Circles on the field and other formations. Brazil

Crop circles are a controversial subject – farmers hate them, drone camera operators love them, believers think they’re made by extraterrestrials as messages, skeptics swear they’re made by artistic humans with boards, ropes and vivid imaginations. What crop circles need is someone to conduct a scientific analysis on them to determine what they are and who made them. On October 4, 2022, a crop circle appeared in Ipuaçu, a city in the state of Santa Catarina in the South region of Brazil – a town with so many crop circles, it is considered by some to be the Wiltshire of Brazil or the “City of ETs.” Word traveled quickly and it was visited and scientifically studied by a government and military specialist in electronics and a paranormal and UFO investigator. What did he find? Will it change everything? Anything?

It pays to look both ways when examining a crop circle

"I woke up and it was already there. When I came out, I could see from above."

Farmer Sérgio Girotto told the GZH General media organization of his experience on the morning of October 4 in Ipuaçu. Looking out the balcony of his house at a wheat field, where he also plants beans corn and oats, he saw parts of his crop pressed down into the crop. Brazilians refer to crop as agroglyphs and Girotto says he is far from the first farmer in the area to see one – they date back to at least 2008 in Ipuaçu. Other farmers saw the agroglyph and texted photos to Girotto, along with posting them on WhatsApp and other social media platforms. Girotto noted that he’s had agroglyphs on his property before in 2013, but this one – with its geometric combination of a pentagon, circles and a triangle -- was one of the most intricate and precise he has seen and the first to be so close to an urban area. (Photos of the crop circle can be viewed here.) 

"I don't believe it or disbelieve it. But that's very strange, yes. People from Curitiba, São Paulo and even the Amazon. There was a French couple too. They said they live in Foz do Iguaçu."

As with the crop circles in England, the photos of this one went viral and the farm and Ipuaçu were soon swamped with visitors. By October 16, tramplings, decay and heavy rains had washed out the agroglyph … but not before it was visited by a team of investigators led by Alcides Cores. According to his biography at UFO Magazine (Revista UFO), Cores is a professional in electronic systems maintenance for the Brazilian Airport Infrastructure Company (Infraero) qualified in radio aid to air navigation, and is a technician specialized by the Air Force Command in high-precision flight telemetry equipment. On the paranormal side, Cores has been a researcher of paranormal phenomena and a ufologist for over 40 years, and is the author of “Dimensional Portals (Portais Dimensionais,) described by A Gazeta de Vale do Argentina as a best seller and “a fundamental work for any ufologist or interested in the subject, and it needs to be part of your library.”

“Several measurements were made inside and outside the figure to have a comparison parameter, using two different electromagnetic field meters: one with three axes, which makes scanning easier and more accurate and operates in the range between 50 MHz and 3.5 GHz, and a single-axis meter, but sensitive to a wider and higher band of frequencies, ranging from 700 MHz to 6 GHz.”

Cores and his team issued the results of their investigation last week in Revista UFO. They were most interested in magnetic anomalies in and around Sérgio Girotto ‘s crop circle. While the readings revealed a relatively weak electromagnetic field, they noticed several sudden magnetic pulse of more than 60,000 nT (an nT is one nanotesla or 10 to the -9 tesla) which “curiously happened outside the crop circle.” While they recorded fluctuations on their instruments, no anomalies were seen on personal electronics like cell phones and compasses.

Cores notes that the weak magnetic field could be due to the crop circle’s close proximity to the city of Ipuaçu. It could also be picking up electromagnetic emissions from a nearby (700 meters or 2300 feet) cell phone tower. Cores also points out that his team arrived the day after the agroglyph appeared and reading could have been different on that day. Moreover, he admits that “we are unaware of the technology that produces this phenomenon, but there is certainly the involvement of an energy that we can assume is of an electromagnetic nature and of high frequency, perhaps in the microwave range.” This is far from the first crop circle he has investigated, and Cores says he’s seen high magnetic readings in the wheat stalks of various crop circles. Unfortunately, electromagnetic radiation dissipates quickly and leaves no traces.

Those sudden magnetic pulse of more than 60,000 nT continued to bother the investigation team. Cores offered one possible explanation for them:

“According to the magnetic map that uses data from the World Magnetic Model (WMM2020), the magnetic field of Ipuaçu should have a value of 22,365.7 nT. Furthermore, it is known that the southern region is under the great magnetic anomaly of the South Atlantic, an immense area that is characterized by a great weakening of the global magnetic field, and Ipuaçu is located relatively close to its epicenter, which is currently over the Paraguay.”

Cores is referring to the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) – the area where Earth's inner Van Allen radiation belt comes closest to Earth's surface, causing an increased flux of energetic particles in this region and exposes orbiting satellites to higher-than-usual levels of ionizing radiation, which is why NASA tries to avoid sending satellites or space flights over it. If the Southern Atlantic Anomaly caused the spikes in electromagnetisim, could those spikes be attracting non-human entities there to create the crop circles?

Is the electromagnetism in the reading human-made or something else?

Alcides Cores has been investigating the paranormal with a scientific eye long enough to know better than to jump to any conclusions.

“The phenomenon of crop circles is perhaps more complex than we imagine. What is physically presented to the eye is the kneading of the wheat and the geometric figure formed by it, which undoubtedly can contain messages not yet deciphered. But perhaps, in addition to the geometric shape and the effects in wheat, there is something deeper in it that vibrates in the spectrum of energies of the universe that human perception does not reach.”

In other words, the local magnetic field may be dictating the shape of this and other agroglyphs in Ipuaçu and possibly in other areas. Since no one admits to seeing this crop circle being made, there is no evidence to conclude it was made by humans … but there is also none to drive the conclusion to extraterrestrials either. At this point, Cores reminds us why there are so many conflicts between science and the paranormal.

“However, it is worth remembering that science is not a matter of belief or disbelief. Science is verification, impartial investigation within a methodology established by it to avoid mistakes and reach results as close to reality as possible. In this process, data collection is essential.”

As we have noted, Alcides Cores and his team collected the data at the site of the recent crop circle in Ipuaçu, analyzed it a drew their conclusions as best as they could. To the frustration of believers, the conclusion was not extraterrestrials. However, this was only one of many agroglyphs in Ipuaçu and the surrounding area. Cores and other investigation teams will be back. And one day they may find the conclusive data on crop circles everyone is waiting for.

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A rotina de Sérgio Girotto, de 62 anos, não difere muito da do resto dos agricultores de Ipuaçu, cidade de 7,6 mil habitantes no oeste catarinense. Ele acorda às 5h30, prepara o chimarrão e sai para trabalhar. Na manhã do último dia 4, pipocaram fotos no celular de Girotto. Eram os agroglifos, desenhos que aparecem em plantações locais desde 2008. Ele só não imaginava, segundo conta, que dava para ver a novidade da sua varanda. "Quando saí, pude ver lá do alto."

As imagens - formas geométricas com pentágono, círculos e um triângulo em meio ao trigo - não correram só o WhatsApp de Girotto e seus vizinhos: viralizaram nas redes sociais. "Acordei e já estava lá", diz ele. O agricultor jura não ter ideia de como as inscrições misteriosas foram parar nas suas terras, onde, além de trigo e agroglifos, costumam brotar feijão, milho e aveia.

"Não é a primeira vez. Em 2013 já tinha acontecido (na propriedade), mas a gente não deu muita importância", relata Girotto, que vive com a mulher. A diferença desta vez, afirmam moradores, foi a proximidade com a área urbana e também as formas diferentes de qualquer outra já vista na região. Grafismos de grande porte criados a partir do achatamento de plantações, os agroglifos costumam ter origem desconhecida, alimentando a imaginação de vizinhos e embates entre ciência e ufologia.

Católico, ele prefere não arriscar uma autoria para os traços na sua lavoura, que tem um total de 17 hectares. Invasores? Animais? Fantasmas? OVNIs? "Não acredito nem desacredito. Mas que é muito estranho, é", admite. O mistério atrai curiosos - na maior parte de estudantes e caçadores de vida extraterrestre.

"Gente de Curitiba, de São Paulo e até do Amazonas. Teve um casal de franceses também. Disseram que moram em Foz do Iguaçu", conta.

Muitos desses grupos, inclusive, apontam falsos agroglifos - o que seriam apenas imitações dos desenhos legítimos, que obedecem a uma série de supostos padrões, como curvatura dos vegetais, distâncias simétricas, e preservação da estrutura das plantas, sem dano ao caule ou às folhas. Na propriedade de Girotto, a forte chuva desta semana já apagou os desenhos.

Turismo

Se os desenhistas seguem no anonimato, Ipuaçu quer usufruir da fama. A prefeitura já ostenta no site o título de "capital nacional dos agroglifos", mas ainda está longe de receber o mesmo volume de turistas que Roswell (EUA), onde supostamente um disco voador teria sido achado, ou Stonehenge (Reino Unido), monumento pré-histórico de pedra.

A prefeitura de Ipuaçu afirma que, a cada novo agroglifo (a lista no site do município aponta que esse seria pelo menos o quinto na região desde 2008, mas há outros relatos), aparecem cerca de 2 mil pessoas.

O comércio, porém, não tem visto todo esse movimento. "As pessoas vêm mais por curiosidade, ficam meia hora e vão embora. Não chegam a consumir na cidade", reclama Eliamar Seraglio, de 40 anos, dona do único hotel da cidade.

Já Luiz Prates Junior, do Grupo de Pesquisa Ufológica de Santa Catarina, investiu tempo no local para colher amostras de terra, das plantas, ouvir testemunhas e coletar imagens do desenho, com cerca de 700 m².

"Apesar de o desenho ter sido criado sobre as marcas de rodado de trator, não foram identificadas pegadas humanas, descartando que o agroglifo tenha sido produzido com cordas ou madeira", afirmou Prates. "Se assim fosse, a vegetação não estaria deitada da forma como foi encontrada, mas sim com plantas quebradas ou levantadas", disse.

Ciência

Na ciência, é difícil encontrar alguém para endossar a tese de artistas vindos do espaço, com preferência por áreas rurais no Brasil. Há notícia de desenhos enigmáticos em plantações desde a Idade Média. Os agroglifos ficaram famosos nos anos 1980, no Reino Unido. Feitas a partir do achatamento da vegetação, as imagens motivaram teorias.

Até que, em 1991, dois artistas reivindicaram a autoria dos desenhos. A um jornal britânico, os amigos Doug Bower e Dave Chorley revelaram ter feito mais de 200 deles na última década, usando tábuas e pedaços de cordas. Um ano depois, foi organizado um concurso de círculos nas colheitas (do inglês crop circles), outro nome dado aos agroglifos. Entre os participantes estavam alunos de uma escola local e uma dupla de mulheres acompanhada de um cão, treinado para puxar tábuas.

Os resultados mostraram que os humanos eram capazes de reproduzir o design proposto. Segundo Adolfo Stotz Neto, astrônomo e presidente do Grupo de Estudos de Astronomia da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), a técnica usada pela dupla segue sendo empregada para a criação dos recortes nas plantações. As tábuas eram usadas para amassar a plantação. Já as cordas garantem a estética, por meio de movimentos precisos. (colaborou Raisa Toledo)

As informações são do jornal O Estado de S. Paulo.