prophecy expert and numerical conundrum whizz GEOFF STRAY to have a closer look at some of the claims being made for two of the most stunning designs of the year…
1) LEWISHAM CASTLE, NR ALDBOURNE, WILTSHIRE, 6 AUGUST 2004
In his article elsewhere in our current Headlines, Chris Hopper likens this formation to the ‘Circle of Nine Points’. However, Geoff has spotted another connection…
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“I am pretty sure that the Lewisham Castle formation is a rendition of the ‘Magic Square of the Moon’ - see John Michell's book ‘The View over Atlantis’ (p.111 original edn.) - which is a 9 x 9 square in which the sums of the diagonals and the rows and the columns each add to 369. See pictures - I have coloured and corrected the original diagram by Bertold Zugelder shown on the Crop Circle Connector website. The purple blocks also add to 369.
To show how it all works out, in the pictures you can see some number patterns, the numerical significance of which is outlined here (where "PINK" = grey squares on pink background, and “pink” = pink squares on grey background, etc.):
PURPLE = 369
PINK = 410
pink = 492
GREEN = 410
green = 492
12 missing squares from corners (GREY) = 492
13 diagonal squares minus central square = 492
YELLOW = 106
yellow = 26
BLUE = 58
blue = 138
RED = 112
red = 12
ORANGE = 52
orange = 152
Sum of yellow + blue + red + orange = 328
Sum of YELLOW + BLUE + RED + ORANGE = 328
pink + green + GREY (3 X 492) = 1476
PINK + GREEN (2 X 410) = 820
1476 - 820 = 656
YELLOW + yellow + BLUE + blue + RED + red + ORANGE + orange = 656
1476 - 656 = 820
YELLOW + BLUE = 164
yellow + blue = 164
RED + ORANGE = 164
red + orange = 164
So, I am showing here 40 ways that the moon square can add to 369 (in addition to the 18 rows and columns and two diagonals), and there are more!
Interestingly, there are thirteen types of squares shown in the pattern. 13 is a lunar number - the Moon spins around the Earth thirteen times per year and there are thirteen visible Moon phases from new to full (since Full Moon lasts 2-3 days). The lunar month and Mayan tzolkin time-measurement synchronize every 1300 days. The total of thirteen lunar months is 384 days, which is the number of lines in the I Ching, and is the base cycle of Terence McKenna's ‘Timewave’ theory, which culminates in the year 2012 (see my website www.diagnosis2012.co.uk for the spec on all this).
The formation did not appear at Full or New Moon, however.”
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2) ‘MAYAN WHEEL’, SILBURY HILL, WILTSHIRE, 2-3 AUGUST 2004
This formation was the stunner of the year for many. Controversially appearing over two consecutive nights at Silbury Hill, Wiltshire on 2-3 August, according to Geoff this vast wheel of ancient Maya symbols included “the double square spiral - the Maya symbol for jaguar snouts, which indicates an entrance to the underworld”. Given that, as is now widely known, the Maya calendar indicates an end-of-time point in the year 2012, this gave the UK newspapers something to get their teeth into, the Daily Mail dubiously proclaiming it ‘The Doomsday Crop Circle’. Much of the speculation about the 2012 connections made in the wake of this formation was highly questionable, but it made good headlines. Not that the press needed a genuine phenomenon to fill its columns; indeed the Sunday Express went out of its way to debunk the Mayan glyph, devoting two pages to doing this, perhaps in an effort to ‘get one over’ on its rival newspaper.
Among the many claims and counter-claims made about the symbolism of this formation, one widely-circulated e-mail article by C Lewis stated the Mayan wheel depicted a ‘Calendar clock’, counting down to 2012:
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“The new Silbury crop-picture takes 'crop messages' to a new level! Anyone can see that it encodes some kind of important message, relevant to ancient Mayan-Aztec prophecy. So I spent several days learning Mayan-Aztec calendar systems, and now believe that the interpretation is unique and straightforward. It seems to be just a large "calendar clock", with time shown in four different units (analogous to days, hours, minutes or seconds) along the outside, plus a 'moving clock mechanism' in the centre.
Both 'inner hands' tell us that we lie precisely (52 / 6) = 8.67 years from the end of the 'Fourth Sun' in 2012.9, where 2004.6 (August) + 8.67 = 2012.9 (almost). The same picture would have had to be drawn in February 2004.2 to be perfectly accurate (no crops were growing then).
Aztecs and Mayans used three different calendar systems with 260, 360 or 365 days per year, but the crop-artist for simplicity drew everything in 360-day 'years'...
[The article goes on to explain the workings out of this]
Summary: Two different Mayan-Aztec calendar schemes are encoded in the diagram, leaving no possibility for error. The outer dial counts time as 52 x 10 x 10 = 5200, and uses a set of six fine lines near any shaded area for greater accuracy, namely 52 / 6 = 8.67. The inner hands count time as 12 x 20 x 20 or 12.0.0, since 13 x 20 x 20 = 13.0.0 = 5200 has not yet been reached. Because the information provided in both parts is redundant, we can be sure that the interpretation is correct. In other words, "the end of the Fourth Sun is near and on schedule". An incredibly clever scheme of pictorial mathematics.”
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We asked Geoff about his views on the accuracy of this view, and here’s what he has to say about it:
“One of the widely-circulated diagrams of this formation is totally wrong. It has only five "fine lines" when there should be six - totalling 96 in the formation, instead of the 80 in the diagram. The artist has drawn the central double-feather device upside down - the feathers should be opposite the fine lines. 96 is exactly a quarter of one lunar year of 13 lunar months - 384 days. The double square spiral is the Maya symbol for jaguar snouts, which indicates an entrance to the underworld. HOWEVER... I find the "calendar clock" article to be invalid. Here is why:
"2004.6 (August) + 8.67 = 2012.9 (almost)":
2004.6 (365.25-day years) is exactly August 2nd, when the formation appeared. Add 8.67 years to it and you get April 3rd 2013. If you add 8.67 360-day years, then you get 17 Feb 2013, but that would imply that 2004.6 should also be 360-day years, which would refer to 4th August, which is two days after it was discovered. Either way, the 13-baktun cycle of the Maya Long Count calendar ends on December 21st 2012, not February or April 2013! The comment that it should have been in February, but there were no crops growing, is a cop-out and anyway "2012.9" equates to November 24th 2012 (366-day leap-year), and that is not when the Fourth Sun ends – it’s December 21st 2012 - so that's wrong too (in 360-day years, 2012.9 = 19th November - even more wrong).
Also, there are not "two 'bundles' of 20 fine lines" on the "inner hands". There are 19 feathers, with 18 lines between them. Even the flawed diagram gets that right!
Incidentally, if the circlemakers wanted to tell us about the Aztec sunstone, perhaps they would give us something like this maize maze in California!” (See picture.)
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Whatever their meanings and origins, most agree that these two formations are pretty extraordinary...