HMS Bounty footprints

This will likely be the last in my trilogy of questions concerning the Klingon Bird-of-Prey nicknamed the HMS Bounty, featured in The Search for Spock and The Voyage Home.

(See previous installments

Klingon bridge in Star Trek III vs. IV

and

Ultimate fate and influence of the HMS Bounty.)

In The Voyage Home, the Bounty leaves very visible footprints (depressions), due to its mass, in a clearing in a park in San Francisco. The cloaked landing and the formation of the depressions frighten a couple of city waste collectors.

These footprints are essentially (non-circular) "crop circles". Were the writers inspired by the mania / interest surrounding crop circles (as possible markings left by extraterrestrial vessels) in the second half of the 80s? Also, is there any reference in the Star Trek Extended Universe to these footprints left behind by the Bounty?