Debunked: Strange Blue Sphere's Fall Over England 2012

[Mick]

These almost certainly are gel "water beads" aka "jelly marbles", "Orbeez", or "water marbles". Made from superabsorbent polymers, and used for decorative functions, as kids toys, and to water plants. They could qute possibly just have been blown over from a neighboring property, maybe swept up high in the thunderstorm from miles away, or just some local kids playing with them. This type of thing:





Here's a demonstration



And here's a video of Orbeez, showing how they might end up on the lawn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHnMpc2Pdnw

[MikeC]

Very timely - thanks for this

[Stupid]

Seems like the kind of things kids would like to play with. I'ts not too far a stretch of the imagination, that kids would like to have a play a throwing "war" with these small soft balls......often ending up broken, and resting in neighbor's yards and gardens.

[Mick]

A fully loaded one would make an interesting projectile in a catapult or slingshot.

[GregMc]

"Seems like the kind of things kids would like to play with. I'ts not too far a stretch of the imagination, that kids would like to have a play a throwing "war" with these small soft balls."

That's exactly what my kids do with the neighbours up and down our street !
The kids like the disgusting slippery sensation and the goal often seems to be to get them inside the others clothing so they squirm in horror. They buy cheap bags of them up at the local craft shop and swell them up in big salad bowls full of water, then run around with plastic shopping bags full of them reaching in for hand-fulls and throwing them and trying to tip the lot down the back of shirt or dress.
I'm sick of slipping on those things when lawn mowing as it's easy to lose you footing on a group of them and I've taken to wearing steel capped work shoes.
They seem to disappear after a few weeks probably breaking up into smaller and smaller pieces and just get covered up by the grass

[Mick]

Quite possibly they were chopped up into smaller pieces whilst mowing the lawn, and then swelled up a bit in the storm.

Or course strange things DO fall from the sky from time to time.

[Mick]

Update:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/ja...y-close-solved

"The balls do look very much like the florists' hydrating jelly, as suggested by some eagle-eyed members of the public."

Lots of people spotted this. It's just sad that the media like to run with stories without ever doing any investigation first. Next thing you know they will be publishing rod and orb photos.

[RolandD]

Here's another explanation for 'star jelly'. At work there is a tree that oozes sap which forms jelly-like blobs on the bark. When it rains, these blobs fall to the ground. When these first began appearing on the sidewalk, I initially attributed them to being super-absorbent polymers found in our bio-hazard cleanup kits, but they kept appearing year after year. Finally, we had a drought this year, so the rain wasn't washing them off the tree and there they were, all over the bark about ten feet up on the trunk. It only took four years to solve that mystery.

[Joe]

PURPLE PATCH OF MYSTERIOUS JELLY-LIKE SPHERES FOUND IN ARIZ. DESERT http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013...omment-4853147

[solrey]

PURPLE PATCH OF MYSTERIOUS JELLY-LIKE SPHERES FOUND IN ARIZ. DESERT http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013...omment-4853147

You mean hydro gel water beads like these?

[Mick]

Or those in the top post

Interesting comment on The Blaze

Content from external source:

You can buy these things in all colors to set your flowers in. You soak little grains in water and they grow to orbs that release the moisture slowly for the plants. Some of the coyotes [smugglers of illegal immigrants] have told the illegals they are guiding to fill their milk jugs with them and then water so they will last longer, then when they try to drink they find out it is now right next to impossible. I personally think someone found out the hard way that they didn’t work like the coyote said they would and poured them out and someone found them before they were completely dried out and desicated again.

[Jay Reynolds]

This has come up again. Purple spheres balls found in Arizona and the TV news seems to have no idea what they are.

Chemtrails people jumped on it. But......
How could something dropped from 6 miles up appear on the ground in a nice little pile, though?



Next, they were contacted by a local seller of the beads:



A week later, they seem to have been better informed,but were carrying on with the "mystery" aspect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvY-TXOWprA

There have been cases of children thinking the smaller dried gel spheres were candy eating them.

Some of these swell massively, and have blocked up the intestinal tract.

Don't simply leave thse things about where children can swallow them!

Baby Needs Surgery After Swallowing Expanding Ball