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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Wednesday, September 14, 2011

SUMATRA 2011 EXPEDITION: Indonesia has crop circles too

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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