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 Post subject: Mystery Spheres
PostPosted: Tue Jan 03, 2017 1:11 pm 
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Someone sent me these pictures asking if I had any idea what these things are.
Not me. Anyone:
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Hi Barbara,
My name is Ryan and hope that you have the time to guide me or maybe you can help me in identifying what I have come across in my basement hidden in the ceiling. The house is old early 1900 s at first the material or gems shined like gold and I thought it was gold. I crushed some with a hammer this made them shatter in a way and made a more lighter gold color powder or mini shards almost like salt but noticed a even smaller perfectly round ball was made. and it is not magnetic when put in water they grouped up to form a large cylinder or ball while floating in turn allowing it to float but they do not float when not together like this. When put in water they became a lot shinier and perhaps even almost transparent but more shinier like gold some darker almost like copper in color but lighter on gold side. I am very confused and these little things are almost microscopic or almost smaller than a millimeter, they are almost all the same size but not and have made a gold dust as they have been rubbing against each other. I am including some pictures, and am really hoping you can help me. Thank you so much, Ryan

P.s. these things are very small and shine very bright my camera struggles so I apologize about odd photography but I used different elements to try to portray the perfectly round and how tiny these balls actually are.

Image
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 Post subject: Re: Mystery Spheres
PostPosted: Tue Jan 03, 2017 6:13 pm 
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Bizarre stuff. I would guess it would have to be organic, maybe eggs of some sort?

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 Post subject: Re: Mystery Spheres
PostPosted: Wed Jan 04, 2017 3:37 am 
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Stephen Challener wrote:
Bizarre stuff. I would guess it would have to be organic, maybe eggs of some sort?

top picture resembles Caviar :mrgreen:

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 Post subject: Re: Mystery Spheres
PostPosted: Wed Jan 04, 2017 10:32 am 
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I can't tell from the pictures, but it almost looks like silica gel nodules...


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 Post subject: Re: Mystery Spheres
PostPosted: Wed Jan 04, 2017 11:28 am 
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Looks like ion-exchange resin to me. I've seen very small, golden spheres of this material in some lab water purifying cartridges. The ones in the typical water softener are larger -- at least the ones I've seen.

Keith


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 Post subject: Re: Mystery Spheres
PostPosted: Wed Jan 04, 2017 12:50 pm 
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Bingo Keith. I think you nailed it!


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