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missionaries and 'enlightened' by continuous economic contacts with the west, the natives remained superstitious in their heart of hearts. Two archaeologists whom I questioned in the Museo Nacional of San Jose explained that the creation of the balls was connected with a star cult, perhaps too with calendar representations, and possibly with religious or magic signs. I needled away patiently, because these explanations did not satisfy me, but finally had to realise that the mystery of the balls was taboo to them, for some reason incomprehensible to me. As the archaeologists could not or would not help any further, I tried asking some of the Indians. Trained by my acquaintance with natives in many countries, I soon sensed that they were afraid of something as soon as die conversation came round to the balls. Nevertheless, it is extremely surprising that these poor creatures, who haggle over every centimo, would not guide me to a 1,800 foot-high cliff with three balls on top, no matter how much I offered them. Bubu was an exception. A German, who has owned the Pension Anna in San Jose for over forty years, is considered to be the man who possesses most material about the balls. He pulled out many impressive pictures, but behaved as if he had to keep the secret of some buried treasure. He showed me sketches of formations and groupings of balls, but refused to give their exact location. I was not even allowed to copy his sketches. 'No, it's out of the question,’ was his inevitable reply. Even if I had not known it beforehand, I should have realised during my stay in Costa Rica that there is a mystery about the stone balls. I could not solve it, but my suspicion increased that the prehistoric balls and all the pictures of them in reliefs and on cave walls are directly linked with the visit of unknown intelligences, of intelligences who landed on our planet in a ball. They already knew and had proved that the sphere is the most suitable shape for interstellar space flights. . One day in the not too distant future the long journey back to the stars will start from our planet, and probably in spherical space-craft, because the sphere is the most natural of all shapes for the flight into the universe.