posted 06-15-2002 01:08 PM            

Thousands of mysterious objects land on shore
BY STEVE JUSSEAUME
sjusseaume@seacoastonline.com

HAMPTON - Maritime tumbleweed? Whelk egg cases? Plastic fishing line? Extraterrestrial seed pods? Natural cleansers?

Everyone has a theory over the tens of thousands of round Brillo pad-like balls washed up with the incoming tide last weekend along the coast off Hampton. What they exactly are has caused a debate among beach-goers, marine scientists and casual viewers alike this week.

The soft, spongy balls, the size of golf or tennis balls, appeared with the incoming tide along a 300-yard stretch of sandy beach beginning at Northside Beach, just north of Plaice Cove, Friday or Saturday.

"There are just thousands and thousands as far as you can walk," one Hampton resident reported early Sunday morning, adding that she has never seen anything like it. "I don't know if they're animal or mineral or what," the woman said after walking her dog along the sand.

Marine Program scientists at the University of New Hampshire were contacted, but said they would have a hard time identifying the material without seeing it. One local biologist was perplexed after viewing the greenish balls, most of which are perfectly round and have an ocean smell, though not a strong sea-weedy odor.

"They look man-made to me," said Ellen Goethel, a marine biologist who serves on the Hampton Conservation Commission, when she first looked at the balls, hundreds of which remained at the high water mark at the beach into Wednesday.

The stuff, whether manmade, probably wasn't balled up at first. It was washed up into balls, most likely because of wave action close to the shore that carried the material along the bottom of the ocean floor off the beach, Goethel said. "It could be sheets of plastic threads, like carpet threads, that were broken up, carried by the waves and rolled up into balls as it came in ..."

Though Goethel couldn't find anything in any marine biology books that corresponds to the balls, after visiting with some local fisherman, she decided the balls could be some kind of sea grass.

"Under magnification, they seem to have some sort of molecular structure," she said. One pressing problem, Goethel cautioned, is that if the stuff IS plastic, some fish or marine animals could ingest it thinking it was food. "Baleen whales, for instance, filter what they eat. This stuff could get into their stomachs. They can't pass it, so it remains there, the mammals feel full and die of starvation," Goethel said. "Seals won't eat it, they use their sense of smell and it doesn't smell fishy. But some fish are dumb and will eat anything. "My first instinct was to go down there and get it all off the beach," Goethel added.

One investigator had another idea, after looking at strands through a magnifying glass. "My guess is its some type of (bundled up) phytoplankton," offered Kevin Twombly, a marine digital production engineer with the Andover, Mass., firm Maptech.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Pennock, director of the marine program at the University of New Hampshire, asked for a sample of the balls, and said he would try to ascertain what the material is, manmade or natural. "It could be some type of sea grass, but we'd have to take a close look at it," Pennock said, siding, initially, with Goethel's opinion.

While the little green balls may remain a mystery, at least for the time being, one fisherman working at the Yankee Fisherman's Cooperative this week had his own idea to their identity. And a novel solution to their disposal. Off-loading his catch, the guy looked at one, smelled it.

"This thing looks like a Brillo pad. Thousands, eh?" he said. "Yea, natural Brillo. Pack 'em up. Ten for a buck."
http://www.yorkweekly.com/news/hampton/06142002/news/9524.htm

=====================================================================

'Unidentified Floating Object' Washes Up On Beach

South Carolina Coast Residents Find Silver Orb
Posted: 10:19 a.m. EDT June 13, 2002
Updated: 9:40 a.m. EDT June 14, 2002

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. -- Officials in a South Carolina beach town said that they are puzzled by a giant silver orb that washed up on shore this week. The smooth, metallic ball is about 3 feet in diameter and weighed several hundred pounds.

There are numbers on the surface, but no other clues. Police, firefighters, an Air Force bomb squad, the Coast Guard and the state Department of Health and Environmental Control all examined the orb on Wednesday, but none could identify it.

Officials contacted NASA and the National Weather Service, but none claimed ownership. Isle of Palms Fire Chief Ann Graham says officials are calling it a UFO, "unidentified floating object."

posted 06-15-2002 04:38 PM            

Name that fish: Odd 5-footer washes up

By MIKE BRASSFIELD
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 16, 2002

ST. PETERSBURG -- A turtle? An alligator? Or, a coelacanth?

Looking out the window of his Shore Acres home Friday, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers lineman Jeff Winans wasn't sure what had washed ashore.

Up close, it looked like some bizarre, armor-plated fish from a prehistoric era. It was white and about 5 feet long, with a flat snout and a sucker for a mouth. It had rows of bony yellow plates that appeared to be made of cartilage.

"When you turn him over, his whole back side is hard as a rock," said Brandi Winans. "I grew up on St. Pete Beach. I've snorkeled a lot. I've never seen anything remotely like this."

The couple called the Florida Marine Research Institute in St. Petersburg, but no one was available to identify the mystery fish. Send photos, the institute said.

The couple called a local TV station. WTSP-Ch. 10 sent a cameraman to shoot footage of the fish for Friday evening's newscast.

After the beast's TV debut, the station received lots of calls from people offering their best guess.

"One guy said it was ... an underwater carnivore related to the same family as a platypus," said Jim Peppard, a night assignment desk editor at WTSP.

"Another guy thought it was a coelacanth, which he said was a 6-million-year-old fish that everybody thought was extinct until it was found in the '50s off the coast of China.

"Another caller thought it was a sturgeon."

That would appear to be the correct answer.

The fish bears a strong resemblance to various species in the sturgeon family.

Sturgeon are the oldest living species of fish, dating back 250-million years. They existed at the same time as the dinosaurs, and have been described as "living fossils."

They also are rarely seen.

Charter boat captain Dave Zylewski, who has been fishing in Tampa Bay since the early 1960s, has never seen a sturgeon.

"I've heard stories from some of the old-timers who caught them in the rivers in the '30s and '40s, but that's it," said Zylewski, who runs a charter fishing business, Lucky Too Charters, out of Madeira Beach. "I've only just heard of them."

The gulf sturgeon, a species threatened with extinction, was only recently reintroduced to the Tampa Bay area.

Although native to the Gulf Coast, these fish hadn't been seen in Florida south of the Suwannee River for more than a century, according to the Florida Marine Research Institute. Pollution, dams and overfishing killed them off around here.

Then, about a year and a half ago, the research institute put nearly 50 gulf sturgeon into the Hillsborough River to see whether they would survive.

The fish spend spring and summer in coastal rivers, and the rest of the year in the Gulf of Mexico.

posted 06-16-2002 03:04 AM            

now these balls are interesting...erm...anyway...

there was one exactly like this a year or two ago in some remote country I can't find the pic....

posted 06-16-2002 01:13 PM            

I'd actually like to have one of those things in my yard T/S. - It is interesting. A ball of aluminum would make a real good lawn ornament.

I agree with the explanation of what it is too.:

quote:

---

These kinds of balls are used by various petroleum shippers and utilities. They are called "pigs". Here's what they do:

When petrolium is being sent through a pipeline (as in unloading a tanker of its petroleum onto storage tanks on land) balls such as these are sent through the line first to clear the lines of any air. They come in various sizes depending upon the size of the line it is being sent through. The numbers on the ball correspond to the pipe size it is intended for.

This ball it seems was damaged (cracked) so then therefore was thrown overboard. Just because its metal or aluminum does not mean it can't float. It is however hollow.

---

Of course similar balls have been falling out of the sky too.

Missile radar tests unnerve townspeople
Maryland city seeks more info about Navy's offshore Patriot trials

By Steve Vogel / Washington Post

OCEAN CITY, Md.-- The mysterious silvery balls came first -- pretty, 12-inch-diameter spheres that floated down from the sky in and around this resort town, amid rumors that they had been dropped by black helicopters.

This was followed by widespread alarm when word spread that the City Council -- meeting behind closed doors -- had granted the military permission to test the Patriot missile's radar at the municipal airport.

Toss in a few sonic booms from military jets, and some Ocean City residents are up in arms.

"They have no business putting this on in a resort community," said Hollis Martin, a homeowner in nearby South Point. "Go out to the desert and do your testing."

Even Maryland's Democratic senators, Barbara A. Mikulski and Paul S. Sarbanes, have weighed in, sending a letter to Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen asking for information about the radar testing.

"We are also requesting that the report include information on any ... helicopters in the West Ocean City area and the launching of 32-ounce spheres," the letter said.

Margaret Pillas, a City Council candidate helping spearhead the resistance, puts it more simply: "Just tell us what's happening to us, not 30 years from now, when we learn they've done God knows what to us."

What's happening is: In the next few days, at the height of the beach season, the military will start a series of tests designed to improve the performance of the Patriot antimissile system, known for its decidedly mixed results 10 years ago in the Persian Gulf War.

No missiles will be fired -- or even brought to Ocean City.

Instead, jets will fly in circles far offshore, and technicians will assess how well the Patriot's radar system tracks them, in conjunction with radars on nearby Wallops Island and a Navy cruiser at sea.

Ocean City makes a convenient spot for testing because of the possibilities for triangulation and integration among the three radar sources.

Of course, none of that explains the silvery balls.

Pillas has hers in a secret location. "It's the only actual evidence we have so far," she said. "We don't have a helicopter yet. This is the first thing we've had that everybody said we didn't see."

A resident named Wendy Garliss first spotted one of the silvery balls during the winter in a field off Route 50. She kept it in her back yard, where her dog and children played with it. She gave it little thought until the radar controversy erupted, when she turned it over to Pillas.

Pillas drove it around town for several days, trying to get someone to identify it. A few days ago, the Patuxent River Naval Air Station identified the balls, saying they are harmless aluminum spheres routinely released from P-3 aircraft to calibrate radar.

The source of the sonic boom remains unclear.
http://detnews.com/2000/technology/0008/09/a14-102467.htm

I wish they would drop some of these things in my yard so I can sell them. - LOL

posted 09-19-2002 06:25 PM            

CTV News Staff

Something massive and fishy has washed ashore in Nova Scotia, and no one can figure out what it is. Experts say it might be a whale or a shark, but it doesn't look like either. And it's making some wonder: Could it be a sea monster?

Grant Potter and Darren Robinson have been examining the creature for days and are still

stumped. They're both convinced it can't be whale, but they admit they can't be sure because they've never seen anything like it.

"In my opinion this is not a whale, nor could it be a whale," says Potter.

Whatever it is, it's rotting badly. It's been on shore for three days now.

The eight-metre long creature has a small head that attaches to a long thin neck then to a massive body of cavities and cartilage. Huge, empty eye sockets gave the carcass an eerie look. Strangely, long strands of coarse hair cover the fins -- a confusing detail.

Some says the beast has the makings of a famous sea monster -- though the neck may be shorter than what we're used to with the Loch Ness monster.

Chris Harvey-Clarke is a marine biologist and underwater photographer. He thinks the creature is likely a basking shark.

Basking sharks are gentle filter feeders like whales. Largely made of cartilage, they decompose in a way that leaves them looking like something else.

They are normally more common to the waters of the UK. But while it's rare, they have washed up in the Maritimes before.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20020917/fundy_shark020917/Sc iTech/story/

If ya hurry, you can see the video clip of whatever it is that washed up on shore. I took a look at it and it don't look like no shark of any kind to me. I could be wrong but it looks more like a short necked Nessie type creature to me. The thing is huge.

posted 09-26-2002 05:00 PM            

'This is an unclassified animal,' amateur dinosaur enthusiast says By Brian Medel / Yarmouth BureauSt.

Croix Cove - The rotting carcass of a sea creature that washed ashore at Parkers Cove, Annapolis County this week will soon be gone but the controversy surrounding it may linger a few days yet.

Scientists say it's likely a basking shark, commonly found in the Bay of Fundy this time of year. But Anthony Buccola disagrees.

"It's not a basking shark," said the retired New York mechanical engineer and amateur dinosaur enthusiast. "It's a cross between a fish and an animal . . . you know, like the missing link in humans," he said Friday from his home at St. Croix Cove, about 22 kilometres up the coast from Parkers Cove.

Originally Mr. Buccola thought the carcass was that of a plesiosaur, a long-necked marine reptile with four paddle-like limbs, thought to have been extinct for 65 million years.

"As soon as I saw it I knew it was not a basking shark; I've seen them on television," said Mr. Buccola, who's sketched what he thinks the animal looked like when it swam with the dolphins a few months ago. "It's got a horse's head," he said.

Local fisherman James Longmire reported an encounter with a bizarre sea creature more than 20 years ago in the Bay of Fundy. It had a head like a horse at the end of a long neck. The creature swam atop the water before eventually disappearing, Mr. Longmire, now 85, recalled earlier this week.

The carcass that washed up this week breathed air while alive, said Mr. Buccola.

"There's lungs and liver. The lungs are all out on the side. Someone pulled everything all out of the body."

The liver may be mistaken for lungs by some people, Steve Campana, in charge of shark research for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said Friday.

"The liver in sharks is very large. It actually does have the appearance . . . in some way, of lungs. "I am very confident that this is a basking shark," said Mr. Campana. "The Bay of Fundy area is common ground for basking sharks. They often feed with whales."

Mr. Campana said the size of the Parkers Cove specimen is perfect, as is how it's decaying. "It's a classic," he said of how the neck and tail tissue has fallen away, exposing the vertebral column and cranium, to "really give it an appearance of a plesiosaur."

Scientific test results posted on the Internet concur, with one report stating "basking sharks are known to decompose into 'pseudoplesiosaur' forms and their carcasses have been mistaken for 'sea monsters' many times in the past."

"They always say that," said Mr. Buccola, who, unmoved, referred to the coelacanth, a prehistoric fish found to be alive and well in the 20th century.

The coelacanth is well-known from the fossil record of 75 million to 400 million years ago. They were thought to be extinct until 1938 when one was caught off South Africa. A long search for their home ended in 1952 when they were found in the Comoros archipelago.

"I think this is an unclassified animal. It's not a fish. It's a cross between the two," Mr. Buccola said of the Parkers Cove carcass. "It's an incredible thing and it's here." Mr. Buccola has also long been interested in tales of Scotland's Loch Ness monster. "

They don't know what's in Loch Ness. The guesswork is it's a plesiosaur. But they don't know what it is," he said. A few fuzzy photos, including probably the most famous one snapped in 1977 of a long-necked creature, is all they have of "Nessie."Here, a specimen has washed up, Mr. Buccola said. "This is an incredible thing. The only way you can really verify everything is a DNA test."

Dr. Chris Harvey Clark, a Dalhousie University veterinarian, examined the Parkers Cove specimen this week, said Mr. Campana. Results of any tests he did were unavailable Friday.