Fractals Everywhere: What the Pilot Saw

At the height of the crop circle craze, this Mandelbrot Set appeared one night in a cornfield a few miles south of Cambridge, UK . Although the pilot, quoted below, thought the sight quite extraordinary, subsequent correspondence in the same newspaper soon explained the fractal pattern.

"They are obviously not man-made — they are far too symmetrical for that."

— Cambridge Weekly News, 15 August 1991

The proximity of the University of Cambridge, and the time of year — summer vacation — seems to implicate graduate students in this case.

I do so love the way so many of these elaborate crop "circles" are oriented along the tractor lines — and the way the pseudoscientists and alien apologists never seem to find this in the least bit suspicious.


Other crop circles: