A Detroit man has built the world’s largest rubber band ball, weighing 11,578 pounds (5,251.69 kilograms), after working on the project for 11 years. Guinness World Records formally announced the milestone on 3 November 2026, confirming that Claude P. Moore had shattered the previous benchmark.
Moore began the ball in 2015 with just two rubber bands. He picked up the hobby as a child with haemophilia, twisting rubber bands in hospital waiting rooms, and later made one as large as a chair in middle school before a classmate stole it. Co-workers later encouraged him to start the record attempt.
Weighed by crane at Belle Isle
On 29 August 2026, volunteers, family members and friends gathered at Detroit’s historic Belle Isle for the official weighing. A crane hoisted the ball while a digital scale measured it, and Guinness adjudicator Chloe McCarthy watched as the reading settled at 5,251.69 kilograms, or exactly 11,578 pounds.
Guinness described the weight as comparable to that of an adult African elephant. The ball remains in a storage container in Detroit. Moore’s creation beat the previous record of 9,032 pounds (4,097 kilograms), set by Florida resident Joel Waul in 2008, by more than 2,500 pounds.
Eleven years of patience
The record listing on the Guinness website gives the measurement date as 29 August 2026 at Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan. UPI reported the story on 3 November 2026, the same day Guinness published its feature on the record. The long build time, from two bands in 2015 to an elephant-sized sphere in 2026, is part of what made the story travel so widely.
Moore’s ball is not the first unusual record to capture attention this month, but its sheer scale sets it apart. A rubber band ball that weighs more than five tonnes is, by any measure, an unlikely monument to patience. The previous holder, Joel Waul, had held the title since 2008, so Moore’s ball ends an 18-year reign and raises the bar by more than a quarter. Guinness published a feature on the record on 3 November 2026, and the story was picked up widely the same week, in part because the weighing itself, with a crane, a crowd and a digital scale, looked more like a construction project than a hobby. For now the ball stays in storage, too heavy to move casually and too famous to throw away.
