I just received this letter from BLT Research ( www.bltresearch.com ). Look closely at their data, and think about it, before taking a skeptical stand.

The BLT effort has never been to confirm particular formations as being
> genuine or man-made--instead we've been concentrating on trying to learn
> what happens in the plants and, more recently, the soils when the
> phenomenon interacts with these materials. When it became clear (from
> our own results on sampled formations and from anecdotal reports) that
> there were a lot of man-made events occurring in the UK we cut down the
> work we were doing there considerably, because we can't afford to waste
> the money it costs to work on formations regardless of their origin [we
> have done control studies and therefore are pretty much aware of the
> effects of mechanical flattening on plants]. Instead we've concentrated
> on formations which have occurred in many different countries, places
> where there is very little, if any, indication of hoaxing, so as not to
> waste the resources we have.
>
> Several formations which revealed some or all of the plant and/or soil
> changes Levengood established as being related to the phenomenon are
> discussed in the 3 published papers (see BLT web-site, "Published
> Papers"). The XRD study was carried out on one formation (in Canada,
> details provided in the XRD Study Report on our web-site); this procedure
> is too expensive (thousands of dollars, provided to BLT by Laurance
> Rockefeller) for us to be able to use it in multiple cases, at least at
> the present time.
>
> Unfortunately, people don't realize the time and expense involved in
> determining likely origin in even one case (apical node measurements,
> expulsion cavity counts, germination abnormalities, microscopic cellular
> changes in the plants, both samples and controls; extraction of magnetic
> material, EDS analysis of those particles in the soils, both samples and
> controls; and all the statistical analyses that have to be carried out),
> and many people fail to understand that we have never taken the presence
> of just one of these changes as conclusive proof.....that it is the
> presence of multiple effects or changes in the plants and/or soils which
> indicates to us that the formation plants/soils were exposed to a plasma
> discharge, rather than to mechanical flattening. What I can tell you is
> that we have found evidence, over and over again, in countries all over
> the world that the phenomenon cannot be attributed to mechanical
> flattening of the crops, and that something far more interesting is going
> on.
>
> We have quite a number of lab reports on individual cases which I very
> much want to get up on our web-site, but unfortunately I can't do the
> web-site myself and have not been able to afford hiring a web-master on a
> regular basis.....if you know anybody who COULD help with getting more
> material up on the web-site, please do let me know.
> --
> Nancy Talbott
> BLT Research Team, Inc.
> Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA)
> (www.bltresearch.com)