Найдены авторы таинственных кругов на полях

Ими оказались не инопланетяне, но и не досужие шутники.

Когда в конце 2013 года фотографу Джули Беланджер удалось заснять круги на полях таинственной формы, ее снимок вызвал оживленные споры в обществе.

Что мог означать рисунок, сделанный, очевидно, машинкой для стрижки газона в Чуаларе, маленьком городке к югу от Сан-Франциско? Глупая шутка? Послание инопланетянам? А может − послание от инопланетян?

А когда выяснилось, что заснятые круги так же таинственно исчезли, как и появились,  дискуссия перешла в следующую фазу. Некоторые начали обвинять фотографа в фальсификации, другие всерьез обсуждали реальность вмешательства инопланетян.

Наконец, в самом разгаре споров в редакцию одного из агентства новостей поступил анонимный звонок. Звонивший утверждал, что автором кругов является знаменитая компания NVIDIA, один из крупнейших в мире производителей чипов, а сам рисунок сделан для рекламы ее новейшей продукции.

Теперь эта информация подтвердилась. В воскресенье вечером президент и генеральный директор NVIDIA Джен-Сун Хуан объявил на пресс-конференции в рамках Международной выставки потребительской электроники(CES) в Лас Вегасе, что он лично заказал своему отделу по маркетингу найти оригинальный ход, способный привлечь широкое внимание общественности к новому чипу для мобильных телефонов.

NVIDIA подтвердила утверждения тех, кто говорил, что видит в рисунке на поле цифры 1, 9 и 2. Число 192, выведенное шрифтом Брайля для слепых, означает количество ядер в новом мобильном чипе компании, который был впервые представлен на CES.

«Наш новый чип фактически проложил мост через пропасть, теперь мобильные телефоны по мощности ничем не будут уступать лучшим настольным компьютерам», − утверждает Хуан.

Вскоре после того, как фотография таинственных кругов появилась в СМИ, сотрудники компании вновь оперативно засадили потревоженное поле, вызвав суматоху и поток спекуляций. Рекламная компания революционного чипа однозначно удалась.

Naked Science
http://naked-science.ru/article/media/n … tvennykh-k

The intricate design etched into a field of barley two hours south of San Francisco was spotted Monday morning by Julie Belanger, a photographer, as she and her husband were flying over.
"What is it?" was her first thought, she told CNN affiliate KSBW.
Whatever it was, "It was beautiful, quite beautiful," she said, adding that they came upon it by chance but that she was skeptical that the crop circle was evidence of something otherworldly.
"I believe it's possible that aliens exist, but I don't know if they would bother making a crop circle to give us a message," she said.
Still, the news spread quickly. The field's owner, Scott Anthony, had just returned from vacation to his home when he got a call from one of the employees on his 2,000-acre farm outside the tiny town of Chualar, 10 miles southeast of Salinas.
"He said, 'Hey, there's a buncha stuff out in the middle of the field,' so when I went up there I go, 'Ohhhh, shoot!'," the 58-year-old farmer told CNN Tuesday in a telephone interview.
What he saw was an elaborate design sculpted into one to two acres of his barley field: a crop circle -- more precisely, a lot of squares and rectangles within a large circle.
"To me, it looks like a computer chip, or something like that," said Anthony, who added that he had no idea what may have caused it. "To be that intricate in design, it kind of baffles me as to how that was done," he said about the flattened grassland. "It didn't look burned to me, it just looked like it was pushed over."
Soon, the news vans showed up, followed by the curious, some of whom stood on fences to get a better view. Anthony called security agents to keep people from crossing onto his farmland, where he also grows broccoli, snap peas and lettuce.
"It's a food-safety issue," he said.
That hasn't stopped the roadsides from filling with the curious, many of them self-appointed experts.
"It looks like aliens to me," Manuel Madrid of nearby Gonzales told KSBW.
"Definitely pranksters," said Brandon Brooks of Chualar, who added, "This is kind of a strange place to have anything out of the ordinary happen."
The latter theory got some support from Jim Gillott, who told KSBW that he had seen 20 to 30 people with ladders in the field in the days before the design was discovered.
And Jake Gain said he too had seen evidence that humans were involved.
"Every time I drove by, I saw them either parked over there," he said, pointing, "or people in the field just walking around, and it looked like they had little GPSes or something," he said.
And someone identified solely as "Cannot Say" posted a 2½-minute video on YouTube that shows green flashes of light emanating from what appears to be the field before dawn on Monday. "Dude, this is a crop circle," says one of two men in the video as they clamber from their car into the field.
The founding publisher of Skeptic magazine was unimpressed.
"It looks like a couple of kids did this," Michael Shermer told CNN. "Short of having a video of it, it's hard to prove that kids did it. So, in that case, we have to make a choice: what's more likely? That aliens landed in Chualar, California, or that a couple of pranksters made it?
"We have zero evidence of aliens landing anywhere; we have lots of evidence of pranksters hoaxing."
Such circles can be made by simply dragging a rope attached to a board over the grass, he said.
Still, he noted, such stories are attractive to many. "People seem less intrigued by pranksters than they do by aliens, so it's a compelling story for people to think that we're not alone."
Farmer Anthony said he was out of town during the week before the discovery, so he saw nothing that might have tipped him off that pranksters were at work. But whoever -- or whatever -- caused the circle has caused him no lasting upheaval -- financial or otherwise. The barley was planted between cash crops to add nutrients to the fields; he is planning to plow it -- and the crop circle -- back into the earth on Thursday.

An elaborate crop circle sculpted into farmland two hours south of San Francisco is no more, having been mowed down to the dismay of hundreds who flocked to glimpse the unexplained site earlier this week.
On Tuesday afternoon, the intricate design etched into a field of barley was plowed back into the earth.
The property owner, farmer Scott Anthony, 58, ordered a crew to plow the field, CNN affiliate KSBW reported.
Debra Falanga, a crop circle enthusiast who "definitely believe(s) they are created by other-than-human-beings" -- said Wednesday she's disappointed that it wasn't kept intact so that people can "go in and experience the energy."
"When something unusual like this happens, why not let people experience it?" said Falanga, speculating the landowner wants his life "back to normal."
Still, during the short time it did exist, the crop circle attracted plenty of attention.
It was spotted Monday morning by Julie Belanger, a photographer, as she and her husband flew over in a helicopter.
"What is it?" was her first thought, she told KSBW.
Whatever it was, "it was beautiful, quite beautiful," she said, adding that they came upon it by chance. She said she was skeptical that the crop circle was evidence of something otherworldly.
"I believe it's possible that aliens exist, but I don't know if they would bother making a crop circle to give us a message," she said.
If they did, what's the message that was carved into Anthony's 2,000-acre farm outside the tiny town of Chualar?
Falanga -- who called KSBW after seeing a picture -- described it as a "very detailed" depiction of the number 192 written over and over in Braille and in such a way to orient the top and bottom of the circle.
"The Braille was so accurately portrayed ... That's hard to do manually..., never mind in a crop circle," Falanga, a certified Braille transcriber from New Jersey, told CNN. "It looks like a ticker tape of the number 192, 192, 192."
What to make of that repeated number (if that's what it is) is another mystery. Falanga said some speculate it is related to the number 192 found in Internet Protocol, or IP, addresses (a fact familiar to many in nearby Silicon Valley). Or it could have something to do with the radioisotope iridium, which has 192 in its symbol.
The theories don't stop there -- including some people's belief that this is all much ado about nothing.
Anthony described the elaborate design sculpted into one to two acres of his barley field as a lot of squares and rectangles within a large circle.
"To me, it looks like a computer chip or something like that," Anthony told CNN in a telephone interview Tuesday. "To be that intricate in design, it kind of baffles me as to how that was done."
Anthony said he was out of town on vacation the week before the discovery, having been alerted to it by a call from an employee on his farm 10 miles southeast of Salinas.
"He said, 'Hey, there's a buncha stuff out in the middle of the field,' so when I went up there I go, 'Ohhhh, shoot!'," he said.
How did it get there? The farmer said he has no idea, adding "it didn't look burned to me, it just looked like it was pushed over."
Soon, the news vans showed up, followed by the curious, some of whom stood on fences to get a better view. Anthony called security agents to keep people from crossing onto his farmland, where he also grows broccoli, snap peas and lettuce.
"It's a food safety issue," he said.
That didn't stop the roadsides from filling with the curious, many of them self-appointed experts.
"It looks like aliens to me," Manuel Madrid of nearby Gonzales told KSBW.
"Definitely pranksters," said Brandon Brooks of Chualar. "This is kind of a strange place to have anything out of the ordinary happen."
The latter theory got some support from Jim Gillott, who told KSBW that he had seen 20 to 30 people with ladders in the field in the days before the design was discovered.
And Jake Gain said he too had seen evidence that humans were involved.
"Every time I drove by, I saw them either parked over there," he said, pointing, "or people in the field just walking around, and it looked like they had little GPSes or something," he said.
And someone identified solely as "Cannot Say" posted a 2½-minute video on YouTube that shows green flashes of light emanating from what appears to be the field before dawn on Monday. "Dude, this is a crop circle," says one of two men in the video as they clamber from their car into the field.
The founding publisher of Skeptic magazine was unimpressed.
"It looks like a couple of kids did this," Michael Shermer told CNN. "Short of having a video of it, it's hard to prove that kids did it. So, in that case, we have to make a choice: what's more likely? That aliens landed in Chualar, California, or that a couple of pranksters made it?
"We have zero evidence of aliens landing anywhere; we have lots of evidence of pranksters hoaxing."
Such circles can be made by simply dragging a rope attached to a board over the grass, he said.
Still, he noted, such stories are attractive to many. "People seem less intrigued by pranksters than they do by aliens, so it's a compelling story for people to think that we're not alone."

Sorry, dear readers, but the crop circle discovered last week etched in a farmer's barley field in Chualar, California, was not created by aliens.
Instead -- surprise! -- it was a stunt intended to attract publicity to the release of a mobile processor used in automobiles, tablets and cell phones made by the computer graphics company NVIDIA, according to its president and CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang.
"It is true. The NVIDIA marketing team is behind this phenomenon," Huang said as he stood in front of a picture of the manicured field. "What you're looking at here is 310 feet in diameter. It is what people call a crop circle."
Huang made the announcement during a keynote address Sunday night at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Crop circle, strange lights spotted
"It's like, out of this world, it's practically built by aliens," Huang said, referring to the new Tegra K1 graphics chip.
Elaborate crop circle in California mowed down
Brett Murray, who works as a marketer for the company, told CNN in a telephone interview that the idea emerged during a brainstorming session in early December about how to introduce the new product.
They came up with the tag line, "Impossibly advanced," then tried to figure out how to "get some noise" around it, he said.
From "impossibly advanced" to "aliens" was not a big leap. "We eventually said, 'You know, what's graceful and alien? Crop circles.'"
They then set to work, swearing everyone to secrecy, hiring a Hollywood location scout to find "the perfect field in Northern California," and flying in a British group who have made crop circles before.
Starting buzz for the creation, the company called anonymous tip lines for news stations in the Bay Area, telling them: "Something's going on out in Chualar."
A crudely made video also popped up on YouTube purporting to show two men -- in reality, Murray and another NVIDIA employee -- getting out of a car and looking at strange lights coming from the farmer's field and then stumbling toward them.
By the morning of December 30, the news trucks were rolling in and, with them, throngs of curious onlookers. The company hired security to keep them from trampling over the farmer's fields.
Murray described the crop circle as "a puzzle out there for the world to solve."
The puzzle included clues to who was behind it -- for example, the number 192 is posted in two ways in the design -- as numbers on a clock and as a Braille representation.
That's the number of graphical processing unit cores in the new chip. At least one person appears to have figured it all out. John Van Vliet posted this at 12:16 a.m. Wednesday, January 1, on doubtfulnews.com: "The crop art really dose (sic) look like a graphics GPU chip if i had to bet ... one of the NEW CPU/GPU combos from AMD or Nvidia or intell."
Murray said he understood why the story attracted so much attention. "This is like Santa Claus," he said. "People want to believe."

The field's owner, Scott Anthony, had just returned from vacation to his home when he got a call from one of the employees on his 2,000-acre farm outside the tiny town of Chualar, 10 miles southeast of Salinas.
"He said, 'Hey, there's a buncha stuff out in the middle of the field,' so when I went up there I go, 'Ohhhh, shoot!'," the 58-year-old farmer told CNN Tuesday in a telephone interview.