83: Alien Probe, Sentient Machine, Nuclear Weapon, or Junk? What is the Betz Mystery Sphere?
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Hey, it's your buddy AJ from the Y-Files. And Hecklefish. Right, and Hecklefish. We just wanted to tell you that if you want to start a podcast, Spotify makes it easy. It'd have to be easy for humans to understand it. Will you stop that? I'm just saying. Spotify for Podcasters lets you record and edit podcasts from your computer. I don't have a computer. Do you have a phone? Of course I have a phone. I'm not a savage. Well, with Spotify, you can record podcasts from your phone, too.

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In the spring of 1974, a large brush fire swept across the property owned by Antoine and Jerry Betts. While assessing the damage, they noticed something very out of place. Lying in the smoldering grass was a highly polished metal sphere. This became known as the Betts sphere or the Betts orb.

Antoine and Jerry's 21-year-old son, Terry Betts, went to pick up the sphere. Although it was only 8 inches in diameter, it was extremely heavy. Then the Betts family did something with the sphere that would change their lives forever. Something that the family would come to regret. They brought it home.

The Betts family's property was on Fort George Island, just outside of Jacksonville, Florida. And this wasn't the stereotypical Florida family in the woods. The Betts property was 88 acres of land, mostly used for raising trees for timber. Antoine Betts was a marine engineer. His wife, Jerry, was an artist and they had six children.

The Betts home was essentially a mansion that the family nicknamed the castle. The Betts were educated and well to do. They were not fortune and fame seekers. The Betts sphere was just under eight inches in diameter and weighed about 21 pounds, so slightly smaller than a bowling ball, but much heavier. The sphere had no seams, no weld marks, no signs of machining. It had a few scuffs and scratches, but no other dents or damage.

It did have a three millimeter triangle that was etched or stamped into it. The sphere didn't seem dangerous, so Terry brought it home and set it on his windowsill with some other collectibles. And nobody really thought much about it. But a few weeks later, that would change. Terry and a friend were in his room playing guitar when they noticed a humming sound coming from somewhere. They stopped playing, listened for the hum, and it faded away. After a minute, they shrugged and went back to playing. The humming returned.

Terry walked around his room strumming the guitar. He soon realized the sphere would vibrate along with the notes he played. He played a little louder. The sphere vibrated more powerfully and then started buzzing. At this point, the family dog started whining as if disturbed by the sound.

Terry decided to try a couple of experiments. He gently tapped the sphere with a hammer and it responded with a ringing sound. The way the sphere reacted to sound fascinated Terry, so he grabbed it, took it out to the living room to show his family. Everyone gathered around. Then Terry set the ball down and went to grab his hammer and his guitar. Though nobody was touching the sphere or even near it, it started to move on its own.

The Betz sphere was no longer just an interesting souvenir found in the woods. It had extraordinary properties. It responded to sound, to touch, and now had the power of a locomotion. When the Betz sphere was rolled across the ground, it would roll away, stop, vibrate, and then change directions. It would then stop, vibrate, change directions again, and come back to the person who rolled it.

Sometimes it rolled for just a few seconds, but sometimes for up to five minutes. Once it rolled for 12 minutes on its own before it finally came to a stop. At first, the Betzes thought it could be a gyroscope, which would account for the movement. Gyroscopes don't chase people, scare portals, or play guitar. No, but I respect them for being skeptical. So they put the sphere on this coffee table that had a glass top. They pushed it. It would not fall off. It

It would roll around the edge of the table, then to the middle, and just stop. Oh, they had to be freaking out by now, right? They were. But what happened next is bananas. They lifted one end of the table to get it to roll onto the floor. It didn't. It rolled up the incline as if trying to save itself from falling. Ascension speed!

It seemed to be. Jerry picked up the sphere and started shaking it. It didn't like this. In a newspaper report, Jerry's quoted as saying... If you shake the ball vigorously and then place it on the ground, it feels just like a huge Mexican jumping beam which is trying to get away from you. The Betzes figured out that the sphere had a magnetic field. A paperclip would stick to it, but could be removed easily. But...

If the sphere spent a lot of time rolling, the magnetic field got stronger. After rolling around for a few minutes, the lid from a mayonnaise jar stuck to it and they couldn't pry it off. They thought maybe it could be solar powered. The sphere seemed to be more active when exposed to sunlight. When set in the sun, they could feel a gentle vibration and hear a low hum as if there was a motor inside.

When they brought the sphere back inside, it stayed warm for three entire days. After a few days of this, a family friend reached out to the Jacksonville Journal, who reluctantly sent a photographer. That photographer arrived a skeptic, but he left a believer.

Lon Enger was a longtime photographer for the Jacksonville Journal. He'd seen it all. When he arrived at the Betts' home, he admitted this to Jerry. "I'm leery of this kind of thing. When I got there, Mrs. Betts said, 'You won't believe this if you don't see it.' They told me to put the orb on the floor and give it a push."

It rolled away and stopped. So what? Just wait a minute. Then it turned by itself, then rolled about four feet. It stopped. Then it turned again and rolled to the left about eight feet, made a big arc, and came right back to my feet. The photographer was convinced.

The paper ran the story and the Betts sphere became an overnight sensation. Journalists from all over the world were calling for interviews. In the 70s, there was no call waiting. You either got through or you didn't. And after the story went out, it was almost impossible for calls to get through. We came to Fort George Island to get away to a serene atmosphere. Now we can't get away from the telephone. It means nothing to people in the West that it's midnight here. And when they quit calling, those in the East wake up and start.

The Betzes were not that interested in giving interviews, but they did want help identifying the sphere. Finally, a call came through that would be difficult for the Betz family to ignore. Let me guess. Does the first name rhyme with uncle and the last name rhyme with Sam? Yep. The United States military wanted to have a look. Of course they did. Still, Jerry said no. This annoyed the government. Anybody who annoys the government is okay in my book. Mine too.

But the U.S. government wouldn't take no for an answer.

With all the media coverage surrounding the sphere, the military wanted to have a look. Jerry was reluctant to let them have it, but there was concern that the sphere could be unexploded ordnance. So Jerry agreed to loan it to the Navy for two weeks. But if it was determined that it wasn't military property, she wanted it returned. She even made the Navy sign a contract. I told them we expect a comprehensive report in two weeks. And if it can't be identified as government property, it is to be returned immediately.

to us. Navy scientists performed a number of tests. They measured it at exactly 7.96 inches in diameter and it weighed 21.34 pounds. The shell was made of some kind of magnetic stainless steel alloy. It could withstand extreme heat and extreme pressure of 120,000 pounds per square inch. This thing was tough. According to the spectrograph, it was made of stainless steel grade 431. The Navy also found that the sphere was intensely magnetic.

It had four magnetic poles, two positive and two negative. The magnetic fields varied in strength and were in an unusual pattern. The next test was x-rays, and that's where they ran into a little snag.

The x-rays showed nothing. So at the end of the two weeks, the Navy confirmed that it wasn't government property and wasn't dangerous, so it was returned to the Betts family. But something strange happened next. A Navy serviceman came to the Betts' house to return the object. He was also carrying a manila envelope.

And even though the Navy said they were unable to X-ray the sphere, that envelope contained X-rays. The images showed the entire internal structure of the sphere. The images also showed there was something inside. The results of the X-rays were surprising. The sphere had an outer shell that was about half an inch thick.

Inside the sphere were different layers of steel of different densities. At the core of the sphere, about the size of an apple, was a hollow space. And in that space were three other smaller spheres, and each of them had tiny wires attached. One mystery was, what are these other objects inside the sphere? But an even bigger mystery, how did they get in there?

Typically, you'd get objects into a sphere by either cutting it in half and sealing it or drilling out a hole and placing the objects in that way. But there was no hole and no seam. Even Navy scientists couldn't figure it out. The Navy wanted to drill into it, but Jerry said no way. During all this excitement, friends and neighbors and people in the media were suggesting that the sphere could be extraterrestrial because it responded to sound, had a magnetic field and was almost indestructible.

Some people speculated it was an alien listening device. The Betzes didn't give much credence to these theories until the Navy came back with nothing. If no other explanation can be found that's as logical as any, who could say what's on another planet? Even speculations have been proven wrong. The Navy says what it isn't. They say it isn't an explosive, so we still want to know what it is. So the Betzes reached out to scientists for answers.

What the scientists found created even more questions.

The first scientist to examine the sphere was Dr. Carl Williston of the Omega Minus One Institute. He spent six hours running tests, and one of his strangest discoveries was that the sphere was emitting radio waves. He also confirmed the Navy's findings of four poles. But like the Navy, he couldn't explain the pattern of the magnetic fields. It defied the laws of physics. He also witnessed the sphere moving on its own across any surface.

Dr. Williston confirmed the exterior was made of stainless steel grade 431, but he also found traces of an extremely heavy but unknown element. And a side note about Dr. Williston, there isn't any evidence that anyone by that name ever existed.

And the Omega Minus One Institute is also a bit of a mystery. Some have speculated that he was a foreign operative gathering intelligence on the object. The next scientist the Betts brought in was Dr. James Harder. He was an engineering professor and became a trusted advisor to the family.

Dr. Harder confirmed Dr. Williston's findings and said the internal spheres were made of a material with an atomic number of 140. An atomic number is the number of protons an element has. The highest atomic number that occurs in nature is 92, uranium.

It is possible to artificially increase the number of protons, but the highest scientists have been able to achieve is 118 protons. So the element found in the sphere does not occur on Earth. This led Dr. Harder to wonder if the sphere could be a damaged alien probe or anti-gravity device. The next scientist was Dr. J. Allen Hynek.

He was a well-known astronomer and professor, but Dr. Hynek was best known for being a UFO advisor to the U.S. Air Force under three separate projects, including Project Blue Book, which investigated UFOs from 1952 to 1969. And probably longer. And probably longer. And probably still. And probably still.

Dr. Hynek also confirmed the findings of the other scientists. And during this time of chaotic activity, something happened that made the Betts family very nervous. A group of scientists flew into Jacksonville, arrived at the Betts' home and offered Jerry $750,000 cash for the sphere. That would be worth almost $4 million today. Four mil because of inflation, eh? Yup. And next year that'll be six million because of inflation. I really hope you're wrong about that. I'm not.

Anyway, there was something about these guys that rubbed Jerry the wrong way. When they asked to see the sphere, she said it wasn't there and turned down their cash offer. This really annoyed the men. And after they left, the family checked their backstory. Turns out it was all a lie. The family suspected this was probably a foreign government trying to acquire the sphere. And that's when the Betts family realized they were in danger.

In the 1970s, the National Enquirer offered a cash award to anyone who could prove that there is life on other planets. Even though the Enquirer was a bit of a rag, the UFO panel they assembled contained a lot of well-respected people. Hynek and Harder were on the panel, but there were also multiple PhD holders, a former Supreme Court justice and a former United States Attorney General. The Betts family decided to send Terry and the sphere to this gathering.

They didn't necessarily think the object was from outer space, but they figured with all these experts in one place, they could finally get some answers. After spending some time with the sphere, Dr. Hynek felt it was manmade. Though everyone witnessed the sphere roll up a piece of plexiglass from a dead stop,

Nobody could explain that. When the idea of drilling came back up, Dr. Harder warned that if the sphere contained material with an atomic number as high as 140, drilling into it could cause it to go critical. What do you mean critical? At that time, the only way to create elements with an atomic number higher than 92 was with a nuclear reactor. The protons within the sphere are much higher than anything ever discovered or created. So drilling into it could make it go boom. Right.

But the story takes another turn. While at the inquirer's office, Terry got a call that said his mother had an accident. Terry tried to call her but couldn't get through, so he flew back immediately. With the ball, I hope. Nope. He left it behind. Oh, no, you knucklehead.

When Terry got home, Jerry was fine. Someone was trying to separate Terry from the sphere. Jerry told her son to go back to the Enquirer immediately and get it. So he did. At first, the Enquirer didn't cooperate. They gave him a story and seemed to be stalling. So Terry demanded it be returned. They finally admitted that they couldn't return it. It was gone.

Eventually, the people at the Enquirer admitted that the UFO panel had taken the sphere to New Orleans to run further tests. So Terry drives down there. And when he arrives, the sphere is being guarded by the Navy. They tell Terry that while the sphere is being tested, he's not allowed to go near it. It's his property. I know. That's a bunch of bulls**t.

It is. The test didn't reveal anything new, so after a lot of arguing, Terry was finally able to get the sphere back. As Terry is leaving the facility, a few reporters ask if he can make the sphere do something. Terry says sure. Every time you set it down, it rolls all over the place. In fact, the Betzes kept the sphere in a bowling bag at home because it wouldn't stay still. So Terry sets the sphere down and nothing. It's not vibrating, it's not humming, it's not moving, it's not doing anything. So...

Terry leaves. A little later, Terry gets a hold of his sister who tells him that there are people, not reporters, waiting for him at the airport.

So Terry just drives home. Once back in Florida, the family has the sphere examined and x-rayed again. It no longer had four magnetic poles. And the x-rays showed that the sphere now had a seam, which wasn't there before. Someone pulled the old switcheroo, huh? Yep, that's what they believe. And the interior doesn't have three small spheres anymore, just dust. And

And Dr. Harder warned the Betts family to be careful. Harder didn't trust Dr. Hynek and thought maybe Hynek had something to do with the sphere being replaced. And I want to mention that years later, after Dr. Hynek passed away, his son Paul mentioned that the family had a silver sphere. All they knew about it was that their father said it had something to do with a UFO case in Florida. It was stolen by Dr. Hynek. Hynek. Whatever.

There's no proof that he stole it, but it's quite a coincidence that after Hynek was left alone with the sphere, suddenly it stopped working. Then a different sphere, also from Florida, shows up at Dr. Hynek's house. So all this became too much for the Betts family. They were constantly being hounded by the press,

and followed by what they thought were government agents. Once Jerry was even physically assaulted by someone who pretended to be a repairman. So the Betts family quickly and quietly faded back into society. They sold their house and left the island. They gave no more interviews. They wrote no books, no movies. They wanted nothing more to do with this fear.

Now, Jerry is still around and has a blog where she showcases her artwork and tells the story of her life. Nowhere does she mention anything about the Betts sphere. So the Betts family never got the answer that they wanted. The answer we all want. What is the Betts sphere?

There are a few theories about the BetSphere. One is that it's a downed satellite or piece of space junk. It's a plausible theory, but if the sphere was a piece of technology, it would probably have a seam and connectors, but it has none of these. Another theory is that it's a Foo Fighter. Hello, I've waited here for you ever long.

Yo! What? Foo Fighters. I know the song, but may I? Yeah, go ahead with the story about your alien balls.

During World War II, Allied aircraft encountered UFOs that followed them and were able to move at incredible speeds. The pilots gave the UFOs the nickname Foo Fighters. Foo is just a fun, meaningless word. Another theory is that it's an alien atomic weapon. People who believe this theory think that this was one of the weapons that was used to destroy Atlantis.

And there could be clues that ancient nuclear weapons did exist. In the world's oldest epic, the Mahabharata, a line mentions a terrifying weapon. A single projectile charged with all the power of the universe. An incandescent column of smoke and flame is bright as 10,000 suns rose in all its splendor.

A more mundane explanation is that the Betts sphere was just a piece of industrial equipment. An artist named James Durling-Jones said he lost the sphere a few years earlier. He'd been collecting scrap metal for use in sculptures. Durling-Jones said it was a ball check valve used as a flow regulator in large pipes. He said it fell from the rack on top of his Volkswagen bus. This is the most widely accepted theory. You trust this dirty hippie? Be nice. Sorry, you trust this dirty artist?

Well, a couple of problems with it being from a valve. There's only one factory on the island, a paper mill. Though they do use balls like this in valves, they only weigh about seven or eight pounds. The Betts sphere weighs 21 pounds. And remember, the sphere was found in the woods.

It was about a mile away from the nearest road. Sure, the sphere could move on its own, but a mile seems like a long way for it to roll. Now, some claim the sphere didn't roll on its own at all. The Betts' home had uneven tile floors, and the sphere, which was perfectly balanced, was just rolling around on the tile. Now, that doesn't explain why it would come back to the same person who rolled it. Now,

To be fair, when the Navy was testing it, they never saw it roll on its own. But plenty of other people did. Robert Edwards, president of a local supply company, showed a reporter a brand new stainless steel ball manufactured by Bell & Howell. It was eight inches across and weighed just over 21 pounds. Same as the Betz sphere. Hoax!

I don't think so. The Betts family had plenty of money. And aside from trying to win the prize from the National Enquirer, they never tried to profit from it. They could have made a fortune selling books about the sphere, especially when it was international news. They didn't. And to this day, nobody really knows what the Betts sphere is. If it was taken by the Navy or by Dr. Hynek, we may never know. It's very possible.

that the most significant scientific discovery ever made is sitting in an old bag gathering dust in someone's basement somewhere. And the only way we'll ever learn the secret of the Betz sphere is when its owner, whoever he or she is, decides they want to take up bowling.

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