THE BLACK BALL
In 1975 an enigmatic object was found in west Ukraine – the so-called Black Ball. Investigations in Russian scientific institutions have revealed that the age of the Ball is estimated at a few million years. At the core of this sphere is a substance that
In 1975 an enigmatic object was found in Ukraine – the so-called Black Ball. The late VLADIMIR RUBTSOV wondered whether this enigma wrapped in a mystery might be the long-hoped for “indubitable extraterrestrial artefact”.
Scientists engaged in SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) studies usually pay little attention to claims about traces of ancient extraterrestrial visitations – or palæovisits – to this planet. As a rule, they are inclined to consider the palæovisit problem as imaginary, a dubious field of amateurish interest.
This rejection of the subject (or ‘damning’ in Charles Fort’s sense) seems somewhat strange since, at present, only a few scholars doubt the idea of a multitude of inhabited worlds and the possibility of interstellar travel. Taking into consideration the estimated age of our galaxy – somewhere between 10 and 13 thousand millions years – there is little room for a denial, on principle, of the idea of palæovisitation. Still, the subject remains damned.
When some of the most daring SETI specialists – such as the late Carl Sagan and the SETI pioneer Frank Drake – ventured to discuss the question, they concluded that the only acceptable evidence of a palæovisit would be an “indubitable extraterrestrial artefact” (ETA). Therefore it makes sense to search for such artefacts – or at least to be more attentive to the discovery of anomalies in terrestrial strata that defy current rational explanations.
NOT OF THIS EARTH
What is an ‘extraterrestrial artefact’? To put it simply, it is an object made by extraterrestrials. Naturally, any search requires some theoretical model of the object to be found or to be searched for. Ideally, a model of an ‘abstract ETA’ would
THE BLACK BALL WAS FOUND IN 1975 IN A QUARRY IN WEST UKRAINE
be useless for a real search; even a model of a ‘specific artefact’ – an extraterrestrial computer, perhaps – would restrict the field of our vision and probably cause us to overlook other possible objects (say, extraterrestrial utensils). Similarly, our presumptions about what an ET computer, or ET cutlery, might look like may have little in common with any actuality.
The first criterion of any likely ETA worthy of further examination has to be its strangeness. The Black Ball that we will consider here certainly attracted the attention of researchers because it was very strange. For a start, its shape is too regular for a natural object, and its probable age is too great for it to have been made by humans.
It was investigated on the initiative of three scientists: Inna Petrovskaya (Institute for Space Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences), Dmitry Menkov (Moscow Physical Engineering Institute), and Valentin Fomenko, a senior research fellow at the Soyuz Scientific and Industrial Association.
The Black Ball was found in 1975 in a clay quarry in west Ukraine, at a depth of about 8m (26ft). This clay layer has been dated geologically to be around 10 million years old. It was discovered by an excavator, who noticed its unusually regular shape. When he struck it against the edge of a bucket, the Ball did not split, but a piece broke away, exposing a black glass-like surface. The worker took the thing home and gave it to his son, a schoolboy. Later a schoolteacher took it to the local museum of regional studies. For some years it was kept at the museum, but then it was taken away by the teacher’s son, Boris Naumenko, who worked at the Earth Physics Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Subsequently, some Moscow parapsychologists laid hands on the Ball – literally. They claimed that it had what they called ‘bioenergy’ from a field generated by highly advanced extraterrestrial civilisations in outer space. The parapsychologists said that they felt this ‘energy’ when they held the Ball in their hands. Dr Menkov borrowed the Ball from Naumenko and passed it to Dr Fomenko, who formulated a very detailed and sophisticated programme to study the unusual object by scientific methods.
THE FACE OF THE BALL
We can get an initial impression of the Ball from two early photographs. Its longer axis measured 87.5mm and the midsection diameter (the largest section perpendicular to the axis) 84.7mm. The Ball weighed 617 grams; its true volume (determined from the water displacement) was 320cc; and its average density 1.9g/cm3. This latter figure is much less than the usual density of glass, which ranges from 2.3g/cm3 for light crown glass to 6.6g/cm3 for super-dense flint glass. It is also less than the density of quartz (2.3g/ cm3) and obsidian (2.2-2.3g/cm3).
By the time of the investigation, two thirds of the Ball’s surface were covered with a relatively soft layer of a yellow-grey substance, probably the product of leaching. This layer was 1.5mm thick. It is known that window glass leaches at a rate of around 0.000003mm per year. If the Ball’s surface was anything like window glass, it would have taken 500,000 years to form a layer this thick. However, the rate of leaching is not constant because, as the thickness of the leached layer increases, the rate inevitably slows down. This is caused when the leaching agents – water or solutions of acids and alkalis – can no longer easily reach the glass’s surface. Therefore, 500,000 years are just a lower limit of the Ball’s real age: it could be much older.
A CORE WITH A NEGATIVE MASS?
An X-ray study of the Ball made by Dr Fomenko showed that there was was an inner core, shaped like a half an egg. The volume of this core was 80cm3, comprising 25 per cent of the total volume of the Ball.
To determine densities of the Ball and core, Dr Fomenko used a method that was based on information about the location of the Ball’s centre of gravity and equations for weights and torques (or moments) of the Ball, shell (qs), and core (qc). From these he obtained the results: qs = 4.1 g/cm3; qc = -4.6 g/cm3. This implied that the mass of the Ball’s shell was 980g, and that of the core was minus 363g. This result is very strange indeed. To improve accuracy of this measurement, it was repeated three times, but it repeated the conclusion that the density of the Ball’s core seems to be a substance with a negative mass. To check this result and to determine an experimental error of the Ball’s centre of gravity location that could have eliminated this paradox, Dr Fomenko ran a computer simulation of the situation. It was found, however, that the probability of such an error was negligible.
TRACES OF INTELLIGENCE?
Close inspection of the Ball’s contour, approximated by arcs, showed that each of these arcs was a multiple of 15º; i.e. equal to the 24th part of a complete circle. It is neither consistent with the common division
of the circle into 360º; nor to the division of it into 32 points, accepted as standard in navigation; nor to the 16 points, accepted in meteorology. This observation suggests that the Ball’s designer – if there was one – may have used the number 24 as the base of his system of numbers as well as of his system of measurements. In the latter, the unit of angular measurement – one BAU = the Ball’s Angular Unit – was equal to 15º, or the 24th part of a complete circle. True, arcs that are multiples of some fractions of a circle occur both in animate nature (e.g. flowers, fruits, star-fish, etc.) and the inanimate (e.g. crystals). Therefore, this fact alone cannot be considered as a proof of the Ball’s artificial origin.
Consequently, Dr Fomenko decided to check whether the base-24 system of numbers was also characteristic of the Ball’s linear dimensions. He took, as a unit of length (BLU, the Ball’s Linear Unit), the 24th part of the Ball’s greater axis – i.e. 3.65mm. He discovered that all the radii of the arcs, the distances between their centres, as well as the core’s dimensions, were all multiples of one BLU (3.65mm). It is hardly probable that all these figures were multiples of the same linear unit purely by chance.
Studying tables of the linear units used at different times by different investigators, Dr Fomenko and his colleagues could not find units equal to 87.5mm or to 3.65mm. Besides, their number systems were based on 2, 5, 10, 12, 20, 40 and 60 – but not on 24. This base-24 system may, in fact, be considered as more perfect that the one we commonly use, in which its base 10 is divisible only by 2 and 5. In contrast, base-24 has six divisors: 2,3, 4, 6, 8, and 12, which are very useful for calculations.
So, according to Dr Fomenko and his colleagues, the Ball’s smooth surface, its regular form, as well as the fact that the curvature radii, distances between the arcs’ centres, and the core’s dimensions are all multiples of the same unit (3.65mm) – and which suggests that the Ball was purposefully designed. As this number system is foreign to terrestrial cultures (that we know of), it suggests – with some ambiguity – that the Ball was made on another planet (or at least by extraterrestrial beings).
A DEPOSITORY OF ANTIMATTER?
Assuming that the ‘negative mass’ result is trustworthy, we might speculate that the Ball is a repository of antimatter, perhaps even used to power extraterrestrial machinery. It is still unknown whether antimatter has the property of antigravity, but such a supposition seems logical.
Given the disastrous prospect of the two coming into direct contact, how was this antimatter isolated from normal matter? Dr Fomenko gave special attention to the distinct dark outline at the core edges (see photos on opposite page). Could this boundary be a very thin layer of an isolating material, such as a neutrid? This hypothetical substance, composed of nothing but neutrons, supposedly occurs in neutron stars (pulsars). Since neutrons can annihilate only when colliding with antineutrons and antiprotons, and the latter are surrounded by positron (‘anti-electron’) shells, a neutrid material would effectively protect antimatter from annihilation.
Even if this protective neutrid shell were just one neutron thick, its weight would be 4.2kg, which exceeds the whole weight of the Ball. However, to be impenetrable by electrons and positrons, it is not necessary for the neutrid shell to be solid. A ‘net’ with a ‘mesh’ of the order of the positron diameter would be enough. The weight of such a net would not exceed 0.5kg.
Thus, a number of the Ball’s features testify that its designers used engineering methods that seem rational and understandable from our present-day knowledge. If additional calculations confirm the ‘negative mass’ result, we will probably be able to conclude that the Black Ball is the first extraterrestrial artefact whose nature and origin may be considered as proven. It only remains to hope that nobody will try to prove this by another method: attempting to open the supposed antimatter depository.
A STRANGE POSTSCRIPT
Unfortunately, Dr Fomenko could neither confirm the ‘negative mass’ result with another method, nor complete his investigation. A week after his investigation began he had to return the Ball to Boris Naumenko at the latter’s urgent demand. But the story does not end there.
Several years later, one of the largest Russian newspapers – Izvestiya – published a long article, entitled ‘A Mysterious Ball in the Lubianka Cellars’, authored by Yury Kholodny, a Ph.D. in psychology. According to Dr Kholodny, in February 1981, two leading officials of the scientific and technical department of the Committee for State Security (the almighty KGB) were summoned to the Kremlin, to the no-less-almighty Military-Industrial Commission (MIC) of the USSR Council of Ministers.
There, they were informed about the results of the investigations of Dr Fomenko (whom Dr Kholodny designated just as ‘F’). The Commission asked the KGB authorities to find out who was holding the Ball and to withdraw it immediately. At that time, the 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was approaching and, therefore, the dangerous substance inside the Ball had to be ‘neutralised’ as soon as possible. A few days later the MIC sent to the KGB Headquarters a copy of Dr Fomenko’s research report.
The KGB set up a special working group to solve this question. One of its participants was Dr Kholodny, the author of the newspaper article. This team were soon on the trail of a Moscow parapsychologist – they called ‘D’ – who had apparently obtained the Ball from its owner, Boris Naumenko. Mr D was using the Ball as the active element of a ‘biological field generator’ that, he claimed, could influence living beings with beneficial (or possibly notso-beneficial) effect.
The KGB group confiscated this ‘generator’ from Mr D and disassembled it, discovering a brown sphere inside. Over two months they investigated this object with great thoroughness. Their main conclusions
THE KGB SET UP A SPECIAL GROUP TO STUDY THE BALL
were: the black (or rather brown) sphere is composed of glass (but unusual glass, having practically no sodium and a great deal of strontium in its composition); the outer surface of the Ball had microscopic cracks, through which water could percolate into it, so it was not even waterproof, let alone airtight; for this reason it could not contain antimatter; and the ‘negative mass’ result was due to a 10 per cent error in detecting coordinates of the Ball’s centre of gravity.
As for the age of the Ball, Dr Kholodny was somewhat vague: “By radiocarbon dating, specialists from the Geological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences determined that, although the age of the ‘Ball’ was not 10 million years, it was nonetheless a centuriesold antique, being, most likely, of artificial origin.”
Judging from the information in the Izvestia article, the Ball could have been broken during the investigation. This is not directly stated, but the author mentions that fragments were shown to Faina Petryakova, a prominent Ukrainian specialist in history of glass. Dr Petryakova concluded that the Ball was a gallo, that is a primitive “device” for ironing the sleeves of shirts and blouses that had been in use in the Ukraine in 18th and 19th centuries. Usually, gallos were manufactured from waste glass that accumulated in the glass furnace after it had worked continuously for several days.
Since Mr D insisted that the Ball be returned to him, the KGB specialists made a copy of it and installed it into the ‘biogenerator’. When returned to Mr D., the device did not arouse any suspicion on his part. It continued working, still emitting the ‘biological field’.
Such were the contents of Dr Kholodny’s article. Although it looked as if everything was said and done, some points remained unexplained compelling Dr Fomenko to write the following letter to Leonid Mlechin, the editor of Izvestiya: “Dear Mr Mlechin,
“In your newspaper of September 24, this year, you published the article ‘A Mysterious Ball in the Lubianka Cellars’ by Yury Kholodny, a research worker of a KGB Scientific-Research Institute, who had taken part in an investigation of the so-called ‘Black Ball’. He describes an attempt by the KGB to verify the hypothesis that the Black Ball is a container of antimatter.
“I, Valentin Nikolayevich Fomenko, am the author of the report on the results of preliminary study of the Black Ball that is referred to in that paper. That is why I would like to meet Dr Kholodny to discuss with him some questions dealing with this matter.
“As far back as 1981, I talked with a coworker of Mr Deev, who had encapsulated the Black Ball into a block of epoxy resin. It would certainly be impossible to free the Ball from the resin. It seems, therefore, that not only had the KGB palmed off a forged “gallo” on Mr Deev [referred to in the article by Yury Kholodny as ‘D’], but also Mr Deev had palmed off a copy of his generator to the KGB. The following points in Dr Kholodny’s article seem to confirm this assumption:
“[Kholodny] writes that the colour of the ball, found in the ‘device’, was brown. But the real Black Ball consisted of a black glasslike substance, covered with a yellow-grey leached layer. There were no brown spots on it at all. Kholodny describes its fragments as bottle-green in colour; but in fact, the colour of the Ball’s shell also was deep black. The shell was opaque even to the light of a powerful halogen lamp. Besides, the Black Ball had no microscopic cracks in its shell. Inside the Black Ball there was not a void, but a core, whose density was four times less than that of the Ball’s shell. This was established by an X-ray study of the Ball. By the way, in the process of our investigation of the Black Ball, we also considered – and rejected – the hypothesis that it was a gallo.
“The only possible conclusion is that the KGB specialists investigated a real gallo (with a void inside it), but not the real Black Ball.
“There are, in the article, some strange assertions as well. In particular, according to it, ‘by radiocarbon dating, specialists from the Geological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences determined that, although the age of the Ball was not 10 million years, it was nonetheless a centuries-old antique’. This is absurd, since there cannot be any carbon at all, let alone radiocarbon, in the ‘bottle’ glass of a gallo.
“In this connection, I would like to meet with the author of the paper to discuss the matter in detail. If you cannot give me Dr Kholodny’s telephone number, please let him know my own number (attached). Please ask Dr Kholodny to call me at any time that suits him.
“Sincerely yours, Valentin Fomenko, Ph.D.”
Since then there has been no reply. This is one enigma that remains a mystery.
NOTE Further reading and much greater detail can be found in Investigating the Anomalies: Mysteries from Behind the Former Iron Curtain (RIAP, 2011); edited by Vladimir Rubtsov. Contributors included Victor Zhuravlev, Yury Morozov, Matest Agrest, Valentin Fomenko. Nikolay Vasilyev, Vladimir Rubtsov, Mikhail Gershtein, Yuly Platov, and Lev Gindilis.