Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Evidently the "groovy spheres" are indeed a naturally occurring phenomenon -- and not a terribly uncommon one at that, if my source isn't having me on. The "grooves" are apparently due to pyrite's crystalline structure.*

So my Hoagland-esque Iapetus link appears to have gone up in smoke . . . although I'm still awaiting an explanation for the strange "spongy" substance reportedly found inside at least some of the spheroids.

*A small voice insists that mineralogists faced with such evident weirdness would be forced invent a prosaic explanation, in which case there's a slim case the spheroids are more than geological curiosities. The "mainstream" can be wrong; Occam's Razor isn't always the final word.

Accuse me of "wanting to believe" if you like; I suppose I'm just inherently skeptical -- and that includes harboring a level of healthy skepticism toward the skeptics.
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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"At least 200 have been found, and extracted out of deep rock at the Wonderstone Silver Mine in South Africa, averaging 1-4 inches in dia. and composed of a nickel-steel alloy that doesn't occur naturally."

What about that nickel-steel alloy that doesn't occur naturally? Yeah, what about that?

9:29 AM
Mac said...

"What about that nickel-steel alloy that doesn't occur naturally? Yeah, what about that?"

The nickel-steel composition cited might be in error; if not, maybe it *can* be produced naturally and the person who wrote the article didn't know any better.

That said, it doesn't appear compatible with naturally occurring pyrite nodules.

11:32 AM
Anonymous said...

could a naturally occuring process like this be scaled up to something the size of Iapetus as part of a larger planet?

12:56 PM
Mac said...

You're right -- the Discovery craft in "2001" has a "grooved sphere" thing going on ... neat.

Actually, the original design for the Monolith was a black tetrahedron (!), as described in "The Lost Worlds of '2001.'" They ditched the idea because they thought it might become associated with the Pyramids of Egypt and "pyramidology."

And yes, Hoagland loves to mention this ;-)

11:42 PM
Anonymous said...

Anyone who has seen Sir Arthur C. Clarke's and Stanley Kubrick's film, or read Sir Arthur's novel, "2001: A Space Odyssey" will remember that in the opening sequence, titled "The Dawn of Man", early ape men in AFRICA encounter an alien artifact which endows them for the first time with truly human intelligence, and this in turn eventually leads Modern Man, via another artifact found on the Moon, to the ultimate star gate artifact, which is orbiting Saturn in the film and located on the surface of Saturn's moon Iapetus in the novel.

The ape-man (australopithecus kubrickclarkeiensis?) whacking the crap out of something with a bone is "being endowed with truly human intelligence"? (Well, considering the war in Iraq, maybe! 8-)

Minor correction, though: the Stargate is orbiting Jupiter in the film, not Saturn, an interesting switch of planets to my mind. Interesting too that Clarke really nailed Iapetus in the book long before the closeups. Hoagland's right. The guy is just too freaking prophetic!

2:16 PM
transex roma said...

I fully match with whatever thing you have presented us.

9:29 AM

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