We wanted to take an opportunity to discuss an often controversial subject in the field of paranormal investigation. Those little spots we see in photos, which now often carry the term "orbs".
As an investigator, it is the source of endless headaches when I see people flaunting orb photos as proof of ghosts. In reality orbs can be caused by a few different things. None of these would fall under the term paranormal.
Reflection: Reflections can often cause unusual distortions in photographs. Some of these look very different than your standard orb shots. They are probably the ones most mistaken for "ghosts". If you are lucky enough to own a graphic design program like Photoshop, Photopaint etc, you can usually determine fairly quickly if you are seeing a reflection. Max out the gamma on the photo. Chances are the reflection and the image causing it will look more or less the same. Its a bit difficult to explain, but maybe one day I will post a video to demonstrate.
Moisture: Humidity, moisture droplets, rain, and other sources of water near or on the lens of a camera can cause a fair number of false positives in paranormal research. They appear odd shaped, usually foggy translucent and sometimes reflecting light. While interesting to look at, these are not in any way, shape or form, paranormal.
Dust: This "phenomena" makes up probably 90% of the orb photos people show us, or that we find ourselves. They appear as almost perfect round circles that are either evenly shaded or fade a bit at the edges. Generally they range from being entirely translucent, to milky, to very bright, but the shape is generally rounded. This is quite simply dust. It’s nothing exciting, and certainly nothing paranormal. If you want to do a little test, here is an easy way to figure it out. Mount two cameras on side by side tripods and start snapping photos at the same time. If you get an orb appearing in one photo, but not the other, then you know you are just capturing dust. The reason this illusion happens is that point and shoot, and most DSLR cameras have a flash that is very close to the lens/shutter. That means any particles in front of the camera will be illuminated.
If you want to test this fact, Here's how:
First, go outside at night. Stand at the edge of a dirt road (without walking on it) and take 5 photos, one after another. Then walk ten paces on the road, kicking the dirt as you walk. Then turn around, wait 5 seconds, then take 5 more photos. You'll often find your later 5 to be full of orbs, whereas the first 5 will have few to none.
This trick works almost anywhere, but especially in dark basements, in rooms with thick carpets, grass during pollenation, and dusty rooms.
So those three pretty much account for about 99.999% of Orb sightings...
Final notes... beware of photos that look too good to be true. They often are. I do a lot of recreational and web ready graphic design and have been able to spot a lot of fakes recently on the net. There are a number of ways this can be done, but I won't get into them all here because its not the point of this article. The main thing is though, if you ever see a photo that looks like a smoking gun, just keep in mind it may very well just be a well thought out hoax. Get a second opinion if you're ever in doubt...
