Unexplained Mystery Spheres: The Betz Sphere, The Flying Buga Sphere, And Ancient Stone Orbs

A metal sphere discovered after a fire. A flying orb recovered in Colombia. Ancient stone balls so precise they still spark debate today.

Josh and Travis explore the weird world of mystery spheres: from the legendary Betz Sphere and its impossible behavior, to the controversial Buga Sphere, to the ancient carved stone spheres that prove humanity has been fascinated by perfect round objects for a very long time.

A polished metal sphere turns up after a Florida brush fire and then refuses to behave like an ordinary object. It rolls back to whoever touches it, stops at the edge of tables like it can “sense” a drop, hums along to guitar notes, and stays warm long after it should have cooled. That’s the Betz Sphere case, and we walk through why it still gets cited in UFO and unexplained artifact circles: the Navy testing, the reported X-rays showing layered construction and smaller spheres inside, and the uncomfortable reality that the story gets even stranger after the media shows up.

From there we jump forward to the viral Buga Sphere from Colombia, where modern footage, surface symbols, and new X-ray claims collide with the biggest problem in anomaly research: chain of custody. We talk about why gaps in documentation matter, how a single cut in a video can change the entire reliability of a claim, and why radiocarbon dating headlines often confuse what’s being dated. If you’re searching terms like UAP evidence, UFO artifacts, mysterious metal orb, or “is it a hoax,” this is the kind of grounded, curious breakdown you want.

We also zoom out to the ancient side of the phenomenon, including the Diquís stone spheres of Costa Rica and disputed stone spheres in Bosnia. Whether they’re art, status symbols, lost technology, or geology playing tricks, they prove one thing: humans have been making and finding near-perfect spheres for a long time, even when there’s no obvious practical reason. Subscribe for the next conversation, share this with a friend who loves a good mystery, and leave a review with your best theory on what these spheres really are.

Videos:

Why Files- Alien Probe, Sentient Machine, Nuclear Weapon, or Junk? What is the Betz Mystery Sphere?

Gaia- Buga Sphere (ACTUAL FOOTAGE) - Advanced ET Tech JUST Landed in Civilian Hands

Alieninfoo- Investigating the Buga Sphere with Jesse Michels and Ross Coulthart

Ancient Aliens- Extraterrestrial Stone Spheres in Costa Rica

Transcript

Josh 0:03

Aliens.

Travis 0:07

Yes. But maybe no. Welcome to the show. Aliens, yes, but maybe no, with Josh and Travis. I'm Travis. I'm Josh. And this is anotherworldly podcast as ambiguous as our title. Welcome to the show, Josh.

Josh 0:33

Thank you. I feel I feel good. I feel good today.

Travis 0:36

Welcome to the show, Travis. That's what you should say.

Josh 0:38

Oh, uh, welcome to the show, Travis.

Travis 0:41

Thank you, Josh. It's a pleasure to be here as always.

Josh 0:43

And welcome, all you faithful, loyal listeners.

Travis 0:48

Name everyone.

Josh 0:49

Uh Fennel. Fennel, yep. Uh Chilly.

Travis 0:55

Uh-huh.

Josh 0:56

Sly. Uh-huh. Got it. And I think those are like when I think of faithful and loyal, those are the the top three for me. Yep. Those are the only ones. So our topic today is oddballs. Space balls. Weird balls.

Travis 1:12

Balls from space, man. So I'm going to make a movie about that. We're not ball experts. No. No. So we're gonna have to change the title of this from Mystery Spheres to Balls. That's gonna, I think, get us to those numbers we're looking for. For for the second quarter.

Josh 1:27

Yeah, a whole new demographic. We can do something, we can make that happen.

Travis 1:31

Yeah. Boost those listeners. We might get banned. Well, that's the best way to get people to pay attention to our show. That's true. Gotta get canceled.

Josh 1:39

But yeah, odd, weird, goofy, interesting spheres. There's some crazy spheres out there.

Travis 1:45

They're they're certainly the ear. I said ear. I think I'm starting to take on an accent.

Josh 1:52

That'd be cool.

Travis 1:53

Known for my accents, I am. Yeah, an accent then. Yeah.

Josh 1:57

Okay, so take it away, Josh. So throughout history, some of the strangest objects ever discovered were seamless metal orbs that seemed to move on their own, metallic spheres seen flying through the sky, and massive stone balls carved thousands of years ago with no clear explanation for why they exist or how they were made. So we're talking not about strange balls, strange spheres.

Travis 2:24

Oh man, that's gonna be this is gonna be a tough one to get through.

Josh 2:26

They've been rolling through all of ancient civilization, science, archaeology, and conspiracy.

Travis 2:32

Busting onto the scene, you might say.

Josh 2:34

So let's dive in.

Travis 2:35

Balls busting all through history.

Betts Sphere Discovery And Odd Behavior

Josh 2:40

Balls. Yes.

Travis 2:41

Alright, so we're gonna get into the Betts mystery sphere in Florida. This takes place in 1974. Great year. Yeah. Our story starts in the spring of 1974 on Fort George Island, just outside Jacksonville, Florida. Heard of it? After a brush fire burned through part of their 88-acre wooded property, the Betts family stumbled across something strange lying in the debris. A perfectly smooth metal sphere about the size of a bowling ball. At first it didn't seem extraordinary. It looked like a silver cannonball and weighed about 20 pounds. It had no seams, welds, screws, or access points, and had a small stamped triangular symbol on the surface. The object was incredibly durable. Later tests showed it could withstand up to a hundred and twenty thousand psi of pressure without deforming. You know what PSI is, Josh. You're familiar with it.

Josh 3:35

Yeah.

Travis 3:36

It's not penis stands inside. Oh, then no, what is it? Pounds per square inch of pressure without deforming. That explains when I was Googling it. You did you were just spelling out penis stands inside?

Josh 3:49

Yeah. No, so I actually Googled how much PSI it would take to cut a diamond. And it's between 60,000 and 90,000. 90,000 PSI if they're getting like really intricate fine cuts. So this is stronger than a diamond? Yeah. 120,000 PSI is a lot.

Travis 4:09

Wow, yeah, incredible. All right. So once inside the bet's home, the sphere began exhibiting behaviors that made it impossible to ignore. It rolled on its own, stopping, changing direction, and sometimes returning to the person who rolled it. Pretty cool.

Josh 4:25

Uh yeah. I'd be freaked out. If I like rolled back to you, I think that would be pretty cool. I mean, if I knew what it was, like if I purchased this thing and it did that, yeah, I'd be stoked. I'd be showing it off. But just finding it and it does that, I'd be super scared.

Travis 4:38

I would just assume that it was purchased if I found something like this and it was supposed to do that.

Josh 4:43

In the 70s, though, man. I Yeah, why not? It just seems super high tech. I don't know. This is just a steel ball, man.

Travis 4:51

Get over yourself. Maybe. Let's find out. It appeared to respond to sound, especially guitar notes, producing a humming or vibrating tone. So you think they took this down to the beach, laid down a blanket, and then just started playing guitar at it, like that scene in Barbie?

Josh 5:06

No, I think one of the guys was playing guitar and they actually heard the sound and they didn't know where it was coming from. They figured out through testing, trial and error, like walking around playing a guitar, that the ball was responding by humming to the tones of the guitar, which is nice. So if it is extraterrestrial, it's nice to know that they recognize music. I want to hear alien music now.

Travis 5:27

Yeah, take it on the road. It could be nice backup vocals. Yeah. Okay. The family dog reacted badly, whining and fleeing the room when the sphere made noise. That's sad. Yeah. I don't like that. Makes sense. When placed on a glass coffee table, it would roll toward the edge but stop before falling. When the table was tilted to force it off, the sphere instead rolled uphill or up table. That's weird. Yeah, it is weird. It's wild. Nice fun party trick, though. Yeah. I would just throw parties. I would. I would say, come look at my ball. Like one. Yeah, it's big though. It's heavy. It's big and heavy. When shaken and placed on the ground, it behaved like a Mexican jumping bean, vibrating and trying to move away. Its magnetic properties appeared to increase after prolonged movement. And gosh, after sitting in direct sunlight, it emitted a low hum and remained warm to the touch for days. Weird. What do you think of that? I don't know. I mean, just one of those things would be weird. It's wild that it's saying warm to the touch, because usually like that heat from metal would dissipate after a while unless it's left in the sun.

Navy Tests And Internal X-Ray Claims

Josh 6:38

Yeah, that means it was like harnessing the sun. Or storing it. Yeah. Maybe? Like a battery. Could be. I mean, it is weird, and I am not the only one that thinks it's weird. Are you leading into something? Yeah. Oh boy, here we go. Oh yeah. So at this point, the story it could have stayed local. A weird curiosity maybe exaggerated over the time, but it it didn't. Because other people started seeing the sphere move too. Skeptical reporters, visitors, witnesses who walked in doubting the story and then walked out unsettled. And eventually the US Navy got involved. Uh-oh. Yeah. And these people got really popular before this. You know, they were the Navy? The Navy got popular. Oh, the The Betts. The Betts family. Yeah. They okay. Their phones would not stop ringing and they only had one line. So people were having difficulty getting a hold of them because they were constantly on the phone answering questions and stuff. They weren't a huge fan of that. But the Navy called and eventually got a hold of them. The U.S. Navy wanted to get involved. The Betts family said yes. They loaned the sphere to the naval station Mayport for about two weeks. They signed an agreement guaranteeing its return if it wasn't government property. Smart.

Travis 7:48

Yeah, but like what designates something as government property? The government would just say, like, oh yeah, that's ours. We lost it in this. We did like a fake naval battle and we were shooting out cannonballs. Yeah, they could say whatever they want. Yeah, exactly. Especially in the 70s, like internet wasn't around. Or they could just say it's ours now. Yeah, yeah. And they're like, ha ha, sucker. I touched it last. It's mine. Yeah, finders keepers.

Josh 8:10

Losers weepers. So the Navy's findings on this, it's not an unexploded ordnance, so it's not gonna blow up at some point. It's not a bomb. Not government technology. It's not dangerous. Confirmed stainless steel alloy 431 detected four magnetic poles, two positive and two negative, arranged in an unusual configuration. So they just they didn't find anything. They didn't know what it was, really.

Travis 8:37

Well, I mean, that with their they ran it through some tests, and not finding anything is kind of interesting, also. It is. It's odd. It's an oddball. It is an oddball. So they ran the sphere through X-ray analysis. So although the Navy publicly stated that X-ray attempts were unsuccessful, a serviceman quietly returned the sphere with X-ray images included. Weird. Those images showed. Are you ready for it? Yeah. An outer shell roughly half an inch thick, multiple internal layers of steel with different densities, a hollow central cavity about the size of an apple, three smaller metal spheres inside the cavity, thin wire-like structures attached to the inner spheres.

Josh 9:21

That's wild. That's hard to wrap my head around. Just thinking if a human were to make this, how? It's not a two-piece thing, it's just an entire solid ball. There's no lines or any entry point anywhere.

Travis 9:35

No, but I mean you can do this. You make this in layers, like you start with the innermost layer and then you just put layers around it. Like there are logical ways to do this, but this is like what is its what is its purpose? Right. Those inner balls. There are toys that are very similar to what this ball is doing, where you can roll it and it will roll back to you. Maybe this invented that. You never know. It was the 70s. It's true. They're coming up with some crazy stuff.

Josh 10:00

So they received it back. The independent scientists came in and they kept testing it. So all these different people tested it. Dr. Carl Williston claimed the sphere emitted radio waves and contained traces of an unknown heavy element. Spooky. Dr. James Harder, an engineering professor, confirmed the internal complexity and claimed the material had an atomic number of 140, far beyond any known elements, which means dangerous. Yes.

Travis 10:30

Yes.

Josh 10:31

Absolutely. Because I think what getting to an atomic number of 90, it takes a hydron collider or what we do to make some of these nuclear weapons, and those are in the 90s. So this is 50 atomic numbers above that. I'm not a physicist. I don't have any follow-up questions for that. Okay. Dr. Jalen Heinek. Yeah. I think we've talked about him a handful of times. Mm-hmm. Former Project Blue Book advisor, a skeptic turn believer. He reviewed the case and supported the findings as genuinely anomalous. So military checked it out, three scientists checked it out, not any information on what it is or where it came from. Yep. Just how odd it is.

Travis 11:12

And nothing to compare it to.

Josh 11:14

Right. It's wild. Yeah. But at least they had the ball in their possession. The ball was in their court. Huh?

Travis 11:22

That's true. Yeah. I don't know. I'm working, I'm working on something.

Josh 11:24

They got it back, and now they're just chilling with the ball for the rest of their lives. Huh.

Switcheroo Story And Harassment Fears

Travis 11:30

Interesting. So the switcheroo and disappearance. What? Yeah. Oh, Josh. It's gonna get weird. Hold on to your butts. I thought they were gonna live happily ever after with their ball. Um, those stories they never play out the way you want. Not in this world. Dang it. Not when the U.S. Navy, the old U.S. Navy is involved. That's true. So if this story ended with unresolved test results, it would already be strange enough. But this is where things take a confusing turn. There was a National Inquirer incident. So the National Inquirer was like a magazine that you would see at checkstands that would have all kinds of wild stuff, claiming like, you know, bad boy bites again and things like that.

Josh 12:11

Yeah.

Travis 12:11

Make sensational stuff to grab your attention. They're great. I loved those. Yeah, they were great. I never bought one.

Josh 12:18

I never bought one either. Just I saw them at the register stand.

Travis 12:21

Yep. Anyway, so that's a thing that's not really you don't really see much anymore.

Josh 12:26

No.

Travis 12:26

The National Inquirer offered a cash reward for proof of extraterrestrial life, and a scientific panel was convened, including Haynek and Harter. The Betts family sent their son Terry with the sphere. A new character. Terry enters the match. During the event, Terry received a phone call claiming his mother had been injured. He rushed home, leaving the sphere behind. The inquirer delayed returning the object, eventually admitted it had been taken to New Orleans under Navy Guard for further testing. What's the Navy ro? When Terry finally retrieved it, the sphere was inert with no humming, vibrating, or movement. A visible seam was now present, the magnetic anomalies were gone, and X-rays showed no internal spheres, only dust. Oh, I'd be so pissed. Yeah. Obviously a switcheroo, right? Obviously a switcheroo. So do you think that the Betts family had all these tests on? Like, where were they able to get these tests run?

Josh 13:24

I mean, they've been in contact with scientists, you know, so I think maybe they were able to figure that out.

Travis 13:31

So Dr. Harder believed the original sphere had been replaced. After this, the Betts family reported harassment. The family sold their home and they vanished from public life and never spoke about the sphere again. So that sucks. Yeah. I hate hearing this part of the story because it always comes up when people discover a thing, they always get harassed into like obscurity, and it sucks. Have to change their life, pack everything up. And it was, you know, more often than not, no fault of their own. They had just come across something that was weird, and then suddenly they're the center of it, and now they have to like uproot their entire family.

Skeptic Takes And Unanswered Details

Josh 14:05

Yeah, and the whole reason they moved to this island was to kind of get away from the people. They moved from the city, and then this all happened. That wasn't their thing. And they didn't make any money off of this. They didn't write a book, they didn't sell any rights, they didn't take the money from the inquirer. The the money was not a thing. I mean, they were already a fairly wealthy family. They weren't looking for fame or anything like that. So pretty convincing. Uh another thing about that phone call that Terry got, them saying that his mom was injured, when he got there, she was not injured. So it seemed as though that was a fake call to distract him from leaving the orb. My eyes just bugged. Yeah. It was agents and spies. So before the story runs away completely, it's important to slow down and look at the explanations that don't involve anything exotic because there are reasonable sounding answers, even if they don't explain everything. So there's the industrial ball theory. The Navy suggested it was a large ball bearing or a check valve. Artist James Durling Jones claimed to have lost similar spheres from his vehicle years earlier. He said it was on the rack on top of his Volkswagen bus and fell off while he was driving. So a local supply company produced a new stainless steel ball with nearly identical size and weight, but the ones that they were producing, it wasn't exact, and it didn't have all the things on the inside, and it weighed like 12 pounds, but same size. So another one is the skeptoid analysis. I don't like that name. Suggested movement caused by an uneven stone floors, acoustic effects explained as resonance, and heat retention attributed to metal properties. I don't know. That's just now it's metal, it does it. Like, come on, get out of here. Yeah, get out of here. That's nothing. I could say that. Wouldn't mean anything. Name every metal. Yeah. Name all metal properties. Name everything that has retention. Huh? Water. Well, I don't know. That's it. So here are the remaining problems though. So the ball was if it was dropped or it fell off of this Volkswagen bus. I don't know why you had it up on the top rack, anyways. That's a weird place to put it. Even if the ball rolled on its own, it going over a mile from a road is very unlikely, especially over a wilderness terrain. Yeah. No explanation for it rolling uphill. Acoustic responsiveness to specific frequencies. So it's not just any sound. That means it's not resonance. And then internal x-ray structure never fully explained. No one really knows what that was. And then the switcheroo, the old switcheroo, that still is unsolved.

Travis 16:41

Nobody knows where it went.

Josh 16:43

Yeah, there's theories that Heinek had one of those in his possession from a family member after he passed that was in a list of things that he owned. But we don't know if it's the same one. But that's the best fear. Okay. More convincing than some of these for me. Sure. I mean, this is just it hits a lot of the check marks that I mean, scientific involvement. Mystery.

Travis 17:06

Yeah. Suddenly gone from public life, bunch of questions left unanswered. Yeah. All the things Josh loves to hear about.

Josh 17:14

And they weren't trying to get money. They weren't trying to get fame. Yep.

Travis 17:18

Life was ruined.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Mm-hmm.

Travis 17:20

Okay. So because this is the balls episode, we have more than one ball.

Josh 17:25

Sphere. It's the sphere episode. I changed my mind. We're going to call it a sphere episode.

Buga Sphere From Colombia Goes Viral

Travis 17:31

Damn it. We have to. We have to. You're going to have to go back and change all of the times I have said balls. To sphere. Yeah. Now that you're going to do it, I'm going to say balls as often as I can just to make editing just a little trickier. I'll just beep it out. So we're going to talk a little bit now about the Booga Sphere. Booga Sphere. That sounds fun. The Booga Sphere. Yeah. It's so it's yeah, it's not a Booga Sphere, one word. It's the Booga Bug G A space sphere. Yes. Like so hop your time machine. Let's fast forward 50 years. And suddenly the story repeats. Not in Florida, but in Colombia. And this time the sphere doesn't just roll, it flies. Oh my gosh.

Josh 18:13

I remember seeing, I mean, this was recent.

Travis 18:15

Recent.

Josh 18:16

Yeah.

Travis 18:17

Yeah. Year ago.

Josh 18:18

Not even a year ago. Yeah. I remember this blowing up on the socials and all that stuff. It blew up? No, not literally. There was lots of posts when it first happened because it got really popular.

Travis 18:30

So, like we said, about a year ago, March 2025, near Buga, Colombia, so named after a place instead of a family, like the previous witnesses reported a metallic sphere flying before recovering it. The object shows no welds or joints with symbols carved into the surface. Which is weird. Yeah, pretty weird. X-ray findings, per researcher Jose Luis Velazquez, showed three layered metal shells, nine microspheres inside. Kind of similar. Yep. Yep, exactly. Velazquez concluded the object was not human-made. Okay. I don't know how you conclude that, but Yeah. Data, man. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Data. Some people argue the Bugosphere could be approximately 12,000 years old based on claimed radiocarbon dating results. But it's important to understand what is actually being dated and the limitations of that evidence. So I'm gonna argue that it is. Uh what?

Josh 19:28

I'm gonna argue that it is, but I haven't done any research or looked into this much, but I'll argue it.

Travis 19:34

Okay.

Josh 19:34

Makes me feel good.

Travis 19:35

Okay. You're gonna argue for it being 12,000 years old? Yeah. Why not? Sure. Okay, why not? What do you got to lose? Not much. Just your friends and um respect. Family. Uh yeah, but you'll probably lose that. Probably. I'm gonna write a book. I won't own any of it. Yep, yep. The only thing you'll own is a bad drug problem. Yeah. So organic metal inside the sphere received a radiocarbon date. Advocates, including UFO researcher Dr. Steven Greer, huh? Have circulated a report saying a resin or organic sample found inside the sphere was tested using carbon-14 methods at the University of Georgia's Centered for Applied Isotope Studies. Okay. They cite an approximate age of about 12,560 years, placing it near the end of the last ice age, the younger dryest period. That age is much older than known advanced metallurgy because mainstream science dates advanced metalworking and aluminum production to the modern era. Supporters argue that if this material is truly ancient, it would imply either a known ancient technology far predating known civilizations or a non-terrestrial origin of the artifact. Which is why we're talking about it.

Josh 20:52

Yeah. Aliens, yes, but maybe no, huh? It could be. I mean, the younger dryas, I've seen it talked about a handful of times, and it is fascinating. Like if there was a big cataclysmic event and everything was wiped out, and we had to reset and redo everything, because we're finding civilizations that are much older than modern science is telling us. So if there was advanced civilizations and they had some kind of knowledge, and it could line up with, you know, they're from the future, you know, like the was that the last episode?

Travis 21:25

Uh two episodes ago where we talked about humans coming from the ground and evolving to be small with big eyes. That one.

Josh 21:33

The aliens are actually us, but from the future. I mean, who knows?

Travis 21:37

Oh, that's that's starting to catch a little traction with you, huh? I'm not gonna deny it.

Josh 21:42

I'll argue that. I'll write a book about that. Okay. I hope it all works out for you. Thank you. It will. I know. I believe in you. So the Boogosphere has some scientific pushback.

Travis 21:54

Yeah.

Josh 21:55

No verifiable documented continuous chain of custody from the alleged aerial. Siding, two recovery, two storage, and then two testing. We don't have GPS verified recovery, controlled collection, or sealed evidence logs. And why this matters is without a chain of custody, scientists can't rule out a post-recovery contamination, modification, substitution, or intentional hoaxing after the discovery.

Travis 22:20

Yeah. So they're learning their lesson from the Bet Sphere where they let that fall into the hands of the National Enquirer, and then they could no longer trace everyone and their mother had it. Yeah.

Josh 22:34

Yeah. And I I remember the video, because this is what was circulating a lot, is it showed the video of this thing flying and then kind of falling to the ground. There is a cut in the video.

Travis 22:45

Yep.

Josh 22:45

And then it shows a guy coming and picking up the orb, the sphere. Yep. Dare I say Ha ha! You did it. I did. You did it. You're just making work harder for yourself. I know. I'll bleep it. I'll bleep some of them to make it sound like we're saying something real nasty. Okay.

Ancient Stone Spheres Costa Rica To Bosnia

Travis 23:02

So let's go back in time. What makes all of this more interesting is that spheres like these didn't start in the modern era. Humans have been finding and making perfect spheres for thousands of years. So in Costa Rica, we have the D key spheres. We learn how to say that. Yeah. D keys? It's D keys? Yeah. D like key and keys like keys. Or cheese. Yeah. D keys. So over 300, Josh. That's a lot of balls. 300 nearly perfect stone spheres. That's a ton of balls. 300 times. And to the floor. Mm-hmm. And the sweat dripping off of them. Okay. Okay.

Josh 23:47

So 300 nearly perfect stone spheres.

Travis 23:50

You got me down this path. Where did this happen? This is on you. This isn't this in Costa Rica. Okay, good. Costa Rica. So over 300 nearly perfect stone spheres in Costa Rica have been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Wow. Their sizes range from inches to over eight feet and can weigh up to 16 tons.

Josh 24:09

This kind of feels like a Easter Island kind of thing. Almost.

Travis 24:14

Yeah. And there's a lot of mystery around that too. There's another island civilization that makes giant coins.

Josh 24:20

Oh, that's right.

Travis 24:20

And that is part of their currency. Yeah. And so having these coins are and they're handed down. They have a legacy, so they will stay with a family, and it helps signify wealth having these giant coins.

Josh 24:32

I would make the biggest coin.

Travis 24:35

You you would. Yeah. It would take it would take you a long time.

Josh 24:38

Yeah.

Travis 24:38

I think that's what gives these things value.

Josh 24:41

Right.

Travis 24:41

Is the time it takes to make them. And I think that's that's kind of nice and probably very meditative to sit down and, you know, whatever, roll a ball around till it becomes perfect. So like picture a ball of play-doh and you put it in your hands and you roll it together and till it becomes as close to a perfect sphere. Sorry, I put my hands in front of my mouth while I was doing that to show Josh rolling a ball of play-doh. And if you do that like between two surfaces, you can kind of grind something down through time.

Josh 25:08

So is that how they made these?

Travis 25:10

No. Do you think I'm just I have no idea. So the Costa Rican stone spheres are one of the largest, most deliberate sculptural projects in the pre-Columbian Americas. And they were created by a culture that left almost no written record behind. So this is important because the stones have no known practical function or utility and were a massive investment of labor. So this is like what we're talking about, right? Right. That yeah. What gives them value is the amount of time it takes to make them.

Josh 25:35

Right. They said they're created between 600 and 1530 AD. Yep. And carved from igneous rock.

Travis 25:43

Yep. So the stones were first documented in the 30s, 1930s, during a United Fruit Company land clearing. Hundreds were unearthed, often buried or partially buried. Some were dynamited or broken under the belief they contained gold.

Josh 25:57

Oh.

Travis 25:58

Many were moved from their original locations before proper documentation destroying crucial archaeological context. Weird. Yeah. And I saw, I mean, they're they look like big stone balls. So in one of the videos we watched, just to get back to what we're talking about, how these things were made, yeah, is it was speculated that a mold was created, and then molten ore or you know, whatever hot rocks were poured inside of this mold, then you crack that mold, out comes a perfectly spherical rock.

Josh 26:30

Ball. Yep, balls. Interesting. I yeah, I just I guess I didn't know you could melt rocks. I mean, I knew you could. I mean, that's what magma is. Lava. Lava. I just didn't know that you could do stuff with that. I guess I never thought about it. But that's not the only place there's big stone balls. So over 6,000 miles away, near Zavedevici, is that right? Sure. Bosnia are similar stone spheres with one weighing over 30 tons. So the artificial civilization hypothesis with these is the spheres are too round to be natural, which I mean kind of goes with the straight line theory as well. You know, nature doesn't make perfect forming things. Sure. The iron content suggests advanced material knowledge, which at that time they shouldn't have had. Similarity to the Costa Rican spheres implies a lost global civilization. So maybe people were in contact. I mean, there's lots of proof for that too. Shared ancient knowledge, you see that with the communication, and pre-Ice Age culture, which is all very exciting to me.

Travis 27:39

Yep. You're always talking about uh pre-Ice Age culture and how Manny is your favorite character and you hate Sid because he's always just galumphing alone.

Josh 27:48

Well, I mean, if he just picked up the pace and stopped getting distracted, then they probably would make it to their destination. I mean, they're in a level four emergency situation.

Travis 27:59

And why can't Scrat get that acorn?

unknown 28:02

Oh my gosh.

Josh 28:03

Pre-Ice Age culture.

Travis 28:04

Oh, it's annoying.

Josh 28:06

So some of the geological explanations, the mainstream geologists classify many Bosnian spheres as natural concretions. So for when mineral matter precipitates around a nucleus, it can form nearly spherical shapes over a long period of time. And it's found worldwide in Utah, Kazakhstan, and New Zealand. But I just I don't just seeing the images and the videos, these are absolutely perfect. Yeah. So I would imagine they were made more than natural.

Travis 28:34

I think so too.

Josh 28:35

Yeah. Some concretions can reach massive sizes, contain iron, and appear unnervingly symmetrical. I don't know. So where this debate gets sticky though is some Bosnian spheres appear more symmetrical than typical concretions. Others are fractured in ways that suggest shaping or just erosion. True. And poor documentation and politicized claims muddy the data. I don't know what politicized claims. Probably like who owns it, why it's there. Yeah, and some scientists also may say no, it isn't that old because it disproves something that that scientist said.

Travis 29:12

Well, if it's a UNESCO heritage site, then there's a lot of documentation that needs to be done on that to preserve its authenticity and its historical relevance and how old the thing is. They want all of this information. So the things have to stay undisturbed.

Josh 29:28

Right. And with that, there's no definitive excavation. So that doesn't exist for many of the examples. So this leaves the case in a weird gray area where it's not conclusively artificial because we don't have the data for that, but it's not exactly natural either. Which is really just a weird thing. So it's just another mysterious oddball. Oddballs. Oddballs. Yeah.

What These Spheres Suggest About Us

Travis 29:56

Hundreds. Okay. So let's bring this all home.

Josh 29:58

Yeah.

Travis 29:59

When you step back and look at all this together, the weird part isn't that one of these spheres gives us a clear answer. The weird part is how consistently they land in the same uncomfortable space.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

Yeah.

Travis 30:10

The Bet Sphere wasn't clearly alien, but it also wasn't clearly mundane. The Bugosphere might be modern, but it's wrapped in claims that move faster than the evidence. And the ancient stone spheres prove that humans have been obsessed with making perfect spheres for thousands of years, even when they had no practical reason to do so. Yeah, they're obsessed with balls. Fair, they're obsessed with balls. But I mean, like when you get play-doh, that is that's what like That's what you do. That's one of the first things you do is you just get it and you just wad it up and roll it in your hands, and then you make a ball. Yeah, you make a ball and then you make a snake. Yeah, and then you make a snake, and then you split the ball, and then you do two balls and a snake.

Josh 30:48

That is the the correct order to do that. Put them together. Yeah, what do you got? Two balls and a snake. Yep, two balls and a snake. So what sphere is the most unsettling for you? I mean, I don't feel unsettled by any of these, actually.

Travis 31:04

Thank you. You asked me a question and then I answered it right away. I appreciate that, Josh.

Josh 31:07

Yep. Well, that's why they pay me the little bucks.

Travis 31:10

Yeah, exactly. You're trying to get the big bucks by answering more questions.

Josh 31:15

Mm-hmm.

Travis 31:15

That's how we get paid. The more questions we answer. That's why we do quizzes at the end. Yep. That is exactly why we do quizzes at the end. Um, so like you were saying. Which one's most believable? I find a little bit in each one. I especially like the ancient ones because, like we were saying, it's it could be currency, which is kind of where I fall on that currency or maybe art. I mean, we can't just rule out plain boredom, you know, people want to create. I mean, maybe was there much to do back then? No, exactly. And so just like making stone balls just became like a thing and it was fun, and now you're the balls guy. Yeah, you know, in your village, your community. There's just one man obsessed with balls, and then pass it on to his kids, or like he maybe had uh an understudy, an intern. I can see that somebody that was interested in it, and then he passed that on to that person.

Josh 32:06

Yeah, I would say, I mean, if I'm looking at like alien's yes, maybe no, or hoax, maybe no. I mean, the bugosphere, that one I am a little skeptical, just because there is, like they said, the data for the collection, the videos cut. It looks kind of fake. Yeah, the the government hasn't come and taken it. The x-rays were kind of done in weird circumstances, like it took a while. I don't know, it's just weird. So that one I'm I'm not a hundred percent convinced. The bet sphere, I mean, there's really nothing I can argue with that. I mean, it's just odd in every way. Yeah. And that that's probably one of the more convincing. I don't think that's a hoax at all. I think it is just a weird thing. I don't know if it's extraterrestrial. I don't know if any of these are extraterrestrial.

Travis 32:56

I don't actually I for me, this doesn't ring that bell for an extraterrestrial phenomena. This is these all feel very human.

Josh 33:05

Right. And most everything that I've seen on this, it is under the veil of it being extraterrestrial. So I think a lot of people do believe that these are real and it is extraterrestrial. I think a lot of people also think they're hoaxes.

Travis 33:20

Sure.

Josh 33:20

Uh obviously the ancient stones, those aren't part of this show. What do you think? So if it comes to aliens for me, I I'm gonna say mid no to maybe. Okay.

Travis 33:33

I'm gonna say no, firmly no.

Josh 33:35

Okay, I can respect that.

Travis 33:36

The the one thing that might get me close was, you know, talking about it as if it were like a battery and being able to store energy, no heat.

Josh 33:46

That might be what gets me closer to a maybe, but do you think that the the Navy did know what it was and withheld that?

Travis 33:56

You don't think they no, no, I don't know. I mean, if they came back to potentially take it, that's weird. I mean, what obligation do they have to let anybody know that this kind of they don't have any obligation, I don't think. Yeah, like to go back and tell the Betts family or any of these other groups that have discovered these things. Like they have no obligation to report back to them and say, like, oh yeah, but this was an extraterrestrial, or no, it wasn't.

Josh 34:22

Well, especially if there's a really deep society in the government and military keeping extraterrestrial existence hidden, you know, so they would absolutely not if they did find something. But I mean, it's just it going missing is very odd and being replaced. So they they so making the phone call too.

Travis 34:41

Maybe, yeah, you never know. Like, maybe they broke it, they like took it and somebody glued it back together, or they just like someone had the drops ease, they dropped it, and they're like, fuck, we gotta commission this to somebody else, and then they brought that artist, the balls artist in, James Doolong or whatever his name was, and he made he made some balls. Could be, you never know.

Josh 35:03

Well, they broke it, they dropped it and broke it, yep, put it back together, it didn't work, and the betts family was mad about it. Yeah, which I'd be, yeah, and hurt and offended, yeah, for sure. So that is this topic. I'm really glad because I've been I've heard a lot about this stuff. I never really dove in deeper. So it was cool actually hearing about this. And I've I've heard these compared. So when the Booga Sphere came up, I saw that a handful of times. I did notice that they talked about and compared it to some other balls that have been found. Sure. So it's cool kind of putting all together for our balls episode. Or strange spheres, our mystery spheres. Uh-huh. Love it. Let us know what you guys think. I'm sure some of you have seen some weird balls. Um, don't send any pictures of weird balls. You don't need that. Uh, just yeah, no, go ahead, go ahead and do it. No, go ahead, go ahead and do it. Have it say in the show notes. Send ball picks here. Yep.

unknown 36:03

Yep.

Josh 36:04

Perfect. But what they should do is tell your friends about the show. That's a really great way for you guys to support us. We're kind of grassroots, we're not advertising, we're not doing anything of that. So it's either people stumble upon us or they're told about us. So if you guys want to help us out, that would be terrific.

Travis 36:20

That would be great. Yeah. We're just a we're just a little pop and pop podcast shop. That was gonna be the name of this podcast before we came up with our working one.

Josh 36:30

Yep.

Travis 36:31

Two dads in space.

Rapid Fire Quiz Nuclear Incursions

Josh 36:32

So that is our episode, and now we get into the fun, fun part. It's all fun, but I really enjoy this part. Our quiz. Uh-oh. But I'm gonna go to the bathroom real quick. I'll be right back. Okay.

Travis 36:52

So while Josh is in the bathroom, probably all that balls talk, he just wanted to make sure that they were still there. I accidentally looked at the quiz. So uh really exercising all of my willpower not to fill it out and cheat ahead of the show. This is tough. Real, real tough. But listener, you will never hear this. This is really only for Josh. And he won't hear this until he's editing. So he'll never know. If I do well on this quiz, then I'm fucked. Because then it'll be known that I cheated.

Josh 37:25

What? Did you did you open it up and cheat? What? No. I heard right when I put my headphones on, he said cheated.

Travis 37:33

No, no, I was talking about a grass that we have in our yard.

Josh 37:36

I heard he'll know that I cheated.

Travis 37:40

No, it's grass is growing on our hill. All right. I know James cheated grass.

Josh 37:46

Did you open up the quiz already? Do you know the topic? Um, hold on. Holding for no reason. Okay. Go ahead and open up the email. Okay. Okay. Nuclear incursions. Nuclear incursions? What a surprise. Huh. So, okay. New what does incursions mean? Great question, Josh.

Travis 38:07

Great question. Like occurrences? It is obviously an invasion or attack, especially a sudden or brief one.

Josh 38:16

Oh, nuclear attacks? Okay. I don't know if I'm ready for this.

Travis 38:21

An incursion means a sudden, often hostile entry or attack into a territory or activity that belongs to someone else. Like a military raid, an invasive species entering a new area, or even a brief, unexpected involvement in someone's private affairs. Uh-oh. Jeez. Implying an aggressive or unwanted intrusion. It's essentially an invasion or raid, but can also describe less serious unexpected involvements. That is from the internet.

Josh 38:48

And we're talking aliens, so this is gonna be We're talking aliens and nuclear aliens. Okay. Maybe. We'll see what's going on. So let's get right into this. So first question: Which decade marks the earliest documented UAP incidents involving US nuclear missile facilities? Is it A 1950s, B 1960s, C 1970s, or D 1980s? Great question. I don't know. I mean, is it like right when we got them?

Travis 39:20

I'm gonna say the 50s because what I was thinking right on the tail of us entering the nuclear age.

Josh 39:27

Yeah, I'm gonna say 50s as well, for the same reason. It's like, why would it not start when it started? Yeah.

Travis 39:34

You know, and I'm thinking the reason I'm saying that is like this is relatively new technology, you know, 50s, like a little over a decade old, right? So they're gonna be hyper-vigilant with who is spying on this technology.

Josh 39:48

That's true. And from what we've heard kind of in some of the episodes that we've done, they are really interested, or they speak about our nuclear weapons. Yeah, you know, they are interested. So yeah. Okay. Yep. Next question: which modern U.S. facility has acknowledged ongoing unauthorized aerial incursions over restricted nuclear-related airspace since 2018. Oh my gosh. Okay. Is that A, Los Alamos National Laboratory, B Oak Ridge National Laboratory, C, Cheyenne Mountain, or D, Wright Patterson Air Force Base? Uh I think it's Wright Patterson Air Force Base. I've heard that. Do you I've heard that, and and I don't know why, but I think there's some some big things about that base. I don't remember what it is. Some funky shit going down. Yeah. It's a hot spot. What do you think?

Travis 40:47

Well, I love a spooky mountain, so I'm gonna say Cheyenne Mountain. A lot of bunkers uh show up inside mountains, you know, especially in in movies, shows, and fantasy, dwarves famously carving out the inside of mountains. That is true.

Josh 41:04

It's natural bunker, but that's for our other show, dwarves, yes, but maybe no.

Travis 41:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that one. Did a dwarf make this?

Josh 41:11

I don't know. Does it look does it look good? Yes. Then yes. Okay, next one. What occurred at Malmstrom Air Force Base in March 1967? A, an energy blackout across Montana. So it's in Montana. Or, or maybe that's the wild part. It's not in Montana. Oh yeah. B intercontinental ballistic missiles became non-operational. C, a power failure affecting the base, or D, UFOs were photographed by civilians. I mean, I think if this is newsworthy, probably that ballistic missiles became non-operational. That's what I think. Because that's the weirdest thing if someone can tap into and disable. Well, there's two blackouts on here. I mean, a power failure would be really bad too.

Travis 41:54

Yeah. Okay.

Josh 41:56

I'm gonna hmm, what did you say? I said the ballistic missiles become non-operational.

Travis 42:02

Okay. I uh Montana, even back then, there's not a lot of people in Montana. There's still not. And still less, yeah. I mean, maybe a little more now, but I'm gonna say because the question is Air Force base, I'm gonna say power failure affecting the base.

Josh 42:18

All right. So next question. Who smuggled Soviet military documents describing UFO activity out of Russia? I know this. Do you know this? We talked about it. Okay, so first answer is it a Jacques Valet. Yeah. B Lou Elizondo. Yeah. C Stanton Friedman. Yeah. Or D George Knapp. Coolest guy ever. Is George Knapp? Yeah. International spy. You know what's interesting is a year ago I didn't know any of these people. And then doing the show, I've been able to know, and now I know just from the congressional hearing alone. I mean, George Knapp talked about that in the 2025 hearing. Pretty cool. Really cool. Okay. So that was your answer as well, right? I don't wanna Yeah. Okay. Yep. All right. Next one. The 1982 Soviet UAP incident took place in what region? A Siberia, B the Ukrainian SSR, C, Kazakhstan, or D, Eastern Germany.

Travis 43:16

Uh I'm gonna say weird old Siberia. It's cold, weird stuff happens in the cold, it's isolated.

Josh 43:23

It's like one of those, like kind of like Antarctica. Like, if I were to hide something, you'd probably be there because no one's gonna go out there. That's where you hide all of your Russian superheroes, too.

SPEAKER_02 43:31

Yeah.

Travis 43:32

Wolverine. Uh Sabertooth. Uh heard of him. Um who else? Red guy that's Russian's Captain America? That guy? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Geez, man.

Josh 43:44

If you're gonna hide, hide something, hide it where it's cold and where the superheroes are. Yeah. All right. Last one. According to Soviet military reports from 1982, what technical anomaly occurred during the UAP sightings? Is that A, missile silo doors open? Opened automatically. B radar stations lost all tracking capability. C communication systems experience electrical impulses. Or D uncontrolled missile launch. Oh. Oh man. Experience that before, Josh? Uh don't recall. I feel like if there is a missile launch, an uncontrolled missile launch, I would have heard about it. Because that's huge. Mm-hmm. Pretty scary. I'm going to say missile silent. Well, missile silo doors open automatically. That's weird. I mean, that means that like they're about to go off, which would be terrifying. Radar systems, that would be scary because if there's missiles coming in, then you wouldn't be able to see them and then counter that. Uh, I'm gonna say missile silo doors opening automatically. That would be, I think, the scary other than the missile launching itself, which I would have heard about. I think that one's the scariest. That one would be really scary. When you think of a nuclear base and the silo doors, they like flip a switch and then the doors start opening, and then the next thing is you turn the key. So this is like prepping for a potential launch.

Travis 45:10

All right, what do you think? I'm glad you vamp for so long because I still don't know. Um, so I'm gonna go with my gut and say radar stations lost all tracking capability.

Josh 45:20

Okay.

Travis 45:20

Submit.

Answers, Corrections, And Next Episode

Josh 45:22

All right, we'll submit our answers and view our accuracy. Oh, I did bad. Oh man, I did bad. Hey, we got the George Knapp one. That's good. You got it. Didn't you say George Knapp too? Yeah. Oh, so you did too. Okay. So we'll go through which decade marks the earliest documented UAP incidents involving U.S. nuclear facilities. I said the 50s, you said the 50s. It was the 60s. Swinging 60s. Yeah. Which modern U.S. facility has acknowledged ongoing unauthorized aerial incursions over restricted nuclear-related airspace since 2018? I said Wright Patterson Air Force Base. I said Cheyenne Spooky Mountain. It was Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is where Bob Lazar said he worked.

Travis 46:10

Yeah, classic. They just want their stuff back. Yeah. I knew that was the right answer.

Josh 46:15

Did you? I didn't think I I had no idea.

Travis 46:18

Yeah. But I'm always I'm always betting against myself.

Josh 46:21

I also didn't know that that was a restricted nuclear airspace either. I mean, I guess it makes sense. Okay. Next one. What occurred at Malmstrom Air Force Base in March 1967? I said intercontinental ballistic missiles became non-operational. Yeah. And I said a power failure affecting the base. You were right, though. It was the missiles becoming non-operational. And then the next one who smuggled Soviet military documents describing UFO activity out of Russia. You know him. You love him. Wow, boah, wow, George Knapp. Yeah, George Knapp. The star of our show. Star of my dreams. Oh boy. Not hubba.

Travis 47:00

Not hubba hubba. Hong Kong. Bad dream. Deep beep. No, they're good. If he shows up. Actually, you know what? If he shows up in your dream, I don't know.

Josh 47:08

Maybe good. Hopefully. Maybe bad. Maybe scary. It would probably be like, oh shit, shit's going down. Yeah. All right, next one. 1982 Soviet UAP incident took place in what region? I said Siberia. I said Siberia. It was the Ukrainian SSR. Okay. Not a lot right. And then finally, last one. According to Soviet military reports from 1982, what technical anomaly occurred during the UAP sightings? I said missile silent doors open automatically.

Travis 47:38

And I picked radar stations, lost all tracking capability like an idiot.

Josh 47:43

And we were both wrong. Yep. It was communication systems experience electrical impulses, which is weird. Okay, so we're gonna look at nuclear facilities having potential UAP interactions and sightings. Interesting. Whoa. I've heard this mentioned a few times, but I haven't I don't know anything about it. And George Knapp mentioned uh that Russia could from the documents that he brought back, he mentioned that Russia has experienced some stuff at nuclear sites, but that's all I knew, just that sentence. So cool. No, I'm excited to dive into this. Yeah, be fun. Yeah, get a little more knowledge of my my brain dome.

Travis 48:24

You're really uh trying to get that to take off. Okay. Is that not a thing? I mean, it will be once this podcast gets released. That's true. Everybody's gonna be calling it brain dome.

Josh 48:34

Well, thank you for listening again. Reach out, tell a friend. Uh thank you, Jordan, for doing all the hard and difficult work, and we get to have fun talking about it. Yep. Yeah, she's a researcher, she puts everything together and she does a phenomenal job. She writes these quizzes, which are super fun. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we will chat at you next episode with the nuclear incursions. Yay, thanks for listening. Bye.