A farmer in Morris, Minnesota discovered a mysterious large metallic object in his cornfield. (It’s always going to be a cornfield around here.)

That thing is large, almost 3½ meters across. We don’t know much about it, as it has already been hauled away, and unnamed federal agencies are telling us nothing. But that just means the internet is having a ball making up stories! I’ve already discovered multiple sites using the “some say” construction: some say it is a crashed alien spaceship! They never tell us who the “some” might be.

One of the more interesting videos about it is full of AI-generated slop interspersed with actual photos of Morris. It’s about 75% garbage. The debris changes shape every few seconds.

Another has a guy in a tuxedo and alien mask speculating about the “great unknown”.

I’ve never lived in a hotspot for alien conspiracies before. It’s fun, but it will fade away soon enough, especially since more credible sources have identified what it is.

About a month ago, a Chinese rocket took off from a remote spaceport in the Gobi Desert, released 10 satellites into orbit, then reignited its engine and put itself on a trajectory to rain down debris over the American Midwest.

The rocket’s flight on September 15 lasted between 75 and 80 minutes, and it came down without completing a full orbit of the Earth. Social media posts at the time showed streaks of fiery debris falling from the sky, heading north over Kansas toward Minnesota. The overnight spectacle was also visible on the western horizon from Wisconsin.

The exact time, location, and direction of the debris allowed experts to connect it to the launch of a Zhuque-2E rocket, a medium-lift vehicle built by a Chinese company called LandSpace. The rocket had launched from Dongfeng, a commercial launch zone co-located with the military-run Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, less than two hours before.

So…not aliens, but Chinese rockets crashing in an American cornfield is almost as juicy. I eagerly await the next wave of paranoia to sweep across us.