Photographic anomalies/orbs
pa...@paullee.com
I'm preparing a skeptical talk on the subject of ghosts and spooks in
London, and one of the things I'll be touching on are the photographic
anomalies known as "orbs". I'm convinced that these are dust and water
droplets close to the camera and illuminated by the flash.
Some "researchers" claim that these orbs are ghosts. They also claim
that they obey commands! They show evidence of images and video clips
of these blobs of light following instructions from people.
However, I remember a TV programme here in the UK about a decade ago
that claimed to show a psychic dog. Basically, it showed evidence that
when its owner returned, and while some distance away, the dog would
get agitated, go to the window, bark, wait at the door. "The dog is
psychic" claimed the programme.
But when Richard Wiseman analysed all the footage, it showed that the
dog only went to the window something like 3 times out of 20, and the
programme makers had simply used the footage they liked.
I'm hoping to use the same kind of argument here, but my knowledge of
stats is poor. What kind of event/non-event ratio would I be looking
for to prove that the orbs obeyed, or didn't obey commands?
Thanks for any help on this matter.
Cheers
Paul
Andy
news:1114679919.9...@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Hi everyone,
> I'm preparing a skeptical talk on the subject of ghosts and spooks in
> London, and one of the things I'll be touching on are the photographic
> anomalies known as "orbs". I'm convinced that these are dust and water
> droplets close to the camera and illuminated by the flash.
>
> Some "researchers" claim that these orbs are ghosts. They also claim
> that they obey commands! They show evidence of images and video clips
> of these blobs of light following instructions from people.
In my experience of video work and photography in low light conditions I
would agree that they are dust particles or tiny flying invertibrates.
My arguements that they are not ghosts go as follows:-
1) Why have ghosts suddenly switched from sheets and chains to orbs on
digital cameras?
2) Orbs only normally appear when lit from the camera side, this implies
that there is light being reflected off something. I have never had an orb
when using low-light settings using ambient but as soon as I turn on my IR
spotlight , they appear.
3) Orbs never appear when I use a larger depth of field but the number
increases as the depth of field narrows. In effect the depth of field is the
distance in depth of the picture that is in focus. As the start of the 'in
focus' area moves away from me the number of orbs increases. This implies
that orbs are a combination of lighting and focus problems.
4) I have witnessed 'pulsing orbs' both in real life and on Most Haunted.
hese only appear where there is an indistinct or no background. What is
happening is that the autofucus on the camera is hunting for some object to
focus on and is constantly changing focus, the causes the orb to cycle
between very and slightly out of focus giving the appearence of pulsing.
5) I have a spectaular orb 'orgy' on tape somewhere when I was taping
wildlife at night, this was caused by me nudging a bush and cauing a pollen
fall. the resulting orbs are impressive.
I contend that orbs are nothing more that out-of focus, dust illuminated by
the lights. In a few cases I have seen 'very rare linear orbs' that were
obviously fine hairs.
Counter-counter arguements.
It can't be dust, dust falls, it does not rise. - Unless the ceiling has
dandruff and sheds it on the top of my bookshelves; dust rises.
> I'm hoping to use the same kind of argument here, but my knowledge of
> stats is poor. What kind of event/non-event ratio would I be looking
> for to prove that the orbs obeyed, or didn't obey commands?
Consistently greater than 50% over a sample size of about 30 attempts is OK.
BUT, every attempt must be made to eliminate all air movement as even body
heat and breathing can affect dust movement. It is almost impossible to
eliminate these factors and so ensure accuracy of results.
You are ultimately wasting your time as people will believe and refuse to
listen. There have been a large number of conspiracies where the originater
came clean and admitted that it was all a hoax, but too late because the
industry had sprung up and it was all part of the 'cover-up' by THEM!
I think that the best way to show that these are artefacts of light and
focus is to run a series of tests.
1) as normal in a known hot-spot using normal methods
2) use external lighting and flood the room with IR
3) Use as wide a depth of field as possible to eliminate focus effects
4) Switch off autofocus to eliminate 'focus hunting' effects causing pulsing
orbs.
If these tests are run in the same location over consecutive night I would
expect that the number of orbs will drop dramatically once camera mounted
spots are no longer used. They will drop to almost zero is a hugely wide
depth of field is used and the pulsing orbs will stop completely once the
autofocus is off.
This will not stop people believing because they really want to believe.
Andy
pa...@paullee.com
I appreciate your reply. The approach I will be taking is one that
Richard Wiseman used for a Fortean Times Unconvention talk a few years
back.
he showed clips from a TV show which showed a dog seemingly knowing
when her owner was coming home as proof that "the dog is psychic".
However
only a sample, very distorted viewpoint was offered and that footage
that showed a contrary conclusion was not shown.
Sorry it has taken so long to reply. I am having problems with a bogus
ghost group (ghosts-uk.net) who I have found, are fleecing their
members of cash. When I found this out, I was banned from the group,
and they have done some very nasty tricks to discredit me. FYI, my
rebuttal is here:
http://www.btinternet.com/~dr_paul_lee/vigils.htm#guk
Best wishes
Paul