Nancy Talbot

Interviews with Jerry Pippin

Photos of formation (next morning) and the source of the formation (a beam of light, as described in the interview below).

Nancy Talbot, Director of BLT Research, 8/23/02, Part 1. Nancy is a leading and internationally respected crop circles researcher. In this excerpt from her two hour interview on the Jerry Pippin Show, Nancy tells of her on personal close encounter experiences prior to and during the formation of a crop circle. And, in Part 2, hear Nancy's theories on the origins of crop circles.

News from Nancy

-- PRESS RELEASE –

DATE: July 24, 2005

RE: Herringbone "Weave" Found in Greene County, Ohio Crop Formation [photos: BLT Research Team Inc.]

On July 5, 2005 a Greene County farmer found what may be the very first crop formation of its kind in the world. The farmer, who wishes to remain anonymous, discovered an approximately 44' x 35' rectangle of downed wheat as he was harvesting his field, at first thinking the downed-crop area had been caused by deer. Upon closer examination he realized there was a distinct design to the manner in which the plants were bent over, resulting in a "woven" or interlaced herringbone pattern throughout the flattened crop.

Photo taken by farmer on July 5th showing one straight edge of formation & beginning of
herringbone pattern; cut chaff (on right) lies on top of the flattened crop.

Photo taken by BLT fieldworker JoAnne Scarpellini on July 19th, looking East;
section on left is where combine cut part of the formation on July 5th.

The farmer reports that the 4 rows of wheat along the Southern edge of the field were not affected and that he saw no footprints or tracks in the flattened areas or along the grassy edge of the field. From the air the peculiar squarish overall design does not suggest a typical crop circle, and the herringbone lay of the plants is not apparent. The farmer had begun cutting along the Southern edge (closest to the green soybean field) of the wheat field and then swung across the very irregular East edge of the formation, obscuring some of the original detail there.

Aerial photo taken July 20th.

Examination on the ground by the farmer on July 5th, and later on by BLT fieldworkers JoAnne Scarpellini and Nick Reiter on July 19-20 & 23 showed that the intricate character of the lay was intact, except where the combine had either cut some of the rows or had blown chaff out over a part of the formation. The wheat had been planted in a 7" drill (7" apart) and there were 60 rows of flattened plants running E/W.

Close-up of herringbone lay pattern, taken by farmer on July 5th.

Close-up taken on July 19th which suggests that the herringbone pattern has been
created more by an interlacing of plants than an actual weave.

The field examination revealed that a majority of the plants were bent over at the base, with the stems unbroken. No expulsion cavities were found and no visible node elongation was apparent. Although the farmer had cut the rest of the field, some seeds were obtained from control areas as well as seed-heads from within the formation so that germination studies can be conducted. Geiger-counter checks revealed nothing anomalous and there were no compass irregularities observed. Soil samples were taken to check for magnetic particle content, as well as soils for chemical analyses and a mycorrhizal fungi examination.

Close examination of each row of flattened crop revealed that the first 4 rows were laid in one distinct pattern, the next 4 rows in a different pattern, and that these two complex pattern sets repeated across all 60 rows. A diagram showing these lay details will be included in the final BLT Report.

A neighbor and his wife report a strange lighted object in th sky on the same afternoon that the formation was discovered—a cloud-like object which seemed to be "flickering" in a manner similar to a fluorescent light—which boh husband and wife took at first to be lightning, although there were no storm clouds present and no thunder or rain. For 20 minutes or so they observed multiple flashing incidents, with very intense colors appearing for 2-3 seconds, the colors becoming more and more intense as the incidents continued. The husband, who works as a lineman for the local power company, stated that there was no "blue color, as in a transformer going off," but that the flashing looked more like an "ignition of some sort" inside the cloud.

And the farmer reported that he observed that his farm dog (which does not live in the house) had suddenly exhibited very strange behavior, refusing to go outside as was its custom, attempting instead to stay inside the family's garage as close to the steps into the house as it could. This behavior began the day the crop formation was discovered and continued for the following 2 weeks.

In the absence of several of the scientifically documented plant changes which can be expected in crop circles (elongated apical nodes, expulsion cavities) and since the soil work will take time to complete--and given that this is the first time a crop formation with squared edges and an interlacing herringbone pattern in the crop has been observed--we are not certain if this is a crop circle or not. The circles have, over the years, evolved from their original state, and perhaps this Greene County, Ohio event is revealing a brand new aspect of the ongoing phenomenon.

A written report will be posted on the BLT web-site when the germination study and various soils analyses are completed; perhaps then we will have a better idea of which category best suits this event.

3/9/04: X-Ray Diffraction Study Of Clay Minerals In Crop Circle Soils

From Nancy Talbott

bltresearch@comcast.net

After constant delays (mostly due to financial constraints) the X-ray diffraction study of clay minerals in crop circle soils, which was begun in 1999 and completed in late 2001, is now available on the BLT Research Team Inc.'s web-site at: http://www.bltresearch.com/xrd.html. BLT is most grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Lyman D. Rogers of Newtown, Connecticut, whose financial support made this possible, and to web-site personnel Kim McDonald Gazecki, William Bombardier, and Abby Lewis who did the actual work of transferring the study to the web.

This study, funded by Laurence Rockefeller, examined specific clay minerals (those which are called "expandable" clays and which are most sensitive to heat) in crop circle soils, in an attempt to gather further data which might inform us regarding the hypothesized presence of microwave radiation at crop circle sites. Multiple scientists were involved (see "Study Personnel"), most of whom were totally unacquainted with the crop circle phenomenon at the time they carried out their individual work on the project. These scientists were carefully chosen, not only for their specific expertise, but because they were unaware of the phenomenon, thus ruling out any potential assertions by skeptics of "experimenter bias."

The results are startling. Specific clay minerals (illite/smectites) are shown to exhibit a subtle, but statistically significant, increase in degree of crystallization....a change heretofore seen only in sedimentary rock, which has been exposed to the massive pressure (called "geologic" pressure) of tons of overlying rock and to heat from the earth's core over hundreds, or thousands of years. To our knowledge this increase in degree of crystallization has never been reported previously in surface soils (as is the case here).

If "geologic" pressure had been present, obviously the plants would have been obliterated. And, of course, they were not. Further, if the intense heat required (a minimum of 6-800 degrees C, over a period of many hours) to produce the crystalline change (in the absence of such geologic pressure) had been present, the plants would have been incinerated. And, again, they were not. The plants did show the well-documented changes (elongated apical nodes, presence of expulsion cavities) regularly found in crop circles which are not created by mechanical flattening (i.e., with planks and boards). What is MOST interesting is the fact that both the documented plant changes and the increases in clay-mineral crystallization occurred at the SAME sampling locations. A regression analysis found that the node-length increases in the plants were correlated with the increase in crystallization of the clay minerals in the soils at the 99.2% level of confidence, a truly extraordinary result.

So the data appear to indicate that whatever caused the plant changes, also caused the soil changes at the same sampling locations. And yet we realize that the intense energy situation required to produce the soil effects would have destroyed the plants altogether. As Dr. Reynolds, the Dartmouth mineralogist and recognized authority on clay minerals and the XRD technique whom we asked to review our study stated, we are apparently dealing with an energy currently unknown to science.

As is often the case in science, new and intriguing questions have been raised. The notion of mechanical flattening, however, is without question ruled out. We hope that all interested members of the crop circle community will take the time to examine the new study. All of the data and personnel involved have been included on the web-site. BLT welcomes comments and/or questions. Please note, also, that many other changes and additions have been made to other pages on the site, including the following pages: "Home," "Plant Abnormalities," "Clay-Mineral XRD Study," "Other Facts," "Professional Consultants," "Lab Reports," and "Contact."

Additional information about Nancy's crop circle investigations and research projects on our CROP CIRCLES page.