CROP CIRCLE SURVEY 2003-2004
to learn about the amount of man-made crop circles in the period of 1996-2003

Results of the Survey

I have now updated the survey results to include entries that didn't make it to the previous results. Also I've added graphic charts to display the results better.

Here are the percentages of manmade, non-manmade (genuine) and non-detected (can't say) formations, summing up all 112 UK formations selected from the years 1996-2003.

Total number of participants 27.

You can see that the number of genuine formations is just slightly larger than manmade ones. So the general opinion of 27 people is that 48 crop circles out of 112 are made by something else than people plus 25 more possibly so. Although this is meaningful, more meaningful is the following:

Total number of reseachers 13.

This chart shows the opinions of researchers. You can see that the percentages of genuine and manmade formations are very close to each other. This might be a disappointment to some, but consider this: People who consider themselves experts on the crop circle phenomenon have the opinion that more than a third of the crop circles in England during 1996-2003 were made by some other force than human beings. In other words, out of these 112 formations (representing just a fraction of all formations during that period) they consider 39 formations to be genuine in this sense.

Now let's compare this to the results of crop circle enthusiasts and amateurs:

You can see a clear difference here. Amateurs who have no idea of how complex crop circles can be made by human beings are more inclined to see them as the creations of some other force. It is also noteworthy that amateurs' opinions are more defined: Although I emphasized that you should consider a formation genuine or manmade only if you have apparent reason to think so, only an average of 18 % of the formations was placed in the cathegory of "can't say" by this group. The corresponding result for researchers was almost 28 %. This, in my opinion gives more credibility for the researchers and indicates that they have a healthy level of criticism; it is not a piece of cake to determine the origin of a crop circle if you have not done good research on it.

Finally, here are my own results, which are not too far from the general opinion of researchers. I have placed more formations in the man-made cathegory, but I'm pleased to find that my expectations for the amount of genuine formations was matched by the average opininion of other researchers.

However, the researchers were far from unanimous.

Number of participants: 24

Participant personal information

Recearchers 13
Enthusiasts 7
Amateurs 6
Artists/hoaxers 1

Holistic approach 17
Spiritual approach 5
Scientific approach 3
None 2

Female 5
Male 22

British 6
Other European 11
Non-European 10

Under 20 years 1
20-39 years 11
40-59 years 13
60+ years 2

Average opinions on crop circle origins (as statistics)
(See opinions on all plates starting from next page)