Orbs. Are they ghosts or just airborne particles?
Since ghost hunting became popular in the 1990's with the ease of use of the digital camera and handycam, so has the popularity of the 'orb'. Most often photographed as looking like a white ball of light, they can be photographed moving at speed, in different colours, light, bright and with other orbs. Many Paranormal Investigators soon captured these anomalies at haunted locations and believed that it was the energy of a ghostly presence or even a ghost itself just on the basis of what others believed.
Fast forward to 2007 and the orb is all but dismissed by most serious investigators as evidence, ourselves included. Why? Because the research and proof done by us and other groups is that most of the time an orb is caught, there is a rational explanation of the anomaly captured.
Take some photos inside your house you may not pick up hardly any orbs. There's a reason. Go to a cemetery or a haunted location there is likely to be dust and dirt being kicked up everywhere you go as well as water particles falling from the sky that you don't even notice.
Dust, humidity, refraction, reflections, insects and other airborne objects can bring false orb photos highlighted from your cameras flash. If not recording in complete darkness try to not use a flash eliminating many false positives from your evidence. We ourselves have ruled out orbs as being evidence of paranormal activity of ghosts.
Most photos of orbs are false positives. We have done alot of research while doing orb photography testing different setups and have also come to this conclusion. Our photos below show photos of false orbs including dust, rain/moisture, solid particles such as sand and how light refraction and reflection can cause coloured looking orbs.
Photographic false orbs
A- the original photo of a 'dust orb'
B- close up of the dust orb
C- enhanced photo showing other dust contaminated false orbs in photo
Rain/Moisture false orb looks like it's moving up
Sand/solid granule
Dust with light refraction causing red and blue looking orbs
Overview of false photographic orbs
-False orbs are generally coloured white by the white light source of the flash refecting off the partical.
-Dust depending on how your camera picks them up can range from diamonds, flat circles with an even coloured center to having a pattern in them. They can appear solid, have a pattern, see through or partly formed depending on the distance illuminated from the flash to the lens.
-Rain/Moisture orbs that are falling to the ground will have the appearance of a tail on the bottom with the look that it is moving up. This is caused by the flash highlighting movement of the water particle moving down at a fast speed, thus creating the tail at the bottom as the camera takes the photo.
-Light Refraction orbs are cause by water particle reflection and are seen in basic colours of the spectrum. Reflection of nearby shiny/reflective surfaces into the lens of you camera can be refected back to the dust or water particle being picked up and highlighted by the flash causing also a change of colour.
Handycam orbs
Ghosts or just a natural enviromental phenomenon?
Though handycam orbs are alot stronger form of evidence than photographic orbs they can still catch the unaware and inexperienced ghost hunter out.
Are they the energy of ghost, a ghost or just an natural enviromental phenomenon? It's still a hotly debated topic. Because they are caught moving around like they have control of their movement and sometimes moving in and out of objects paranormal investigators accept them alot more as evidence. They are recorded with Nightvision that uses infrared light which is beyond a humans visible light range in the electromagnetic spectrum.
The best orb footage is that of an orb emerging out of an object or disapearing into one. Even if you catch footage like this and it seems to be whats happening, make sure it's simply not dust or an insect simply moving out of the cameras infrared beam giving the impression of magically passing through an object. Especially so if it's exiting at the edge of the cameras view where the infrared beam is at its weakest.
Dust orbs of the handycam variety look very similar to the photographic dust orb and is captured in much the same way. That is passing very close to the lens as it get reflected by the infrared lighting instead of a flash when taking a photograph. Because of the close proximity to the lens the dust appears round though it is just out of focus as it is not in the handycams focus range.
Depending on the strength of your infrared beam will determine how many dust orbs you record. With one of our outdoor handycam setups which has an extremely powerful reach, we record dust orbs frequently around every 30 seconds passing the handycam.
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