‘What are these?’: Aussies stumped by bizarre metal park hoop

Aussies have been left baffled by an odd feature that emerged in a Perth park. One even joked that they look like “Teletubby graves”.

Teletubby graves? Kiddie Quidditch? Drone racing checkpoints? What on earth are these strange hoops recently appearing in a Perth park?

Pictures posted to a Perth Reddit thread have sparked confusion and hilarious discussion as the poster asks: “What are these?”

The photos showed several metal metre-tall hoops across a park in the Perth suburb of Balcatta, north of the CBD.

These strange objects sparked confusion on Reddit. Picture: Reddit

Each hoop had four evenly spaced bars protruding from the ring.

From the front on, the hoops look not dissimilar from a rifle’s crosshairs.

Plenty on the thread had a facetious guess.

“Teletubby graves,” one wrote.

“Kiddie Quidditch,” another joked.

Another took the rouse a step further.

“They’re called Earth Locks,” they wrote.

“Think of (it) like a wing nut to hold the northern hemisphere together with the southern hemisphere.”

As it turned out, they were new ball targets at Balcatta's Rickman Delawney Reserve in Perth. Picture: Reddit

“They are routinely checked and re-tensioned because if they come a bit loose, the gooey bit inside our planet will start to fly out around the equator from the force of rotation.”

But the answer lay in a City of Stirling consultation report.

“The ball targets are metal hoops of varying sizes situated on the grass hillside,” the city said in response to a community comment that stated, “The ball targets I’m also not a fan of because I think they will look ugly.”

Ball targets do what they say on the box, allowing users to practice their ball-throwing or passing skills.

The targets were part of a 2022 upgrade to the Rickman Delawney Reserve, which included a raft of play equipment and upgraded facilities.