Orbs

Dave_h · Orbs

Orbs

Introduction

Anyone who has any interest at all in the paranormal, and investigating it, will have come across Orbs at least once. Even complete novices will have come across these strange light anomalies.
They tend to show up on photos, more often than not taken on a digital camera with a night shot facility.
They will show up as small balls of light, and can either be see through or solid, big or small, and in a variety of colours.
Not only do they appear in still photography, but night vision digital video cameras and even web cams have been known to pick them up. I have seen many an Orb photo, and caught lots of them on video as well.
In one instance, I caught a very strange light anomaly at an abandoned church. I am not too sure whether to term it as an orb, as it is slightly larger than the usual orbs captured on video. It looks more like a ribbon, moving slowly through the air. It appeared from nowhere, and disappeared into nowhere again, and was only visible for a few seconds. I did not see anything at the time of recording, and I am at a loss for any explanation as to what it could be. I also captured more of the standard types of orbs on the same footage at the location, and they were plentiful and strong in density.

At another location, this time an outdoor location near to where I live I caught another Orb on still photo. It was taken during the daytime and only shows up on one photo, out of about twenty photos taken.
It appears to be very bright blue in colour and is easily visible on the picture. The interesting factor to look at is that it does only appear once, out if twenty or so photos of the location. In most other cases, orbs show up on many photos taken at one location. I have been known to take over 120 photos, and get orbs in as many as thirty or forty pictures.

What are Orbs?

Orbs have been described by believers in the paranormal as spirit energy. It is a widely believed factor within paranormal circles, that spirits or ghosts need energy to manifest. They take this energy from investigators, their equipment, or even the electrical circuits of appliances within the haunted location.
This is what most paranormal investigators would put sudden drainage of batteries, or erratic behaviour of appliances down to, it’s the spirits drawing the energy they need to manifest.
It is widely though that the balls of light seen in the pictures, or on video, is the energy coming together to form the manifestation. As to what could cause the colours, I cannot say. Some people believe the colour of the orb represents the personality of the spirit manifesting, such as a blue orb, meaning that the spirit is of good nature, and comes in peace.
I think this is more of wishful thinking myself. How could a colour tell you anything about an intention or a persona? I don’t think it could. Again, this is just my opinion, and you are all welcome to express your own opinions, with being ridiculed by others.

Sceptics would argue that these light anomalies that show up on photographs and videos are merely dust particles, or insects reflecting the flash from the stills camera, or the Ultra violet light off of a night vision camera. These are very likely explanations, and this does prove to be the case in several pictures that have been misreported as being paranormal in nature.
One of the first things you need to look at when analysing an apparent Orb photograph, is the location in which the photo was taken.
Was it a dusty environment?
Was it an outside location?
Is there anymore than one of these Orbs in the picture?
Do they vary in colour from each other?
What can be seen that may represent an apparent cause for the phenomena?

These and many other questions need to be answered before you can even think about jumping to a paranormal conclusion. Once you have answered all the questions, maybe a visit back to the location in question and in good light might be in order. Whilst at the location, have a good look around the immediate vicinity that the Orb showed up in, and look for anything that may have reflected the flash or UV of any photographic equipment you were using at the time?
Take further photos or video footage of the location, and see if the phenomena appear again the second time around.
Many investigators (including myself) get several photos of orbs in the same location, so going back to all of the areas in question is not always possible, or even practical.
That’s why it’s always a good idea to try and get at least two investigations of any location. You can look at the results of the first location, and then see if you can replicate them on the second follow up investigation. If they can be recreated, then they are more than likely not of a paranormal nature. However, if these pictures can not be recreated, and no other explanation can be found to account for the cause, it may be necessary to log this as a paranormal occurrence.

Possible Natural Orb Causes

Now we have looked at what an Orb is believed to be, let’s take a brief look at what some of the natural explanations could be.

I mentioned two above, Dust, is present in most locations, and when blown about on a breeze, can give the effect that it is flying, and also when it moves in and out of a cameras UV beams, can give the effect that it is appearing, and disappearing again. This is something that needs to be looked out for when video surveillance of the area is being conducted.
Also mentioned above are insects. They are everywhere, and move erratically too. These will look like Orbs in front of Ultra Violet night vision beams of Digital Video Cameras, make sure you rule out the possibility of insects, or even try to reduce the chances of insects in the immediate area before you start recording. I know this may not be possible all the time, so on the occasions when insects can not be prevented from entering the area, at least look to see if there are any about before hand.
This is impossible in outdoor locations, as are controls for most Para psychological experiments; this is why I try not to do too many outdoor investigations personally.

What does the paranormal community think?

What does the wider community, interested in the paranormal think of Orbs? I decided to ask, via the internet. I went to several online paranormal discussion groups and forums, and asked what people think Orbs are? And what could be causing them?
The answers I received back were remarkably similar, with most people claiming that Orbs are Spirit energy, and more people actually attributed some of the more natural causes. Most of the replies I did receive noted the point that 90% of Orb photos can be explained in terms of natural phenomena, such as dust, insects, vapour, pollen etc. This shows that a lot of people are more willing to except natural explanations as opposed to jumping straight into a paranormal one. This can only be good for the investigative community, as it shows that there are investigators that are willing to be open minded. I have come across people in the past that would swear down, and remain adamant that Orbs are in fact ghosts. I had one person reply saying that Orbs are “The travelling form for many entities“. I asked the person in question, what they based this claim on, in terms of evidence to support it, and not surprisingly, the person could produce no evidence to substantiate her claim.
The person in question, then went on to say that they are a psychic in the early stages of development, and that she had little experience with Orbs, they also said that many other of her friends who are experienced psychics have interacted with Orbs, and even watched them evolve in shape into a more recognisable form.

Another reply claimed that 90% of Orbs can be attributed to one of three things,

Flash reflecting off dust or pollen. These are usually seen as grey or white nucleus looking forms, and are typically perfect circles. Pollen will show up as misshapen and yellow blobs.

Flashes reflecting off rain, snow or humidity in the air will show up almost the same as what dust will, except it may have a tint of a colour around the edge of the Orb
Light reflection, this is easy to spot, however some people may try to pass it off as paranormal.

Orbs will also usually produce their own light source, as opposed to reflecting on from a flash.

All the replies I received are more or less what I expected, and I have heard most of them before. However, they all have one thing in common, none of the spiritual reasons for Orbs have ever been scientifically proven, and indeed apart from the word of Psychic Mediums, there is no real evidence to support these theories. So this will inevitably lead to the question, where did these theories originate?
This is another question without a definite answer, and it is very difficult to track down who originally came up with this theory, and why they thought it in the first place. It is a theory that has been told through out the centuries, and there is little evidence remaining to track back to the beginning of it, therefore, it is a question that will remain unanswered.

An interesting fact that I have found from investigations, is that there seems to be very little measurements on most of the equipment. EMF meters are supposed to measure Electro-magnetic Field fluctuations, would this not count as energy? And if Orbs were energy, as suggested, this would surely provoke some kind of reading on the EMF meter. One thing is for sure, the presence of Orbs on photo or film, is by no means proof of a haunting, and Orb type phenomena is very rarely accompanied by any other type of paranormal phenomena. Some believers would say this is due to the very beginning of the energy building up, is not strong enough to produce such phenomena. We need to be asking if this is simply some kind of excuse or if it actually holds water as an explanation?

Orbs captured on Video footage can be a very interesting subject. It is really quite easy to distinguish between Orbs and dust on video. I have got a lot of Orb footage from several investigations. On one such piece of footage, you can clearly see what look like Orbs, coming from a wall. The area this footage was shot in was in fact a basement/cellar. It was a very dusty environment, but when you look at the footage closely, I actually move around the area where the footage was shot. When I first get down to the cellar, there are numerous Orbs, and they appear to come from no where, they are numerous and very bright, last only a second or two, before disappearing again. Whilst I am filming these Orbs (and I didn’t actually see them on the screen at the time I was filming) I move forwards and walk through the area, this you would expect to create more dust movement. However, when I get back to my original start position and film back across where I have just walked; there is no sign of Orbs, or anything else for that matter.
If the original Orbs caught on the footage were merely dust, then I would have thought that my walking through the area would have created more, instead of actually stopping the appearance, as it did. If these Orbs were dust, why is there not a larger amount after I have walked through that area, and stirred up more dust? You tell me.
This is not the only piece of Orb activity on the tape; there are also a couple of Orbs taken in a separate part of the cellar, although this time not quite so many. The Orbs taken in the other piece of footage, was actually shot while the light in the area was on, and not in UV or night vision. This automatically rules out the chances of dust reflecting off UV rays, as there were none.
The area was in a cellar, so it was fairly dusty, but the Orbs appears very close to the video camera, and is very faint. The fact that it is faint is a bit of a down side as it ups the chance of it being a reflection off of something, however; the movement of the Orbs would suggest other whys.

Summary

So, to look back over what we have covered in this paper, we have looked at what the scientists think about orbs, and some of the causes they would offer for their explanation. These mainly consist of Dust, Insects, vapour, pollen, fibre and anything else that may reflect any light source to create an Orb or Globial effect on film, or still photos.
We have looked at what believers in the paranormal think, this was a rather mixed opinion, with some more readily believing a paranormal explanation then a scientific one. The fact that a few believe that they are spirits either moving, or the beginning of a spirit manifestation. This explanation consisting of the energy needed to manifest, coming together, and reflecting flashes, or UV/Night vision beams.
The believer’s explanation being summed up against a scientific explanation is actually rather weak. The scientific explanation has been tried and tested, the various possible causes have been tested, and produced orb like effects. The believer’s explanation (being spirit energy) actually has no other evidence to support it other than word of mouth, and popular theory. These two not being much use, in terms of verifiable evidence.

We have also looked briefly at the wider paranormal communities views on Orbs. This was rather educational to me, to see what people in the field, whether they are experienced investigators, or just people with an interest, their views were rather mixed. This is a good sign as it shows that this subject (the paranormal) is still popular, but at the same time, quite ready to believe a scientific approach. This can only have a good impact on the investigative community as a whole, as it greatly reduces the chance of a very large number of misreporting happening on investigations, and also tells people that Orbs are not Ghosts, as a definite, but only a very small possibility.

Much more considerable research needs to be carried out into this subject; this I think would include both field, and laboratory testing.
Maybe it would a lot easier to study if we could actually match the Orb effect, by generating energy, and getting it to reflect as an orb on camera, I don’t believe this has been done (although I may be wrong)

END

Mandatas

Fantastic post Dave, I think some orbs are from natural causes, dust or flashback, but I do believe that others are connected to spirit.

Manda
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Dave_h

I also believe some are connected with spirit, but theres so many that are not, probrably 98% not connected, as opposed to 2% genuine phenomena

Mandatas

I personally would say it was a higher percentage that are connected to spirit, not quite sure what percentage though.

Manda
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