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  "data": {
  "id": "the-circles-effect-meaden",
  "title": "The Circles Effect and Its Mysteries",
  "description": {
    "en": "Terence Meaden's 1989 Artetech work — the principal articulation of the plasma vortex hypothesis for crop circle formation. Meaden, a British physicist and meteorologist, argued that rotating columns of ionized atmospheric plasma — operating analogously to dust devils but producing ionization effects — could produce the circular flattening patterns characteristic of early-phase crop circles. The hypothesis attracted substantial early-1990s peer-reviewed engagement in meteorological literature before being substantially abandoned across the 1990s in light of the Bower-Chorley confession and the substantial increase in formation complexity beyond plausible vortex output."
  },
  "authored_by": [
    "Terence Meaden"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Crop Circles",
    "Plasma Vortex Hypothesis",
    "Atmospheric Physics"
  ],
  "stance": "neutral",
  "source_type": "academic_monograph",
  "publish_date": "1989",
  "source_family": "science",
  "relation_to_wheel": "scholarly_context",
  "licensing_status": "licensed",
  "follow_url": "https://www.amazon.com/Circles-Effect-Its-Mysteries-Meaden/dp/0951518402"
},
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