Orbs. Evidence of paranormal presence or not? This is one of the most controversial topics in the paranormal community. Everyone seems to have an opinion on the subject, but the truth is, we may never know for sure. Just like with everything else in the paranormal field—ruling something out doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re ruling something else in! Just because we can’t explain something doesn’t necessarily make it paranormal—and when it comes to orbs, often it’s difficult to tell.
What is an orb? Actually the word “orb” is just another word for “sphere.” So for our purposes, orbs are essentially anomalous spheres of light which appear in photographs or video footage. They range from almost completely transparent to incredibly bright. Some in the paranormal field believe they are a collection of energy.
In truth, most orbs captured on video or in pictures, indoors or outdoors, are nothing more than refractions of light on the camera’s lens or the light of the camera flash reflecting off miniscule airborne particles of dust, pollen, mold, ash, moisture or the like. Even insects can be misidentified as orbs. The sun, street lights, lamps, mirrors or any reflective surface can cause orbs to appear in photos. There are numerous sure-fire ways to create orbs in photos. For example, there will typically be anywhere from a few to hundreds of “orbs” in pictures taken outdoors in dusty, snowy, rainy or foggy conditions. Slapping your hand on a couch cushion, bed or drapes before snapping a picture will typically result in at least a few anomalous spots in your photo.
St. Louis Ghost Hunters uses the term “light abnormality” to describe these balls captured in our video and photographs. Although we don’t dismiss the possibility that real orbs exist, it takes more than a few photos containing “light abnormalities” for us to come to a paranormal conclusion. And even in cases where STLGH concludes that the activity may be paranormal in nature, any “light abnormalities” we captured on video or film were typically not a determining factor, regardless of how strongly they seemed to support the other evidence we collected.
We routinely catch “light abnormalities” in almost every video feed on every case and often find “spots” in a number of our investigation photos. You’ll notice that although we include many of these pictures and occasionally even a video clip of something we found particularly interesting to look at on our website, we rarely even acknowledge them as orbs unless they were overwhelmingly significant.
