Cicadas

[Eirik]

We on the East Coast (between GA and at least NY) are currently experiencing the Cicada invasion.  Once every seventeen years, these large insects hatch and come out for a month or so and eat crops and stuff.  Up close they're very alien looking with big red eyes.  They also sing during the mornings in what sounds a lot like the UFOs from the original movie version of War of the Worlds.  Their previous years of coming out of dormancy were 1987, 1970, 1953...

So does anyone know if the Cicadas of '53 inspired that movie - which incidentally was released that same year?  I swear the UFO sound effects sound like recorded Cicadas.

[George]

I'm in Cincinnati and the cicada invasion is in full force here as well.  I'm actually enjoying the furvor over these little guys and gals.  The noise is oddly familiar so maybe it was used as the inspiration for the UFO sound effects....that or it just reminds me of my weed eater.

[wickednick]

I sense a new made for the Sci-Fi channel movie coming on. "ATTACK OF THE CICADAS"

[trekgeezer]

They really are aliens, the whole insect thing is a government conspiracy.

[Andrew]

There are numerous generations of cicadas, this is just the large year.  I know that several of the years are missing their cicadas, possibly due to that particular generation being wiped out at some point in the past..  There is also a species with a thirteen year cycle.

I have always been used to them, because DE has the Dogday Harvestfly - a member of the cicada family.  Those have a 3 year nymph period and there is a brood every year.

[Flangepart]

Get a flat bed semi...a machine that repeats the sound of a horney Female Cicada....surround it with a HUGE bug zapper...take it on a road trip!
And make people pay to watch the fireworks!
Oooh!...Ahhhh!....Oh!....
I get dibs on working the bug zapper!