I have to agree with you there anart. In fact there is something rather odd going on with Freddy Silva. If you go to his main page, you will see that he seems to have really jumped onto the New Age bandwagon, and is no longer the researcher he once was. He has turned into a workshop lecturer of such things as "Resonance and the healing properties of sacred space". It's amazing that he somehow "knows" that almost all crop circles since 2003 are fake, when he certainly hasn't visited anywhere near the majority of them. I guess he draws upon his "new age intuition" and "just knows" by instinct. But despite this, he still manages to advertise the 2009 Calendar of CC images on his website! He said in one interview that he would no longer place any images of crop circles on his site that he deemed to be fake. But seemingly this vow doesn't extend into the realm of money-making (unless of course the images used are archival ones he deemed "genuine").
Another thing about Silva which undermined his authority and indeed credibility is the following quote taken from his page _http://www.cropcirclesecrets.org/crop_circles_history07.html:
Freddy Silva said:
It is interesting to note that the previous crop circle in this vicinity, in 2004, was also ragged in design and was discovered to contain several intact bird's nests amid the flattened crop; early visitors to the glyph allegedly removed intact eggs. This is where credulity is strained: birds do not create nests amid cereal crop or close to the soil for the obvious reason that any predators such as snakes, mice and rats will eat the eggs. Clearly the nests were placed there to invoke a sense of authenticity in the circles.
So this guy is not only an expert at crop circles, but apparently at the life of birds as well! Since there is not much information to go on (and Silva seemingly didn't bother to ascertain more detailed information about the birds), it is entirely possible that there could indeed have been birds' nests or eggs in the crop. I don't know about other birds, but waterfowl such as prairie ducks are known to nest in cereal crop fields. So if anything has its "credulity strained", it's Freddy Silva himself.
Having said all of the above, I'd like to address Windmill knight's thoughts: There is some evidence that some groups of people are in fact employed to construct elaborate formations in more secluded fields. Apparently the people behind these groups also pay the farmer quite handsomely to allow the makers to construct designs in as much time as they need. And you asked why they'd do this. You gave one possible answer, which I believe is the best one: "organized government disinformation". The purpose is to confuse and undermine the whole phenomenon, "diluting" it. As for crop circles being "too creative for psychos" -- I agree, except you must realise that the fake ones are almost always a copy or variation of a previous (genuine) design. It is known that psychopaths are masters at imitation. In any case, the number of circles constructed in this "farmer-approved" manner would be quite small, since the organisation behind it would still be enormous. And besides, I believe that most of the damage has probably already been done -- people now either accept the genuine formations, or dismiss all of them.
Lastly, I actually AGREE with what you say about how difficult it would be to construct most of the designs. In no way do I necessarily believe the 80% fake claim -- in fact I believe this to be
highly unlikely. I know all about the genuine designs, and their complex interweaving, the strange distortion of the nodes, and the non-destructive mechanism which allows the crop to continue to live.
Sorry, but you can't really get more 'new agey' than that - as if whatever consciousness is making the crop circles is doing so to get the approval of humans - to not be 'not ridiculed', as it were, or they'd 'get mad' and stomp away... Seems to be some seriously skewed thinking going on there.
