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this was to prove as premature as his announcement of a 'major event' at Bratton Castle, since the ‘laboratory’ in question, in Stroud, Gloucestershire, proved unable to disclose the exact nature of the process used to obtain the 'energy pattern of the crystals' from the sample grain. Subsequent correspondence from Lord Haddington to the lab operators, on behalf of the Centre for Crop Circle Studies, went unanswered. Andrews’ colleague, Pat Delgado, had sent samples to an American, biophysicist W. C. Levengood, in the same season, and the early reports from his analysis were of more significance. They appeared to demonstrate that plants from within a formation were affected by a rare genetic abnormality, which During the season he collected samples from a number of formations in Wiltshire and, on returning to the United States, subjected these to a variety of tests, on which some fairly sensational claims were based. Early in the 1991 season, a sample of barley stem from a circle in Cornwall had been examined by a biologist, Kay Larsen. He reported that the nodes of the stem were swollen and the cells appeared to have been subject to an intense heat in a short burst. Chorost's samples, when tested by Dr W. C. Levengood, appeared to confirm this when photographs were produced showing microscopic alterations to the cell walls and a blackening effect where the leaf surface had been carbonized. Both Levengood and Larsen concluded that the plants could have been subject to a brief but intense burst of energy. The results came at a time when the hoax theory was widely seen as the most likely explanation. Not only did they appear to show a real, measurable, effect but the control samples, from standing crop in the same field, did not demonstrate abnormalities, neither did a sample from a circle subsequently confirmed as a hoax. It appeared, finally, that some sort of test might emerge, allowing 'real' circles to be distinguished from hoaxes. Further tests carried out by Marshall Dudley, an independent expert in the design of radiation detection equipment, were also reported by Chorost. Soil samples taken from a number of formations in England, including the Barbury Castle pictogram, were tested. Unexpected results were obtained, with different samples from the same formation showing both greater and less than average measurements of alpha and beta particles. Another sample from one of the 'fish' formations showed massive readings, compared to a control, of 198 per cent and 48 per cent higher for alpha and beta particles respectively. Samples from this formation were tested at the internationally renowned Oak Ridge laboratory and showed the presence of 13 radioactive isotopes, most of which had short half lives, indicating that they were not of natural origin. Dudley speculated that these isotopes could have been created by a bombardment of deuterium nuclei. These results prompted a further project in 1992. Project Argus, as it was known, aimed to collect crop and soil samples and subject them to a battery of tests, from seed germination tests to DNA was absent in control samples from the same field. The following year a more serious effort, under the direction of Michael Chorost, was undertaken.