Betz Mystery Sphere

originally posted by: breadlover10
a reply to: Gothmog

in that wiki there is


alot of 'may be this'

'could be this'


but the ball valve is just lazy

It is a ball manufactured by Bell and Howell that rolled of an artist's Volkswagen love bus.
"Nuff said"

a reply to: Gothmog

If anyone finds another of these well-balanced spheres, I'd say try and drill a few holes in it and take it to a bowling alley.

a reply to: wavelength
If it was very well balanced, it may not actually perform as well on a bowling lane as you think. Especially after you drill into it if it was balanced all around to begin with.
Not to drag this thread off course but here is a link to an interesting video on how asymmetrical bowling balls are used in the sport.

a reply to: [post=26830014]Gothmog[/postprove it man.



you cant just say because it tangentially looks like a ball bearing there for it is one.


the inside is hallow ball bearing are not hallow.


why does it have a structure in the middle of it? how did they make that structure with out leaving any weld or cut scars in the Xray on the inside or the outside?


no, i think there is much more to this little ball than meets the eye.

a reply to: breadlover10

If it was hollow then why does it weight exactly what it should for a solid ball of that material that size ?

And where is there any evidence whatsoever that it has any kind of structure internally ?

The burden of proof sits with the claimant

a reply to: evc1shop

All joking aside, that was actually a very informative video, thanks for sharing! I haven't thrown a bowling ball in ages, you've inspired me to go "hit the lanes". Alas, the Betz sphere was a bit too heavy to bowl with, anyway. Apparently, it weighed about 22 lbs.

So much for alien bowling technology.

To keep this thread rolling down its lane,
The Betz Sphere - Skeptoid's Analysis

The Navy metallurgist had identified the ball as being made of an alloy called stainless steel 431. According to the website of a supplier of this alloy: 431 has been successfully used in a variety of aircraft and general industrial applications. These include fasteners, bolts, valve components and chemical equipment.

It's not likely any alien technology would be made of a carefully developed (by humans) alloy, stainless steel 431.

Skeptoid also interviewed the artist (who drove the famous volkswagen from which the sphere may have fallen):

Durling-Jones even explained the rattle noted by Hynek: "The rattle comes from trying to patch the sphere... the company drills the spheres and rewelds them before machining them again. Sometimes some of the milling or drilling chips drop inside."

a reply to: breadlover10

i know for a fact if you catch something top-secret and take a picture of it they will first try and pay you for it and than if you don't take the offer it is going to disappear one way or another

Interesting! Does that mean you've had personal experience with them offering to buy, then making a picture disappear?

Do tell!

a reply to: Gothmog

show me another one with a similar xray profile

a reply to: wavelength

but why did it move and why did it vibrate? and what was it doing in the middle of someone private property deep in the woods?

a reply to: nugget1

the UK picture that has 2 harrier jets and the 'ufo' nick pope had on his wall is an example of the military buying photos

I am of the mind that it is a drone that materialized, and caused the fire on the property because it was damaged. I think that the properties of it, the radio waves being a sort of informational reporting system made me think a small reconnaissance device.

The magnetic poles, made me think of anti-gravity via magnetism, and the way it would respond to sound, made me think Intradimensional travel via vibration. I don’t think that this was a UFO, but just an eye, viewing and surveillance of possibly the Betz Family.

I say this because back in the 1990’s I had a girlfriend whose cousin lived in Michigan. On their rural property they had an instance where there were a few of these balls were in the forest when they were out camping. One of which was silver when it was inert, then turned bright glowing red when it floated and seemed to pursue her cousin and friends through the woods.

In my opinion, the object is just a recon device. A camera. This cousin that I used to know, had a period of missing time shortly after the sighting.

Have not spoken to her probably since 1995. My ex passed away in 2009. This was up near Charlevoix Michigan. a reply to: breadlover10

a reply to: Fairtrade141

same, they were definitely made by human hands.



but the odd xrays and the magnetic field and moving on its own and this was way before super lithium batteries so how was it powering what ever was inside of it

it would have to get sealed up when it was made so they must have a very off power source


would have been neat to see if it was putting off a signal or any sort of other radiation

I do not think that the hands responsible were necessarily human. If this was crafted by humans, it is either a probe from the very distant future, or the very distant past. The likelihood of it being human made back in the 1970’s is very very small. I am of the mind that this tech comes from a place other than Earth.

As I mentioned before, some people I used to know saw one of these inert, and then active. This was back in the early to mid 1990’s. a reply to: breadlover10

If this sphere actually performed and was constructed as claimed, do you think the military would actually give it back the first time…??? Doubt it.

This was the 70’s height of the Cold War, spooks would be all over this thing. Did any men in black show up, with threats and intimidation if they didn’t hand it over?

Its in Warehouse 13.

a reply to: 38181

to many people knew about it and when it was getting more 'normal' traffic and got the 'opportunity' to have it tested again by the NAVY and it was never returned, not the original one

originally posted by: wavelength
a reply to: evc1shop

It's not likely any alien technology would be made of a carefully developed (by humans) alloy, stainless steel 431.

Then how would one explain the internal atomic # of 140?

When the highest natural occurring atomic # is uranium at 92

And for the fact the highest artificially man induced atomic # by scientist is only 114? To have an internal atomic # of 140, one would have to question its origin?

a reply to: Allan28

Good point to bring up.
This discovery was claimed by Dr. James Albert Harder, a professor of civil and hydraulic engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He was referring to its two "internal spheres". Other scientists determined there were 3 internal spheres. Other sources claim that the navy's x-ray equipment was unable to penetrate it, although the x-rays are available to see here: Betz Sphere X-Rays The information is all over the place, but you can see the internal spheres. Those are the ones Dr. Harder was referring to.

Although Dr. Harder was a respected engineer at the time, science progresses over time, and there are some issues with his determination of the atomic number of the internal spheres. From the same link as above (Betz Sphere X-Rays):

5. Because of the steel/nickel shell, most of the lower energy x-rays will be removed before passing into the interior of the sphere, a process called "beam hardening." Only higher energy photons will remain. The higher energy photons have a greater chance of passing through a material without being absorbed. This means that thinner, less dense, lower atomic number objects are less likely to be detected inside the metal container.

6. And so, because the small spheres inside are optically denser than the surrounding, Dr. Harder assumed that they had a much higher anatomic number than iron and nickel, which make up the shell.

7. However, You can see blood vessels inside of the lung on chest x-rays (radiographs), and they appear optically denser than the ribs, especially the ribs on the far side of the detector/film. So what is essentially water (pulmonary vessels) shows up optically denser than calcium (bone). I'm not sure of the physics behind this, but I think this is because the pulmonary blood vessels are surrounded by air and the high contrast between air in the lungs and the adjacent blood vessels makes them visible. You can't see the blood vessels surrounded by other tissues in the chest wall or mediastinum. In other words, the small spheres inside are visible because they are surrounded by air, and can be made of any material that does a decent job of stopping some of the x-rays (probably not wood or plastic).

8. There is only one view of the object. In radiology, we say that "one view is no view." This is because you are taking a 3D object and displaying it on a 2D surface. The spots inside the object may be flat, spheres, or long rods parallel to the x-ray beam. Their location is also not clear. They can be anywhere from the x-ray source housing, surface of the object, interior of the object, far surface, x-ray intensifier screen, x-ray film. The copying process could create them. 9. Objects closer to the film will have sharper margins. Think of your hand making a shadow puppet. As it gets closer to the wall, the edges are sharper. The small lesions inside the object are sharper (especially the round ones), suggesting they are closer to the film.

I highly recommend reading the rest of the radiology specialist's interpretation of the x-rays. He concludes with this:

There is no way to calculate the density of the inner spheres based on the optical density in the image. The optical density (what you see as darker) is a function of the sensitivity of the film, the thickness and type of x-ray intensifier screen used, the number of x-rays hitting the film cassette. The number of x-rays hitting the film cassette is determined by the density of the object, the atomic number of the object and the thickness of the object. We can't even compare it to the density of the shell because it is in a different environment. You can't say it is denser than the shell because it is surrounded by air or gel. See the x-ray image comparing a water density smaller vessel in the yellow circle which is denser (whiter) than the density of two overlapping calcified ribs in the pink circle. I suspect it is about the same density as the shell. It's not wood, not plastic. It could be denser than the shell, but can't tell.

Now, this doesn't explain away all of its purported magnetic properties or alleged "vibrating", but it does point to some wiggle room for interpretations of the density of the internal spheres.

Meanwhile, it's a great legend, and a staple in the history of Ufology.

a reply to: Fairtrade141

I like to keep my history accurately dated.

The X-Files Jump the Shark episode came out in 2002 and The Salvadore Mundi that was painted about 1499 was sold at auction for US $450.3 million on 15 November 2017 by Christie's in New York to Prince Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud, setting a new record for the most expensive painting ever sold at public auction. This being the anniversary of the Huygen probe landing I guess its still on topic.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing!