Hundreds of sheep have been walking in a circle for 14 days straight and no one knows why

In an eerie and baffling event, hundreds of sheep in Inner Mongolia, northern China, have been moving in a circle for over 14 days, leaving observers puzzled. Surveillance footage shows a large flock walking in near-perfect formation, with some sheep standing still or watching from the sidelines while others occasionally pause in the center. On November 16, 2022, the Chinese state media outlet People's Daily shared a video of the phenomenon, noting that the sheep appeared healthy but the cause of their odd behavior remained a mystery. The caption read, "The great sheep mystery! Hundreds of sheep walk in a circle for over 10 days in N China's Inner Mongolia. The sheep are healthy and the reason for the weird behavior is still a mystery."

Miao, the sheep owner, in an interview with Metro, said that just a small number of the flock exhibited the bizarre behavior before the whole flock joined. The farm animals did not separate themselves even when wide gaps appeared. Although there are reportedly 34 sheep pens at the location, only the sheep in pen number 13 moved in this manner. The sheep have been moving this way for over 2 weeks now, since starting on November 4. Though the exact cause of the sheep's behavior is unknown, some have hypothesized that it may have been brought on by Listeriosis, a bacterial illness commonly known as "circling disease."

Circling and even paralysis of the affected side are frequent symptoms since the disease inflames one side of the brain. Sheep appear disoriented when infected. Affected animals exhibit anorexia, depression, and confusion, according to Michigan State University. "The onset of the encephalitic form is usually very fast and causes death in 24 to 48 hours after symptoms appear. Symptoms include circling in one direction, high fever, lack of appetite, red tissues around the eyes, usually with blindness, and depression," the university states.

Viewers flocked to the original post's comments section to offer their own interpretations of the sheep's ritualistic circling. "The white rhino at the Nairobi national park has also been walking in circles but anticlockwise. A police station in Maragua has witnessed thousands of bats flying above the station for 2 days in a row day and night," user @@DrPeterOkongo commented.

Another user @bitcoin1zation offered a sociology-inspired biological explanation, "That’s because they are sheep, they all follow the one in front of them and once they got into the circle formation they just couldn't stop since there's always one in front of everyone of them." User @JimTomas11 commented, "Sheep behave like this, try to put a small table in front of them, let one sheep jump, and quickly remove the table, hundreds of sheep will jump at the same place."

Many users took to joking about this. User @AddictivePoem commented, saying, "If they are restless, they should count people...." Many users screamed apocalypse, joking about what this means for the world's ending! User @SwingIfYouSwan2 commented, "I remember saying 'there is gonna be an apocalypse when sheep from Mongolia start walking in a circle for 10+ days." User @choptopmoseley commented, "This is the end, my only friend the end."

This article originally appeared 1 year ago.