Authorities are perplexed by a curious iron sphere that washed up on a Japanese beach, and it has sparked a stir on social media.
According to public broadcaster NHK, a metal ball with a diameter of around five feet recently surfaced on Enshuhama Beach in the coastal city of Hamamatsu.
A local resident told the source that the ball had been there for more than a month until a passerby reported it to authorities on Saturday, according to the outlet.
However, the police determined that it was not explosive after the authorities performed an X-ray test, according to a New York Times report (NYT).
A buoy is just a sizable, spherical piece of scrap metal that is used to mark locations or direct mariners in the ocean.
Officials in helmets and biohazard gear roped off the area when the buoy washed up on the coast, even placing a traffic cone on the sand to deter onlookers.
The precaution spread rumours that the call could have been an old seaborne mine or a spying device. The strange discovery was made at a time when the international media was already on high alert following many reports of ‘balloons’ in the skies of the US and Canada.
