Ghost Ball Alien Artifact: The Betz Sphere Mystery

Alien artifact? Ghost Ball? Find out why scientists are baffled by this mysterious object!
May 26, 1974, Fort George Island 30 minutes east of Jacksonville Florida. Terry Betz, a young medical student and his parents were surveying the damage to the family’s land from a recent forest fire when they stumbled upon an object that would forever change their lives.
Laying in the ashes was a large highly polished, metal ball approximately 8-inches in diameter. The sphere had no identifying markings other than a triangle pattern stamped into the surface. At first the family thought they had stumbled upon a satellite that had fallen from orbit and started the fire upon impact, but no crater was detected, nor was there any damage to the sphere. The metallic orb was still highly polished and clean.
With no explanation at hand Terry picked up the 22lb ball and placed it in the trunk of the family car to use as a decorative item in his room.
Days passed and the fascination with the sphere passed until one day Terry was playing guitar in his room. As he was strumming chords he noticed the ball started to dance around on the shelf where he had left it. At first Terry thought it was just rolling around from vibrations outside his wall, but as he continued to play he noticed that the sphere reacted more strongly to certain notes on his guitar. After a few more minutes it began to vibrate on its own. It also emitted high pitched tones annoying the family dog. But this was only the beginning of the strange happenings for the Betz household.
Later family members were quoted as saying the music must have trigged something inside the sphere because from that day forward the sphere took on on a mind if its own. It began to roll throughout the house under its own power, even periodically stopping and starting again without any assistance from family members. One time it rolled around the house for 12 minutes straight defying all known laws of physics. During sunny days the sphere was livelier, while on cloudy stays is moved slower through the house.
Terry began to perform experiments to test the sphere. One of the first experiments had the sphere placed on a glass table. It would quickly roll to the edge, stop, reverse course and roll to the opposite edge, eerily searching for a way off of the table, but never falling. He even tilted the table to force the sphere to fall yet it defiantly would not succumb to gravity, baffling everyone.
Another observation came when people tried to shake the sphere. While it would give off a slight rattling sound, once the sphere was placed back down it would immediately move away from the person who shook it, often speeding away around corners, attempting to hide. The family was so frightened by the sphere’s ability to travel freely throughout their house under its own volition that they decide to lock it up and bring in experts for answers.
The family reached out to the Jacksonville Journal. The paper sent out seasoned journalist Lon Enger to investigate.
Enger, who fully expected to disprove the allegations, was instantly a believer. Having seen it with his own eyes Enger was later quoted as saying, “Everything that has been said about the object is true”. Journalists and scientists a like soon clamored to have the sphere properly tested in a laboratory environment, but the Betz family chose to only allow testing and inspection at their home fearing that sending the orb off to lab might mean losing it forever.
Soon experts from all over the world descended upon St. George Island to get a glimpse of the mystery sphere. All of the attention soon piqued the interest of NASA and the U.S. military. Upon seeing the sphere in action a Marine spokesman said publicly that
The ball’s erratic behavior was inexplicable and that the origin of the sphere could not be determined.
As the world took interest in the mystical object the orb took on even more mysterious behavior. Music began to emanate from the orb. In addition the Betz household began to experience poltergeist activity as doors and windows would open and close on their own.
No longer being able to withstand the bizarre activity the family finally decided to send the orb off for testing in April of 1974. The U.S. Navy...
From the beginning the tabloid newspaper the “National Enquirer” had offered a $50,000 reward for any proof of alien origin of the object. With mystery still surrounding the sphere even after professional testing, the tabloid assembled a blue-ribbon panel to investigate the object. The panel consisted of such notables as:
Dr. J. Allen Hynek,
After a week of extensive testing and discussion the panel was just as baffled and amazed as those who had tested the orb before and in summation could neither refute nor provide any further information beyond the previous academic studies of the mysterious object. Based on this conclusion the National Enquirer doubled its offer to one million dollars.