I'm open to the concept of alien visitors but not convinced they would travel across the galaxy just to annoy US naval aviators.
As for the metal ball from another world, interesting that it weighed exactly 50.0 lbs. It must be nice for the Americans to know that the imperial system is use on other planets. Honestly though, these alien metal balls have been put forward as proof of UFOs before. They generally turn out to be the ball part of industrial check valves, used in chemical plants and paper manufacturing.
