Return to Part 1
September 13, 2006 Albuquerque, New Mexico – After our frustrating trip to Toot Baldon near Garsington, Oxfordshire, on Thursday, August 3, 2006, most of us decided to drive back to Charlbury in Wiltshire southwest of Wayland’s Smithy to see the extraordinary “circles with wheat sculptures inside,” as some called it. The unusual formation was first reported on July 11.Click for report.
” I look at this new methane data as a disturbing early harbinger that maybe things might be worse than our global warming models predict.”
– Ken Caldeira, Ph.D., Carnegie Institution, Stanford University
September 9, 2006 Stanford, California – As we begin September 2006, there is more disturbing news about Earth’s environment. A rapidly spreading fungal disease is predicted to wipe out about half the world’s frogs, toads, newts and salamanders by the end of this year. Andrew Blaustein, a zoology professor at Oregon State University, says, “Species are going extinct very fast. These are bio indicators that something is wrong with the planet.”Click for report.
September 6, 2006 Geneseo, Illinois – On Thursday, August 24, 2006, Ted Robertson hired a fixed-wing airplane pilot to take him over the Jim and Chris Stahl soybean farm in Geneseo, Illinois. One of his photographs sparked a question in the minds of Roger Sugden and Jeffrey Wilson of the Independent Crop Circle Research Association (ICCRA).
August 31, 2006 Geneseo, Illinois – When I first learned about the Geneseo, Illinois, soybean formations on Monday, August 21, I immediately wanted to get aerials before the field deteriorated from visitor traffic and weather. So, I talked with the farm’s owner, Jim Stahl, who recommended Steve’s Nursery in Geneseo, which hires out for landscape photography. Later that afternoon, Mike Belovicks at Steve’s Nursery photographed for me the soybean circles from north, south, east and west. He also got a clear close-up of the southern circle which showed the downed soybeans there were still pretty fresh and green, without much feet damage from visitors. That contrasted with a close-up Mike was able to get of the far eastern circle where most visitors had entered on the original path made by farm owner, Jim Stahl on Saturday morning, August 19. In all five circles, the soybean plants were circling clockwise, with the exception of anomalies in the eastern and center circles discussed below.Click for report.
August 28, 2006 Geneseo, Illinois – On Friday, August 25, 2006, around 3 p.m. CDT, Jim Stahl heard and saw a large, dark helicopter circling over the soybean formation to the west of his house. He managed to grab a digital camera and and got outside as the helicopter flew over his yard and away to the north.Click for report.
August 27, 2006 Geneseo, Illinois – On Sunday, August 20, 2006, Quad City Times reporter, Barb Ickes, wrote: “The crop circles at Jim Stahl’s farm appeared as they always do – out of nowhere. … The five circles in his soybean field create a geometric pattern. Three of the circles are the same size – about 50 feet in diameter – and are connected like beans in a pod. The other two circles are half the size of the others and flank them on either side. They appear to be precisely the same distance from the main circle. …Amid a 90-acre field of soybeans, Stahl discovered the oddity Saturday morning (August 19, 2006). He called the Henry County Sheriff’s Department.”Click for report.
"Researchers from the University of Colorado believe the next solar cycle (Solar Cycle 24) will be the most intense in 50 years."
- NASA, August 15, 2006
August 23, 2006 Huntsville, Alabama - As long as humans have been studying our sun, observers have noticed that the sun goes through reoccurring cycles that last about eleven years. For instance, most recently the year 2000 was a solar maximum of sunspots. After that, sunspots were supposed to decline in size and number to a solar minimum in 2005 before starting over again with an upswing in sunspot activity to another solar maximum in 2010 to 2012. During solar maximums, there can be powerful flares, or coronal mass ejections, that propel intense solar radiation at a million mph through the solar system. The power of a solar flare is the energy equivalent of a million megatons of TNT, or ten million Hiroshima bombs. During the most recent solar minimum, there were a number of unexpected huge sunspots that unleashed gigantic X class flares when the sun was supposed to be quiet. X class flares are the strongest category. That unusually intense activity during a solar minimum left many people wondering if the next solar cycle, the 24th, will be especially strong?
