24 replies to this topic

[SpiritsOfMd]

Hello all, I have a question, if you can follow it, I am able to talk out my question but its hard to write it if you know what I mean

9 out of 10 orbs I see in pictures are captured at night, and resemble some sort of ball of light or something that gives off a glow of light. If you agree with that statement then would it be fair to say that if the camera was used with NO FLASH the same ball of light or glow SHOULD appear somewhat in the photo being it is actually there and not a reflection being the flash was off ???  Sort of like a flashlight if its on and you take a picture of it in total darkness you will get some sort of light in your photo even with no flash used.  If what alot of use are calling orbs in these night shots are orbs, shouldnt they be present in photos without the flash being used or is half of what people say are orbs really reflection.  I tend to lean more towards reflection myself.  

I have been dying to go out and take some night photos using no flash, but havent had the time lately.  But I am planning on maybe trying it this weekend, I will post some pics in Spiritography of my results.

Thanks SpiritsofMd

[krcguns]

Hi Spirits!  It is an interesting question that you posed.  I think that it is energy that you see in the orb pictures (true orbs of course), and that is why I look for a circular shape (no, out of round at all), as well as looking for some mass.  I liked your flashlight analogy but I guess maybe I will use one back at you to explain my theory.

Ok, If you are doing sit-ups, for example, you are using energy.  Do you give off any light?  With all of the sit-ups that I have done I don't recall giving off any light.  I guess my point is that energy doesn't always have to be light energy.  To go back to your flashlight analogy, if you used your flash and took a pic in total darkness of the same flashlight while it is off, would you get a reflection from the shiny metal part behind the bulb?  I think that it would reflect.  Now, if you get a picture of that reflection, does it mean that it isn't a flashlight since what you are seeing is a reflection?  I hope that I was successful in conveying my point that I wanted to make and I hope it made sense. ;D

[SpiritsOfMd]

Hello Krc Thanks for the response. I totally understand the sit up theory and I do believe that you would get reflection from the flashlight from the metal in it but you should not get any if there was no flashed used on your camera.I guess what I was trying to say is that a huge majority of pictures that people are calling orbs are always taken at night with the flash, why not try night photography with no flash, yes your pictures would be terrible because you wouldnt see anything in your pics but we are not out to shoot landscape we are out to capture something paranormal, we will say an orb.  How many orbs do you think we would capture and if none why? Is it because orbs dont give off light ( I realize some may and some may not) and if orbs dont give off light and we only capture there reflection when using flash then how can we be sure its really an orb and not something else floating out there in the air. I am uncomfortable about calling reflections orbs without absolute sureness that it is nothing else and to date, ONLY speaking for myself, I dont think I have ever captured an orb, the more I have thought about this the more reasons I can come up with that its nothing paranormal (orb), now I am one who believes in the paranormal and I dont mean to seem so skeptical but its my nature.  Could you imagine taking a night shot using any old camera, turning the flash off and finding a glow of light or a ball of light or anything besides a lightening bug in your pic, that would be awesome!! It would be fun to try and explain that one. Oh one more thing, we would have to make sure it was taken in the middle of nowhere where there were no lights lol.....we wouldnt want people to say it was the lights in the background, hehehe, jk ;D

[hawkerdriver]

Hey KRC- When I do situps, yes, I produce sparks!  It's from the fat slapping against the fat that produces sparks! LOL!
(SOrry,couldn't resist!)

OK, back to being serious now :-X

[NocturnalCantaloupe]

If it truly glowed like I think you are describing, would it not be more readily seen ALL the time?  Or are we talking about some frequency of light beyond the normal vision of humans?

[OwlGoddess]

i have absolutely no experience with taking photos of orbs intentionally... i have one or two photos were something like an orb is present, and they were both daytime photos taken with no flash.

however, when we get to thinking about the science of how this would actually work - we have to take some facts into consideration.

whatever in the orb that is manifesting itself has to be something present in the visual wavelength of the energy spectrum... like an ecto-mist or something with the right frequency or organic makeup that would produce a mild, localized reflective effect.

in theory, it would be possible for ghost orbs to be concentrated balls of energy that pick up fine dust and particles, and moisture from the surrounding air.  they might be too faint for the human eye to see most of the time, but a camera's flash,  CCD chip (on digitals), or light-and-color sensitive film would capture the reflection.

i would be interested in any infra-red photography / spiritography that anyone has as compared to conventional photos taken at the same place under the same conditions on the same session of investigation -- just for comparative purposes.  

as most of anyone with a basic knowledge of physics can tell you, energy will appear a little differently in different spectrums... so infrared or xray imaging might give a different view of the orbs, mists, or temperature differences present.  

i'm not sure if this pertains to the original question, but i wouldn't bet that the orbs are made of any kind of energy or matter that couldn't be picked up by optical media -- it's clearly in the optical spectrum, or else a camera wouldn't be able to pick it up.

when astronomers study stellar explosions, they use data from a number of different sources - mainly the radio, xray, visible, and infrared spectrums. stuff that doesn't show up in the visible spectrum shows up in xray very well... has anyone used any xray equipment?

OG

[ohhorror]

SpiritsOfMd

A very interesting question, tell you what I am going out with my group tomorrow night Sat. I only use 35mm I will burn off a whole roll of 800 with no flash to try and test this out although they are going to think I am really crazy when I get it developed.

OwlGoddess: "it would be possible for ghost orbs to be concentrated balls of energy that pick up fine dust and particles, and moisture from the surrounding air."

Wow, now that is a interesting take on it and something I was thinking about. Everyone always says orbs are a reflection or a refection of dust particles in the air. In some cases I believe this is true but you can usually spot those type of pictures, the orbs are usually plentiful and look different. But I was thinking who's to say that the energy that spirits are made of is not in some way reflective or reacts to light?

I myself am a big believer in the use of IR photography, for some reason IR light seems to either pick up or reflect off of spirits.

SpiritsOfMd is right if it is just energy then no flash should still get images on film the same goes with EVP the tape play should not even have to be on if the "voice" is being imprinted directly onto the tape.

It really boils down to experimenting, that is what I do when I go out I have tried different film and speeds Kodak 800 seems to work best for me, 8mm metallic particle in my camcorder. We try to see what we get results from or with, or if we get any results at all. Frankly until we figure out exactly what ghosts are composed of then we can fine tune all of our instrumentation right now we assume they are composed purely of electromagnetic energy, what if they are 50% electromagnetic and the rest is something else? Perhaps something in its composition may then reflect or react to various forms of light. Which reminds me I need to pick up a big black light for house investigations, if I turn it on in the dark I can see just how much dust is in the air before any photos are taken.

Anyway, a very thought provoking discussion.  ;D

[NocturnalCantaloupe]

Awesome thought Owl, very awesome.  and you are right! it's amazing to think of, but a vast majority of those deep space photos you see from nasa, are not from a refraction or reflection telescope. they are jsut what you said.  The data is then tranlated into a color format that we can see.  WE need radio telescopes on investigations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SpiritsOfMd]

Thanks for the reply and they all are very interesting!

AKTHRA~ I was referring to all the "orbs" that people say are glowing, not the ones that we cannot see, if they truely glow then they should be present with no flash.

OHHORROR~ I am going out as well. Im going to use my 35mm and 800 speed too and see what I get and yep they will think im crazy too, lol. Good Luck


I am curious to see how many night shots and over what period of time it will take me to capture something in total darkness, maybe weeks or months, lol...but if this would continue of getting nothing, at what point would or could we say that orbs do not emit any light ???  I will post some pics of the digital and the 35mm when they are developed, just wish me luck in trying to get the dang camera to fire in darkness, they are stubborn lol.

[NocturnalCantaloupe]

Ah, ok I got ya.  

[ohhorror]

SpiritsOfMd it could also be a combination of things that we sometimes capture them on film by doing things just the right way or by being in the right frame of mind at the moment, it could also be that we are not getting it correct at all but we are getting close to what "correct" might be.

I have a theory that ghosts exist slightly of out phase with us that they are a different sound and light wavelength when we use our technology we get close to that wavelength they exist on but we don't get it exactly.

And again who knows for sure!

[whispers_of_fire]

Hi, SpiritsofMd, good to see you back ;D

Its a great question, but I have no answer I don't have either the years of Paranormal field study or the experience with photography many here have*snickers, my thumb still sees itself as photogenic*The orb shots I have are luminous, the few day shots of orbs I've seen were really impressive, but looked like either a gigantic soap bubble or a really pale spot, light on light, you know?

I'd be very curious to see how it went with the 800 speed film

Hey, KRC, Really cool theory and I can understand it, too

Hi, Ohhorror...DUDE, where do you get IR attachments to your camera? I'm in So.Cal and when I ask about IR the clerks and managers gape at me like I sprouted a second head. The out of phase theory sounds very intriguing

Hi, OwlGoddess*Stares in awe*

Hi, Hawkers*LOL*I gave up on sit ups due to damaging the floor

[dansgirl]

Hello Everyone,
I have wondered about reflections and all the same things, I think that orbs are in a spectrom of light that the human eye cannot pick up, although everytime my little poodles start seeing things and I take a pic there is always an orb, in what I get so, I had a idea that maybe they can also see tv. remotes that do show up on a pic, (I tried it) and they seemed to see it also. We as humans cannot pickup the different spectroms of light that animals can. Wish we could, I also have taken them to the cemetary with me to visit my husbands grave, both were barking like crazy. So I believe they see alot more than we can. Lol...
Dansgirl :

[OwlGoddess]

dansgirl, ohhorror:  (let's see if i can lump this together...)  ghosts, as we all experience them, are a whole entity - and like us and other energy phenomena, are able to be seen / experienced at different wavelengths -- both visual and non-visual.  

dansgirl, i agree that animals (particularly predatory animals -- hawks, owls, dogs, cats, etc.) are able to see a very slightly different wavelength than humans can... so they might easily be able to see (and psychically sense) a ghost before you'd have any idea that it was there.

ohhorror:  as for ghosts being "slightly out of phase," i agree philosphically -- but scientifcally, we know that the part that gets caught on film or that drains batteries has some kind of physical and consequently visual manifestation that abides by the laws of physics and electromagnetism.  

i'm not quite sure about this... i was having a nice discussion on another post about the 11 dimensions that exist according to current string theory, but there is little evidence that would explain hauntings or ghosts as we all know them -- and a collision or merging of dimensions might rip the fabric of space enough to produce something like a second big bang... however, who's to say that we can't occasionally see through to the other dimension, and that ghosts could go back and forth due to their unique particulate electromagnetic makeup??

OG

[flyingorb]

Pure speculation of course, but if orbs manifest by sucking in surrounding energy to the point of creating a "cold spot", then could this cold spot cause water vapor to condense out of the air at the orbs location.  If so this would quite possible be reflective to a flash.  This could also cause "ecto" pics.  What does everyone think?

Oh Spirits, please try a few time exposure pics too.  I am very curious to see if you get any results.