While state officials are arguing with each other about whether to accept refugees into their borders, an actual nuisance has crept into a northern Memphis suburb. Thousands of spiders have woven a half-mile-long web in one neighborhood, leaving residents stunned, confused, and likely to have phantom creepy-crawly feelings for weeks.

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“It’s like a horror movie. They’re in the air, flying everywhere,” said one Memphis citizen, dazed by the influx of eight-legged invaders. During WMC Action News interviews, residents can be seen stomping out some of the creatures on their porches, which they say have been infested. “I’ve seen about 20 on my porch just in the last day,” reported another resident.

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Steve Reichling, a Memphis Zoo curator, suspects there is nothing amiss, however. The species are likely sheetweb spiders, a harmless species known for suddenly engaging in a mass dispersal event. The cause may be unknown to us, but the spiders are deciding to leave the area for their own reasons, creating sheets of web to carry them through the air by “ballooning.” Reichling is confident this spectacle is a natural event in the arachnid world. He said, “The presence of these spiders tells us that all is well with nature at that location.”

Via Daily Mail

Images via WMC Action News