The Truth Behind Orbs

By: Christy Selfridge

By: Christy elfridge

                   

    The subject of orbs has been a long debated one. OKPRI has had many pictures sent to us asking our opinion, which in turn, sparked the reason for this article. There are some people who consider all orbs as "positive data" and those who don't consider them "data" at all. So what's the truth behind orbs? This was our question, especially when orbs seemed to appear more readily in photos than any other type of unexplained photo phenomenon.

    When our group first started investigating, we were thrilled when our photos revealed multiple orbs, but it soon caused the question to arise of "Why is there so many or so few in each photo?" Then we heard about dust particles, pollen and other small particles that reflected off of the flash creating the “appearance” of an orb. We began conducting our own experiments to try to recreate the orbs that we were photographing.
We found that if you dust off a shelf or other item and take a photo, multiple orbs would appear in the photo. The same applies for walking through grass or other locations where small particle contaminates reflect off the camera's flash in front of the lens and appear as orbs.

    In the past, we learned that if dust, pollen or small particles are within 6 inches of the camera's lens, “orbs” will appear. We conducted several experiments with this “Orb Phenomenon” to put these theories to the test. Orbs can be easily recreated thus the reason why so many paranormal investigators & researchers do not like “orbs” in general.

    Our group then again, changed our outlook on orbs and began looking at different things associated with orbs & photography. Since it is difficult to put a shield on a photographic camera to keep dust, particles, etc. 6 inches away from the lens, we started looking for different ways to analyze our photos. We wanted ways that would be more credible so it would not make the orb so easily dismissed or debated. We started looking for movement & shapes with the orbs and also looked at the direction the orbs were moving in. We too also took into consideration the 2 photo rule which requires the photographer to take at least 2 photos of the same area (one right after the other) in order to eliminate any questionable photographic anomalies. By doing this, you can actually use both photos to compare against each other to see if these are any so called “anomalies” that are stationary. With this method, you can also see if the anomaly, in this case, “orbs” has movement, etc. We have found that this method has helped to eliminate photos that normally we would have considered as possible credible positive data.

 

    Below are some examples of photographs. These are those photographic “orbs” which we consider to be “false orbs“.