The Colombian town of Buga was already on the map, not for science, but for faith. Its Basilica of the Miraculous Lord draws thousands of Catholic pilgrims annually. But since March 2, 2025, a different kind of believer has been making the journey.
A reported incident that morning, a fast-descending object, a farmer's field, a seamless metallic sphere, has refused to stay local. For the last one year, a monument stands in Buga. Now, UFO tourists reportedly outnumber pilgrims on some weekends. And a second video, surfacing in January 2026, has reignited a story that science has yet to properly close.
The question worth asking: has anything actually been proven?
When Farmer José Arias Restrepo told local reporters he recovered a metallic sphere, roughly football-sized, from his land after hearing a loud explosion, early accounts surfaced online describing the object as cold to the touch, completely seamless with no visible welds, joints, or screws. It weighed initially around 2 kg before reportedly registering closer to 10 kg.
None of these claims have been verified by independent laboratories. No certified measurement data, no chain-of-custody documentation, and no peer-reviewed analysis has been publicly released to confirm weight fluctuations or thermal anomalies. As of today, they remain anecdotal.
Scientific Claims Remain Invalidated But Intriguing
Reports attributed to independent researchers suggested X-ray scans revealed multiple concentric layers, with a core containing smaller spherical structures. A portable spectrometer analysis reportedly indicated a titanium-based alloy containing, as some accounts put it, "unknown elements."
That last claim deserves particular scrutiny. Modern spectroscopy is highly sensitive, unidentified readings typically point to calibration error, surface contamination, or misinterpretation, not undiscovered materials.
Without reproducible testing published in a recognised scientific journal, these findings carry little evidential weight.
The Maussan Factor
The sphere's path to global attention ran through Jaime Maussan, the Mexican journalist and longtime UFO commentator who featured it on his program Tercer Milenio. Maussan has previously promoted alleged extraterrestrial artefacts that were subsequently debunked, a track record that has led much of the scientific community to approach his associations with caution.
Reddit's r/UFOs community turned the Buga Sphere into a crowdsourced investigation, pixel-level photo analysis, AI-assisted symbol decoding, round-the-clock speculation. Online communities can occasionally surface useful anomalies. They are also structurally prone to confirmation bias.
On Markings, Symbols, Images
Images of markings on the sphere's surface circulated widely. No credible linguistic or cryptographic analysis has established them as a structured writing system.
Experts routinely caution that humans are neurologically predisposed to find patterns in random or geometric shapes. The phenomenon, known as pareidolia, explains a great deal of what the internet has confidently "decoded."
Julia Mossbridge of the University of San Diego stated publicly that the object's appearance suggests human fabrication. She urged submission to rigorous frameworks such as the Galileo Project, the Harvard-led initiative that insists on controlled, transparent, reproducible analysis of unidentified aerial phenomena, precisely the standards currently absent from the Buga case.
Historical Footnote, Not Precedent
Mysterious spheres are not new. The 1561 celestial event over Nuremberg and the 1566 sighting over Basel each produced eyewitness accounts of glowing orbs in the sky. Historians now read those episodes as a combination of atmospheric optics, cultural anxiety, and symbolic interpretation, not visitations. Every era, it seems, encounters the unexplained object it is psychologically primed to see.
A press conference in June 2025, featuring ufologist Steven Greer and U.S. Congressman Eric Burlison, generated renewed interest but produced no verifiable evidence. The January 2026 video showing a similar orb in flight has not undergone independent forensic analysis either.
Researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) have found some weird things in the sphere.
UNAM Analysis of the Buga Sphere
- Fiber-optic-like network inside, 2000x magnification confirmed
- Connects surface copper contacts to core, possible signal transmission system
- Material unknown transparent substance with ultra-low optical loss, beyond current tech
- Outerlayer is titanium-like alloy, unknown ultra-light elements, survived 400°C flame
- Middle has self-healing micropores, damaged areas restored within 48 hours
- Core has 18 microspheres in symmetry, radioactive isotopes with ~12,000-year half-life
- Weighs from 2kg, to 10kg later and now stabilised at 6kg (solid metal equivalent = ~80kg)
- Still gaining 0.1% mass daily
- Electromagnetic pulse detected during weight shifts, zero external energy input
- Surface feels 4°C constantly, but vaporises water on contact
- Internal temp exceeds 150°C, heat doesn't conduct outward
- Surrounding vegetation permanently dehydrated; soil in abnormal anion concentration
- UNAM confirmed sphere offsets gravity via self-generated electromagnetic field
- Theoretically needs 12 Tesla (20x an MRI machine) but no magnetic leakage
- Grass within 3m died for 3+ months; soil microorganism activity near zero
- People who handled it reported dizziness, vomiting
- DNA testing showed non-ionizing damage to lymphocytes
- Ionization field weakening 3% monthly
- Radioactive isotopes show zero decay, mechanism unknown
- University of Georgia unit dated it to 12,560 years ago, Younger Dryas period
- Predates any known advanced civilisation on Earth
- Seamless construction, dynamic mass, thermodynamic isolation, unknown technology
- UNAM evidence points to non-artificial (non-human) origin
The team says the sphere has a central nucleus, being referred to as "a chip.' It has three layers of metal-like material and 18 microspheres surrounding the nucleus.
Rodolfo Garrido, an engineer with the UNAM team, says it seems like a strong, decaying ionised field from the Buga sphere might have had that effect on the grass.
Reports said that it has fibres of an optical fibres of optical nature, though it has not been stated whether the university has openly endorsed its alien origin.
Dr Julia Mossbridge, a cognitive neuroscientist and a researcher of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), refuted the theories being built around the sphere about its alien origin. "The sphere itself seems kind of like an art project," that she said, "only humans can do."
As of now, there is no confirmed evidence the Buga Sphere is extraterrestrial. There is equally no publicly available data proving it a hoax, an art installation, or a misidentified industrial component. But the Buga town has already built its own mythology around it, that remains exactly what it has always been: not a discovery, but a very well-travelled rumor, which may gain currency until controlled scientific testing proves it otherwise.
