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The Truth About Klerksdorp Spheres: Debunking the Extraterrestrial Myth

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The grooves running through the spheres have drawn the attention of those who believe in extraterrestrial life — Photo: GETTY IMAGES via BBC

In the second half of the 20th century, reports began to emerge of mysterious discoveries in mines near the town of Ottosdal in South Africa.

The artifacts found were spheres, polished and with perfectly carved lines, which looked very similar to a cricket ball.

At first glance, it seemed that these objects, which were no more than 10 centimeters in diameter, had been carved by the human hand and were part of the archaeological heritage of an ancient civilization.

However, the surprising thing is that the balls were discovered inside a rock of pyrophyllite (a mineral used for Chinese sculptures) formed about 2.8 billion years ago.

That is, a time when there was no intelligent life on Earth.

The spheres were taken to the city of Klerksdorp, in the north of South Africa, to be studied and later exhibited in the main museum of the city.

For this reason, they became known as Klerksdorp spheres.

However, in the early 1980s, articles began to circulate in popular pseudoscience publications attributing the stones to an alien origin and noting that they were “evidence of an extraterrestrial presence” on Earth before the appearance of humans.

One of these articles was signed by a researcher named Michael Cremo and was published on a news portal.

“These publications arose due to the lack of geological studies that could explain the true origin of these stones,” South African geologist Bruce Caircorne, from the University of Johannesburg, told BBC News Mundo, the BBC’s Spanish-language service.

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The pressure and heat inside the rocks produce these cricket ball-shaped spheres — Photo: BRUCE CRAINCROSS via BBC

Cairncross points out that the spheres are far from being a mystery, much less a possible trace of the passage of extraterrestrial beings on our planet.

“It was believed that there was no need to explain something that seemed obvious: that the stones had been extracted from rocks formed billions of years ago”, said the geologist.

“While it can be understood that they draw attention, these types of spheres are very common in pyrophyllite formations.”

But how did they get this shape?

Millions of years of training

As the IFLScience portal points out, during the 1980s, several articles with little scientific basis began to point out that the spheres of Klerksdorp had been made by “a superior civilization, a civilization prior to the great flood about which we know practically nothing”.

As noted by other reports, such as Lapidary Magazine, some media went further and added that the spheres rotated by themselves inside the window where they had been placed.

Therefore, a society known as the Society for the Rational Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena sought the collaboration of Cairncross to refute the arguments that were gaining more and more followers.

“The basic explanation was not enough: that they emerged from a formation over 2.8 billion years ago, but we had to go deeper: explain how they formed”, says the academic.

To this he explained that the stones were found in a formation known as the “dominant group”.

“The main characteristic is what forms this conglomerate, with several layers of volcanic lava that were deposited on top and that, after a lot of pressure and heat, turned into pyrophyllite, which is what covers the spheres,” he said.

The geologist himself indicates that the peculiarity of the stones is due to the fact that they have remained for millions of years under the pressure and heat that form inside a larger rock that somehow “houses” them, and have been exposed to the erosion of the water.

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Cairncross points out that the spheres are far from being a mystery, much less a possible trace of the passage of extraterrestrial beings on our planet — Photo: BRUCE CRAINCROSS via BBC

“The spheres are known as concretions: spherical, elliptical or flattened objects formed by different minerals that are in the host rock. And they are quite common, thousands have been found around the world”, observes the geologist.

These concretions, adds the specialist, are found in fine-grained rocks, such as the pyrophyllite that abounds in that region of South Africa.

Pseudoscientific explanations spread

Cairncross points out that one of the reasons he decided to give a broader explanation of the spheres was because a lot of people were believing what pseudoscientific publications were saying.

The geologist is referring to a magazine that reported that the spheres had been taken to the United States Space Agency (NASA) and cited a report that indicated the alleged production of the pieces “in a place with zero gravity”.

But the specialist accepts that the Klerksdorp spheres have a peculiarity that perhaps is not seen in all similar spheres that have already been found in the world: the parallel lines that cross them, the ones that give them the appearance of a cricket ball.

“In fact, they are not lines, but layers”, says the geologist.

“This is a product of the tracks left by the host rock, which built up in layers over a long, long time, creating the effect you can see now,” he says.

2023-06-04 08:00:25
#Klerksdorp #spheres #mysterious #stones #billionyearold #rock

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