Your old mate astronomy, one of the hardest working and yet least appreciated branches of the sciences, has come through for you today in a big way, exposing a decades-long series of lies and cover-ups.
Are you ready to year this revelation? Springfield, home town of The Simpsons, location of a majestic tire fire and a temperamental nuclear power plant, may be located right here in the southern hemisphere.
This life-changing information comes courtesy of amateur astronomer Phil Plait, who noticed something a little … odd, in a recent episode, guest starring inventor Elon Musk, and informed Slate.
During a scene in which Musk gazes out the window at the early evening sky, thinking deep thoughts, the tips of the crescent moon are seen pointing to the right.
Cue record scratching sound.
In the northern hemisphere, the tips of the waxing crescent moon point to the left. The waning crescent moon, which points to the right, appears in the early morning hours.
What could this all mean? Is it a simple continuity error by a show that has been on the air for more than two decades, and is bound to stuff up now and then? Or something more sinister?
Matt Groening has long been vague about which U.S. state is home to Springfield – per the controversial ‘Behind The Laughter’ episode, it may or may not be in northern Kentucky.
Could it be that the town is actually not in the continental United States at all, but somewhere closer to us? The alignment of the early evening moon, pointing as it would in the southern hemisphere, makes it seem so.
The theory that Springfield is in Australia hits a slight snag when you consider that our four-fingered yellow mates once visited our fair country, and learned a lot of valuable things about our culture.
Let’s split the difference and say that Springfield is in New Zealand, then we’ll go ahead and claim it as ours anyway.
Image via 20th Century Fox
