SOUTH CENTRAL — In the backyards of these three indescript houses near the corner of East Compton Boulevard and South Alameda Street exist the smoldering remnants of what appears to be a mysterious crop circle.

Neighbors recalled hearing a loud noise and, moments later, seeing the fire. Longtime resident Cassandrah Gilmore recalled, "I swear I saw that thing come down, like a ufo flying saucer, came right out of the sky and shot all these laser beams and burnt one of them fiery signs into the earth! You go look at it—you'll see that's no cigarette burn."

Crop circles, historically, are believed to appear only in agrarian locations. But dozens of witnesses adamantly defend the possibility that extraterrestrial life may be trying to send a message to the area's residents.

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"It's, like, cosmic graffiti. Now that's a language folks from the inner city can understand. They're speaking to us because those folks out in the Midwest are just too damn slow!"

 — Cassandra Gilmore, neighbor

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"It's a no-brainer really," says Gilmore, "it's, like, cosmic graffiti. Now that's a language folks from the inner city can understand. They're speaking to us because those folks out in the Midwest are just too damn slow!"

 And what would the message be?

Gilmore doesn't hesitate to venture a guess, "It's saying,‘Rise up!’ It's saying, ‘stop shooting each other and messing up each other's lives and messing with Mother Nature and all that.’ It's saying, ‘God's watching.' It's nothing short of the eleventh commandment, burnt on the fiery summer asphalt tablet of South Central!’"

When the fire was initially called in at 10:52 p.m., news reports were sketchy and alarmist. One local TV station went so far as to link the fire to the verdict of a race-related case that was announced yesterday afternoon.

The newscaster began her report with, "After the announcement of another race-related verdict, LA is burning... again!"

 But skeptics, like resident Michael Donovan, downplay the incident as "probably just some barbeque that got out of control. I mean, what's the big deal anyway with these... whatchamacallits? Can't people smell it?! That's barbeque sauce. Folks have barbeques all the time around here. Crops circle, my ass!"

Still others speculated that the supposed ufo markings were an intentional marketing ploy set up by the production company behind M. Night Shayamalan's new movie, "Signs," which opened #1 at the box office August 2nd, but has since slipped to the #4 slot.

Biff Myerhold, head of marketing for the film, was outraged by the accusation, "Do these people really think that we're so desperate as to pretend there are aliens visiting us in order to get good box office figures?! Do they really believe that a controversy of this magnitude would sell even one extra ticket to our film?! That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard."