Cerchi nel grano: il mistero delle mosche morte (5)

Pat Delgado, Colin Andrews e le mosche morte

Ancora mosche morte... se vi siete imbattuti nella mia indagine o avete cercato su web articoli riguardanti il mistero delle mosche morte, avrete letto sicuramente che il tutto ha origine a partire dal ritrovamento della ricercatrice olandese Janet Ossebaard nel Luglio 1998.

In realtà sono riuscito a trovare in letteratura un articolo datato 9 Luglio 1989 a firma di Stuart Wavell per il giornale Sunday Times in cui è possibile intuire con ragionevole certezza che Pat Delgado e Colin Andrews si fossero imbattuti nello stesso fenomeno una decina di anni prima, interpretandolo anch'essi in chiave misteriosa.

L'articolo è ritratto nell'immagine di questo post e questa è la trascrizione:

Close encounter: Colin Andrews, left, and Pat Delgado in one of the 148 circles that have appeared in the fields of southern England in the past month

Running round in circles

THE circle was 37 ft across, a perfet swirl of flattened green wheat spinning out from a tight centre. Despite a week's exposure to passing ramblers, it was in almost pristine condition, the horizontal plant steams neatly brushed towards a sharp division with the sorrounding crop.
"I have never seen anything like it before," declared Pat Delgado who, with fellow researcher Colin Andrews, had recorded the mysterious appearence of 148 circles in the fields of southern England during the previous four and a half weeks.
Delgado, a retired electromechanical design engineer, was referring to a distinctively baffling feature of this circle near the village of Chilcomb, two and a half miles from Winchester. Curving out from its edge, like a tadpole's tail, was a 28-yard channel whose flattened stems were combed immaculately towards the circle. Enormous pressure appeared to have been applied to these precise formations so that the soil carried impressions of the otherwise undamaged stems.
The circle's centre lay between a tractor's wheel tramlines, and some 200 yards from ancient tumuli.
Why, one wondered, would an alien leave his spacecraft to walk into the field and then return? Perhaps for a very human reason. I recalled that Delgado and Andrews's new book, Circular Evidence, mentioned the discovery of a "luminous, white, jelly-like substance" which had defied analysis.
Aliens are, of course, taboo among serious British UFO investigators. The two researchers, who favour the theory of a rotating energy field, say that they are working with 35 scientists, and stress their own technical credentials.
Delgado worked at the British missile testing range in Australia and later for Nasa. Andrews, whose Andover home is their operational base, is a senior electrical engineer with the local borough council.
Their remarkable aerial photographs are largely due to Busty Taylor, a fully qualified driving instructor with a pilot's licence. Busty is a man.
But the last week their professionalism was called into question by the British UFO Research Association (Bufora).
It accused them of "fostering a space-age myth" in their reaction of a meteorological explanation, of ignoring the extent of hoaxes and of persevely insisting that the circles are mostly confined to Hampshire and Wiltshire.
It also cited the authors' apparent reluctance to reveal that they were consultant to Flying Saucer Review - "a journal which has featured a secret 'plot' to remove UFO books from libraries and linked UFOs with genies".
I put this to Andrews, "I am indeed a consultant to Flying Saucer Review," he said. "I don't see what that has to do with it. I haven't gone out of my way to push that because we want to keep the research scientific.
"The vortex doesn't have to be intelligent, although personally I believe it is."
He contends that the phenomenon is not only increasing at an exponential rate, but that it is evolving. Indeed, the book's photographs show a bewildering array of single, double and triple circles, ornamented with permutations of 'Saturn' rings, satellite circles and swirl patterns.
The latest twist, claim the researchers, is a molecular change in affected crops which is passing into the food chain.
"The pattern is initially spiralled, but it starts growing into patterns like a dart board," Delgado said. "Of the 95 circles reported in Wiltshire until last week, one third were developing the same molecular damage."
Their critics at Bufora assert that by drawing media attention to Wessex and ignoring evidence of wider distribution, Delgado and Andrews are inadvertently encouraging elaborate hoaxes by groups fixated on the mysticism of Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury Hill.
The reasearchers readily agree that the mysterious force appears to be taking an interest in them. "We can be talking, even on an aircraft, and the phenomenon appears to respond to the discussion, even the thought," Andrews said.
Fortunately, they can identify genuine circles with dowsing rods. And by felicitous circumstances, Delgado's naked hands are tuned to energy forces and subterranean water. In their book, Andrews relates several personal close encounters with the paranormal.
I asked if they had any evidence of animal life being affected.
Andrews triumphantly emerged from his kitchen with a frozen jamjar containing a fly, still clinging to a stem.
"This was taken from the centre of the vortex at Chilcomb. His wings are outstretched. He was about to take off. He's been zapped dead." Andrews beamed.
They have other flies in the sky - the Optica aircraft of Hampshire and Wiltshire police who, they say, exchange details of new circle formations. "They recognise we can't keep sweeping this under the carpet," Andrews said.
"It's big. We need help. We have the Japanese and French flying in, and still our government is not prepared to get off their backsides and come down here."
He flourished a graph of sightings. "The way this is going, something is going to happen in the next few months."

Circular Evidence by Pat Delgado and Colin Andrews is published on Thursday by Bloomsbury (£14.95).
The recently published Controversy Of The Circles, by Jenny Randles and Paul Fuller, is available from Bufora, 37 Heatbank Road, Stockport, Cheshire, SK3 OUP (£3.95)

Il passaggio chiave è il seguente e l'ho evidenziato prima in grassetto:
Andrews triumphantly emerged from his kitchen with a frozen jamjar containing a fly, still clinging to a stem.
"This was taken from the centre of the vortex at Chilcomb. His wings are outstretched. He was about to take off. He's been zapped dead."

Traduzione:
Andrews è uscito trionfante dalla sua cucina con un barattolo per la marmellata contenente una mosca ancora attaccata allo stelo.
"Questa è stata presa dal centro del vortice presso Chilcomb. Le sue ali sono allungate. Stava quasi per prendere il volo. E' stata uccisa in maniera fulminea."

Dunque ricapitoliano... mosca morta, ancora attaccata allo stelo, ali allungate come se stesse quasi per librarsi in volo... gli elementi ci sono tutti: Entomophthora muscae.

L'articolo, ricordiamolo, è del Luglio 1989 e contiene a mio avviso anche altri elementi interessanti di riflessione.
I due "esperti" non sono circondati da consensi totali, c'è qualcuno che dissente profondamente dall'operato di Delgado e Andrews.
Gli ufologi della Bufora li accusano - fra le altre cose - di ignorare la quantità dei cerchi fatti dagli uomini ("ignoring the extent of hoaxes") e di incoraggiare inconsapevomente la creazione di cerchi elaborati da parte di gruppi di persone ossessivamente attratti dal misticismo di Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury Hill ("are inadvertently encouraging elaborate hoaxes by groups fixated on the mysticism of Stonehenge, Avebury and Silbury Hill").

E' un dato di fatto, mancano poco più di un paio di anni al Settembre 1991 e c'è già qualcuno che pubblicamente sulla stampa fa sentire la sua voce contraria ai due "esperti" Delgado e Andrews, denuncia sempre pubblicamente che i cerchi fatti dagli uomini sono tanti e che ci sono gruppi diversi di circlemakers in azione nelle campagne inglesi.

Un altro elemento interessante che voglio infine segnalare emerge da quest'altro frammento:
Fortunately, they can identify genuine circles with dowsing rods. And by felicitous circumstances, Delgado's naked hands are tuned to energy forces and subterranean water.

Delgado e Andrews, gli "esperti", riescono a identificare se i cerchi esaminati sono genuini o meno con... le bacchette da rabdomante, non solo, Delgado a mani nude è in grado di sintonizzarsi con le forze energetiche e l'acqua nel sottosuolo.

Su che solide fondamenta nasce il mito dei cerchi?


Francesco Grassi