Our thoughts on Orbs


I get asked about this all the time.  Here is a good rule of thumb: if you see it ONLY when the camera flashes, then what you’ve caught is dust, a bug, a perfectly prismed droplet of water, or some other type of reflective particle and how it relates to the aperture of the camera.  It’s not a “paranormal orb”.  It’s not energy, it’s not spiritual… it’s a tangible particle of matter. 

Do orbs exist?  Sure… but a true “paranormal orb” is considered a form of energy, and you will see it either with the naked eye or with a video camera… not as the result of a camera flash!  This is unfortunately a big problem in our “industry” today… lot’s of paranormal investigation sites post pictures of what they think is something paranormal and spiritual, but it’s actually just particles and nothing supernatural.  How do I know??

Well, you can test this for yourself easily... What I did was I went out to a really dark place, but one that wouldn’t be associated with any sort of paranormal activity.  I went to the treed area next to the parking lot at Porter Gaud High School in Charleston, SC after a night of ghost hunting on a particularly humid, buggy night in which there was literally an “orb” in every other picture.  What do you think I got??  That’s right… more “orbs.” Orbs where there shouldn’t be orbs.  It’s just that I, you, and most other people don’t ordinarily take pictures of dark, empty places for no reason, so when we get something like that on our hunts we falsely think it’s exciting evidence!

And the creme de la creme… I had my camera on me at a Fourth of July fireworks show in Winston-Salem, NC.  This was after I had already learned that orbs weren’t anything paranormal, so I wanted to put my theories to the test.

In fact, being scientifically-minded, I couldn’t think of a better opportunity!  ...A fireworks show in the humid, buggy South in July!  I thought that if explainable particles of matter were responsible, I should get a ton of orbs after the fireworks were over and there was smoke and dust everywhere, right?

You bet I did.  Orbs out the wazoo.  And I want to point out that *all* of the light in those pictures is produced by my camera flash.  It was completely dark, which is something that contributes to this very explainable phenomenon.

What about bugs… bugs aren’t reflective and could never make an orb, right?  Ok… how about the picture to the right.

It’s amazing what difference light and a little bit of bad focus can make, huh! lol… And these pictures where literally only a second apart.

Without this proof, you wouldn’t have thought that big bug would have made a perfectly circular shape like that!  Ah yes… a trick of reflection and focus has fooled many a person!

So why do you get a lot of orb pictures in cemeteries??  I’m sorry to disappoint you, but run your hand on the top of some of those tombstones, and they can be quite gritty and dusty… and you are walking around and disturbing a place that is normally undisturbed.  This, of course, stirs them up.  Couple that with the fact that you don’t normally take pictures in complete darkness of anything *but* graveyards, and you’ll get my point.

Here is another orb in a picture that Katie took.  This one is really neat, and it’s not even in the dark outside, but unfortunately -still like the others- it is a result of a slightly out of focus particle taking the shape of the aperture of the camera… which in the case of Katie’s camera, it makes a cool, funny star like thing!

Hey… are you into scientific explanations for all of this?  Here ya go… ALL YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE SCIENCE BEHIND WHY YOUR CAMERA IS MAKING ORBS: “The Truth about Orbs” from GhostGadgets.com! I should have just posted this first, but I wanted to SHOW EVIDENCE first! lol… Sometimes straight up facts and diagrams aren’t the best way to make a point.

Oh, yeah… there is another type of explainable orb.  One that *isn’t* a particle, one that is the fault only of you and your camera!  This can happen by a simple, tiny speck on the lens that happens to catch light just right. These are captured mostly in bright sunlight.  If you are a normal person and look at your camera lens, you’ll see that there usually is a tiny little bit of dust or smudges or whatever… it just usually doesn’t cause a problem unless a direct beam of light hits it just right, so you don’t notice.

I know, I know… people want to believe sometimes!  That’s why I don’t confront people that proudly display their dust, bugs, and water droplets on their website as evidence.  That’s just fine with me!  You can think your orbs are different or whatever… just always make sure you try to educate yourself with all the information available out there and learn something new everyday… because if you stop doing that it’s all over, my friend!

-Lowcountry Paranormal



Back to the main page...