Whilst there is still no news from Sumatra, Oll is hard at work looking at the forteana of that strange island...Indonesia has crop circles too
While waiting for news from the latest CFZ expedition to the Indonesian island of Sumatra to search for the Orang-pendek I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the background of the general area, both biologically and in Fortean terms.
Where-ever you go in the world certain Fortean tropes will surface in one form or another. For example the classic ‘big three’ of Ghosts, Monsters and UFOs are reported in just about every culture in the world, interestingly even from tribes with minimal contact with other cultures. Where it gets a bit more complicated, and to me a lot more interesting, is with the more obscure and more culturally specific reports of what are often lumped under the banner of strange phenomena. Do you get many reports of sightings of Djinn in Chipping Norton? Of course you don’t. But would you expect to see something that is as quite distinctly Western like a crop circle near Jakarta? Well actually you might be surprised, because occasionally they do ‘crop’ up, like one did in a paddy field this January (2011).
Before I go any further I should point out that I personally do not think crop circles are paranormal. They are often very beautiful works of art but I have seen no evidence that has convinced me they are made by anything other than human hands and feet (and wooden boards), but if you want to believe they are made by aliens, electromagnetics or rutting hedgehogs that’s no skin off my nose. All I will say on the subject is if crop circles are messages from extra terrestrials I’d really hate to be around if they were making a wedding speech.
What a crop circle in Indonesia does tell us is just how far cultural memes can travel in this day and age. People in the Far East are certainly well aware of crop circles there have been several documentaries made by Japanese TV companies for example and the best British crop circles make the papers there and occasionally the broadcast news along with all the speculation and theories. When you think of it, it is no small wonder that someone thought that it would be interesting to see what would happen if they made one nearer to home. The circle was made in a paddy field, allegedly during the night while farmers kept guard over the ripening crop, and from the photographs in this article, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/01/25/mysterious-crop-circle-found-farmer-yogyakarta.html , it looks like they did a really professional job. According to the article the Indonesian Air-Force scrambled a helicopter to photograph the site and the local police were stopping hundreds of visitors from getting too close to the circle.
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