- OK, here's the deal. Kandiyohi County
probably isn't being bombarded by meteorites or probes from alien space
craft, despite a growing number of reports of star-shaped holes on area
lakes.
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- Although the hole on Tadd Lake in Atwater
is still unexplained, a Spicer Department of Natural Resources officer
believes he's found a reasonable explanation for other similarly shaped
holes spotted this week in Willmar.
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- Conservation Officer Mike O'Brien said
he believes star-patterned imprints on the Foot Lake pond in Willmar as
well as sloughs by Long Lake, are the simple result of melting ice.
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- He said the weight of the snow is creating
friction and heat that's melting ice and snow, creating a thick slush.
The watery slush, which is seeking the lowest point in the lake, pools
up to create dark holes in the ice. The star-like extensions that are visible
are small "rivers" running under the snow to the low points.
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- O'Brien and Bruce Gilbertson, a DNR fisheries
officer, walked out to the holes Friday morning. O'Brien said he's quite
confident the Willmar star holes are the result of the melting. The other
possibility is that water may be draining into the pond from a culvert.
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- While agreeing that the Willmar ice holes
do look very similar to the one in Tadd Lake, O'Brien said the Atwater
hole is definitely something different.
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- Divers, including Mike Roe, Kandiyohi
County Water Safety Deputy, intend to go into the 5-foot deep water this
afternoon to try to find what, if anything, crashed into the lake early
Sunday morning following a loud boom that shook windows of a nearby apartment
building.
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- Stories about the Tadd Lake hole are
generating international attention and speculation.
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- Chris Rutkowsky, an astronomer with the
University of Manitoba and Canada's designated UFO watcher, called the
West Central Tribune Friday looking for more information about the Tadd
Lake star hole.
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- Rutkowsky has a couple theories of his
own about what may have caused the Atwater hole. One possibility is that
a bubble of built-up methane gas from rotting vegetation may have burst
through the ice with a loud boom.
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- "The bubble of gas would try to
find a weak spot, and because the gas is also somewhat warmer, it might
eventually find its way to the surface and the bubble would actually burst
through the surface from beneath rather than something coming up from below."
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- He said that conclusion was reached about
ice holes he's investigated in Canada.
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- Rutkowsky questions the likelihood that
a meteorite crashed into the lake.
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- "Even some of the brightest fire
balls that we see in the sky, when they come to earth they're only the
size of a small grapefruit." He said most meteorites wouldn't be able
break through 18 to 20 inches of ice. "It's improbable but not impossible,"
he said.
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- The most likely explanation? "A
chunk of something from an airline," he said. "But you never
know what they'll find down there."
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- http://www.wctrib.com/stories/monday/erms
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