The Maverick Award presented to Colin Andrews A personal letter from Member of Congress On Friday the 13th of September, Colin left his home in Connecticut to make a presentation at 'The Bay Area UFO Congress' in Santa Clara, California. This has grown to be one of the largest congresses of its kind in the United States. Just before departing for the flight to California, he received a surprise letter from the United States Congress.

Rosa L. DeLauro, Member of Congress for the third district of Connecticut, sent a very encouraging personal letter, congratulating Colin on his objective approach for real answers to the Crop Circles mystery. The Member of Congress had read an in depth article about Colin's research in The New Haven Register just recently.

Arriving at Santa Clara, Colin attended congress banquet on Saturday evening, where delegates and the public gathered.  Another surprise awaited Colin as the audience prepared to listen to Stephen Bassett, congressional candidate in the eighth congressional district of the state of Maryland, when the microphone was handed to Ian Christopher, Director of Mariposa-Pacific Research Institute, to declare the winner of the second ever 'Maverick Award' for outstanding research.

The 1,500 attendees applauded loudly as it was announced that the organizing committee had unanimously decided the award should be presented to Colin Andrews "for his lifetime achievement in pioneering scientific Crop Circle research and creating worldwide public awareness of the phenomenon".

Later, during his presentation, Colin emphasized the importance of the public and researcher's alike overcoming denial and or self deception surrounding the ability of people to make impressive designs in the fields and also not to refuse to talk to these people.  He discussed the importance of embracing all crop formations into the research pool, man made and mysterious, because strong evidence suggests those engaged in making circles as well as researching them report the same bizarre paranormal activities.  "A mind is involved here, someone or something knows what we are thinking and doing. If we throw out the man made, because we don't like what they represent, we will remove around 80% of the clues that tie this whole mystery together.  I am convinced we have stumbled upon the most exciting potential to learn about human consciousness, he said".

Colin is writing his third book, this one with a new co-author, Steve Spignesi. He confidently believes this will be the most exciting and important book yet written on the subject, called 'Crop Circles - Signs of Contact?' to be published by Career Press in March, 2003. Career Press plan to give the book high profile at the Frankfurt book festival.

Colin's first book 'Circular Evidence' was published by Bloomsbury Publishing, London during 1989 and became an International best seller in just a few weeks, reaching the top five in The Times Best Sellers listing within days of launch.  The new book has been researched for the past twelve years and Colin's agent, John White and the publishers are anticipating another best seller with 'Signs of Contact?'. Colin's co-author, Steve Spignesi has written more than 25 titles, among them: The Complete Titanic, JFK Jr. (New York Times best seller), The Beatles Book of Lists, The Essential Stephen King, The USA Book of Lists and many more.

Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro: www.house.gov/delauro/
Congressional candidate, Stephen Bassett: www.disclosure2003.net/Press%20Releases.htm
Author, Stephen Spignesi: www.stephenspignesi.com
Ian Christopher, Mariposa-Pacific Research Institute: www.film.bc.ca/filmfest/entrants/ianchristopher.htm
Colin Andrews: www.CropCircle.Info