Extraterrestrial aliens have been given as an unscientific explanation for a variety of engineering marvels, including the Egyptian pyramids, Easter Island statues and Stonehenge.

Little green men with shovels might also have been some folks’ explanation of a natural phenomenon in Australia and Nebraska.

During the last quarter of a billion years or so, a variety of vertebrate animals have excavated deep, spiral-shaped burrows in the ground. Some of them went several feet straight down in a helix.

Early paleontologists called them “devil’s corkscrews” and spent many years speculating on the origin and purpose of these burrows. The earliest scientific reports are from the 1890s. As often happens with new discoveries, these odd constructions that had no modern counterpart prompted various

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