Several mysterious pond circles have appeared in a pond in upstate New York, according to the Daily Mail. Eden resident Peggy Gervase was checking out a pond near her house on Friday evening when she spotted a number of perfectly round circles positioned in the ice. Gervase snapped a photo of the pond circles and posted the picture to the Facebook page of Buffalo-based TV station WGRZ.

According to LiveScience, Facebook users voiced a number of explanations for the “eerie” pond circles, including elephant footprints, fish gas and extraterrestrial beings. Gervase told WGRZ, however, the she doesn’t think aliens are responsible. “I’m not that far gone yet,” she said.

LiveScience notes that there are a number of perfectly plausible explanations for the mysterious pond circles. Natural springs, for example, frequently bring ponds warmer water than the water sitting at the pond’s surface during the winter. The warmer water rises and produces the pond circles as it melts the snow and ice at the surface. Gases from decaying vegetation could also be responsible for the pond circles.

The pond circles are similar to another phenomenon that often occurs in farmers’ fields: crop circles. LiveScience’s Benjamin Radford explained the mystery behind crop circles earlier this year in an article titled, “Crop Circles Explained.” According to Radford, there is not a shred of doubt that crop circles are real, but the question that often stumps everyone is: what or who is responsible for creating them?

Though numerous theories exist, the wildest one in circulation in the early 1980s was that the crop circles were generated by the “vigorous sexual activity of horny hedgehogs.” Others have suggested that aliens are responsible for the circles, making them from their spaceships.
However, Radford notes that the only proven cause of these strange patterns is humans. In 1991, two men revealed that they had made the patterns for years to convince people that aliens had visited. According to Radford, most crop circle researchers acknowledge that crop circles are produced by humans. Given the watery location of these pond circles, however, an explanation involving human activity can probably be ruled out.

What do you think led to the appearance of mysterious pond circles in a New York pound?

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