These large stone spheres in the Franz Josef archipelago leave scientists flummoxed.

Visitors to this cosmic landscape named the round rocks ‘footballs of the Gods’. The huge stone balls up to two metres in height are found on appropriately-named Champ island above the polar circle.

Perfectly spherical they are scattered all over this northern uninhabited outpost.

The barren 374 km2 (144 sq miles) island was never inhabited and scientists cannot agree how they were formed.

Similar but smaller stone balls were found last year on Heiss island in the same archipelago.

On Heiss island ‘the spherulites look like round bullets or cannon balls. We found balls of different sizes, but none as big as at Champ island.’

As previous reports have noted every geologist seems to have their own theory.

Austrian geologist Sepp Fridhubera claimed the rounded shapes of the rocks were formed underwater and they have an organic core in the centre.

Similar round stones were discovered in Volgograd, Costa Rica (more pictures here), New Zealand, China, Bosnia, and South Africa. Another unexplained nature phenomenon in a remote area around the world.

Sources: SiberianTimes.com; StrangeSounds.org