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NEWS > EVERYONE ELSE > COSTA RICA INVESTIGATING MYSTERY BEHIND GIANT BALLS
COSTA RICA INVESTIGATING MYSTERY BEHIND GIANT BALLS
March 25 2010
San Jose, Costa Rica – It was the summer of 1981. Jerry Seinfeld made his first appearance on ‘The Tonight Show’; Walter Cronkite left television forever; Ronald Reagan took the oath of office; the first cases of AIDS were recorded; Prince Charles 
and Lady Diana would shortly marry; Egyptian President Anwar Sadat would be
assassinated later in the year. An eventful year for the world, but for film fans there was one event that mattered above all as they sat in darkened theatres and watched the first instalment of the now legendary Indiana Jones series.
Bringing the swashbuckling serials of the 1930’s into the present day, the super power duo of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas crafted not only one of the biggest hits of the year, but also an enduring classic of the highest level of entertainment that has drawn generation after generation to its rambunctious and infectious fun. In the now legendary opening sequence to that film, the titular hero of the series narrowly escapes with a golden trinket, evading poison arrows, a treacherous partner, and a giant rolling ball that threatened to flatten him. While the trinket that Indy makes off with is fictional, the manner of his potential demise, namely the giant ball, is not and now experts in Costa Rica are investigating the giant balls to understand their historical and cultural importance.
“The earliest reports of the stones come from the late 19th century, but they weren't really reported scientifically until the 1930s -- so they're a relatively recent discover. They remained unknown until the United Fruit Company began clearing land for banana plantations in southern Costa Rica,” lead researcher John Hoopes told Science Daily. “Around 300 balls exist in the Diquis Delta region of Costa Rica. The largest weighs 16 tons and measures eight feet in diameter. Some of the balls are in pristine condition while others have been damaged due to relocation, erosion, fire, and vandalism.”
The earliest balls date to at least 600 C.E. Costa Rica is the only country in the western hemisphere known to have such giant balls.
“Like many discoveries in the Americas these giant balls have had all kinds of meanings and rationales attached to them. That often happens in areas where the culture that practiced those rituals, or created those monuments, have died out leaving no oral history. Because of the isolation of the Americas and the subsequent eradication of the indigenous people, that is exacerbated, leaving more mysteries and even more speculation,” said Scrape TV Archaeology analyst Meyer Hernandez. “Such is the case with these giant balls. Like many mysteries, they are unique to their area and there is no documentation as to why they were built or how they were built. They are just these giant smooth balls lying around. Obviously, they had some purpose. Rarely do cultures go to the trouble of building large structures or giant balls for no reason, those reasons are just hidden at the moment.”
Some have speculated that the balls may have been made for mystical lost cities or by alien visitors, but most archaeologists’ dispute those theories.
“You can see the chisel marks on a number of the giant balls indicating that they were made with human tools. People are very quick to jump to the conclusion that aliens for some reason came down and started making giant stone balls on Earth but that is just patently ridiculous,” continued Hernandez. “Aliens wouldn’t make giant balls with hammers and chisels, they’d make them with lasers and fancy space technology. These balls were undoubtedly made with human hands, with human minds. Human beings are capable of many great things and giant stone balls are certainly one of those things.”
Giant balls have also been found in neighbouring Panama but they are believed to be fakes.
Emil Uliya, International Correspondent
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