It seems the debunkers have a new weapon in their arsenal. In addition to the usual sure-fire tactics they normally employ to beat UFO believers into submission...like swamp gas, weather balloons, sleep paralysis, etc...they now have another skeptical bomb at their disposal...tire tracks. That's right, tire tracks. This was the "brilliant" explanation used to discredit a recent crop circle sighting in Goldthwaite, Texas.
Of course, the term crop circle is a little misleading in this case since in order to have a crop circle you first have to have a crop...you know, stuff that grows up out of the ground and gets harvested by farmers? These circles happened to appear in the middle of a cow pasture and the only vegetables growing out there are the kind that have horns and say "Moo." Nevertheless, people still referred to them as crop circles simply because there were circles...two of them...embedded in the dirt.
The circles were first discovered on March 4, 2011. It is unknown when they were actually created since the land they appeared on is not frequently used, but when the property-owner finally went to check on her ranch, there they were...two strange circles imprinted on the ground.
Each circle consisted of a strip of churned up earth approximately 15 inches wide and perfectly round. The inner circle was approximately twenty feet in diameter, the outer close to twenty-seven feet. There were no tracks leading too or away from them, nor were their any identifying markings of any kind. No tread marks, foot prints, shovel indentations...nothing. It was like they just appeared there out of thin air.
Several photos were taken by the initial witness and a report was filed with NUFORC. MUFON's elite STAR team investigators were called in to investigate while the photos were quickly disseminated throughout various internet sites and forums. Nobody who saw the photos was able to come up with a convincing explanation for how the circles were formed.
I, personally, do not have a clue how they were formed. I have seen circles similar to these in the past and I never could figure out how the darned things were created. I have several theories about them but nothing convincing. There simply is not any readily available explanation for them. The new ones are just as mysterious, with no obvious identifying marks of any kind. Faced with an absence of conclusive evidence I was ready to chalk this recent case up as another unexplained mystery, so you can imagine my surprise when I happened to read a NUFORC update which claimed that the case had been solved!
It said: "The marks on the ground at a farm site in Goldthwaite, Texas, have been investigated by Teresa Turner, MUFON “Star Team” Investigator, and Deputy Director for Documentation. Following her investigation of the incident, she has concluded that the marks in the ground, first reported by the property owner, were caused by men driving trucks on the farm. Ms. Turner’s follow-up report to NUFORC can be read here."
Driving trucks on the farm? How on God's brown Texas Earth could perfect circles have been formed by "men driving trucks on the farm?" Incredulous with disbelief I then proceeded to read the follow-up report which gave a few more scant details.
"Concerning NUFORC case number S80116- After further investigation by an area investigator, it was determined (through photos and further witness statements) that the crop circles were in all probability the tracks left from the prior weekend when several young men went "muddin" in their big mud trucks. While there was considerable concern that the circles were perfect in shape, witness did not wish to have the case investigated further."
Did I read that right? Did that say that the tracks were in all probability left over from the previous weekend when several young men went "muddin" in their big trucks? Just in case anybody does not know what "muddin" is, allow me to explain.
Muddin, or mudding, is where a bunch of drunken rednecks drink a lot of beer and then get in their vehicles, (usually big pickup trucks) and drive out to some muddy cow pasture or field somewhere. They then stomp on the gas pedal and spin around in circles and slide all over the place through the mud. The faster they go the better they like it. In some cases of extreme drunkenness they might even attach an old car hood to the back of the truck with a rope and then one of the drunken rednecks can ride on the hood as the truck goes churning around at ever-increasing speeds. The revelry usually lasts until the truck flips over or the guy on the car hood goes sailing off into a ditch and ends up with multiple broken bones and lacerations. This is what good ol' boys call fun.
Someone once theorized that if you were to put a bunch of monkeys in a room and had them typing nonstop on type-writers for a certain period of time sooner or later through sheer chance they would accidentally create the entire works of Shakespeare. Whether or not that is true I don't know, but I do know that if you put a hundred drunken rednecks behind the wheel of a bunch of pickups and have them go sliding around in the mud there is no way they are going to create a perfect circle...I don't care how long they try. It ain't gonna happen.
What all of that means is that there is no way in Hades that those circles were created by "tire tracks." A closer look at the evidence also argues against the "official" explanation.
First of all there are no tread marks of any kind...none, nada, zero. Secondly, there are no ruts of any kind which there surely would be if a tire were spinning through the mud with the weight of a vehicle pressing down on it. These tracks were not depressed into the ground at all. It looked like the Earth was just broken up somehow by something scraping along the top of it. Third, there are no tracks leading to or away from the circles. So what happened? Did some modern-day cowboy drop down out of the sky, make a perfect circle with his "iron horse" then sail off into the sunset? Not unless a Ford Thunderbird really can sprout wings and fly.
Another problem with the "tire-track" theory is the dimensions of the circles. The measurements of the two circles are approximately 20 feet and 27 feet in diameter. That would mean that if they were made by a vehicle then it would have to have a track width from wheel to wheel of close to seven feet wide. A quick check of the dimensions of most modern full-sized pickups shows a track width of about 65 to 68 inches, which means that a "big" truck would be almost a foot and a half too narrow to create the tracks.
There also is the problem of the turning radius. This is the diameter of the smallest circle that a vehicle would be able to turn in if the steering wheel were cranked all the way. The Goldthwaite circles are only twenty feet in diameter for the inside circle yet a full-size pickup would take almost twice that distance to make a complete turn...there is no way a pickup could turn a complete circle in twenty feet. If the rear wheels were sliding and the truck were spinning around with the front bumper chained to a stake it might be possible to turn that sharply but then the rear tire tracks would be almost overlapping one another...they definitely would not maintain a seven foot wide track.
What all of this means is that there is no way those circles were made by tire tracks from a vehicle. So what did make them?
I don't know. Obviously the circles must have been made by something, terrestrial or otherwise, but at this time I do not know what it was and I will be the first to admit it. I just wish the MUFON investigator would have done the same, instead of saying that "in all probability" they were tire tracks. Mrs. Turner herself practically admitted that she had doubts about that explanation when she stated that "there was considerable concern that the circles were perfect in shape..."
So why did she bring the case to a premature conclusion with a faulty explanation that she had suspicions about? The answer lies in the next words that she wrote saying that "the witness did not wish to have the case investigated further." Apparently, since Mrs. turner realized she would not be able to do a more detailed analysis of the evidence she decided to close the investigation by assigning to it the most probable explanation she could come up with--tire tracks--even if she and everybody else who looked at the photos instinctively knows it is not correct.
I wonder how many times this has happened in the past? Do Ufologists routinely assign false explanations to difficult cases simply so they can bring the case to a close? Is the reason why so many UFO sightings end up being classified as swamp gas, Venus or weather balloons, simply because those are the most convenient explanations an investigator can come up with? If so, it is no wonder we still don't know the truth about UFOs after more than six decades of studying them. If investigators are going to assign convenient BS excuses to every difficult case than we never will find out the truth.
I have to say that I am extremely disappointed in the outcome of this case. I would expect this type of haphazard explanation from a rabid skeptic or debunker, but not from MUFON which is supposed to be the largest and most credible UFO investigative organization in the world. And their STAR team is supposed to be the most elite of the investigators. This type of lackadaisical attitude is inexcusable.
I am also disappointed in the fact that NUFORC would blindly accept such a lame explanation without question simply because a MUFON investigator gave it to them. They should have known better than that. A case should not be declared to be "solved" unless there really is an accurate solution. If they are unsure about the explanation or if they just don't know, then they should classify it as "unexplained" or "unsolved" or "Who the heck knows?" They shouldn't just blindly accept the first thing that comes along.
There is no harm in admitting that something is unexplainable. Unidentified Flying Objects by their very nature are hard to identify. Ignorance of what they are may not be the truth that we seek but at least it is the truth. I would rather have that than a pile of BS any day...even if it is a convenient pile of BS.
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