Champ Island (Franz Josef Land) - mysterious stone balls - traces of Hyperborea

Champa Island is very popular with Arctic cruisers. And no wonder - there are objects on it, the origin of which is still not clear, and in the near future the solution to this riddle is not expected.

Let's look at them in more detail and discuss a little ...

Location

Mysterious spherulites of Champa Island

Champa Island is one of the many islands arctic archipelago Franz Josef Land, which belongs to the most remote corners of Russia and is practically unexplored. The territory of this island is relatively small (only 375 sq. km), and is attractive not so much for its picturesque, untouched by civilization, arctic landscapes, as for the mysterious stone balls of rather impressive size and perfectly round shape, which make one get lost in numerous guesses about their origin on these uninhabited lands .

The island is dotted with many strange round stones different sizes - from exceeding human height to very small - with a ping-pong ball; part is a perfect cannonballs. Many stones due to exposure strong wind, water and low temperatures lost their rounded shape, becoming like cobblestones.

Boulders of perfectly round shape, scattered all over the island, seem to grow out of the ground. Melting glaciers are exposing the surface of the island, washing out the rounded shapes.

The spherulites of Champa Island are stones of densely compressed sand. They are clearly not volcanic origin, and in some of them, scientists even found the teeth of ancient sharks.

from the comments: And these are they lying in the Izhma River near the village of Maloe Galovo, Komi.

The dimensions of many balls reach several meters (some of them are difficult to cover completely even for three people), although there are also perfectly round stone balls here, several centimeters in diameter.

When you look at this amazing picture, you get the impression that some giants once played football here.

To date, there are several theories of the origin of these mystery balls, although each of them is not ideal and, in general, does not answer the many questions associated with these mysterious objects of the island of Champa.

According to one version, these balls are the result of washing with water. ordinary stones to such a perfectly rounded shape.

But if with stones of small sizes this version still sounds plausible, then in the case of three-meter balls it is somehow not very convincing.

Some even tend to believe that these balls are the result of the activities of an extraterrestrial civilization or the mythical civilization of the Hyperboreans. Official version no, and everyone who has visited the island creates his own theory of the origin of these mysterious balls.

natural mystery
Franz Josef Land is not the only place on the planet where round stones are found. IN South America and in Northern Europe they have long been the subject of close attention of geologists. In the forests of Costa Rica, when trees are cut down for banana plantations on stone balls stumbled here and there. And in the fall of 2003, Itogi correspondents found a huge plateau with spherical stones on Mangyshlak.

Balls are found both where people once lived or still live (as, for example, in Mexico), and where a person has never settled (the best example is Champa Island). This suggests that round stones may have both natural origin, and man-made - in some parts of the planet in ancient times, stones were specially processed for economic or architectural purposes. Some researchers even expressed the version that spherical stones are the work of space aliens, who have compiled some anagrams that have not yet been deciphered. But this is too exotic version ...

The geological department of the University of Hamburg is trying to figure out the round stones. The only thing that has been understood so far is that the stones “round up” very quickly. Their core is organic. I believe they were born in sea water, formed in soft sediments from the remains of shells that once drowned and stuck in the sandy bottom. The shells consisted of quartzite, a sedimentary rock that, under the influence of heat or pressure, takes the form of a crystalline structure, and marcasite, a mineral that is a compound as a result of chemical reactions of iron and sulfur. And it was marcasite, as the analysis showed, that was the main connecting element in the balls. After Franz Josef Land rose from the depths of the sea, and the resulting glaciers began to melt, the sedimentary deposits were eroded, turning into these amazing stone forms as a result.

There is, for example, such an explanation: water cascades down from a melted glacier, forming peculiar pools in the ice, into which these stones fall. Due to the softness of the volcanic rock and constant friction under the influence of the flow of water, the stones acquire a round shape. And if in the case of small stones this version sounds logical, then, looking at the three-meter "balls", you begin to doubt it.

The well-known Russian polar explorer Viktor Boyarsky believes that the stones of Champa Island may be of organic origin, since they are composed of sandstone: “This soft rock, which can be destroyed. You, while on the island, will surely notice that some large stones have broken into two halves, and the largest stone is crumbling more and more every year.

The balls lie here as if in the courtyard of a sculpture workshop - hewn by the hand of a skilled sculptor for some unknown purpose. However, scientists say: no one has ever lived on the island, which means that this miracle was created by nature. It is curious that stone balls are found in different parts of the world: from Mexico and Costa Rica to New Zealand and Kazakhstan, and everywhere a lot of speculation and romantic legends are associated with their origin. With the light hand of the Swiss writer Erich von Daniken stone spheres began to be poetically called "balls played by the gods." Geologists use a more mundane term - "spherical nodules", from the Latin concretio ("growth, thickening"). They usually consist of granite, obsidian or, as on the island of Champa, sandstone. How exactly these stones appeared here is still a mystery.

According to Russian polar explorer Viktor Boyarsky, every geologist who has ever visited Champa gives his own explanation of this phenomenon. There is, for example, such a version: melt water eroded the glaciers and created in them peculiar natural pools. Once in such a pool, a soft rock stone gradually rounded under the influence of water flows. Another hypothesis - by the Austrian geologist Sepp Friedhuber - explains the appearance of boulders as a result of the accumulation of sedimentary material transported from land to sea. Under water, these rounded sandstone shapes were formed, in the center of which there is an organic core. - See more at: http://www.festivalnauki.ru/statya/11343/zagadka-zapolyarnogo-ostrova#sthash.KmURizDL.dpuf

Why are the stone balls concentrated on the island of Champa, where did they come from…? There are many questions, but no answers have been found so far.

Here is what Marina Menshikova writes:

Old Ham would probably envy me. I am writing a diary, in front of me is a porthole in which I see the rocks of Champa Island. Two hours ago, when "Professor Molchanov" approached the island, located in the very center of Franz Josef Land, the sun came out from behind the clouds, illuminating the picture of incredible beauty. A lagoon surrounded on all sides by islands dotted with glaciers. Icebergs have become much larger, they are larger than those that we saw on the transition from Novaya Zemlya. Icebergs sparkle in the sun the purest ice. Champa Island - I think it can be considered the heart of FJL. There is everything you need for impressions: a glacier, bird colonies, streams flowing like waterfalls from the mountains, our favorite saxifrage of bright purple color. And most importantly - spherulites, spherical concretions. Absolutely round stones seem to have been scattered by the giant owners of these places. And such places must have reliable owners who have guarded the secrets of the islands for thousands of years. How amazing it is to be in the heart of the Arctic and breathe in its crystal glacial air...

Our team is not alone. In the distance, the icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn is sailing out of the fog. Our tour leader, Viktor Boyarsky, agrees that we will be given two hours. We land on Champa Island. I want to capture everything - both the landscape that opens on the sea, and neighboring islands, foothills of the Black Champa Mountains, spherulites. You know, when you sit on a mountain and look into the distance, at the horizon, at icebergs the size of a five-story house, you understand HOW beautiful our planet is, how much we need to see, how much we need to feel in order to tell our friends and relatives later. Arctic - special place. This is where you need to meditate. Here you need to be respectful, meek and real. Otherwise you will break...

Today we have the equator of the expedition. Exactly a week behind, exactly a week left. If the first days everyone was in some kind of nervous state - they were worried whether everything would go according to plan, whether we would see walruses, polar bear and so on, now I do not see a single person who would not smile. And the smiles became sincere, radiant. The cold Arctic cleanses us, removes the veneer of civilization, everything unnecessary and pretense.

…Birds scream in the sky, glaciers sparkle, mists envelop the ship in milk, we are happy. Champa Island will remain in my heart forever.

There is another question that still remains unanswered. Why are unusual stones found on this island? What did he like the gods, who decided to play with their gigantic balls? In 2007, Swiss traveler Thomas Ulrich discovered a large round boulder on east coast Nordbrook Island, in another part of the archipelago.

Whether he always lay here or in some incomprehensible way was moved from Champa, whether there are similar stones on other islands - all this remains to be seen by polar explorers.

1930s, Costa Rica… A group of workers from the famous United Fruit Company are clearing dense thickets tropical plants to start another banana plantation. And suddenly... Among wild jungle they stumble upon something unimaginable and incredible - huge stone balls of perfectly regular shape.

Multi-ton "balls"

The largest reached three meters in diameter and weighed about 16 tons. And the smallest were no larger than a children's ball, having only ten centimeters in diameter. The balls were located singly and in groups of three to fifty pieces, sometimes forming geometric shapes.

In 1967, an engineer and lover of history and archeology, working in Mexico in silver mines, told American scientists that he had found in the mines the same balls, but much larger.

Some time later on Aqua Blanca plateau near the village of Guadalajara (Guatemala) at an altitude of 2000 m above sea level, the archaeological expedition found hundreds more stone balls.

Similar stone balls were also found near the city,

With the light hand of Erich von Daniken, the balls were dubbed "balls played by the gods."

Some geologists attributed their appearance to volcanic activity. A ball of ideal shape can form if the crystallization of volcanic magma occurs evenly in all directions.

According to the leading researcher of the Central Research Institute of Geology of Rare-Earth and Non-Ferrous Metals, Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences Elena Matveeva, the balls could come to the surface as a result of the so-called exopholization - weathering, operating in areas with large daily differences. In the same place, where the temperature is more stable, similar balls are found, but underground.

However, no matter how convincing these assumptions sound, there is still no final solution to the phenomenon. First of all, they are not able to explain the appearance of granite balls.

In addition, the ancient volcanoes could not correctly arrange in the form of figures a lot of balls, which, moreover, have traces of grinding! And although a significant part of such balls, it seems, really has a purely natural origin, some specimens, such as the balls of Costa Rica, do not fit into the framework of this theory in any way, since they have obvious traces of alignment and polishing. More than 300 stone spheres have now been found in Costa Rica.

The first scientific study of the balls was undertaken by Doris Stone immediately after their discovery by the workers. United Fruit Company. The results of her research were published in 1943 in "American Antiquity", the leading academic journal for archeology in the United States.

Samuel Lothrop, a staff archaeologist at the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnography at Harvard University, conducted the main field work on the balls in 1948. The final report of his findings was published by the Museum in 1963.

It contains maps of the sites where the balls were found, detailed descriptions of pottery and metal objects found near the balls, and many photographs, measurement data and drawings of the balls, their relative positions and stratigraphic contexts.

Additional exploration of the balls by archaeologist Matthew Stirling has been reported in the pages national geographic in 1969.

In the 1980s, the orb sites were explored and described by Robert Drolet during his excavations.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Claude Baudez and his students at the University of Paris returned to the Lothrop excavations to undertake a more thorough analysis of the pottery and more accurate dating of the balls' stratigraphic contexts. This study was published in Spanish in 1993, with a summary in English language which appeared in 1996.

Also in the early 1990s, John Hopes did fieldwork around Golfito, documenting the easternmost known examples of these orbs. At the same time, Enrico Dala Lagoa, a student at the University of Kansas, completed his dissertation on balls.

The most thorough study of the balls after Lothrop, however, was the field work undertaken in 1990-1995 by the archaeologist Iphigenia Quintanilla under the auspices of National Museum Costa Rica.

She was able to unearth several orbs in their original state. As of 2001, most of the information she collected had not yet been published, although it was the subject of her graduate research at the University of Barcelona.

Unlike geologists, archaeologists recognize the artificial origin of the balls of Costa Rica.

Almost all balls are made from granodiorite, a hard lava rock, the outcrops of which are located in the foothills of the outskirts Talamanca. There are several examples made from coquina, a hard material similar to limestone, which is formed from shells and sand in coastal sediments. According to archaeologists, the balls were made by processing round boulders into a spherical shape in several stages. In the first stage, the boulders were subjected to alternately strong heating and cooling, as a result of which the upper part of the boulders peeled off like the leaves of an onion.

Granodiorite, from which they are made, as it was revealed, still retains traces of large changes in temperature. When they approached the shape of a sphere, they were further processed with stone tools from a material of the same hardness. At the final stage, the balls were placed on the base and polished to a shine.

Often in funds mass media there are claims that these balls have a perfect spherical shape with an accuracy of 2 millimeters. In reality, there are no grounds for such categorical statements.

The fact is that no one has ever measured the balls of Costa Rica with such a degree of accuracy. Lotrop wrote:

“To measure the circumference, we used two methods, neither of which is completely satisfactory. When large balls were buried deep in the ground, it might take several days to dig a trench around them. Therefore, we examined only the upper half and then measured two or three more diameters with a tape and a plumb bob. Measurements have shown that small specimens, usually 2 to 3 feet (0.6 to 0.9 meters) in diameter, have differences in diameter of 1 or 2 inches (2.5 to 5.1 centimeters).”

Lothrop also measured balls that were completely taken out of the ground by applying a piece of tape around five circles. He's writing:

“Obviously the big balls were of the highest quality, and they were so nearly perfect that measuring the diameters with a tape and a plumb bob showed no difference. Therefore, we measured the circles horizontally and, as far as possible, at a 45 degree angle to the four main points.

We usually didn't measure the vertical circumference as the big balls were too heavy to move. This procedure was not as easy as it sounds because several people had to hold the tape and all measurements had to be checked. Since the difference in diameters was too small to be detected by the eye even with a plumb bob, the diameters were calculated mathematically.”

Obviously, differences "too small to be detected by the eye" cannot be translated into a claim of accuracy "within 2 millimeters".

In fact, the surface of the balls is not completely smooth and has irregularities clearly exceeding 2 millimeters in height. In addition, significant damage to the surface is often noticeable on the balls. Therefore, it is impossible to determine how even they could be at the time of manufacture.

In fact, no one knows for sure what exactly these balls were made for.

By the time of the first Spanish conquests, balls were no longer being made, and they remained completely forgotten until they were rediscovered in the 1940s.

Some archaeologists believe that the balls were located in front of the houses of noble people as a symbol of their power or secret knowledge.

There is also an opinion that the very creation and movement of the balls was of great religious or social significance, no less than their final location.

As already mentioned, a significant part of the stone balls were located in certain groups. Some of these groups formed straight or winding lines, triangles and parallelograms. One group of four balls was determined to be aligned in a line oriented to magnetic north.

This led Ivar Zappa to speculate that they may have been placed by people familiar with the use of magnetic compasses or astronomical orientation.

However, the hypothesis of Ivar Zappa that the groups of stone balls were navigational devices pointing to Easter Island and Stonehenge seems to be unfounded.

This group of four balls occupies (according to Lothrop's measurements) only a few meters, which is obviously not enough to avoid planning errors over such long distances.

In addition, with the exception of balls located in Isla del Caso, most balloons are too far from the sea to be useful for ocean navigators.

There is also a version that the location of the stone balls resembles some celestial constellations. In accordance with this, some "researchers" often consider the balls of Costa Rica to be a kind of "planetarium", "observatory" or landmarks for spacecraft.

However, despite the attractiveness of such versions for the general public, it should be noted that the authors of such versions relied more on their imagination than on the results of field research.

Many of the balls, some of them in groups, were found at the top of the mounds. This has led to speculation that they may have been kept inside buildings built on top of the mounds, making them difficult to use for observation.

Moreover, by now all but a few groups have already been destroyed, so measurements made almost fifty years ago cannot be verified for accuracy.

Virtually all known balls have been moved from their original location in the course of agricultural work, destroying information about their archaeological contexts and possible groups.

Some of the balls were blown up and destroyed by local treasure hunters who believed the fables that the balls contained gold. Balls rolled into ravines and gorges or even under water for sea coast(how in Isla del Caso).

Nowadays, a significant part of the balls is used as an unpretentious decoration of lawns. It is possible that at least some of the balls were also once used for similar purposes.

(in Central America, balls could be placed in front of the house of noble people, thereby showing their status.)

So, for example, in located at pacific coast on the border with Guatemala, the center of Izapa, which existed a little later than the Olmecs, small round balls were found next to small stone pillars, which could well serve as coasters for them.

The time of making the balls remains unknown.

Since there are currently no reliable methods for dating stone products, archaeologists are forced to rely only on stratigraphic studies and determine the date of manufacture of the balls from cultural remains found in the same deposits.

Such remains found during excavations are now dated by archaeologists in the range from 200 BC. until even 1500 AD. But even such a wide range cannot be considered final.

The fact is that stratigraphic analysis always leaves a lot of doubts about the dating of such artifacts. If only because if now the balls are moving from place to place, then nothing can exclude the possibility of such a movement of the balls at the very time that stratigraphy gives.

Therefore, the balls may well be much more ancient. Up to hundreds of thousands and millions of years (there are such hypotheses).

In particular, the version expressed by George Erickson and other researchers that the balls are more than 12 thousand years old is absolutely not excluded. With all the skepticism of archaeologists in relation to such a date, it is by no means without foundation.

In particular, John Hopes mentions balls in Isla del Caso that are underwater off the coast.

In the event that these balls were not moved there at a later time and were there initially, then they could be placed there only when the sea level was significantly lower than modern. And this gives them an age of at least 10 thousand years ...

The method of transporting balls (or blanks for them) also remains a mystery - from their locations to the places of the alleged origin of the material for their manufacture, tens of kilometers, a significant part of which falls on swamps and dense thickets of tropical forests ...

Archaeologist Doris Z. Stone ended the very first report on the exploration of Costa Rica spheres with the words: "We must attribute the perfect spheres of Costa Rica to incomprehensible megalithic mysteries." It's impossible not to agree with him on this...

And here we are talking about the so-called boulders of Moeraki, also known as "Watermelons of Elijah the Prophet" . Someone takes them for dinosaur eggs, someone - for the fruits of the ancients. marine plants, and some even suggest that these are the remains of a UFO.

The phenomenon is indeed strange. Imagine an almost ideally shaped stone or iron ball with a diameter of ten centimeters to three meters. If someone happens to meet such an “egg” broken, then inside he will find a cavity with crystalline formations along the inner surface.

The most famous collection of such eggs is located in a fishing village in New Zealand. The balls lie right on the beach. Moreover, all the stones have a different structure - some of them are impeccably smooth, others are like a tortoise shell, rough. Some are broken into pieces or with huge cracks.

But in order to admire the "watermelons of Elijah the prophet", it is not at all necessary to go to New Zealand. As mentioned above, they are found in China, in Israel. The same round stones are in Costa Rica, they are called "balls of the gods" there. These stones are considered man-made, they are called the "eighth wonder of the world" and they are under state protection. The largest "balls of the gods" in Costa Rica reach three meters in diameter and weigh about 16 tons. And the smallest - no more than a children's ball, have only ten centimeters in diameter. The balls are arranged singly and in groups of three to fifty pieces, sometimes forming geometric shapes.

We have similar formations in Russia (although Russian “eggs” are not considered man-made). For example, mysterious stone balls were discovered in the village of Boguchanka, in the north Irkutsk region. locals sure that this is a UFO, for the reason that the balls look like they are made of metal.

All stones have a different structure - some of them are perfectly smooth; others are like tortoiseshell, rough; some are broken into pieces or with huge cracks.

Or here are some more facts:

In 1969, in Germany, in the Eifel, during the explosion of a quarry, a perfectly round ball with a diameter of five meters and a weight of more than 100 tons rolled out of the slope.

In Kazakhstan, when developing a sand pit with great depth several large stone balls were excavated.

Balls of unique beauty were found along the sides of the Bukobai beam in the Sol-Iletsk district of the Orenburg region.

A few dozen more of these stones were located in a ravine five kilometers west of Zhirnovsk. Volgograd region. In 2002-2003, unfortunately, the most beautiful and expressive of them were destroyed by local oil bulldozers who laid several pipelines.

(Balls in the Volgograd region)

Full of balls (up to 2 meters in diameter) on the Arctic island of Champa in Franz Josef Land. However, there are also quite tiny ones.

In October 2007, at depths of 10-25 meters at the bottom of the Black Sea near Gelendzhik, the Kosmopoisk expedition found balls with a diameter of 0.7 to 1 meter. The smallest one was raised and examined on the shore.

Geologists and historians concluded that the ball was artificially carved, and a “side” and an X-shaped cut were visible on its surface. Why did they make such balls that are too large for the most gigantic powder cannons, and for the most big catapults, unknown.

Boguchanskie balls by no means claim to be the most mysterious. For more than 60 years, scientists have been puzzling over their more famous and massive counterparts - stone balls from Costa Rica ( Central America) and other parts of South America.

(Some Boguchan balls lie cut into slices.)

In the forties of the last century, they were discovered by workers cutting down thickets for banana plantations. There are also placers of small balls 10 centimeters in diameter, and giant "statues" of three meters each, which weigh under 20 tons. The material is different - from volcanic rock to granite.

Some balls at the time of discovery looked as if they had recently been brought to the place. Others were partially buried. Or barely sticking out of the ground. And several copies were found at a depth of two meters. Nobody dug deeper. Nevertheless, it seemed as if the balls were crawling out of the bowels.

Arctic Champa Island- one of the most unique places on Earth - all strewn with strange, perfectly round stones.

Without pretending to the ultimate truth, we can draw the following preliminary conclusion. Of course, the stones from Champa can be classified as spherical nodules. Concretions - from the Latin word concretio- accretion, thickening.

These are concretions, rounded mineral formations in sedimentary rocks. Mineral grains, rock fragments, shells, teeth and bones of fish, and plant remains can be centers of such constriction.

Most of them are formed in porous sedimentary rocks - sands and clays. By structure, concentric-layered are most often found - as if composed of several shells.

They usually consist of calcium carbonates, iron oxides and sulfides, calcium phosphates, gypsum, and manganese compounds.

The formation of nodules occurs something like this: outgrowths appear on the walls, which, growing towards each other, close and form various shapes. On Earth, nodules are spherical, disc-shaped, less often found in the form of an ellipse or irregular - fused.

There are as many opinions about the origin of stone balls as there are researchers. According to Viktor Boyarsky, from every geologist who has ever visited Champa, he heard his explanation of this phenomenon.

Victor Boyarsky does not rule out that there are still places where spherical stones are concentrated on Franz Josef Land: “I would not be surprised if new expeditions report something like this. In geological terms, this corner of the planet is capable of presenting a lot of the most unexpected surprises.

Proximity mysterious civilizations and them places of worship like the pyramids naturally gives rise to supernatural hypotheses. Up to the fact that the balls were made by aliens either from outer space or from Atlantis. Or at least under their guidance.

After all, some actually find traces of processing. And inscriptions. And some of the balls from Costa Rica were originally lined with some kind of ornaments - it seems that their drawings corresponded to the location of the constellations.

However, now the finds have been rearranged, taken to private farmsteads and museums. And it is no longer possible to restore the previous picture.

The famous researcher of the anomalous and a great visionary, Erich von Däniken, generally dubbed the balls "balls played by the gods." Alluded to football. Although they are more suitable for playing golf or croquet.

Arctic Island Champ.

Old Ham would probably envy me. I am writing a diary, in front of me is a porthole in which I see the rocks of Champa Island. Two hours ago, when "Professor Molchanov" approached the island, located in the very center of Franz Josef Land, the sun came out from behind the clouds, illuminating the picture of incredible beauty. A lagoon surrounded on all sides by islands dotted with glaciers. Icebergs have become much larger, they are larger than those that we saw on the transition from Novaya Zemlya. Icebergs sparkle in the sun with the purest ice. Champa Island - I think it can be considered the heart of FJL. There is everything you need for impressions: a glacier, bird colonies, streams flowing like waterfalls from the mountains, our favorite saxifrage of bright purple color. And most importantly - spherulites, spherical concretions. Absolutely round stones seem to have been scattered by the giant owners of these places. And such places must have reliable owners who have guarded the secrets of the islands for thousands of years. How amazing it is to be in the heart of the Arctic and breathe in its crystal glacial air...

Our team is not alone. In the distance, the icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn is sailing out of the fog. Our tour leader, Viktor Boyarsky, agrees that we will be given two hours. We land on Champa Island. I want to capture everything - the landscape opening to the sea, the neighboring islands, the foothills of the black Champa Mountains, spherulites. You know, when you sit on a mountain and look into the distance, at the horizon, at icebergs the size of a five-story house, you understand HOW beautiful our planet is, how much we need to see, how much we need to feel in order to tell our friends and relatives later. The Arctic is a special place. This is where you need to meditate. Here you need to be respectful, meek and real. Otherwise you will break...

Today we have the equator of the expedition. Exactly a week behind, exactly a week left. If the first days everyone was in some kind of nervous state - they were worried whether everything would go according to plan, whether we would see walruses, a polar bear, and so on, now I don’t see a single person who would not smile. And the smiles became sincere, radiant. The cold Arctic cleanses us, removes the veneer of civilization, everything unnecessary and pretense.

…Birds scream in the sky, glaciers sparkle, mists envelop the ship in milk, we are happy. Champa Island will remain in my heart forever.

There is another question that still remains unanswered. Why are unusual stones found on this island? What did he like the gods, who decided to play with their gigantic balls? In 2007, Swiss traveler Thomas Ulrich discovered a large round boulder on the east coast of Nordbrook Island, in another part of the archipelago.

Whether he always lay here or in some incomprehensible way was moved from Champa, whether there are similar stones on other islands - all this remains to be seen by polar explorers.

Here you can see where else, and here is another mysterious Well, of course, here you can’t help but remember about The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -

Champ Island is one of the many islands of the Arctic archipelago of Franz Josef Land, which belongs to the most remote corners of Russia and is practically unexplored.

The territory of this island is relatively small (only 375 sq. km), and is attractive not so much for its picturesque, untouched by civilization, Arctic landscapes, but for the mysterious stone balls of rather impressive size and perfectly round shape, which make one lose one's guesses about their origin in these uninhabited regions. .

The island is dotted with many strange round stones of various sizes - from exceeding human height to very small - from a ping-pong ball; part is a perfect cannonballs. Many stones, due to the impact of strong winds, water and low temperatures, have lost their rounded shape, becoming like cobblestones.

Boulders of perfectly round shape, scattered all over the island, seem to grow out of the ground. Melting glaciers are exposing the surface of the island, washing out the rounded shapes. They are clearly not of volcanic origin, and in some of them, scientists have even found the teeth of ancient sharks.

Some balls seem to be buried in the ground, others just stand on the surface. Here you can also find many stones that look more like cobblestones - under the influence of wind, water and cold, they have lost their ideal roundness. When you look at this amazing picture, you get the impression that some giants once played football here.

To date, there are several theories of the origin of these mysterious balls, although each of them is imperfect, and generally does not answer the many questions associated with these mysterious objects of Champa Island. According to one version, these balls are the result of washing ordinary stones with water to such a perfectly rounded shape. But if with stones of small sizes this version still sounds plausible, then in the case of three-meter balls it is somehow not very convincing.

Some even tend to believe that these balls are the result of the activities of an extraterrestrial civilization or the mythical civilization of the Hyperboreans. There is no official version, and everyone who has visited the island creates his own theory of the origin of these mysterious balls.

Champ Island is popular with Arctic cruise travelers. Icebreakers specially stop for several hours near the island so that travelers can personally touch the mysterious "giants' balls" and get an unforgettable experience.

Location

Champa Island is one of the many islands of the Arctic archipelago of Franz Josef Land, which belongs to the most remote corners of Russia and is practically unexplored. The territory of this island is relatively small (only 375 sq. km), and is attractive not so much for its picturesque, untouched by civilization, arctic landscapes, as for the mysterious stone balls of rather impressive size and perfectly round shape, which make one get lost in numerous guesses about their origin on these uninhabited lands .

The island is littered with many strange round stones of various sizes - from exceeding human height to very small - the size of a ping-pong ball; part is a perfect cannonballs. Many stones, due to the impact of strong winds, water and low temperatures, have lost their rounded shape, becoming like cobblestones.

Boulders of perfectly round shape, scattered all over the island, seem to grow out of the ground. Melting glaciers are exposing the surface of the island, washing out the rounded shapes.

The spherulites of Champa Island are stones of densely compressed sand. They are clearly not of volcanic origin, and in some of them, scientists have even found the teeth of ancient sharks.

The dimensions of many balls reach several meters (some of them are difficult to cover completely even for three people), although there are also perfectly round stone balls here, several centimeters in diameter.

Some balls seem to be buried in the ground, others just stand on the surface. Here you can also find many stones that look more like cobblestones - under the influence of wind, water and cold, they have lost their ideal roundness.

When you look at this amazing picture, you get the impression that some giants once played football here.

To date, there are several theories of the origin of these mysterious balls, although each of them is imperfect and generally does not answer the many questions associated with these mysterious objects of Champa Island.

According to one version, these balls are the result of washing ordinary stones with water to such a perfectly rounded shape.

But if with stones of small sizes this version still sounds plausible, then in the case of three-meter balls it is somehow not very convincing.

Some even tend to believe that these balls are the result of the activities of an extraterrestrial civilization or the mythical civilization of the Hyperboreans. There is no official version, and everyone who has visited the island creates his own theory of the origin of these mysterious balls.

natural mystery

Franz Josef Land is not the only place on the planet where round stones are found. In South America and Northern Europe, they have long been the subject of close attention of geologists. In the forests of Costa Rica, when cutting down trees for banana plantations, stone balls came across here and there. And in the fall of 2003, Itogi correspondents found a huge plateau with spherical stones on Mangyshlak.

Balls are found both where people once lived or still live (as, for example, in Mexico), and where a person has never settled (the best example is Champa Island). This suggests that round stones can be of both natural and man-made origin - in some parts of the world, in ancient times, stones were specially processed for economic or architectural purposes. Some researchers even expressed the version that spherical stones are the work of space aliens, who have compiled some anagrams that have not yet been deciphered. But this is too exotic version ...

What do geologists think about this? Experts distinguish several types of stone balls: obsidian (dark volcanic glass), granite and sandstone. It is to the category of the latter, according to Sepp Friedhuber, that the amazing natural formations of Champa Island may belong:

- The geological department of the University of Hamburg is trying to figure out the phenomenon of round stones. The only thing that has been understood so far is that the stones “round up” very quickly. Their core is organic. I believe that they were born in sea water, formed in soft sediments from the remains of shells that once sunk and stuck in the sandy bottom. The shells consisted of quartzite, a sedimentary rock that, under the influence of heat or pressure, takes the form of a crystalline structure, and marcasite, a mineral that is a compound as a result of chemical reactions of iron and sulfur. And it was marcasite, as the analysis showed, that was the main connecting element in the balls. After Franz Josef Land rose from the depths of the sea, and the resulting glaciers began to melt, the sedimentary deposits were eroded, turning into these amazing stone forms as a result.

The well-known Russian polar explorer Viktor Boyarsky believes that the stones of Champa Island may be of organic origin, since they consist of sandstone: “This is a soft rock that can collapse. You, while on the island, will surely notice that some large stones have broken into two halves, and the largest stone is crumbling more and more every year.

There are as many opinions about the origin of stone balls as there are researchers. According to Viktor Boyarsky, from every geologist who has ever visited Champa, he heard his explanation of this phenomenon. Victor Boyarsky does not rule out that there are still places of concentration of spherical stones on Franz Josef Land: “I would not be surprised if new expeditions report something like this. In geological terms, this corner of the planet is capable of presenting a lot of the most unexpected surprises.

Why are the stone balls concentrated on the island of Champa, where did they come from…? There are many questions, but no answers have been found so far.