By Alice Gibbs
Senior Reporter
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When he got home from work, New Yorker Pat wasn't expecting to stumble upon what looked like a miniature crop circle in his backyard.
Pat, 40, returned from work on Tuesday evening where he was greeted by a curious sight: a perfectly circular patch of matted grass in his backyard.
"What's going on here?" he wrote in a post on Reddit's r/whatisthisthing, which has since racked up over 6,000 upvotes. "The grass is matted down, but it doesn't feel soft like a sinkhole or anything like that. Any idea what would cause this?"
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The picture—a ring of flattened grass surrounded by healthy green—ignited a flurry of speculation from Reddit users, with theories ranging from the plausible to the downright extraterrestrial.
Internet Shares Theories
"Someone might have landed a drone there," suggested one user. Another guessed: "Looks like someone put up a pool, then took it down."
"Someone's trampoline blew into your yard and they picked it up before you got home?" one Redditor offered.
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Then, of course, came the inevitable. "Aliens. Without a doubt, aliens," declared one commenter. Another agreed: "Definitely a UFO ring."
"I noticed it on Tuesday afternoon when I got home. It wasn't like that in the morning when I left," Pat told Newsweek. "It seems like something landed there and matted the grass. I posted on Reddit hoping someone might have a logical explanation I hadn't considered."
The circular patch bore an uncanny resemblance to a crop circle, the large, intricate patterns that have mystified people for decades.
Crop circles became a phenomenon in the late 20th century, with sightings increasing and media coverage intensifying in the 1980s. Since then, they've fascinated believers and skeptics alike.
Like Pat's backyard circle, theories about crop circles vary wildly. Many have been revealed as man-made hoaxes. Others remain unsolved, with explanations ranging from pranks to geomagnetic forces—and of course, even aliens.
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The Surprising Truth
The Reddit post kept growing in popularity, much to Pat's surprise. "It's had way more of a response than I expected," he said. "But I still haven't heard anything that really makes sense to me."
That was until now.
A few days later, the mystery was finally solved: a sprinkler mishap.
One Redditor had floated the idea early on: "Could it be from a water hose or sprinkler?" Upon further inspection, Pat confirmed they were right.
"It ended up just being a sprinkler head issue. Sorry, not too interesting," he said. "At times, the water came out like a garden hose and flattened the grass it hit."
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