The Simpsons might not be set in America after all - just take a look at that moon

Astronomer Phil Plait noticed something revelatory during the last episode

Elon Musk looks at the moon on The Simpsons - it could hold the clue to a new revelation (20th Century Fox Film Corp)

Fans of The Simpsons, prepare to have your minds blown. Particularly those of you believe your favourite yellow family live in America.

Astronomer Phil Plait has come up with a new conspiracy that Springfield is actually located down under, after studying the depiction of the moon in the latest episode.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk guest-stars in “The Musk Who Fell To Earth”, during which he looks out of the window at the moon in the night sky as the Simpsons sit behind him at the dining table.

But Plait soon noticed something awry with the waxing crescent moon, as its tips were facing right towards the sun, as they would in the southern hemisphere, instead of left, as they would in the US.

“This is the moment that changed everything for me,” Plait wrote on Slate. “The frozen moment of time when I realised that for 22 years, The Simpsons has been lying to us.”

Perhaps Plait did not realise that the series has been running for 26 years. Either that or there was a moon pointing the other way in its first four years.

There are places named Springfield in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, so it is not impossible that the fictional town is based on one of those.

Those wanting to believe Plait’s ground-breaking revelation should probably forget about the time that creator Matt Groening said Springfield was inspired by a town of the same name in his native state of Oregon, and all the other many references to US life in its history.

Just last week, The Simpsons producer Al Jean debunked fan speculation that Homer has in fact been in a coma since the early Nineties.

Homer's family visit him in a coma on The Simpsons (Fox)

While the fantastical idea is a novel one, Jean insists that it belongs with the "Dead Bart" episode in the "intriguing but false file".

"It would mean back in 1993 we would presume the show was going on for years and years more and right before we left, threw this hidden monkey wrench in for all our successors," he told TMZ.

Sorry Al, but it looks the theories are going to keep on coming...