Abstarct: A body descending through a fluid is defined as a classic problem in fluid mechanics, resulting in the appearance of a vertical jet along with the descent centerline. The problem of a body movement in a fluid has been investigating since a long time ago, showing its importance in fluid mechanics. The movement of submarines, applicable to numerous industrial processes, suspensions and torpedoes in a fluid ambient are of important cases regarding a body moving in a fluid. In the present experimental work, a steel ball settling into free-surface non-Newtonian Boger and Newtonian fluids is studied. In the conducted experiments the effects of hydrophilicity and hydrophobicity of a 5-mm steel ball on displacement, velocity, acceleration, hydrodynamic force coefficient, generation of the cavity, and the pinch-off point are studied. Results reveal that the volume of cavity generated due to the fall of hydrophobic balls is larger than that for hydrophilic balls and, consequently, these hydrophobic surfaces experience more buoyancy-drag force. In addition, the forces due to the added mass and viscosity also affect the overall drag force, which causes that under the same conditions, the total drag of the hydrophilic sphere is higher than the hydrophobic sphere. Furthermore, regardless of the type of the ball’s surface, comparisons which are made for the dimensionless Reynolds number equal to 1.7, and the dimensionless Capillary number equal to 4.24 revel this fact that at these numbers, the non-Newtonian Boger fluid undergoes higher drag force than the corresponding amount in the Newtonian fluid.