SUBIC BAY FREEPORT — Did aliens find the logo design of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) too irresistible not to reproduce?
This fantastic notion crops up as the social-media site Art & Crop Circles, which is dedicated to the crop circle phenomenon, posted several photographs of a new crop circle reported at Wiltshire, England, on September 13.
Wiltshire, which is also the location of the prehistoric monument Stonehenge, is famous for crop circles, which are large geometric patterns formed by flattened crops like wheat and barley.
Believers in extra-terrestrial phenomena say that crop circles have extra-terrestrial origins like the Stonehenge, and that they were formed by “nesting” UFOs. Those in the camp opposite the so-called “croppies”, meanwhile, dismiss the intricate designs as man-made hoaxes.
The newest crop circle was reported at Roundway, a village and former civil parish near the market town of Devizes in the center of Wiltshire, England.
Pictures taken by the Stonehenge Dronescape Photography and The Hampshire Flyer showed a perfectly formed geometric pattern on a brown field created by two intertwined letter “S” that are striped or double-lined.
Upon seeing pictures of the purported crop circle on Monday, SBMA Chairman and Administrator Wilma T. Eisma said it “bears a very striking resemblance to the SBMA corporate symbol.”
She was quick to point out, however, that the reported crop circle “did not have that small circle in the middle where the two letters intersect” in the SBMA logo.
The agency’s emblem, which has two intersecting and overlapping letter “S”—one in blue and the other in red— was designed to be similar to a propeller to signify movement and dynamism, Eisma added.
The posted photographs, nevertheless, created a stir among netizens familiar with the SBMA logo.
SBMA employee Jason Ordiz, who was first to report the photos in an SBMA employees page, contend that while the photographs needed to be checked for authenticity, the crop circles, were they true, might have deeper meaning in these times of a pandemic.
“Our world is full of mysteries. So the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the pictures was synchronicity (the concept that events are “meaningful coincidences”),” Ordiz said. “If this crop circle were confirmed, the sacred geometry of the logo might be a medium to send us a mysterious message,” he added.
Other reactions were more earthbound. One French commenter said the design was beautiful and made her think of “highway exchangers” (interchange) or four-leaf clovers.
Another saw two number 8’s that represented “a new beginning, or a new order or creation.”
According to experts, there had been scattered reports about “odd patterns” that appeared in crops since the 17th century, although documented cases of crop circles substantially increased since the 1970s, especially in southern England where they have since become a tourism attraction.
In 1991 two residents of Southampton were reported to have confessed to having made more than 200 crop circles, but the intricacy of the designs and the fact that the plants were bent and not broken had convinced others that these were produced either by some unknown natural phenomenon or by extra-terrestrials.
Image credits: The Hampshire Flyer