Catching Idle Butterflies

Lost?

Do you ever feel life is some sort of cosmic maze, full of wrong turns and dead ends? I know why!

Working for an engineering firm has its benefits, and that includes access to high-resolution aerial photography. We have gigs of color photos of both Mandan and Bismarck, and we use them quite often.

Sometimes these photos yield surprises, things that can’t be seen at eye level.

In working in a specific area south of Mandan, I discovered this:

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See what I mean about being in the middle of a maze? We’re all in it, but now we have map showing the way out (to where I have no idea)!

This circle is 500’ in diameter. Now how could someone (someone who apparently had way too much time on their hands) have created such a thing? I could think like a conspirator, and wonder if this is an SOS sign of a stranded alien, but I’m a more down-to-earth kind of gal.

This could easily be accomplished by drawing this up in a drafting program, create points in Latitude and Longitude or State Plane Coordinates, and then with a hand held GPS to lead the way, build a maze in the middle of a field with little trouble.

People create mazes like this in their crop fields all the time during the fall, and then for a minimal fee, parents and children can then try to navigate the maze. This is the remnant of such a maze, methinks.

You could also think I’m making all this up, that this photo has been doctored somehow. Well, you can find out for yourself if this is real. If you don’t have it, and you have a high speed internet connection, download Google Earth (found at http://earth.google.com/ ).

In the search window type in 46 48'04.76”N, 100 51'26.73”W. Google Earth will then zoom into the center of this strange little maze.

Pretty cool, huh?