h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My understanding is that as the nitrogen gets used up by the growth as it spreads naturaly outwards as a circle. There is no rotting.
This is called a fairy ring and can be found in fields and lawns, if you are lucky you will find some tiny mushrooms which are superb in soups. If you are VERY luck you will find some rather more interesting recreational ones.
It is also easy to walk through a cornfield without leaving a trace, try it sometime. Once there you can start the deceit.
I have done it.

The rotting is a side effect of the mycelial mat holding in the "morning dew" like a sponge, rather than letting it evaporate as normal. The extended period of dampness at the base of the corn stalks is what promotes rotting.

Ok Peet, I'll accept that as another possible influence.
As long as it is not an ancient,wise,super advanced alien visitation traveling through countless light years, through time and the very fabric of space, then making a few pretty patterns on a field barely able to sustain a poor farmer. Then going all the way back again without even making a few funny Beep beep noises.................

Just imagine, our forefathers, sailing to unknown lands, leaving their sailing vessels under the cover of darkness, making a few circles in some maize or whatever, then sailing all they way back again,without even making some funny Beep beep noises.........

This seems to be little more than a myth: I spent a long time researching Tesla's life for a guide entry ( A315596 )and turned up nothing conclusive about it. Sorry!

That's a shame - the website (see post #14) seems remarkably plausible...

If the first officer hadent nicked off to the loo for a sly smoke the whole tragedy could have been avoided.The captain had forbidden smoking on the starship because they were flying with shields down and were taking in earth air for study.Unfortunatly there was a tiny leak in the bridge loo and when the first officer (who shall remain namless)activated the flame from his"anti matter"lighter,Well the rest is history.There were a few survivors, 3 in all who I was lucky enough to run into in the Linwilg Hotel bar (near Aviemore) and after lots of intoxicating fluid they broke down and related this story to me.It was a wondefull experience,talking with little green(at least thats the what they looked like at midnight)So there you go .The truth is out there after all.

i agree. when energy of that magnitude is release strange things will always occur. look at tornados for instance.

Is it possible that it couldve been a future time travel experiment gone wrong? Maybe in the future the military will develop time travel as a means of gaining first strike capability over the enemy and maybe a nuclear bomb was to have been transported a few seconds back in time in order to test the experiment. but maybe something like a miniture black hole expoded sending out high energy tachyons that interacted with the experiment and caused it to be spacialy displaced to siberia and temporaly displaced 500 years into the past. and maybe the huge energies involved wouldve detonated the warhead causing the bang. just a wild theory but not impossible

Perhaps a roaming herd of itinerant boy scouts whittled away the bases of all the trees until they fell over... Just a wild theory but not impossible.

Could it have been a small weapons test by an alien race. i heard somewhere (the book The Killing Star) that a small object traveling at relatavistic speeds (90%+ speed of light) could do the damage of a VERY large nuclear bomb. maybe it was some sort of railgun experiment and eventually the earth will be used as a testgroung for a much larger weapon, possibly capable of destroying an entire planet. or it couldve been Nikola Tesla's giant fart that was nuclearlt ignited by one of his experiments by accident.