[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text dp_text_size=”size-4″]Police and residents in a Japanese coastal town have been left baffled by a large iron ball that has washed up on a local beach, with authorities admitting they have no idea what it is – only that it isn’t about to explode.
The sphere, measuring about 1.5 metres in diameter, has been at the centre of fevered speculation since it washed up on Enshu beach in the city of Hamamatsu on the country’s Pacific coast, local media reports said.
One local jogger on the beach claimed to be perplexed as to why the ball had overnight become the centre of attention. He informed the official broadcaster NHK that it had been there for a month. I attempted to push it, but it was immovable.
Police once closed up a 200-meter area around the ball as experts laboured vainly to unravel the riddle.
Some people thought it looked like something from the well-known manga series Dragon Ball, while others thought it was a UFO that had crashed to the ground.
Following Japan’s announcement that it “seriously suspected” multiple Chinese spy balloons had been seen over its territory in recent years, TV video of the object sparked social media rumours.
Fears that it could be a stray mine were dismissed after experts used X-ray technology to examine the object’s interior and found that it was hollow.
There are no indications, either, that it was involved in espionage by nearby North Korea or China.
Police began inspecting the ball, which is orangey-brown with what appear to be darker patches of rust, after a local woman spotted it resting on the sand just metres from the shore while she was out for a walk earlier this week, Asahi TV reported.
Officers cordoned off the area and called in explosives experts dressed in protective clothing to investigate further, but reports say authorities still don’t know what the sphere is or where it came from.
The presence of two raised handles on the sphere’s surface – indicating it can be hooked on to something else – prompted a more prosaic explanation: that it is a mooring buoy that had simply worked loose and floated off.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
