What are these strange ‘alien’ circles near Las Vegas? Scientist says patterns seen from space are caused by ANTS 

The mystery of a series of 'alien' circles seen near Las Vegas may have finally been solved.

These strange patterns, found near a landmark called Vulcan's Throne, were spotted using satellite imagery on Google Earth.

Now, one archaeologist believes she knows what created them; an army of ants who have built thousands of nests, each 47 inches (120cm) in diameter.

The mystery of a series of 'alien' circles seen near Las Vegas may have finally been solved by Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, a specialist in satellite imagery analysis at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, a specialist in satellite imagery analysis at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy, refers to the region as 'the Las Vegas of ants,' according to a report in LiveScience.

She stumbled upon the irregular circles when she was analysing the length and width of the rim of the Grand Canyon on Google Earth.

'I knew that patterned vegetation can be created by competition between plants and animals, and that, in Namibia, there is a patterned vegetation created by colonies of insects,' Sparavigna told LiveScience.

Sparavigna notes that the region is home to red harvester ants who often build their nests in mounds surrounded by up to 108 square feet (10 square meters) of desert.

The mounds are typically flat and broad. Three to eight trails often lead away from the mound, like 'arms'. These trails are used by ants to collect and bring food back to the mound.

'It is quite probably that the observed patterned vegetation can have its origin from the interaction of vegetation and ants,' she said.

Sparavigna added that an onsite investigation is needed to confirm her theory.

This isn't the first time Sparavigna has helped solved the planet's mysteries using Google Earth.

One archaeologist believes she knows what created them; an army of ants who have built thousands of nests, each 47 inches (120cm) in diameter 

Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, a specialist in satellite imagery analysis at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy, refers to them as 'the Las Vegas of ants'. She stumbled upon the irregular circles when she was analysing the length and width of the rim of the Grand Canyon Google Earth

She has been a pioneer of a kind of armchair archaeology using Google Earth in conjunction with open-source image processing software to track down curious structures in remote parts of the world.

In 2012, Sparavigna, highlighted another mysterious pattern in the Taklamakan desert in western China.

Her discovery, reported in MIT's Physics arXiv blog, was of an 8km long line of squares in the desert just south of the town of Ruoqiang.

Zooming in on the squares revealed them to be 40m/sq grids of what seem to be mounds or similar rough structures, arranged like a giant mountain bike tyre track rolling across the desert.

Professor Sparavigna has been able to roughly date the grids, pointing out that Google Earth's satellite images, on which all the grids are visible, date back to 2004, while they are not on older images from Bing or Nokia Maps.

Based on an announcement by the Chinese of the discovery of 1.28million tons of nickel ore reserves in the region at the time, she said the pattern were caused by a comprehensive geological survey.

She further added the wide area investigated may be down to a training exercise in which large numbers of students practiced their surveying techniques in the desert.

The patterns, found near a landmark called Vulcan's Throne, were spotted using imagery on Google Earth

In 2012, Sparavigna, highlighted another mysterious pattern in the Taklamakan desert in western China. Her discovery, reported in MIT's Physics arXiv blog, was of an 8km long line of squares in the desert just south of the town of Ruoqiang