Reitze spoke with others at a press conference in Washington, DC this past week. The scientists announced they were able to see ripples in the fabric of spacetime.
Pretty much just three things: spacetime, particles, and the physical laws that describe how spacetime and those particles interact to give rise to gravity and matter and forces and everything else.
This is roughly analogous to the effect that a massive object such as the Sun(the iron ball) has on spacetime (the material): it stretches and curves and warps it.