Posthuman Blues

South African mystery spheres and the Iapetus enigma

This is quite interesting:

"Over the past several decades, South African miners have found hundreds of metallic spheres, at least one of which has three parallel grooves running around its equator. The spheres are of two types--'one of solid bluish metal with white flecks, and another which is a hollow ball filled with a white spongy center' (Jimison 1982). Roelf Marx, curator of the museum of Klerksdorp, South Africa, where some of the spheres are housed, said: 'The spheres are a complete mystery. They look man-made, yet at the time in Earth's history when they came to rest in this rock no intelligent life existed. They're nothing like I have ever seen before' (Jimison 1982)."




Unexplained grooved sphere from South Africa: a representation of Saturn's moon Iapetus?


Even more interesting is the discovery that Iapetus' conspicuous equatorial bulge, seen up close, appears to be composed of three distinct "layers" -- remarkably like the grooved rings encircling the enigmatic spheres described above. As the ever-controversial Richard Hoagland notes regarding Saturn's unlikely moon: "It is a well-known cliché that 'Nature doesn't usually create straight lines.' If that is true, then it certainly doesn't create three of them (close-up-below) -- all running parallel, not only to each other, but to the literal equator of the planet."

Given their strange similarity to Iapetus, could the South African spheres be manufactured representations of Saturn's moon (assuming a non-natural origin for the unexplained bulge)?

Recently, the prospect of alien intelligences choosing to communicate via physical "messages in a bottle" has gained notoriety, as tangible artifacts wafted into space are immune to the signal degradation that invariably afflicts electromagnetic transmissions. Extraterrestrials might choose to communicate long-distance (and over vast spans of time) by "broadcasting" large numbers of tangible artifacts. Ideally, such artifacts could communicate a message, however simple -- perhaps even referencing their place of origin. Additionally, dating such ET artifacts might help scientists determine when they were crafted; ultimately, they might serve as calling cards for any species advanced and fortunate enough to find them and recognize their potential significance.

If the grooved spheres are indeed ET artifacts, buried for millennia, what might they be trying to say? If they're representations of Iapetus, it's conceivable Iapetus is a message or beacon of some kind. Inexplicably oblate and adorned with a shallow ring, Iapetus might be a massive, simplified depiction of Saturn itself . . . in which case there might be something wholly unexpected waiting for us if and when we muster the foresight to go there.