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Off Topic » in reply to "Crop Circles--the Hidden Truth" (originally from Mysteries of the Multiverse)

Crop Circles: The Art of the Hoax--Smithsonian Magazine
DavidFMayerPhD — (archived)

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Crop-Circles-The-Art-of-the-Hoax.html?c=y&page=1

They may not be evidence of UFOs, ancient spirits or secret weapons, but there is something magical in their allure

* By Rob Irving and Peter Brookesmith
* Smithsonian.com, December 15, 2009

False evidence intended to corroborate an existing legend is known to folklorists as “ostension.” This process also inevitably extends the legend. For, even if the evidence is eventually exposed as false, it will have affected people’s perceptions of the phenomenon it was intended to represent. Faked photographs of UFOs, Loch Ness monsters and ghosts generally fall under the heading of ostension. Another example is the series of photographs of fairies taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths at Cottingley, Yorkshire, between 1917 and 1920. These show that the motive for producing such evidence may come from belief, rather than from any wish to mislead or play pranks. One of the girls insisted till her dying day that she really had seen fairies—the manufactured pictures were a memento of her real experience. And the photos were taken as genuine by such luminaries as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—the great exponent, in his Sherlock Holmes stories, of logic.

~~David F Mayer
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