..................................

Orbs or Dust ?

There is an ongoing debate about pictures containing "Orbs", and how they come to appear in certain photographs. On this page will examine their validity as evidence of paranormal activity or just a result of a camera error, or debris in the air at the time the picture was taken.

I believe I first heard the term "Orb" used on one of the first episode's of Most Haunted. They have been refered to as being the first stage of a ghost manifestation, but what are they? There have been many explanations given, pollen, dust, insects, moisture, breath etc. As paranormal investigators, we try to rule out any normal explanation to the point where we are left with the unexplainable, or the paranormal.

Extensive research has been done on this subject already by many different groups, and the debate continues both for and against any paranormal explanation for this phenomena.

We have started to look into this phenomena in more detail in recently. I have lost count of the amount of times I have heard the phrase, "I got an Orb". People say it with such excitement and can't wait to show everybody. Below are some pictures we have taken to show some naturally occuring objects can look like when photographed.



As you have probably guessed these are all moths. All taken on the same night in the same location. I was supprised at the detail when I zoomed in to them on the PC. As you can see by the pictures they are very small.	Moths have often been given up as an explanation for Orbs, as you can see from these pictures, they do not appear to look like anything i have seen described as a Orb Moths

Picture of moth taken in daylight........	This is what exhaled smoke can look like.....

I put myself in harm's way for these two shots. They are both cigarette smoke.	This is not exhaled smoke, but just allowed to flow naturally from the tip

Both of these pictures were taken when there was a lot of pollen and dust in the air. The anomalies all appear to share the same characteristics. Some are different colours, but all seem to have the same or similar internal structure.	When only one of these types of anomalies appear in a shot, they are more likely to be considered paranormal as people may assume that if it were dust there would be many more of them.

Here are just a couple of pictures I took to see what mist would look like.....