This Paranormal Life - #212 The Betz Sphere - An Alien Orb that Crashed to Earth

Episode Date: May 11, 2021

When a mysterious orb was discovered in the the burnt remains of a forest fire, a local family decided to take it home to find out where it came from. Of course, it wasn't long before they had a knock on their front door...BUY OFFICIAL TPL MERCHwww.thisparanormallife.com/storePatreonpatreon.com/ThisParanormalLifeYouTubeyoutube.com/thisparanormallifeTwittertwitter.com/ThisParaLifeInstagraminstagram.com/thisparanormallifeSecret Society Facebook Pagewww.facebook.com/groups/thisparanormallife/Edited by Kami Tomanwww.tomanedits.comResearch by Amy GrisdaleIntro music: www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can electricity control animals? Are trees growing us? All these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello and welcome to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week we investigate a brand new paranormal tale and come to the conclusion as to whether or not

it is truly paranormal. My name is Roy Powers and across from me sits the one and only Kit Gurrier. Thank you for addressing me with the reverence that I am due. Roy, I was a little concerned before we hit record here that those edibles that you said, don't worry, bro, I've got a high tolerance. They ain't making a dent. And then you came out with that, our trees growing us statement. And I'm starting to worry that it's going to impact the pod. That's a statement that I had been wanting to ask for a long time. And the pot brownies gave me a good opening. They provided the answer. I actually went to the bathroom, flushed the

brownies down the toilet and came out saying, do trees grow us? I'm not high and I need to know it. On account of being a narc, I had to flush them down the toilet. That's a good question. Because, you know, some people, you could say that trees outlive humans. And when humans die, they are buried in the ground where they decompose and become food for the trees, for the plants. So's pretty messed up, isn't it? They kind of do grow us and they kind of eat us as well. That's quite beautiful. You know, people always say we're made of stardust

because stars that exploded a million years ago, their carbon and atoms literally make up our bodies. But the same is also true for other things such as poop. We are also made of poop. Is that true? Sure. What percent? other things such as poop we are also made of poop is that true sure what percent it depends on the person you my friend the poopy son of a bitch you're 100% shit imagine you did one of those like dna tests you like spit in a jar and you send it off and you're like i can't wait to find out you know am i am I like Irish Scandinavian?

Do I have like a Middle Eastern background? Just 100% poop emoji. What? And your partner gets 100% stardust. Yeah. I'm starting to think I should have sent them a blood sample instead of shitting in a box and mailing it to their office. Look, we don't like to dilly dally at the start of the podcast. We like to dive straight into the paranormal,

straight off into the deep end, whether the pool's been filled or not. We deal with that problem in the air. So let's get started. Sorry, are you providing your own sound effects? I'm sure we'll add it in, but I just want to make sure that it is happening in the edit as well.

Okay, because the sound's bad. Well, it's because I'm sure there'll be some autotune in the process. Do you think Lady Gaga sings her own songs without autotune? No, she doesn't. Everyone uses autotune. Well, she doesn't sing every instrument. She just does her bit, which I feel like you should stick to. Right, f*** it.

I can sing Gaga. Carry my, carry my, yo, you carry my poker face. Do you have a case for today? Of course I have a case. You think these are all blank pages? Is that what you think? I can see the front one is. You think that I...

Can't speak for the ones in the middle and back. You think that I came to your house without a case, asked if I could use your printer, printed off 74 blank pages, and then tried to escape out your bathroom window before realizing it was locked? Is that what you think is happening right now? And now I'm here in the studio,

sweating bullets, looking at blank pages. You're right. That would be a crazy thing to do. I don't know why I would think that. And yet here we are 10 minutes into an episode. We don't know where we are. You started singing Lady Gaga songs a minute ago. F*** it.

New Gaga song. You said we didn't want a dilly-dally at the top of the episode. All right, fine. Today's case. Oh, is it a big one? I hope so. My God, it's really something, all right.

After delaying the start of this for this long, it would need to have a big payoff. It's going to be a big one. It sure is. It's paranormal. And it's terrifying. And just let me, just one second. There's going to be a quick call.

Really fast. Okay. Yeah, can you send something over? I don't, just anything. Just send anything over. Who are you talking to? Just find any Wikipedia article and just email it over to my email.

This is great. No, not the Gmail. I'm going to wait for you to finish the call as well. Send it to the Hotmail one, the.co.uk. Beastmaster at Hotmail. No, Beastmaster69 at Hotmail.co.uk. On the puck, that's insane all right

thank you thank you hey so so now i'm ready sorry about that you don't have that was a personal don't have an episode readies and you could have just told me at any point we can stop the podcast right now we don't even have to release this we'll just take a couple hours you put something together i'm so insulted that you don't think that I have a case ready. I heard you on the telephone saying, send me literally anything, any Wikipedia link. I'm so insulted that I think I need a little five minute break to just check my emails. Because. That's what you do when you're insulted.

I really think that. I've got a case. I do have a case. There we go. Came in. It was here. It is here. I'm holding it.

It came in while you were looking at your phone. Sorry. Oh, here we go. After the phone call where you asked for it. Beastmaster. Beastmaster69 at hallmail.co.uk. You son of a... If you're going to insult me, do it right.

So you did have that telephone conversation we all heard. Oh, Jesus. Is this being recorded? Because I've said some incriminating shit. Look, let's dive into today's case that I have prepared and have had had prepared for quite a while. It was the spring of 1974 on Fort George Island, Florida, and the Betts family lived in a huge house that they nicknamed the castle. It was surrounded by woodland, and while things were usually pretty quiet, this night was different. You see, not far from their home, smoke was billowing in the forest. It wasn't long before a full-on bushfire was raging, flames spreading through the woods. But by morning, the fire was out.

flames spreading through the woods. But by morning, the fire was out. Bam. When they awoke, three members of the Betts family decided to head out and inspect the scene. Mom, Jerry, and Dad, Anton, were raking through the charred undergrowth with their oldest son, Terry, when they noticed a silver ball among the ashes

that they'd never seen before. Hey, Mom, Dad, look at this. What do you got there, a cannonball it was bright silver but heavily scratched and was much bigger than a typical cannonball in fact it was closer to the size of a bowling ball sorry why would there be a cannonball in the first place i don't know civil war medieval suit of armor uh some sort of i don't know so a civil war relic possibly i guess you're right it's florida so kind of near the coast so maybe there was some sort of pirate warfare that took place i like that the object was smooth except for small triangles engraved into the side of the ball i actually have a picture of it right here.

Yes, please. If you want to take a little peek. Get straight in there with the evidence. Yes, please. Okay. Is this a to scale image? It is absolutely not to scale. I did print it quite largely. That was unnecessary though.

I used up a lot of ink. Yeah, Rory printed this on an A1 sheet. I didn't even know my printer could do that. It looks like, it does look like a cannonball. I didn't even know my printer could do that. It looks like, it does look like a cannonball. I'll give you that. This is, if you squint, it looks like a planet. If you don't, it looks like a cannonball. It's just a ball of silver heavily scratched. I don't see the triangular markings, but I'm sure there's somewhere else on the ball. Yeah, possibly on the other side. Well, thinking that they'd found a neat piece of American history,

they picked it up and carried it home. It took a lot of effort, too, because it seemed disproportionately heavy for its size. After the family managed to drag it home,

they weighed the object to find out that it weighed 22 pounds, which is 10 kg. All right. So it's pretty heavy. Not out of this world heavy. What size did you say

it was physically? Like a bowling ball. Oh, a bowling ball. Oh, wow. So it's pretty, pretty heavy. Not out of this world. What size did you say it was physically? Like a bowling ball. Oh, a bowling ball. Oh, wow. So that makes sense. Yeah. 10 kg. That's heavy though.

But the longer the sphere was in the house, the more they suspected it wasn't what they originally thought. Not only because of the object's odd appearance, but also because of what it did. I mean, a cannonball shouldn't do anything. Right. Especially without the I mean, a cannonball shouldn't do anything. Right. Especially without the facilitation of a cannon. It should just be. It should just exist.

If your cannonball is doing something, that's problematic. One lazy afternoon, the son, Terry, was hanging out at home, messing around on his guitar. The silver sphere was sitting there in the corner of the room. But as soon as Terry started playing, it began throbbing,

almost as if it was humming along to the music. This thing likes rock and roll, okay. The family's poodle whimpered and put her paws over her ears as the ball vibrated, prompting Terry to drop the guitar and comfort her. Hey, it's all right, girl. I won't do that again. Sure was weird, though. But the strangeness didn't stop there. A few days later, the family were hanging out in the living room and started absentmindedly just rolling the ball around the floor. They've angered the ball now. They moved it from its sacred habitat. They've taken it from its sacred habitat they've

taken it to their home they've offended it with some big amateur guitar lessons yeah and uh now they're tossing it around like a play thing yeah this is this is the equivalent of a um an egyptian excavator or archaeologist breaking into a tomb uh picking up the skull of an ancient mummy and filling it with diet coke it's insulting just leave it if you're not going to use it for something just leave it be you don't need to roll it around the floor don't break off the mummy's dusty arm and use it as a ass scratcher right it's just insulting i mean would do this? Did you think if you thought you would find something a la a cannonball of the civil war era, would you be rolling it around? Do you think you would want to animal crossing style, run it by the local aisle at the museum

first? Yeah, I guess. Yeah. That's a really good question. I guess, um, it depends what the object is. I feel like a cannonball, you would almost feel like a bit of a dumbass bringing that to a museum or a curator just in case they're like, you found a ball of metal. I don't know. How would I know what this is? I can't date this.

So if you're just going to keep it as a souvenir, yeah, I guess maybe you would just kind of fidget with it now and again. I'm the kind of person that if I am on the phone, I basically, for the whole duration of the phone call blackout. And as soon as I hang up, I don't know how I got to where I was or how I'm holding what I'm holding. Yeah. Oh, it's impossible to just stay on the phone and just sit there talking like a psycho. Yeah. Yeah. You got to do do something because especially now where i facetime a lot so so many times like mid facetime call the other person on the phone will be like where are

you and i'm like three blocks away with an ice cream sandwich in my hands like what a knife with blood on it what happened holding a medieval cannonball yeah i i can see this you know if this thing's been in your house for a long time, you're just like, f*** it. What are we going to do tonight? Roll, kick the ball around, you know? Okay, okay. I just want to raise the questions where they're necessary. But I agree, this is relatively normal behavior.

This is what the show is all about. Questions and sometimes answers. So the family sat there, fidgeting, rolling the ball. So, what do you guys want for dinner tonight? I don't know. Maybe spaghetti and corn? Spaghetti and corn again? I tell you, if it wasn't for Taco Tuesday, every day in this house we'd eat. All of a sudden, the ball stopped in its tracks. What the hell? The ball had stopped in the middle of the room. It then slowly started rolling back to the person who pushed it.

The family continued to roll the sphere and couldn't believe what they were seeing. It was stopping in place, changing direction, moving all by itself. Oh shit. Yeah, this is pretty scary, isn't it? At first I thought this was just some kind of ancient Alexa, but it's actually OP. It's actually an ancient Roomba. This thing has a mind of its own. The son, Terry, was particularly drawn in by the sphere

and started doing his own experiments on it. I think I gave Terry a child's voice earlier on in the story. I think he is more of a man than a boy. Oh. I don't know why I think son and think 11 years old. So he started doing his own experiments

on the ball. First off, he hit it with a hammer. I don't know if you can call that an experiment. I guess it is to some degree. But when he did hit it, he noted that it rang like a bell.

And when he shook it, there was something rattling inside. Well, probably now that you broke it with a goddamn hammer, it busted whatever was inside. It made the noise before the hammer hit. And there was always that hammer-shaped dent in the side. That was also there. He popped it on a glass table to see how it would behave on a perfectly flat surface.

It would roll right to the edge of the table and then stop. Then it would roll in the opposite direction to the table and then stop. Then it would roll in the opposite direction to the other side and back again, over and over. This thing is too smart. Yeah. It's getting worrying. Creepy, isn't it? They all agreed it was like the sphere was trying to make it to the ground as safely as possible. So it is kind of like an intergalactic Roomba, you know, it can detect the ledges and then it's like, well, can't go that way. Well, can't go that way. Can't go that way can't go that way it's like stuck on this table and it's kind of hard to know isn't it at first you might think oh this thing's just got like a weird center of gravity that's

why it's moving around like like i'm pretty sure they they've made a shape i don't know what it's called but uh it's like a shape that like no matter what way you put it down, it will like move and flip over to the way it wants to be. Right. You can make interesting shapes that will move around, but there's no kind of shape that goes back and forward across the table over and over again. This kind of reminds me of, did you ever have that toy when you were a kid that was like the weasel ball? Yeah. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about.

It's like this electric ball that you put batteries in. And for some reason, it has like a little fluffy toy weasel attached to it. And the idea is that this ball just moves by itself. It rolls around and the weasel flip-flops all over the place. This kind of like in my head is a version of that without the weasel, obviously. It's just this weird ball moving back and forward but it's maybe a little more self-aware than the weasel ball was because i did smash the weasel ball with a hammer and uh i must understand your

secrets i originally thought it was an old-timey civil war weasel um before taking it to a museum where i was quickly thrown out. The adults in the family were starting to get concerned that this thing was being possibly operated remotely. Oh, shit. I didn't even think of that. Yeah, it's pretty spooky, isn't it? Either from somewhere else in Florida, elsewhere on Earth, or even outside of Earth. Or even outside of Florida.

God forbid. Some f***er in f***ing Michigan is remote controlling his thing. Can you imagine those psychos? There's a weasel in Georgia controlling the ball. And if all of this wasn't enough to get the family worried, they really started to freak out when the ball started defying gravity.

Yeah, that's a red flag. When they raised one end of the table, instead of rolling off the end like a normal ball, it spun around in place before heading up the incline towards the raised end of the table. This is when you start looking into buying a cage like you would get for a caged animal. I think they did do that eventually to keep this thing under control so it wouldn't just roll around the house bumping into things. Terry also noticed that it seems like the ball was more active when the sun was shining. He suspected it was fueled by solar radiation. Interesting. Curiously, if the ball was shaken vigorously

and then placed on the floor, it would roll around and it sounded like as if there was motion inside the sphere. The family decided it must be some kind of gyroscope, judging by the way it could right itself and move unprovoked. The Betts family ended up having to keep the ball in a box to keep it rolling around the house by itself at night. They find whenever they dunked the ball in brandy, it appeared to get lit and would make squiggling walking drunk motions around the table.

One of the comparisons for this case is actually the case that I did a week ago, two weeks ago, the Kara UFO incident. Because even though the object in that story was kind of like a hat, like a flying saucer, the top part was very orb-like and it was completely sealed over. And a lot of people draw comparisons between these two cases saying that this object is a lot like the Kara object. Very interesting. This could be like the Kara 2.0. I mean, this did happen in a very similar time period. Wasn't Kara in 1971 or something Oh, yeah, you're right, actually. It's only a couple of years apart. But on distant parts of the earth as well.

Very interesting. Things really got strange when the family started hearing creepy organ music. What? Playing in their house at all hours of the day. I forgot about this part. Okay. I maybe should have cut this part. Let's dwell on this for a second so this thing's

going from so let's be clear this music is coming from the ball i believe so it's not like the ball is rolling up and down an organ that exists in the house the ball bought an organ got his ship to the house the ball was seen playing van halen's jump it was actually pretty good you know how fast a ball has to move to play that guitar solo what the are you talking about uh i don't know okay this is this is the only part in this case where things get a little bit strange uh because it starts to edge a little bit into the more like haunted supernatural side of this case. And this bit doesn't last for long. On top of the organ sounds, doors started slamming around the house as if it was haunted.

Jesus. The family were kind of getting sick of this mysterious ball causing trouble. So the mother, Jerry, thought it would be a good time to seek expert opinion yeah it's a couple weeks too late i'll say yeah i don't know what the time frame is from them discovering the ball to getting to this point too long whatever it is too long as soon as it started rolling up the table the wrong way seek professional advice i don't know what professional that is by the way maybe a priest yeah i'm not sure because now it's kind of haunted. So I don't really know who you get involved. Well, the person they did get involved was named Ron Kivett, the host of paranormal radio show Tales of Strange Things.

Fair enough. He came and took a bunch of photos and interviewed Jerry, the mom, who eventually became like the family spokesperson for the ball. While Kivett was at the house, he saw the Bat Sphere in action with his own eyes. And it didn't take long for him to conclude that whatever this thing was, it was from another planet. Whoa. Okay, so like you say, we're getting mixed messages. I'm sure many listeners at home were edging on the side of another planet um but then the organ music threw us a curveball pardon the pun but he thinks it's still of extraterrestrial origin that was a good pun by the way sorry i i talked over it a little

bit i think so if you could if you want you could like deliver it again and we could get like a clearer take because it was genuinely was really funny so i think i i'll just i won't speak this time over it oh sure um i think the organ music threw us a little bit of a curveball thanks man it's actually weird it's actually rare for you to i love to congratulate me on a joke usually after the the episode is over, we hit stop recording. You go, usually chastise me for all the mistakes I made throughout it. You get at me and say the jokes I tried to make didn't land. I need to do better next time. So it's weird to get praise. Those episodes, you didn't drop a golden pun like this is what I'm saying. So if you keep this up, then we're laughing, baby. We're going to be winning awards. We're going to be having our own TV show. Just keep that gold coming, Malvena.

I'm loving it. All right. If I had known you like puns, you know, there's more of that came from. Well, from that point onward, the case exploded in popularity. So what do you got? What do you got for me now?

Pun guy. Sorry, I just kind of threw it at me, but let me think for a second. I guess this thing exploded like a Civil War era cannonball huh Jesus Christ we need to

we have to I think we have to stop oh well don't be mad about it we can edit it from the podcast what do you mean we have to stop

I think I have to stop the podcast that was f*** off there's no way we have to stop we can edit it we edit stuff*** off. There's no way we have to stop. We can edit it. We edit stuff out all the time.

That was so bad. Ten minutes ago, you went on a diatribe about the Civil War. It didn't land anywhere. We had to cut the whole thing. I just don't think I can continue in good faith having lived through that. I feel like... How will I ever smile again? Having that poison. Having that poison,

having that awful, awful poison in my brain. It was a bad joke. It wasn't poison. What are you talking about? I've never seen you this annoyed about anything in the show's history. This is what I get

for giving you that attaboy. Honestly, I shouldn't have encouraged this. This is my fault. I blame myself as much as I blame you. No, actually, I blame you a little more. Wow.

You're really being childish about this. I made a joke okay it wasn't great sure but yeah all right you're just sitting in silence this is bizarre i mean this is way worse than what i did on the podcast look i'm just gonna push on okay we'll just try and forget that ever happened well reporters and photographers flock to the house faster than a civil war era cannonball okay that's enough that's enough that's quite enough what you took exactly what i said but it was about the delivery it was about how i said it i didn't blink i didn't think and i went for it and i actually had the balls to pull it off because there was potential in the joke shirt but the way you delivered it it fell flat you took about two minutes to yell at me for saying it and only to

turn around a couple seconds later and deliver the same line over again and i nailed it what can i say because i had that perfect delivery that was bright and it was light your delivery was heavy all right like a civil war era cannonball you know that was that was the same line okay there's a good line when i say it and when I say it right. Do you want me to do any any more puns? Yeah, I do. But just run them by me first and then maybe I'll say there's no way I'm going to do that because say what you want and I'll decide whether or not it's cut and I'll decide whether or not later in my bedroom I record it on my own mic.

I put it into the podcast. You can't do that. That's there's no way. I think I might do that. I think I might do that. there's no way that you would just cut my voice out of the thanks for stopping there kit i'm glad that we agree and we're on the same page now to continue the story which i am now uh reading in the studio and not yeah reporters and photographers flocked to the house just to catch a glimpse of this magic ball and jerry wasn't shy about showing it to them she would set the thing down let it roll all over

the place showing the press what it could do one reporter from the jacksonville journal remembers his encounter vividly she told me to put it on the floor and give it a push. It rolled a ways and stopped. So what? She said, just wait a minute. It turned by itself and rolled about four feet. It stopped. Then again, it turned and rolled to the left about eight feet. It made a big arc and came back right to my feet.

So interesting that, you know, press are being brought to see this thing and it's actually performing, which is amazing. Pretty rare for a case in this paranormal life. We've heard it so many times where, you know, it's the family that cries wolf and then the press show up, the investigators show up. And coincidentally, the ghost is a little shy that day or the demons on vacation. I just say Jeff, the mongoose. We're all thinking it. vacation i just say jeff the mongoose sorry we're all thinking it oh geez uh one of the most infamous cases in tpl history was a talking mongoose living in i i don't remember the walls of the house the walls yeah who famously wouldn't shut the f**k up as well until anyone else outside

the family until anyone that didn't believe in him visited the house it's actually kind of a miracle that he that that story is as famous as it is yeah it was a two-parter as well on the show okay that's quite enough um yeah we have we have a case here where the paranormal phenomena is happening in front of the press which we love but with all of that media attention it wasn't long before the betts family had another knock on their door the The U.S. Navy. They'd heard about the sphere's unusual properties, and wanted to check it out for themselves.

Ma'am, we're gonna need to take that now. We've got a T-Bone standby at the station in Jacksonville, ready to go. Now to her credit, Jerry stood her ground, and actually laid down some rules before she let the ball leave the house. She drew up a contract giving the Navy two weeks for their investigation, demanding that the ball wouldn't be cut in half or damaged, and that it would be returned unless it was found to be government property. And not to get it wet, and least of all, to feed it after midnight. I didn't know you could do this. I didn't know you could just bargain with the law.

Yeah. A lot of these cases, the government, the Navy, the Army, the MIBs show up and pretty much do whatever they want and take whatever they want. So I got a lot of respect for Jerry, you know, standing her ground and being like, f*** you. You want to take my ball? You have to sign this contract. F*** you. I realize that I have no power You have to sign this contract. F*** you.

I realize that I have no power to stop you taking the ball because you will just murder me otherwise. But let's set some ground rules. And it worked. The officer signed the contract and left with the ball. The ball spent two weeks

in Guantanamo Bay being interrogated within an inch of its life. The ball's wearing a little orange jumpsuit they crack it open almost immediately right on her porch thank you ma'am we will treat it with the utmost respect it was full of bees there were bees inside it was a nest immediately the naval officers put the ball to the test one of the first things that struck them was how magnetic the ball was.

It had four magnetic poles, two north and two south. This led them to their first key finding. The ball was made of common stainless steel. Wow. Not the most paranormal start. It's just a regular kind of steel ball. Sure. The ball could also withstand 120,000 pounds of pressure per square inch.

That's cool. I don't know if that's a lot. Yeah, for a solid ball of steel. Who knows? I feel like a measurement like pounds of pressure per square inch, that could be the kind of thing where an know an ant could hold like 500 000 pounds of pressure per square i don't know what that means it's kind of arbitrary to me yeah like i like i've heard facts like did you know your teeth can bite through you know can exert yeah a hundred

pounds of pressure i don't know what that means who knows it's like when you have those video games where you like get a headshot and they give you half a million points and you're like, oh, well, points are redundant now because that's absurd. You know, I don't know what that means. Yeah. You could have just made that five points

and this would be a lot easier to understand. It's very arbitrary. Yes, it really is. But it would explain why Terry wasn't able to make a dent in this bish with a hammer. It's true. And unfortunately,

while they're doing the tests, of course, they weren't able to fully a dent in this bish with a hammer. It's true. And unfortunately, while they're doing the tests, of course, they weren't able to fully deploy the amount of pressure they wanted because it would have been at risk of splitting the ball, which is against the contract. So this was only just the limit they tested up to. Well, I feel like if it had crushed it, they didn't do this knowing it wasn't going to dent it. They were trying to dent it.

They're out of pretty they're scientists you know they had an idea that this would probably not crush it but they're like don't worry we'll get it back to you in one piece we're gonna give it the utmost respect then they're like fire up the crushinator the what fire the death star yeah it's pretty ballsy to be like, to sign the contract, to be like, yeah, don't worry about it. We're still going to see how f***ing hard it is. The sphere's remarkable balance was also intriguing to them. It must have been designed for some specific purpose to be so steady. They couldn't determine how or why it was made, but thought it must have been manufactured on Earth. They x-rayed

it, but their machine was too weak to penetrate the ball. Okay. Finally, they managed to find a more powerful scanner and discovered that the ball was hollow. The material was only a quarter inch thick and there were two minuscule metal spheres trapped inside. Interesting. This thing is weird, isn't it? The plot thickens. A lot of people have been on record to be like, there are no welding marks on it. This ball has never been split before. It looks like a solid ball of steel, and yet it's hollow with two balls inside. Finally, they were ready to make their conclusion. We believe that the ball was made on Earth. The stuff inside is probably a manufacturing mistake.

Now I know what you're thinking. How did the ball move around by itself? Well, we believe that the floor of the Betts' house is simply uneven and caused it to roll around. There will be no questions. Goodbye. Sir, New York Times. we just have a simple question unleash the snipers snipers take him what this is one of those puzzling uh tales where clearly they don't want to say what's really going on which calls into question why they called a press conference at all. It's pretty wild to have this object,

which multiple news reporters have claimed was doing loop-de-loops in the kitchen. Yeah. And to say that the reason why it was doing that is because the floor was uneven. But we see this stuff all the time, the so-called rational explanation that is way too simplistic to possibly explain the phenomenon that's been experienced.

Yeah, unless the Betts live in a pinball table, there's no reason why this ball should be flying all around the place. Oh, they live in Alton Towers, actually. So, yeah, it's quite a few loop-de-loops. Well, to be fair, that's a good time to bring this up. As I did say at the start of the story, the Betts' house was called the castle. Oh, yeah. And, you know, it was a little weird. It was a little uneven.

It was old. It was built in the 1920s. The Betts family were the first people to live in it all year round since its construction. I mean, from this picture alone, you get a pretty good idea of what we're looking at. What the hell is this? That's the Beth's family castle well this side of the quote unquote castle has been demolished there are doors leading to nowhere well i think that's a modern wooden break okay this is after they lived in it i guess yeah not the current situation basically a rundown kind of barnhouse situation with but it does to be fair have a kind of a tower and uh some kind of little turret and balcony on

the tar it is on a hill for sure it is but i am assuming that the floors on the inside are not following that that slant one would imagine so the betts family and the rest of the world were left with a hugely disappointing conclusion. But just because the Navy was done with it, it didn't mean that the case was over. In fact, several scientists decided to do their own investigations on the sphere, including the one and only Dr. J. Allen Hynek. Hit the alarm! Dr. J. Allen Hynek. Hit the alarm!

The legend himself! I think I've probably said this every single time this dude comes up in a case. We have to do a full episode just on Dr. J. Allen Hynek. He pops up in so many paranormal cases all across America. Anytime there's a UFO. F***ing Z of of the paranormal he swoops in

on a rope into a paranormal situation it's true yeah it's not a little thin sword uh investigates it carves his name and people are like but what did you do and he's like nothing and then he's beamed up into the night sky uh i uh while i was doing um some touch ups on this case i went to his wikipedia page just because such a fascinating guy who's led such an incredible life and he's been involved in so many different um projects and operations it is so funny to just go through the wikipedia entry and read the names of some of these like operations right you know it'll just be something like uh yeah in uh 1960 he was involved in like operation revenge it's like what is this like it has its whole own wikipedia page you're like this

is such a rabbit hole you could be on this for hours and you know like all those government project names they're either really um boring or really exciting oh yeah like it's not that like they're always pretty low-key sometimes it's operation paperclip sometimes it's operation moonbeam yeah yeah there's no consistency i think my favorite one which i believe was legitimately the name of a government program, which was, I think we talked about it before, Project Nuke the Moon. Oh, yeah. Classic. Classic project. I'm scared now to go on record because I can't remember fully, but I am almost 100% sure that was a legitimate government program at one point. Dr. J. Allen Hynek was part of a team made up of five ufologists

that were also scientists in their own right. I love the idea that it was made up of five ufologists. Don't worry, they were also scientists. They weren't just crazy. To fully investigate the sphere, Dr. Hynek even went all the way from Chicago to Florida, stayed in the Betts' family home, sleeping with the ball in his room overnight. It's a little close for comfort guy. I really kind of like his approach, you know, where he's like,

you know, these Navy guys, they want to put it in a lab. They want to take it out of its comfort zone. I want to be with the ball. I want to sleep with the ball. I want to show it a good time. I want to lick the ball, wine and dine the ball, f**k the ball. You know, he lives it. It makes sense, doesn't it?

It's like you want this thing to open up. Well, how do you get a person to open up? You don't crush them with a thousand ponds of pressure. You ask them questions and be nice to them, and then they'll open up and tell you their story. I would love it if that is his approach to everything he's a part of. They're like, oh, Dr. Hynek, we need your help handling this incredibly dangerous radioactive piece of space metal. I don't want to just handle it.

I want to touch the metal. F*** the metal. You can't touch the metal. You will die. I want to sleep with the metal in a magic castle. Have you already been eating the metal? Because you've been off for a couple couple weeks now and your lips are green. By the end of their examination, most of the team, including Dr. Hynek,

had decided that the strange orb was not UFO related. Hmm. Another disappointing conclusion. However, one scientist on the team thought otherwise. Dr. James Harder. Now, he was a hydraulic engineer and a member of the National Enquirer's UFO panel, and he couldn't believe that his colleagues

thought this thing was man-made. In a newspaper article, he even said, I don't see how Dr. Hynek could be sure whether it's man-made or not without running further tests. There hasn't been enough research done on the thing to declare it to be man-made or not, without running further tests. There hasn't been enough research done on the thing to declare it to be man-made or otherwise. And I can't understand why Dr. Hynek is so interested in the thing

if he thinks it isn't UFO-related. Frustrated, Dr. Harder decided to continue his investigation alone. This is such a good setup for, like, a villain. You know, the team of scientists where everyone gave up and he's like, no, you're fools. I will continue the experiments. You know, and he goes off by himself and then I don't know, the ball rolls up his ass

and into his brain and then starts controlling him. Oh yeah, you know, Heineck replying, he's like, harder, you know, the ball is too powerful. We can't control it and that's why we must condemn it to the vaults. You're a coward! You're a coward, Hynek! Science is about pushing the boundaries!

That's what I plan on doing. Let go of my arm, Harder. You're squeezing it. You're scaring me, Harder. The ball has already given me its power and secrets. Well, he decided to head back to inspect the site

where the orb was initially found and noticed a number of dead trees at the spot the ball was discovered. When it came to the sphere itself, he thought that it might be hollow, but it couldn't be completely empty. It was just too heavy. It had to be filled with some kind of fluid. He weighed the orb, x-rayed the orb, studied the orb, but of course, because of the contract drawn up by the family, he was never able to crack it open. Because of his belief that the little balls inside had a huge atomic number, Harder believed that what he was dealing with was possibly an alien atomic bomb. Holy! You know, I'm not shutting that idea idea down but it is a little bit of a leap

of the imagination from currently uh an intergalactic rumba to alien weapon of mass destruction yeah i can appreciate how specific it is I feel like there is a certain level of, maybe not evidence, but facts to back it up. You know, if he does believe that the contents inside the sphere have a huge atomic number, that they play some part in the mechanism. You know, bomb. That's kind of what a bomb is.

It's a hypothesis, isn't it? Because as you say, they know that it's, the eyesight is stainless steel. They know how much stainless steel weighs. They know how much the whole ball weighs. Therefore, they know how much the contents must weigh. It's a little bit of a backwards puzzle. What if like, right, just throwing some ideas out here, right?

Throwing some shit at the wall. Let's see what sticks. What if it was an alien atomic bomb that was dropped on Earth at some point in the Earth's history, or as recently as that bushfire started, and they wanted it to detonate and basically wipe the planet of all life. But they miscalculated the gravitational force of the Earth's planet, thinking that it was stronger and that it would pull the ball down harder and detonate it when in fact the gravitational pull wasn't strong enough to pull the bomb down and detonate it so

it just landed in the garden you kind of just thought of that this second i think i just did and i think that actually is the answer i think harder is right now that they go and i definitely don't think we should split it open now like a fucking kindred because it would level the world uh it's an interesting hypothesis yeah rory harder powers uh yeah i like these lines of inquiry seem convinced it's pretty uh depressing to think that if there is alien life out there that we're trying to desperately make contact with they don't even have it's like getting dumped over text the aliens don't even have the the decency to say hi here's why we're exterminating you they just had a look through a telescope and decided that we needed to all die before we even know they exist they're trying to kill us. You know, to them, we're just like animals on this planet.

So they don't have to explain it. Would you explain to a monkey why you're going to shoot it before you shoot it? Well, I wouldn't shoot the monkey in the first place. It's a weird analogy. I'm telling you, it's a hypothetical. I was sure you were going to go with like a termite colony or something no no no no monkey it's a specific monkey and it's a hypothetical situation like if you went to london zoo um and you did you freed a monkey because you thought it would be like a fun pet to have around the house and then very quickly you realize that

the monkeys are not like they are in cartoons okay they they eat and they shit and they don't like playstation fives i was reading about this this story last week about how a couple monkeys went missing from london zoo it's a bit of a weird one because the zoo isn't even open because i've only got one someone broke in all right so you do have zero monkeys i meant to say zero monkeys i i if that was me were me you do have a monkey. Zero monkeys, I meant to say. Zero monkeys. If that was me, were me. You do have zero monkeys. I wouldn't have... I would have taken one monkey. But you said that there were multiple that were freed?

Like the guy who broke the cage accidentally set them all free? Well, that's the thing. If someone broke in, probably the rest of them got out. But back to the... Because I do need to know this kind of before we wrap. Would you try and explain to the monkey why you have to put it down?

You shot a monkey. I haven't yet. I'm trying to find out whether I should try and explain to it. Because right now he doesn't seem to be obeying any of my demands. I don't think he speaks English. No, no, he wouldn't. Okay, so you're thinking just shoot him maybe. I think hand yourself in to the police.

Let them deal with the monkey. Well, we're getting a little bit off topic here and we really do need to wrap this up because um i know people throw around the phrase a lot i got a monkey on my back but uh i very much do and i need i need to get back to my apartment as soon as possible so harder thought it could be an atomic alien bomb but again all of his theories couldn't be proven without cutting the sphere in half he was keen to chop it up despite thinking it might destroy the world be worth it though wouldn't it but of course jerry bets wouldn't budge eventually harder had to hand it back over to the family without the answers he so desperately craved i'm not even on jerry's side anymore like we need to know what's inside

this thing it's not like a living thing yeah i don't know i think maybe to that family it kind of is i think they're kind of treating it like a dog get a dog would you rather have a dog or an intergalactic alien anal bead that rolls around the house a dog still a dog even more a dog at this point uh that's even more depressing than the alien nuke is that it's a vibrating alien anal bead a single bead um that must be a huge butthole if that is the case something just something to think about it's a bowling ball this is the reason i wasn't invited to be part of the team of scientists well after years of investigations the betts family were done they'd had enough of the constant phone calls the media attention and weirdo scientists coming to spend seven minutes in

heaven with their mystery sphere in fact even now jerry pretty much refuses to talk about it now this is usually where we do a nice little conclusion and talk about some possible explanations, but we can forget all of that bullshit because there's still a mystery to be solved. You see, Kit, the Bet Sphere is missing. What? No one knows where it is or what happened to it.

I feel like Jerry knows. Jerry seems to be the puppet master in all of this. If you're so protective of the sphere, you won't let anyone touch it. I think you know where it went. No, the Betts family claim it's no longer in their possession. But there were rumors earlier on that the family suspected that one of the scientists might have switched out the real ball for a fake ball when returning it to the family we do know that dr heinick used to take the ball away for private

studies and according to some accounts the last time he gave it back it didn't roll around like it used to oh weird it was rolling around like two seconds ago in the back of my car. Anyway, bye. It's like paper mache. Made of newspaper clippings. Here is the machista bowling ball. Painted silver. Bright pink.

I can still see the holes. He bowls it down the street to them. There you go. It's moving like it used to. This, though, by far has got to be my favorite part of the whole story. Years later, Dr. J. Allen Hynek's son, Paul, was approached by a woman at a convention. She asked him point blank if he'd ever heard of the Bet Sphere and showed him a photo of the metal ball. He replied,

Hmm, I've never heard of the Bet S sphere, but I have seen this ball before. He went on to say that he had a big metallic sphere in the family basement for years. Paul and his brother had no idea where it came from, but they would kick it around the floor. He said it rolled well and made slight jingly noises. He did say he couldn't be sure that it's the same sphere, and sadly, of course, his father had passed away, so he couldn't be sure that it's the same sphere and sadly of course his father had passed away so he couldn't ask him but that's kind of cool to think that possibly dr j alan hynek did discover that there was something extraterrestrial about this ball told everyone not to worry about it took it back to his basement where i assume he pulp fictioned the shit out of it and uh returned

this replacement ball wow a lot to digest there so weird this is the problem in some of these paranormal cases right is where we've got a very difficult to parse story as it is and then you add in the weird complexities and idiosyncrasies of human behavior. Yeah. Like we're assuming that everyone in this is trying to tell the truth and be honest. And then you've got one of the most prominent UFO researchers of all time, apparently lying to the owner of his ball, stealing the ball, leaving it in his basement. Yeah. Letting his kids play with it.

It doesn't really add up, but it is also somehow believable. I know it's kind of a weird thing, isn't it? Where, you know, when you look back at old reports and things, you're like, well, it was declared to not be weird or this was officially said to be this. And then even today, people get caught up lying 24-7. Humans are not really trustworthy people. It would be better to have a rat scientist examine the ball. And at least if there were cheese in the ball, he wouldn't be telling us, I didn't find any cheese. What are you talking about cheese?

I don't know what you're talking about. Where'd the ball go? It's definitely not in my basement. He'd be nibbling the cheese. He'd be throwing the cheese all over the place it's true um that's why i'm obviously a huge advocate for um more animal scientists and sure that's why it's a separate issue for this podcast i think we need to just dial in on this you just presented a pretty wild story for the last 45 minutes so let's just park the whole animal scientist thing i don't even want to i i know how these endings of these podcasts sometimes go i don't want to get derailed with that i think you

know you're probably right it's it's because they could get a little off track towards the end when the case is over and the research and you presented a compelling case as well yeah that we should do justice and get to the bottom of course but i should just say before you think because i think right now you think i'm some sort of weirdo and that i just came out of nowhere but um it is of course why i stole the monkey from london so you did do it i did do it i'll actually we're gonna have to cut that from the podcast okay well then you're gonna want to cut all this as well i um made him his own lab coat let's see what else did i do i set up a little laboratory in my spare room, just filled with different like acids and things like that. Because I thought, you know, that whole theory was like-

You gave him acids to play with. What is it? If you put a hundred monkeys at a typewriter, they'll write Shakespeare or something like that. They'll write the complete works of Shakespeare, sure. So I'm just going to have one monkey- It's also not a hundred monkeys. I think statistically it's like billions of monkeys, but anyway.

Right, right. Well, I've just got one monkey for now. I'm on that um and i don't work on putting him in a lab um and just giving him a ton of red bull so he has the energy of a thousand monkeys uh so he you know the workload is increased all right you said quite i'm going to step in i am going to take custody of this monkey because you are abusing this monkey with acid and Red Bull. Don't take Dr. Hynek. He was just learning to love. No, he hates me.

He really does. I'm kidding. He wants to investigate me with his teeth and claws. Most of his investigations are how acid affects my face in the night. So I can't say I approve of his investigations, but I damn well approve of his enthusiasm. Look, you know, that's the case. That's it. That's pretty much it.

There are some obviously some logical explanations that people have thrown out over the years. logical explanations that, um, people have thrown out over the years. Some people claim it's a piece of machinery off of, uh, off of, uh, nearby appliances. Some people say that it was part of a clock. I don't know. You can tell I didn't put a lot of thought into these because, uh, they're not worth our goddamn time. The most, the coolest one that i did find was um during world war ii i believe that there were some reports of aircraft experiencing some sort of airborne dog fights involving ball-shaped ufos right that they believed belonged to the germans um of course when the war was over we realized that the germans didn't have ball shaped UFO fighter jets. But then everyone kind of just didn't care anymore and gave up because the war was over.

And the descriptions of those balls kind of match this one. But this thing doesn't have like little wings or a little Gatling gun on the bottom of it. It's just a ball. So I'm not really sure. Were you in a dogfight or was this thing just minding its own business and you unloaded your machine guns on it took it down right over florida that's interesting i mean that seems to fit the picture though more of something like the kara object which was able to fly about on its own yeah i mean at the very least this thing seems kind of harmless unless of course it is an undetonated

atomic bomb sure uh it kind of seems like as we saw when it was on the table it's just rolling around just kind of seeing what's over here seeing what's over there maybe it's uh you know some theories the wild ones are like it's a alien satellite it's beaming information back to some mothership you know there's a lot of crazy theories out there but uh unfortunately aside aside from the photographs and testimonies we have from people at the time, there is pretty much no strong conclusion or no even real concrete theories

as to what this object is. It's just weird. Normally someone in the investigation that we're looking at is passionately campaigning for us to see it as a real ghost, a real haunting, a real UFO sighting, a real this or that. In this case, we've just got a big clusterf**k of paranormal phenomena that we really can't prove.

Yeah, and everyone's guesses as to what it is seem about as accurate as a Civil War era cannonball, am I right? No, I insist we stop the pod because... I nailed the delivery at the very least. So, you know, a good joke is a good joke. We'll let the listeners judge. We can put up a poll this week. A public opinion.

Yeah, we'll put up a poll this week and say, who nailed the line? And they're going to say... Everyone stop listening the first time I said it. They're like, what are you talking about it's either that or i cut the first time you said it so it's just me saying it twice uh look that just about wraps up this week's case into the bets sphere the mysterious ball that fell from the sky you know it is a regular episode of the podcast we do have to come down on conclusions i wish we kind of had a stronger idea of what we what the options were you know yeah i guess just is it paranormal or not you know i i don't want to rattle on for too long but i think for me

personally this week even though i don't really understand what this thing is i feel like without being able to crack it open and see what's inside uh there isn't enough to to say confidently that this is paranormal this is one where i do have sympathy for the nerd scientists who investigated it because if you're jay allen hi nick what can you say how can you prove it's like trying to prove the impossible prove something's from an alien planet how can you cook the omelet without opening the space egg? You can't. Exactly. You just can't.

It's a no. It's a no. Unfortunately, a double no this week. But wow, what a case. Thank you so much to Amy Grisdale for the research on that episode and Cammie Tolman for the editing. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I had a blast doing that one.

You know, I've done a couple now where basically just a weird object comes out of nowhere and we tell a story from beginning to end. I think it's great. If you've come across any weird objects in your garden, let us know because we would love to hear about it. Very true. Very true. Anything. Shovels, gnomes, sprinklers. Just a beautiful flower. That could be interesting enough as it is yeah that might be a two-parter actually so thank you for listening to this week's episode of this paranormal life if you're a fan of the show and you want to show it in style as we announced last week we are so excited to be able to offer you This Paranormal Life official merchandise.

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