- ISLE OF PALMS - When a giant
silver orb washed up in front of her rented beach house Monday night, Marie
Segneri wondered for a moment if aliens had landed in the middle of her
family reunion.
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- The smooth, metallic ball was at least 3 feet in diameter
and weighed a couple hundred pounds or more. Aside from a series of numbers
stamped on its slightly dimpled surface, the sphere offered few clues as
to its origin.
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- "It looked like it may have been in the sea for
awhile, but we just had no idea what it was," said Segneri, a vacationer
from Tampa, Fla.
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- Segneri's family wasn't alone. A parade of authorities
from local, state and federal agencies examined the odd ball Wednesday.
All came away scratching their heads.
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- "Strange," said Isle of Palms Fire Chief Ann
Graham, shaking her head. "We're calling it a UFO - an unidentified
floating object."
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- Two Segneri family members first spotted the sphere Monday
afternoon when the sun glinted off its surface as it bobbed in the ocean.
Thinking it was giant beach ball or a stray buoy, they swam out to grab
it.
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- "We tried to push it toward shore, but it was just
too heavy, and we had to let it go," said Tony Segneri, Marie's nephew.
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- The ocean eventually coughed up the ball later that day.
Someone called authorities about the sphere, and the town sent a firefighter
to investigate. A decision was made to leave it there and take another
look when the sun was up. But when firefighters returned, it was gone.
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- That's because Segneri stumbled across the silver sphere
while walking along the beach that night with her nieces and nephews. Concerned
that it was a hazard to children, her relatives pushed the sphere up a
ramp from the beach and deposited it in the dunes in front of their Ocean
Boulevard house, where it became something of a curious lawn ornament.
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- "We just didn't know what to do with it," she
said.
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- Unable to determine what it is was and tired of looking
at it, the family called police Wednesday. In no time, the area was roped
off with yellow tape and official-looking people were crawling all over
the sphere.
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- The Segneris had planned to spend the day visiting local
sights, but instead cracked sodas and pulled up lawn chairs to watch the
action from their back porch. In the course of the afternoon, police, firefighters,
the Air Force bomb squad, Coast Guard personnel and an inspector from the
state Department of Health and Environmental Control came to examine the
orb, which was parked on the ground beside a barbecue grill.
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- Various people poked, rubbed, studied and photographed
it. They contacted agencies such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, but no one claimed ownership.
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- The Coast Guard's best guess was that the sphere was
some sort of flotation device used in a dredging operation. But the ball
had no hooks or clamps where a line might be attached to hold it in place,
Graham said.
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- Finally, at about 4 p.m., crews hauled the sphere to
the town's public works department for safe keeping. In the process, the
orb cracked in half along a seam. No little green men came out, just some
old seawater.
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- "There was nothing green, nothing glowing,"
Graham said. "It will probably just go to the scrap yard."
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- Glenn Smith covers police and crime. Contact him at 937-5556
or at gsmith@postandcourier.com.
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- http://www.charleston.net/pub/news/local/13sphere.htm
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- Note: Is This The Florida
Mystery Sphere? As related to this story, the image below shows what
some are speculating is the same sphere, however, the sphere in Florida
weighs several hundred pounds. It could not be lifted as seen in the image
below from http://detnews.com/2000/technology/0008/09/a14-102467.htm
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- Comment
From Thothflies
6-15-2
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- I'm pretty sure thats its a "pipeline pig"
used to check and clear pipelines Like oil and gas lines.
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- Possible Floating Orb Explanation
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- From RHW
6-15-2
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- These kinds of balls are used by various petroleum shippers
and utilities. They are called "pigs". Here's what they do:
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- Comment
The Charleston Naval Base "Orb"' is a MK 6 Dummy Mine
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- From Mario Andrade
cronos.mx@verizon.net
6-16-2
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- Hi Jeff,
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- I was a sonar tech and a mineman in the navy. When I
was stationed in Charleston, we used dummy mines during mine warfare exercises
off the coast of Isle of Palms, South Carolina.
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- The so-called orb that washed ashore looks just like
a MK-6 training mine, or perhaps it might be what we called a "sonar
marker", which was a spherical metallic object moored to an anchor
using a cable. The sphere was used to calibrate and test the detection
range of our mine-hunting sonar.
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- The mine or the marker was also used to test our underwater
vehicle, which I had the honor to maintain and operate. We used the vehicle
sonar and cameras to find it, and its mechanical arms to cut the mine cable
so the EOD (Explosive ordinance Disposal ) divers would recover it.
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- The Mine Warfare Command at the Charleston Naval Base
was relocated to Ingleside, Texas, in June of 1993. The Charleston Naval
Base was eventually closed due to budget cuts. Therefore, there must have
been a few "lost" or unrecovered training spheres.
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- In case you need some photos , here are some links with
photos of the ET (Exercise-Training) MK-6 training mine, also known as
the Mark 6:
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- http://battle.netgate.net/etmk6.htm http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/Anslq-48.jpg
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- Regards,
Mario Andrade
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