This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/highstrangeness by /u/Loudmouthlurker on 2025-06-04 15:09:02+00:00.
So, when I was a teenager, I was lucky enough to see the Julia Set crop circles. Picture above. Now I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a ghost, Bigfoot, an obvious UFO, or anything else cool. Just this. But it was extraordinary.
One problem circle believers have is, if talented beings are sending us these incredible messages, why put in all this work for something we can’t fathom? What kind of message is it, that we don’t understand? It’s not hard to figure out how to communicate with us properly, so what the heck is all this?
I wonder if crop circles are not a message at all, at least not directed towards us. What if this is some sort of cultural or religious practice for the beings who make them? (Assuming beings are making them).
If they have sentience, they probably have values.
While it’s true that ancient humans worshipped nature, they also worshipped advancement and discovery. In Babylonian mythology, Ishtar gets her father Enki drunk to steal the “Mes,” or the principles of civilization, to give them to the human race. In Greek mythology, Prometheus sacrifices himself to give fire to humans. Gods of agriculture and crafts were cherished more than others, even creator gods. For the Central Americans, the main value was indeed agriculture.
We don’t have written records of their exact beliefs, but it’s not hard to work out why Neolithic people worshipped bulls. The domestication of cattle changed everything for them. One or two bulls could plow a field beyond what several men could do. Their meat obviously could serve a whole village. Their milk allowed for more children, and cheese was long-lasting. Their bones made excellent tools, their hide made more durable leather than deerskin, and even their excrement could fertilize the fields they plowed. Their urine has anti-bacterial properties! Domesticating cattle was a big leap for neolithic people. That’s why the range of the bull cult spanned thousands of miles.
We commonly think of religion as either worshipping nature or some abstract creator. But we often forget that ancient people also worshipped game changing technology. Maybe they would be puzzled that we don’t have shrines to the computer god.
What if these beings that make crop circles, assuming they’re real of course, make crop circles as some act of worship? What if, despite their high abilities, they still revere agriculture? And leaving some artistic mark is an act of devotion?
Sure, we can see them, and it’s our own hard work they’re using for their crop circles. But maybe those circles aren’t saying anything us. Maybe they’re just a form of religious services.
I’m having trouble articulating my thoughts, but maybe that’s why these crop circles look intelligently designed but nonsensical. We’re not being spoken to. It’s like reading a sign in another language with a different writing system, that wasn’t translated for you. It wasn’t translated because you weren’t the target of the message.