A couple of videos of rollers forming, in Ottawa and Ohio, both leaders in snow-based technology:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=_GOMYlGZobk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=_GOMYlGZobk</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thswcC3Mz_8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thswcC3Mz_8</a>
This reminds me, in a way, of sailing stones [1]. Although they happen in quite different environments (snowy areas for rollers, deserts for stones), they both are an inanimate thing clearly moving around without human or animal help in non-obvious ways.<p>For convenience, here's the Wikipedia link for snow rollers [2].<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_stones</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller</a>
And we wonder why people once believed in faeries. If I woke up one morning to see these in my front yard, elf magic would be a pretty reasonable option. If I saw them rolling on their own I might decide to go back inside for fear of crossing paths with an angry leprechaun.
Side note: as a non-American, it's hilarious (and sometimes slightly irritating) to read place names in the <City>,<Country> format usually used by Americans (albeit in <City>,<State>).<p>Firstly, pretty much everybody I know is aware that Marlborough is a city in the UK. There's even a famous historical figure, the Duke of Marlborough, associated with the place.<p>Secondly it kind of indicates that at some level the writer believes that US states and foreign countries are similar organisational units, when actually countries have greater independence and sovereignty than do US states.<p>It's certainly illustrative and useful for a wider audience, but... I dunno... it still feels... a bit wrong.<p>(And yeah, there's probably a Marlborough somewhere in the US so American citizens might get confused, but that's kind of the point too... like when I say “I'm from Milan” and I get “oh, Milan, Texas?” back as a reply. “No ma’am, Milan, <i>Italy</i>.”)
I think the mechanism is different, but the rollers remind me of yukimarimo - <a href="https://weaknuclearforce.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/yukimarimo/" rel="nofollow">https://weaknuclearforce.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/yukimarimo...</a>
> He said he spotted them in a field he owns and at first thought they had been manmade but there were no footprints.<p>Obviously that just means they beamed back up to the mothership.