Strange things happen in the desert. Mirages may appear on the horizon. The stark dreamscape can act as a cruel metaphor for life. And crickets may invade.

Hordes of crickets.

We're talking columns of crickets, marching rows that can be over two miles long. Take a second and imagine that - a line of crickets, themselves several inches in length, marching in a group that stretches miles. It's pretty creepy. It's disgusting. And it requires the kind of awesome power that can only be delivered by the high priests of heavy rock n' roll, Led f*cking Zeppelin.

That's right - the clever residents of Tuscarora, Nevada, are enlisting the thunderous beats of John Bonham, the assured low end of John Paul Jones, the six-stringed roar of Jimmy Page, and the maniacal screech of Robert Plant in their annual battle against Mormon crickets. The perennial schedule proceeds thusly: eggs hatch in April; the crickets gather and march, eating and laying waste; by August, the crickets are ready to die, but not before laying eggs so that the following spring the cycle can begin anew.

Faced with this annual onslaught, the Tuscarorans turned to local station KHIX and found the perfect weapon: loud rock music. The results are fascinating: create a line of stereos facing the outskirts, blast the volume, and the crickets stay back. Way back. Whether it's the volume-induced vibrations or a cricket-wide distaste for the devil's music, the conceit seems to work. The crickets halt. Scientists have yet to be convinced that the music is responsible for this behavior, but you know what, a double shot of Aerosmith never hurt anyone (except crickets).

And if the good tunes don't work, the townsfolk are readying secret weapons guaranteed to kill anything: poison bait, and maybe the Limp Bizkit catalog.