An example of a good thing in a small package is Montigiani's clear and cogent study of crop circles. Circles showing up mysteriously in farmers' fields are recorded as far back as the 17th century, but the bulk of them seem to have appeared since 1970, most of them in wheat fields in a small area of southern England. The author, a freelance investigative reporter, discusses and rejects environmental, supernatural, extraterrestrial and hoax explanations for the increasingly complex and elaborate figures, up to and including Mandelbrot sets. He goes on to claim that an anonymous French scientist discovered that the wheat stalks in circles he examined showed signs of extreme heating, compatible with exposure to microwave lasers and similar directed-radiation weapons. He concludes that the crop circles are the result of the tests of such weapons, intended as antimissile and anticommunications devices. One would like to read more about the frequency of crop circles before the 1970s and the possible percentage of hoaxes. One would also like to read fewer quasi-paranoid accusations that everyone offering another explanation is part of a military coverup. Still, the book is a comparatively sober discussion of a plausible hypothesis in an area where such do not grow on bushes or even in wheat fields.
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