The rolling ball phenomenon is an inexplicable phenomenon that is characteristic mainly of the post-Soviet space. In the West, few people know about him. Therefore, a foreigner is sincerely surprised when he hears about this anomaly from our compatriots or he himself unexpectedly encounters it, spending the night in some panel "Khrushchev" on the outskirts of the city.
“Yes, you have a real ghost on the floor above,” a poorly slept foreign guest informs the owners the next morning. And he seems to be joking, but you can see from the eyes that he is in no small measure puzzled. Residents of the far abroad are generally accustomed to the maximum comfort in everyday life and, almost something wrong, immediately declare that there is a native of the other world in the house. Perhaps that is why such jokes in their mouths sound somewhat tense …
Small town mystery
This phenomenon occurs, as a rule, in old panel houses, however, some claim that they encountered it in brick buildings. The phenomenon consists in the fact that a person wakes up in the middle of the night from distinct sounds, presumably emitted by a metal ball falling on a flat surface, which then jumps slightly and rolls to the side several times. It always seems to the awakened that the action with the ball takes place on the floor above.
Of course, the thought immediately comes to mind that the ball fell to the floor of the neighbors living above. However, why does he make such sounds as if there is no floor covering in their apartment? And why in the dead of night, when all normal people are asleep? How does a metal ball manage to spontaneously "jump" onto the floor at night? And, finally, what to think of someone who lives on the top floor and above it there is only an attic and a roof with antennas?..
Such cases are far from being isolated; there are a great many witnesses of the rolling ball phenomenon. As soon as the next of them write about their observations on some forum, other users remember that they also once encountered a similar phenomenon. Commentators share their experience with each other in all details, argue heatedly, put forward their own theories (sometimes supernatural), but do not come to a consensus. Various hypotheses are put forward, but no one has yet managed to reveal this secret once and for all.
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Was there a ball?
The most popular version is that it is the temperature stress in the reinforcement of reinforced concrete structures that is to blame.
We are talking, in particular, about reinforced concrete slabs and other floors with air voids. During the daytime, these structures heat up and deform due to thermal expansion. Stress appears in the reinforcement cage - metal rods are slightly compressed or bent. (The strength of the building does not suffer from this, since such deformations are provided by the builders.)
And when night falls, the house cools down - and the temperature of the concrete structures drops. At this moment, the relaxation of the reinforcement can abruptly occur, which will sound to the people below like a heavy ball falling on a hard surface. This is followed by the vibrational return of the metal to its original position - and now the surprised tenant can already hear that the phantom ball has rolled somewhere.
The propagation of sound is facilitated both by the material of structures (anyone who lives in a panel house will confirm this property of reinforced concrete to you), and by the abundance of voids in it. Together, these factors give rise to what is called acoustic resonance.
Why is the relaxation of the reinforcement in a separate ceiling audible only to those under it? Firstly, in every apartment there is some kind of covering on the floor: carpet, linoleum, parquet or chipboard. Floor coverings absorb this noise for people on top. And secondly, the ceiling is a kind of membrane or "sound mirror" for the room, reflecting sounds just like a mirror reflects light rays.
This theory is also supported by the fact that the rolling ball phenomenon usually manifests itself at a time of the year when the difference between day and night temperatures is especially great.
By the way, in houses with wooden floors, this phenomenon is observed even more often, but the sounds are different there. As the wood cools, residents can hear loud squeaks, sighs, footsteps and other acoustic attributes of haunted houses in the silence.
Other explanations for the phenomenon
There are other versions explaining this phenomenon. So, some believe that the whole thing is in the welding spatter and slag that remain in the heating pipes after construction and repair. Water drives this debris along the horizontal sections of the pipes, but it is too heavy to rise up the vertical risers. Therefore, they allegedly throw garbage in them and twist them in every possible way. If a large weld ball "successfully" gets into the bend, it can bryak there for six months or even more, until constant friction turns it into dust.
Others explain this phenomenon by the noise of a failing elevator, the sounds of a closet opening and closing at the neighbors above, the tricks of rats living in the walls, and so on. Despite this, the falling ball is heard even where there is no elevator and cabinets with wheels, and no one has ever seen rodents. Some people believe that it is a cat or dog in the apartment upstairs playing with some metal objects at night. Needless to say, such people are very surprised when they find out that the neighbors above do not have any pets.
Of course, there are also mystical hypotheses on this score, and in a great variety. Ghosts, aliens, brownies, gnomes and bastards - whoever "born in the USSR" does not blame for their nightly antics with a ghost ball!..