I'd hate to think that we already know all there is to know about the universe. Mysteries like this are encouraging, because they testify that there's more to discover and learn...they provide some meaning to life beyond mere survival.

I am a skeptic, make no mistake. The first-cut of an honest skeptic is to eliminate the hoaxes and misunderstandings, and then to take interest in what's left. For example, people have admitted to creating crop circles as hoaxes, and I'd judge that most of them are hoaxes because of the human tendency to jump on a bandwagon. But it's not logical to then conclude that all of the crop circles that remain unexplained are hoaxes too. Maybe they are, maybe they're not, but I'm not in a position to say. Same with UFOs: Those that remain unexplained are by definition "unidentified flying objects". My attitude toward crop circle researchers is the same as my attitude toward anomalists looking for alien artifacts on Mars: Keep looking, and good luck to you. May you find what you seek.

This thread's going as I expected. It's easy to come up with a humdrum explanation for one or two features of an anomalous event like this, but nobody's come up with a complete explanation. I should have drawn attention to the history of the land, that the owners had tried to create a pond and failed when the water drained away into underground limestone caverns or an aquifer. That puts a finer edge on the question of the lack of footprints or vehicle tracks on what's presumably muddy or moist ground.

Keep bring mysteries like this to the Zone, Lindy. It's a much-needed break from endless wrangling over Iraq and politics.