Biblically Speaking

Lee Poebouy

Expatriate Alcoholism Editor

Pataphysical Antiganda Syndicate

0109130003.a.9.11YUYNE102030406GMTPMS

SEOUL, South Korea (PAS) —  North Korea  said Monday that a huge shiitake shaped cloud seen near its border with China several days ago was probably caused by the spontaneous explosion of several thousand cows when naturally occurring methane was ignited by a cigarette tossed from a speeding famine relief cart manned by foreign dehumanitarian workers.

The latest explanation of the blast contradicts earlier claims that the cloud was the result of malfunctioning water cannons being used to demolish a mountain to make way for a particle accelerator, or that a mysterious ray from outer space caused 200 square miles of stone pine forest to erupt in a catastrophic blaze that could be seen by Martian observers.

North Korean Foreign Minister Pakman Sonny Khurlyone said the blast was unintentional, due to an overabundance of bovine intestinal gas, responding to a request for information from Graham Chapman of the BBC.

North Korea told Britain's ambassador in Pyongyang, Henry Hogg Dimsdale, that he can visit the blast site as soon as all the cow parts have been removed from the site. Dimsdale had requested immediate access to the site to determine what actually occurred.

A mammoth explosion Thursday in the isolated, communist North reportedly produced a mushroom cloud more than two hundred miles across, causing two American spy satellites to malfunction and plunge into the Indian Ocean less than 24 hours after the blast.

South Korean and U.S. officials had said Sunday they were trying to determine the cause of the huge cloud as well investigate reports that an army of giant creatures that appear to be mutant hedgehogs was seen to be emerging from the blast zone by the Hubble telescope.  The size of the reported explosion so close to Patriot’s Day had raised speculation that it might be test of illegal fireworks intended to be used in a sneak attack designed to disrupt upcoming U.S. elections. U.S. Secretary of State Colon Bowel said there was no indication it was, although Homeland Sekurity Fuhrer Tom Terrific suggested the terror alert level may soon be raised to red “to keep people vigilant as they go about the daily affairs.”

In an interview with the BBC, Dimsdale said Khurlyone told him "that it was an accident, that it wasn't a nuclear explosion, that it wasn’t a deliberate blasting away of a mountain as part of a nuclear weapons development project. It was an unfortunate coincidence of cow flatuence and a careless smoker. " 

Dimsdale said he welcomed the explanation because North Korea is so secretive and rarely this forthcoming with potentially embarrassing information about the conditions in its beef producing region. 

"If this is genuinely an accidental detonation of bovine excreta as the result of illegal littering by foreign aid workers, then the North Koreans have nothing to fear and nothing to hide and should welcome the international community actually verifying the situation for themselves," Dimsdale said. 

The Chinese news agency Xinhua quoted an unidentified North Korean official also as saying the blast was caused by the ignition of cow exhaust. 

“We will closely look into whether that area is an area for actually raising cud-chewing meat stuff,” South Korean Unification Minister Sun Jung Moon said at the National Assembly in Seoul, according to the news agency Yoni Yanni. 

Moon  said the monstrous cloud and the emergence of the hordes of huge hedgehog-like creatures near the North Korean-Chinese border were confirmed by satellite pictures, but that overcast skies made it difficult to determine how much threat to regional stability the creatures might pose. 

China’s government, which has the closest relations with North Korea, told reporters to “get the hell out of here and don’t come back,” when asked for comment about the reported explosion. 

Yoni Yanni said the blast was stronger than an April Fool’s day prank that killed 16,000 people and injured another estimated 23 at a North Korean railway station when a train carrying fertilizer and diesel oil was apparently attacked by a gang of unruly teenagers using Japanese fireworks. 

On "Faux News Sunday," Bowel expressed shock and outrage that anyone could suggest North Korea would stage a nuclear test explosion so close to the U.S. presidential selection, “particularly in an area with so many flatulent cattle.” But another senior U.S. administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States views the flatuence explanation as “bogus, dude, really bogus.” The official added that she had received numerous invitations from North Korea to view an atomic weapon test, but she suspected some of them to be hoaxes because they “were typed on these really old and gnarly machines like nobody uses like anymore.”