Automatic Mouse Scrolling and Clicking - how to stop?

Maybe it's a dysfunctional mighty mouse, but I can hear the mouse internally clicking, as if it's working on its own. I do notice a gray circle with dots and an arrow appearing on the screen when this occurs. It's a little hard to describe, but I can definitely tell it's something occurring between the mouse and the os, or the os itself. There's nothing specifically I am doing when this occurs, it just happens at random intervals, more often than desired (it's never desired actually!) I've restarted my computer, zapped the pram, etc and it still seems to manifest itself and as I've previously mentioned, it can be destructive as long as I am moving the mouse, it will automatically select things as I am moving it.

I've used might mice (mouses?) for a few years now and have never run into this problem. It might not even be the mouse. I'm not really sure... was more curious if anyone can diagnose this issue/problem and/or if anyone else has had this happen to them. It seems apparent to me there must be a preference or trigger somewhere, but I'm just stumped.