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.. Crabwood Farm House, nr Winchester, Hampshire. Reported 15th August 2002. .. The crop circle itself is surrounded by radio masts and is over the hill from one of the world’s most magnificent cathedrals in Winchester. One has to marvel at the complexities in this new circle. .. The primary purpose of the Crabwood formation is to show us how to establish a two-way dialogue with an off-world race.
We must first establish a common communication medium. .. The very placement of the formation next to a microwave station [and] the fact that the top of the formation points in the direction of that site .. clearly shows us that microwave is the communication medium.
.. Microwave stations are .. commonly used [for] communication services such as cellular phones, television programming and emergency services. Microwave communications systems are ideal because they offer superior wideband links for video and digital telecommunication signals to and from space. A good example of this is the GEO satellites we rely upon for such things as the movies we see on Cable TV. GEO is short for geosynchronous, or geostationary, earth orbit. .. GEOs orbit the earth at 22,300 miles above the earth's surface .. in a fixed position in space in relation to our planet. Ergo, the orbit of a GEO satellite matches the 24-hour rotation of the earth. Now here is the kicker. Older Cable TV GEO satellites send us our action films and world news with a signal that is no stronger than that of a common CB radio such as those used by truck drivers (a maximum of only 5 watts.) For this reason, microwave is used by GEO systems as an ideal way to transmit high-speed data, television signals and other wideband applications.
[Then we] need to establish a common protocol. In telecommunications parlance, a protocol is an agreed-upon format for transmitting data between two devices. .. The essential protocol element in the Crabwood formation is the circular pattern of blocks etched in the lower right hand corner of the formation. Additionally, the image of the face and how it is constructed plays an integral part in designating the protocol.
A good example of one of the most frequently used protocols on Earth is one call TCP, which stands for Transmission Control Protocol. It is one of the main protocols of the TCP/IP networks used by the Internet. Were it not for the TCP protocol, your PC and YOWUSA.COM’s web server could not understand one another.
[A] reliable protocol .. must at least provide for the following:
DATA STRUCTURE
.. The Crabwood formation presents a serial digital message in essentially the same format as that used by the DVD. .. If you were to look at the surface of a DVD or CD-ROM disc under extreme magnification, what you would see are blocks used to represent the digital bits of information. .. Likewise, the exact same method of representing digital information is presented in the Crabwood formation. .. At first glance, the block in the circular part of the Crabwood formation appears to be organized in concentric rings. .. However, upon closer inspection of the Crabwood formation, it is clearly apparent that the digital data has been organized exactly like a DVD - that is, in a spiral. When creating a CD or DVD the first bits of data the engineers place at the beginning of the spiral (at the center of the CD/DVD) is setup information. The purpose of the setup information is to teach the player how to playback and interpret the data on the CD/DVD image. With the Crabwood formation, this elaborate setup scheme is most likely not used. Rather, it appears that the data is presented quickly and simply where the binary ones and zeros represent the actual black and white pixels used to form the image of the alien.
.. The next question that comes to mind is, "What kind of data is indicated by the Crabwood formation?" Some folks might want to haul out their old Morse Code books thinking they can translate the data represented in the formation using this old coding system. However, there is nothing in the formation to indicate the use of Morse Code. Rather, a more modern way of transmitting live audio and images is suggested. On August 9, 2002 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a plan that requires television manufacturers to install digital TV (DTV) tuners on virtually all TV sets by 2007. The significant difference between the present NTSC standard and this new DTV plan is that NTSC is solely based on what is called interlaced scanning, whereas the DTV standard features both progressive scanning as well as interlaced scanning.
So what is the difference between these two scanning standards? NTSC, which stands for National Television System Committee, became the standard for all TV sets in America back in 1953. Interlaced scanning was chosen as the original standard because it tricks the human eye into seeing smooth action on early TV screens. It did this by dividing each TV frame into odd and even display lines. With this scanning method, the odd lines are displayed first, then the even. With advent of hi-resolution computer monitors, the need for progressive scanning (also known as non-interlaced) became readily apparent. Hence, computer monitors offer much higher resolution than televisions, plus the added comfort of more stable, flicker-free images.
.. The data represented in the disk portion of the formation is that of an interlaced video frame.
ERROR CHECKING
In simple terms, error correction is used to tell us that we have received a faithful and accurate copy of the data. With binary data, the differences can be dramatic. If we have received an erroneous copy of the data or processed it inaccurately, the final results are usually unintelligible. With modern computers, error correction is typically achieved with what is called an error correction bit or a checksum. However, in terms of the Crabwood formation we believe there is a much simpler way of establishing whether or not we have properly decoded the data -- the image itself. While more exhaustive analysis is required, the most likely method of error correction presented by the formation is the actual image of the alien itself, which appears to serve as an image data comparison frame. In other words, if we can generate the exact same image from the data after we decode it, then we will also know how to encode a proper reply.
This brings us to the most frustrating part of this event. The current images available on the formation are all shot at oblique angles, which makes the task of analyzing the data encoding daunting at best. The reason is that the oblique angles make is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to distinguish the actual spacing of the data blocks in the spiral. For this reason, it is imperative that high-resolution as well as high-contrast photographs be taken of the formation from directly above, to eliminate the distortions caused by oblique views.
SEND COMPLETE (could there be more than one frame represented?)
The next aspect of the formation that needs to be examined in terms of our extraterrestrial protocol is whether or not we’re received a complete transmission, or what is more commonly refereed to as a "send complete" message.
Here again, the formation rings true with familiar protocols. If you examine the illustration below, you’ll note that the begin spiral area and the end spiral area (shown as end of data marker in the illustration), both share a common physical attribute when compared with the actual image data itself. The begin spiral data and the end spiral data segments are longer than any of the other segments in the data spiral itself.
.. CD/DVD players read the data from the center of the disc out to the edge until they find an end of data marker. In layman’s terms, an end of data marker simply tells the play to stop. The Crabwood formation clearly shows an end of data sequence at the outer edge of the spiral. This is most likely the send complete message (or end of data marker) used by the extraterrestrial protocol to indicate that the sending device has finished transmitting an entire message.
RECEIVE CONFIRMATION
[This] protocol issue is the most important in terms of what mankind chooses to do with this information: .. will we indicate that we have received the message and simultaneously acknowledge that we have deciphered the data encoding method and fully understand the protocol?
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