The Klerksdorp Spheres
Miners in South Africa found small grooved spheres in rock billions of years old, and some said an ancient civilisation made them.
What was reported
Miners digging pyrophyllite, a soft mineral, near Ottosdal in South Africa have found small spheres and discs, a few centimetres across, some with fine grooves running around their middles. The rock they come from is about 3 billion years old.
From the 1980s, books and articles described them as perfectly round and harder than steel, impossible to explain without someone having made them. Some even claimed one in the Klerksdorp Museum turned slowly on its own.
Explanations offered
Geologists explain them as concretions of minerals such as hematite that formed naturally in volcanic sediments. They aren't perfectly round, and the grooves follow layers in the rock. The claims that they rotate by themselves have never been supported.
- When
- Found by miners
- Where
- Ottosdal, North West, South Africa
- Witnesses
- Miners digging pyrophyllite
- Status
- Explained
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