Orbs - Balls of mysterious energy, or just balls?
By Alan Murdie
orbs - pairs
Left and right stereo images taken by Steve Parsons to show orbs are close to the lenses.
What ought to be the passing bell for ‘orb’ phenomena rang in the autumn in the form of research published by Steve Parsons of the group Para.Science. Photographs of anomalous luminous spheres and dots have dogged ghost-hunting since the end of the 1990s, and most informed opinion now considers them nothing more than artefacts generated by modern cameras. The reflections of tiny particles in the air appear on pictures because the typical flash unit of a camera in use today is much closer to the lens than with older models. Thus, those particles of dust you see in a beam of sunlight, bobbing around with air currents and Brownian motion, show up as orbs when digital cameras are used.
In findings presented at the conference of the Society for Psychical Research in September 2010, and published in the November 2010 edition of Anomaly, Steve Parsons reports the results of his exhaustive experiments using a Fujifilm W1 3D digital camera, whereby matched stereo images are taken of the same view. A total of 1,870 stereo pairs of images were taken at over 20 locations in the UK and Eire, including a number of allegedly haunted sites. Some 630 orb-like images were obtained. If orbs are not reflections of part*icles less than 2–3cm (roughly an inch) from the lens, then the orb should appear in both images. In 491 pairs obtained, the orb was only present on one image, and in 139 pictures orbs were present on both images, but not in a position that corresponded to the individual orb being the same object. Steve Parsons concludes that “all 630 that we obtained in the survey were readily explained using the stereo photography technique. That is 0 per cent paranormal but 100 per cent explainable.” At the end of the article he expresses the hope “that this extensive series of pictures will finally remove much of the confusion and nonsense that has surrounded the orb.” (Source: “Orbs!… Some Definitive Evidence That They Are Not Paranormal” by Steve Parsons in Anomaly, the Journal of ASSAP, vol.44, Nov 2010). However, I suspect this won’t happen just yet, given the widespread wish to believe orbs are paranormal.
In October 2010, the Scotsman newspaper carried a remarkable claim that “Voices of the dead and ghostly orbs of light ‘prove airbase is haunted’” [FT265:4]. Two Scottish-based para*normal researchers, Cat Perks and Linda Will*iamson, claimed to have obtained conclusive evidence that a former airfield near Montrose is “a major centre of para*normal activity” based upon orb photos and some strange audio recordings.
“We are scientific researchers and not ghost-hunters and we were using a range of voice recorders as well as night vision camcorders and digital cameras” Ms Perks told journalists.