Walter Tschinkel may not have solved the mystery of the fairy circles, but he can tell you that they’re alive. Tens of thousands of the formations — bare patches of soil, 2 to 12 meters in diameter — freckle grasslands from southern Angola to northern South Africa, their perimeters often marked by a tall fringe of grass. Locals say they’re the footprints of the gods. Scientists have thrown their hands up in the air. But now Tschinkel, a biologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, has discovered something no one else has.Hmmm, somebody has figured out something new. Let's take a look, so I do and I see green grass [Dead Link]:
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| Fairy Rings |
Well, something like that ought to visible from a satellite, so I look up
NamibRand Nature Reserve on Google Maps:
That doesn't look like grass, that looks like sand. I poke around for a bit and I find some scrub brush, but I don't find anything that looks like grass, so I complain to the author, who promptly replies with this useful tip: "zoom down to about 300 m eye altitude". Could that really be? But I do as I am bid, and the "fairy circles" do indeed appear:
Red grass. Hmmph. Where are we? Mars?
Update December 2016. Added this line so anyone searching for Namibia will find this post.
Area shown is about 75 miles by 50.
That doesn't look like grass, that looks like sand. I poke around for a bit and I find some scrub brush, but I don't find anything that looks like grass, so I complain to the author, who promptly replies with this useful tip: "zoom down to about 300 m eye altitude". Could that really be? But I do as I am bid, and the "fairy circles" do indeed appear:
Red grass. Hmmph. Where are we? Mars?
Update December 2016. Added this line so anyone searching for Namibia will find this post.
Update November 2021 replaced missing map.
Update November 2025 replaced missing image, removed dead links.
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