Before we start this episode, I'd just like to clarify that, contrary to what I said a few episodes back, season six will not be finishing this week, but we'll be continuing for a few more weeks yet, So apologies to everyone for any confusion. Now, with that out the way, welcome to Unexplained Extra with me Richard McClain Smith, where for the weeks in between episodes, we look at stories and ideas that, for one reason or other, didn't make
it into the previous show. In last week's episode, Fire in the Belly, we ventured into the murky realm of alleged spontaneous human combustion, or SHC as it is often referred to. I was inspired to make the episode in part due to a recent tweet I saw remarking on how prevalent these stories used to be and how rarely we hear about them today. Certainly compared to tales of apparent hauntings or UFO sightings, for example, that continue to crop up, modern cases of apparent SHC do seem increasingly
rare that we might notice. This is perhaps due to just how memorable these types of stories are when you first come across them. Perhaps flicking through an old copy of The Unexplained Magazine or the Fourteen Times. For me, it was always the strange and shocking images that came with the stories that really made them stick out in the mind. All those disembodied limbs poking incongruously out of large piles of ash, rendered all the more strange by
their often banal and domestic settings. That being said, a proposed case of spontaneous human combustion was put forward as recently as two thousand and ten, when the partially cremated remains of seventy six year old Michael Fahatty were found in his home in Gorway, Ireland in December of that year.
Although Fahatty's body was found close to an open fireplace, local fire officer Jerry O'Malley concluded that this had not been the cause of Fahaty's death, with no traces of any fire accelerant found on or close to the body either. Coroner doctor Kieran McLaughlin even went as far as to declare that this fire was thoroughly investigated and I'm left with the conclusion that it fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion, for which there is no adequate explanation.
Our extra episode this week also involves a fire revealing something peculiar in its wake. Its tenuous connection to last week's episode is that, like the story of Mary Reesa, it also took place in Florida, albeit at the remove of two hundred and thirty miles and twenty three years up in the northeastern corner of Fort George, Ireland in Jacksonville, Florida, surrounded by sprawling woodlands of Spanish moss draped trees, sits the steadily crumbling ruin of a strange property known variously
as Neff House and Betts Castle. The eccentric Tudor Star mansion, complete with its own turret, was commissioned in nineteen twenty six by Nettleton Neff, a wealthy estate agent from Chicago who wanted it built as a place for him and his family to escape the harsh winters. Six months into its development, however, Nettleton's wife, Catherine, was killed in a fire while staying at another of the family's properties in Michigan.
The house was eventually finished in nineteen twenty seven, but perhaps owing to the fallout from his wife's death, by June twenty eight had remained completely empty when tragedy once again struck the family. Catherine and Nettleton's son Wayne, was studying at Harvard University when he went missing from his halls of residence. Two weeks later, he was found hanging from a tree on the outskirts of Stonington, Connecticut, having
seemingly committed suicide. And it was only three years after that that Nettleton neff locked himself in his office at the Railway Exchange Building in Chicago and shot himself through the head. Despite not one member of the neph family having so much as visited the New Florida property in all that time, it inevitably retained something of the macabre
aura associated with the unfortunate family. All that would soon be expunged, however, when the house passed first to the Merrill family and then in nineteen sixty seven to Jerry and Anton Betts. Though some might have been put off by the house's tangential history, Jerry had a good feeling about it. Ever since she was a child, Jerry had considered herself blessed with an innate, perhaps even God given
sense of intuition. Back in nineteen sixty at the age of twenty seven and raising six children at the time. Jerry had used that same intuition when she decided to take on the finance payments of her soon to be ex husband's truck and trailer. Within a few years, she turned that single truck into a fleet of transport vehicles and launched her own trucking service, making her a millionaire in the process. However, not even Jerry could have foreseen
the events that were soon to her family. In spring nineteen seventy four, a wildfire ripped through a large section of bush and woodland close to the beds it's home. The next morning, Jerry and her twenty one year old son, Terry Matthews went out to inspect the damage when in a large patch of smoldering bush, Terry noticed something peculiar, a perfectly round metallic orb that appeared to have been
left exposed by the fire. Moving closer to inspect it, Terry could see it was roughly the size of a bowling ball, but when he picked it up it seemed significantly heavier. Terry called his mother over to take a look at it, but with the temperature quickly dropping and a light rain beginning to fall, she suggested they'd take
it act to the house. Over the next few days, the family speculated about what it might be, believing that it was most likely an old cannonball, perhaps left over from one of the many skirmishes that occurred in the region in the sixteenth century. But the something strange happened a few days after finding the object. Terry was tuning his guitar near it when it began to resonate with a peculiar hum, as if it were reflecting the notes
right back at him. Then things got even weirder. One day, the sound of an organ was heard drifting through the extensive property, but the family had no such instrument in the house. Doors also began to slam off their own accord while on more than one occasion, a glass fell from a cupboard and smashed on the floor and the
ball started to move. It isn't clear how it began, but at some point the family noticed that when the ball was rolled into motion, it would suddenly stop, then move back or off to the side, before returning to the original spot. Best Fiends is a new, fun packed, free to download mobile game with thousands of exciting levels for new adventures every time you play. With your band of cute creature heroes, match and solve thousands of fun puzzles as you take down your slug enemies and blast
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the our Best Fiends. Lou Egner was working as a photojournalist for the Florida Times Union paper when they were contacted by Jerry Betts requesting that a reporter be sent out to her home to take a look at the mysterious sphere that her son had found. When Lou arrived at the property, he was immediately shown into the living room and introduced to the ball. Jerry handed it to Lou and then stepped back, instructing him to roll it
toward her on the ground. Lou Julie obliged, only for the ball to run out of steam half way between them. O K said Lou, So what Jerry held up her hand? Just wait, she said. A moment later, Lou watched with stunned amazement as the ball, seemingly of its own accord, began to move again, first rolling four feet to the right, Then, after stopping dead again, it began to roll back the other way, about eight feet before completing a wide arc
of the ground and arriving back at Lou's feet. The bets of Matthew's family story first appeared in the Florida Times Union on April eleventh, under the headline bizarre sphere is Castle's latest mystery happening. Lou Egna described it as the darndest thing he'd ever seen. After the article broke, the family were besieged by other people who were also
desperate to see it. For themselves. Ron Kivet, host of local radio show Tales of Strange Things, who was one of the fortunate ones to get a look at it, described seeing the ball move of its own accord across a glass topped coffee table, with the ball rolling right up to the table's edge, but inexplicably not rolling off it.
When a TV crew arrived to film it, Jerry suggested they put the family's poodle next to it to provide a sense of scale, but as soon as the dog got near it, it immediately started to whimper and tried desperately to cover its ears with its paws. Carl Wilson, a self styled independent researcher from an organization called Omega minus one based out of bat and Rouge, declared the ball to have its own magnetic field and that, incredibly,
it was even transmitting its own radio signal. Jerry Bets convinced the US Navy, who operated a base not far from the bets Is home, to conduct a formal analysis of the object without wanting to break it. However, they found only that it was hollow, with a half inch thick shell made from a high grade stainless steel. It was eight inches in diameter and weighed approximately twenty two pounds.
A curious three millimeter wide triangular mark was also found amongst the scuffs and scratches on its outer shell, but since the object was not US naval property, they made no further effort to identify it and simply returned it to the family. As the mystery deepened, some began to speculate if the object was in fact not from this world.
In March nineteen seventy two, the National Inquirer agreed to put up fifty thousand dollars to the first person who submitted proof that an unidentified flying object came from outer space and was not a natural phenomenon. The pledge had been announced in collaboration with famed UFO investigator j Allen Heineck, who, after spending twenty years helping the US Air Force to debunk UFO sightings, had by then become much more sympathetic
to the potential truth of the UFO phenomenon. Hei Neeck expressed interest in the sphere, and, having told Jerry that he was due to attend a National Inquirer event in New Orleans, Jerry saw an opportunity to submit the sphere as a possible contender for the fifty thousand dollar prize. With Terry driving this beer up to New Orleans, the Inquirer convened a five person panel led by high Neck
to inspect it. Sadly, however, high Neck and his colleagues failed to find anything unusual about it at all, and so the Sphere and Terry returned home empty handed. Not long after, news of the mysterious bet Sphere, as it would come to be known, came to light, another Jacksonville resident, Lottie Robinson, came across the story in the Palm Beach Post.
Robinson just so happened to have her own steel ball, which had been given to her son by a family friend fifteen years before, but was by then collecting dust in her garage. Robinson contacted the Palm Beach Post to let them know that her ball had previous being identified as a decidedly earthly piece of industrial equipment, being part of a large valve and pipe system used for distributing
corrosive liquids. Robinson's mundane suggestion was then backed up by Robert Edwards, the president of a Jacksonville equipment supply company who'd purchased many similar items. It was a short time after this that artist James Darling Jones was alerted to the steadily growing mystery. Darling Jones perhaps allowed himself a wry smile when, on hearing the story, he remembered a
trip he'd taken through Jacksonville a few years previously. Back in the spring of nineteen seventy one, Darling Jones was driving through Fort George Island, not far from the Betts family's home, with a van load of scrap materials he'd acquired for a series of sculptures he'd planned to make. It was only when he got home that he realized some of the material had fallen off the roof rack
of his vw. The pieces in question several hollow steel balls, measuring eight inches in diameter and weighing approximately twenty two pounds. If you enjoy Unexplained and would like to help supporters, you can now do so via Patreon. To receive access to add three episodes, just go to patron dot com forward slash Unexplained pod to sign up Unexplained. The book and audiobook, featuring ten stories that have never before been covered on the show, is now available to buy worldwide.
You can purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores. All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced by me Richard M. Plain Smith. Please subscribe and rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share.
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