Can Any Mundane Hypothesis Explain This Site's Photos of Orb Veils?

One of the most interesting paranormal-looking things I photograph is what I call orb veils. In this post I will examine the characteristics of these strange objects that I have photographed 89 times in this stream of photos. Then I will look at various ways in which a person might attempt to naturally explain these strange objects, and consider whether any of these explanations is a workable hypothesis.

The Characteristics of Orb Veils

Orb veils appear while I am taking photographs of ordinary drops of pure, clean water falling against a dark background. Orb veils may appear with a size between a half inch and six inches (about the size of a large grapefruit). Orb veils typically appear as completely flat objects that seem to be as thin as plastic wrap. Orb veils typically have the shape of a closed polygon. Sometimes such a shape is almost perfectly circular, although more commonly the shape will appear to be an interesting combination of spiky points and arc-shaped edges. I know of nothing in nature that has the strange shapes that I see in some of these orb veils.

Orb veils typically appear to have a white color, although twenty different times I have photographed orange orb veils. In one very rare and most spectacular case, I photographed a red orb veil. I very commonly photograph orb veils that have spot features that consist of two concentric rings. A single orb veil may have several of these spot features. 

Another strange aspect of orb veils is that they never (or almost never) seem to have a shadow underneath them roughly proportional to the size of the orb veil.  But since my photos of orb veils often show them intermingled with water drops (which do typically have shadows underneath them whenever they are fairly large),  I can't definitively state that orb veils never cast shadows. It seems, however, that whenever I photograph orb veils away from water drops, I never see a shadow underneath the orb veil. 

Perhaps the most inexplicable aspect of orb veils is their tendency to appear in congruent “stacks,” in which one orb veil will appear floating above one or more other orb veils with exactly the same shape. I have taken 23 photos showing such “congruent stacks.” I have photographed as many as eight orb veils in a single stack.  You can see quite a few of these stacks in the composite photo below (right-click to see the photo at fuller resolution).

Perhaps my most inexplicable observation of orb veils was on August 29, 2015. As explained in this post, on that day I took a photo of an orange-colored orb veil with an extremely distinctive shape – a closed polygon with 14 distinctive pointy spikes.  The photo is below.

I then took two photos showing nothing unusual, with my camera in the same position, on a fixed platform. But the next photo showed another orb veil, one that was white-colored; and this orb veil had exactly the same shape as the orb veil I had photographed three photographs earlier. That photo is below.

 So with the camera in a single unmoved position, on a platform, the sequence of photos was:

Photo 1: An orange-colored orb veil with an extremely distinctive 14 point shape.

Photo 2: Nothing unusual.

Photo 3: Nothing unusual.

Photo 4: A white-colored orb veil with exactly the same distinctive 14-point shape as in Photo 1.

A very similar observation took place on November 2, 2015, as described in this post. I photographed a pair of orb veils with exactly the same distinctive shape, one on top of the other. The shape had about twenty spiky points. The next photograph (taken about seven seconds later) showed two additional pairs of orb veils, which also both had the same distinctive shape. The distinctive shape in the first photo was the same shape in the second photo. The next photo after that showed no such orb veil.

Now let's look at some hypotheses that someone might try in an attempt to explain these photographs of orb veils.

Hypothesis 1: Splashes of Water

The first hypothesis to explain these orb veils is that they are simply splashes of water. It is true that when water splashes, you sometimes see lots of somewhat spiky exterior projections, as you can see in the photo below.

But there are several reasons why this hypothesis doesn't work. The first reason is that to get a rather spiky-looking water splash, you have to either have water strike something (such as spraying water and causing it to bounce off something), or cause something to strike water (such as hitting bathtub water with your hand). But no such action occurs when I take my photos that show orb veils. I simply pour water drops and photograph them while they are dropping. So there is no splash that might produce spiky-looking splashes.

The second reason is that when water splashes, you don't see see what looks like a closed polygon with lots of spiky points, as we see in my photos of orb veils. Instead you get what looks rather like finger-like projections from a central point (as we see in the photo above). I never see such finger-like projections in my photos of orb veils. So they can't be photos of water splashes.

A third reason for rejecting the hypothesis of water splashes is that such a hypothesis is completely unable to explain the “congruent stacking” that I have photographed 23 times. Such photos show one orb veil above another orb veil with exactly the same shape, very often a quite complicated shape. To explain any such photo, you have to imagine an extremely unlikely coincidence – that just coincidentally, one water splash occurred above another water splash with exactly the same shape. Since the shapes are often closed polygons with very many points, the chance of such a coincidence is something like 1 in a million or 1 in a billion for any particular photo. We cannot plausibly imagine that such a coincidence would occur so often that a single photographer would have 23 examples of such a coincidence.

Still another reason for rejecting the hypothesis of water splashes is that the orb veils I photograph always appear as paper-thin things as thin as plastic food wrap. Water does not have any tendency to usually appear in such a way when it splashes. 

Still another reason for rejecting the hypothesis of water splashes is that the orb veils I photograph often have either straight lines or almost straight lines (as in these 36 examples).  Water splashes virtually never have such lines.

Still another reason for rejecting the hypothesis of water splashes is that when I photograph water drops, I get shadows underneath them.  But whenever I photograph an orb veil, it never seems to have a shadow corresponding to the orb veil's size.  When I photograph orb veils away from water drops, I never see a shadow underneath the orb veil.

So we cannot explain orb veils by supposing they are splashes of water.

Hypothesis 2: Water Smudges on the Camera Lens

Another hypothesis is that when I photograph orb veils, I am photographing some smudge of water on my camera lens. I do occasionally get drops of water on my camera lens when I am photographing water drops.

But there are several reasons why this explanation does not work. The first is that when you photograph a smudge on the camera lens (whether it be dirt or a water drop), such a thing always looks out-of-focus. You never see sharp edges or distinct details from something that is on your camera lens. That's because cameras simply aren't designed to focus on things that are so close to the lens. But my photos of orb veils almost always show sharp edges and distinct details. Such photos cannot be showing something on the camera lens, which would be out-of-focus.

A second reason is that when you get a smudge on the camera lens (whether a water drop or otherwise), it stays there until you wipe your lens. But in all but one of the many photos I have taken of orb veils, the object disappeared completely in the next photo. So these orb veils cannot be something sitting on the camera lens. 

A third reason is that the lens smudge hypothesis is completely unable to account for the “congruent stacking” mentioned earlier. So the lens smudge hypothesis does not work. 

A fourth reason for rejecting this hypothesis is that I often photograph orb veils that are clearly underneath water drops in the photo, drops that are several inches from my camera. An example of such a photo is here.  

Hypothesis 3: Lens Flare

Lens flare is a rather common effect that usually occurs when you point your camera at a bright light. But it can also occur when the light from a camera flash reflects off a highly reflective surface. One could try to explain orb veils as some lens flare that occurs when light bounces off a water drop that I am photographing.

But there are several reasons why this hypothesis does not work. One reason is that lens flare does not look like orb veils. You do not at all see polygons with lots of spiky edges resulting from lens flare. You instead see blurry little balls or hexagons.

Here is an example of lens flare caused by pointing a camera at the sun.

Here is an example of lens flare when light light from a camera flash bounces off a water drop.
 

Here is another example of lens flare when light light from a camera flash bounces off a water drop.

None of these things look anything like the orb veils I have photographed. In lens flare, there is typically a kind of purplish blob or ball that never appears in any of my photos of orb veils.

Another reason why the lens flare hypothesis does not work is that most of my orb veil photographs do not show orb veils that are near water drops that are reflecting light in a kind of light bounce. I often photograph orb veils that are floating by themselves, away from any water drops, and away from any kind of flare as you see above.

A third reason is that the lens flare hypothesis is completely unable to account for the “congruent stacking” mentioned earlier. So the lens flare hypothesis does not work. 

Hypothesis 4: Light Splashes

Stretching his imagination, a skeptic might try to explain my orb veil photos by claiming that they are some kind of "splashes of light" that just happen to usually have polygon shapes. The problem with this hypothesis is that it is imagining a behavior of light that photographers have never seen.  We simply don't see light forming into polygons with a combination of curves and lots of spiky points, similar to the shapes shown in my orb veil photos. A similar criticism would apply if someone tried to explain bright disk-shaped UFOs by claiming that they are "lightning disks," since people have never seen any such thing.

 A second reason for rejecting this hypothesis is that my photos of orb veils very often show concentric rings inside an orb veil.  I don't think anyone can produce a photo of anything like a "splash of light" that has concentric rings inside it.

 A third reason is that a "light splashes" hypothesis is completely unable to account for the “congruent stacking” mentioned earlier. So the "light splashes" hypothesis does not work.

Conclusion

I have examined some of the main ways in which someone might try to explain my orb veil photographs, and I have explained why these attempted explanations don't work. For now, orb veils must be regarded as a fascinating example of a completely unexplained phenomenon.