A Paranormal Patriotic Pair?

Photo date: March 26, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in Grand Central Station in New York.

We see two "spots" on the stars of the American flag. It's not that they've got careless about the national flag at this location. These are two orbs.  The closeup below shows that one of them has the letter "L" on it. Earlier this week we saw an orb with a "7" on it.  Maybe this is a new trend. Do you think they'll start joining together to make messages?

Orbs Form a Huge "T" Shape on the Ceiling

Photo date: March 26, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in Grand Central Station in New York.  In this post I discussed how on this date I counted 106 orb photos from the angle below that showed more orbs in the area above the light lines, and only 5 orb photos that showed more orbs in the area below the light lines.  Such a "vertical bias" was very strong evidence that I was seeing something that was not caused by random particles of dust near my camera.  Below we see an example of one of these photos, one showing what looks like a very nonrandom positioning of orbs.  In this picture the orbs at the top right of the photo are forming into a letter of the alphabet, the letter "T."

A Strange Presence Near the Floating Purple Orb

Photo date: March 19, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in Grand Central Station in New York.

Let's look at a closeup of the purple orb. We seem to see some strange red creature to the left of it, one that looks as if it has a drooping tongue.

I read about an interesting "vortex" theory yesterday, the highly speculative idea that when you have a prominent intersection of lines, it can produce paranormal effects.  Could that explain why I get such paranormal weirdness in my photos at this place? There is certainly an intersection of lines at Grand Central Station -- subway lines, street lines,  and commuter rail lines.  But I'm not at all sure that the station would qualify as a vortex candidate under such a theory.

Orb Speeding in a Crystal Ball?

Photo date: February 26, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

My many posts labeled "speeding air orb" amply show that orbs speed around in the air. My many posts labeled "orb centrifuge effect" show that orbs can speed around in water drops. But what about a solid material object? Could an orb speed around inside that?

Apparently so, judging from the photo below. This is a photo of a crystal ball. The orb shown here appeared only in this photo.

A Swirling Orange Face

Photo date: November 21, 2014.  Photographer: Mark Mahin.

In this water drop photo, we yet another example of the orb centrifuge effect, in which orbs seem to speed rapidly around the outer edges of a water drop.

Cute Orb With 5 Buddies

Photo date: December 2, 2014.  Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The gang's all here in this photo of a drop of pure, clean water.  The "auto-adjust colors" menu option was used in the IrfanView program.  To see similar photos, see my 118 posts labeled "water face effect."

The Sky Seems to Suddenly Change Color

Photo date: March 27, 2015.  Photographer: Mark Mahin.

Below is an unusual series of photos taken in New York City, at a spot near where I live. The first photo shows a church steeple.

A closeup shows the circular object is not the moon, but an orb that almost looks like a face. (I auto-adjusted the colors to bring out the details.)

Such a photo is "par for the course" for my photos, as orbs very frequently appear in my photos. But the next photo was something I can't recall getting before. It is shown below, and was taken only six seconds after the first photo. I have made no color adjustment in the photo below.

What is very strange here is that the color of the sky suddenly appears as brown, even though I had made no change in the camera settings. When I do a closeup of the area above the steeple, I see a misty blackness that seems to resemble an animal face  This "face" seems to have a mouth and a left eye. But it's not a clear face, so I won't label it (or the previous one) as a face.

 A few seconds later I took another photo of this steeple, and it showed the sky as it appeared in the first photo.  Very odd. Why should the sky suddenly have appeared brown in a photo taken seconds between 2 photos showing the sky as black? Could it be this happened so that the "face" above might become visible?

Orb Face on the Stairway

Photo date: February 20, 2015.  Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in Grand Central Station in New York.

We seem to see an orb face with two big eyes.

Bright Orb Making Sharp Right-Angle Turn

Photo date: February 20, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in Grand Central Station in New York.

Below is a closeup of the object near the center of the photo:

What we seem to have here is the photographic effect known as ghosting, when something is photographed moving much faster than the camera's shutter speed. The orb seems to be making a sharp right-angle turn. See my posts labeled "orb right angle turn" for many similar examples.

A photo like this offers 3 types of evidence that the orb is not a speck of dust: (1) the brightness of the orb (dust particles never look this bright); (2) the speed of the orb (which seems to be moving many times faster than the average speed of indoor dust particle, which is only 2 miles an hour; (3) the sharp right angle turn (a type of motion that dust specks never make).

This is the same type of motion shown in many other photos on this site. To see other examples, see my posts labeled "speeding air orb," or look at the composite photo below (showing only my own photos).

Orb Behind Distant Lights Plus Orb Too Big To Be Dust

Photo date: December 15, 2014.  Photographer: Mark Mahin.

Below is a photo of two orbs, taken at Grand Central Station in New York.

Here is a closeup of the orb at the top, cropped from the photo above:

A photo such as this is evidence against the skeptic's "orb zone" theory, the theory that orbs are merely dust floating a few inches from the camera lens. This orb seems to be behind lights that were more than 30 meters away from the camera when this picture was taken.

The top photo also gives another line of evidence against the skeptic's "orb zone: theory. At the bottom right of the photo, we see a very large orb that is about 25% of the original photo height. According to the "orb zone" theory, orbs can be no larger than about 10 percent of the photo's height. (The orb cannot be explained as some lens smudge, as it did not appear in the photos taken seconds before and seconds after this photo.)

The dust particles in ordinary air are 1000 times too small to produce an orb like the orb shown in the lower part of this photo. 

Water Grins

Photo date: February 7, 2015.  Photographer: Mark Mahin.

In the photo below, we see a bunch of orbs flashing a variety of smiles from within a water drip. It's another example of the water face effect shown in many photos on this site.

Drip Smilers

Photo date: December 3, 2014. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

This unaltered photo of a pure, clean drip of water shows what seems to be many smiling orb faces.

Below is a closeup showing the top yellow orb. Notice how we seem to see both a white and a dark part of its "eye."

Congruent "Orb Veils"

Photo date: March 28, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

I found a page today with some stunning orb photos: this page, which I am adding to my page listing "Paranormal Photos by Others."   One photo has a caption with the phrase "orbs change into graceful veil-like shapes." I have seen veil-like structures  repeatedly in my photos of water drops, as you can see by looking at my posts labeled "orb veils."

Below is an interesting example. We see two "orb veils" that both have the same shape, a shape that includes three or more large arcs on the outer perimeter.

s change into graceful veil-like shapes

This Orb Has a Lucky Number

Photo date: March 26, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in Grand Central Station in New York.

Below is a closeup of the orb at the top, with the colors-auto adjusted. We seem to see a face with the number 7 on its forehead.  Since 7 is traditionally a lucky number, let us interpret this as a good omen.

Speeding Orb Makes Sharp Right Angle Turn in Grand Central Station

Photo date: December 24, 2014.  Photographer: Mark Mahin.

Here is a rather spectacular photo taken in Grand Central Station in New York.

Below is a closeup cropped from the middle of the photo above. I slightly reduced the "Gamma correction" in this closeup.

While it is possible to interpret a photo like this as evidence of something with a snake-shaped body, given the fact that orbs are almost always circular, it is more likely that this is an object moving at high speed (like the 37 fast moving orbs shown on this composite photo). If you look closely at the second photo, we seem to see a circular shape that is repeated multiple times, in an effect that photographers call "ghosting," when the motion of an object greatly exceeds the shutter speed of a camera.  What we seem to have here is an object moving at very high speeds (much faster than an insect moves). Moreover, the object seems to be making a sharp right-angle turn, a type of motion that insects never make. The photo is evidence of an utterly anomalous motion that cannot be explained under our current knowledge.

I may note that the photo was taken by a male (myself)  with short hair, and cannot be explained as a hair. Hairs never have this type of right angle.

The photo may show more than one marvel. For when  we look at the top of the stairs, we see what looks like two strange apparitions. The one on the right seems to look like an animal head with a very happy expression.

See my posts labeled "apparition cluster" for many examples of similar oddities photographed at this location.

Another Air Orb Too Big to Be Dust

Photo date: November 23, 2014. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

This  indoor photo of a wall shows an air orb with a height of 268 pixels. This means that the orb occupied 16% of the photo size (the full photo had a height of 1704 pixels). This size is incompatible with the "orb zone" theory which maintains that orbs are merely dust. Those who have advanced such a theory have admitted that according to such a theory, orbs should never be larger than 10% of the size of the picture (and, in fact, when you actually raise lots of dust and photograph dust orbs, they are no larger than about 5% of the original photo size).

The original photo is shown below:

Below we see the photo after I used the "Auto-adjust colors" menu option from the menu of the IrvanView program:

Dust level: 335/9 (Fair). No artificial light was involved in the photo area except the camera flash.  No orbs shown in photos taken at same place shortly before and shortly after this photo, which argues against an explanation of dust. No insects observed at the photo site. Nearby reflective surfaces: none.

Remarkably, this orb looks almost identical to another orb that I photographed on October 9, 2014, and which I also tagged as "Air orb too large to be dust." In both cases the orb is very large, has an outer ring, has a maze-like appearance, and has a small red luminous spot near the middle. 

Wet, Cheerful, and Tiny

Photo date: December 4, 2014.  Photographer: Mark Mahin.

In this photo of drips of pure, clean water, we see yet another example of the astonishing water face effect shown in many other posts on this blog.

"Sleeping" Orb Has 3 Colors

Photo date: October 21, 2014.  Photographer: Mark Mahin.

Another photo of a water drop. Here we see a very unusual-looking orb that seems to be
three different colors: orange, yellow, and green.

Statistical Evidence Suggesting Paranormal Orbs

 Photo date: March 26, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

Orbs are unusual circular anomalies that appear in photos like the photo below. In previous posts I have done experiments debunking the "orb zone theory" -- the claim that orbs can be explained as flash reflections of dust particles near the camera lens. My tests showed that even when you raise heavy dust, you merely get small, dull, faint orbs unlike any of the more dramatic orbs shown on this site (which are so often big, bright, colorful, fast-moving or having what looks likes faces).

In this post I will discuss an entirely different type of experiment: a statistical experiment. The experiment will be done purely by analyzing a series of photographs taken on a particular day. In the experiment I will be looking for a certain type of “location bias” that we would not at all expect to see if orbs are just dust.

To explain this idea, let me first show a photo of the main terminal of Grand Central Station in New York as observed from one side of the East Balcony (the side opposite the US flag). The view looks like the one shown below. The strange blue items at the top are orbs.

You will notice that there is a row of lights that stretches roughly through the middle of the photo We can consider this row of lights as a divider. We can consider the area above the row of lights as the “upper area” of a photograph of the terminal made from this angle, and the area below the row of lights as the “lower area” of such a photograph of the terminal.

Now under the hypothesis that orbs are just dust, should we expect to see orbs more often in the upper area of photos like the one above, or in the lower area of such photos? Under such a hypothesis, there should be little or no difference between the frequency of orbs seen in the upper area and in the lower area. The theory that orbs are dust holds that the photographer is photographing little particles of dust floating around very close to the camera. If that theory is true, we should not at all expect to see orbs appearing much more frequently in the upper area of photographs like the photo shown above.

Consequently I had a nice opportunity for a statistical test. My procedure was as follows:

1. Using the photographs that I had taken on March 26, 2015, I selected all that were taken from the same angle as the angle in the photograph shown at the beginning of this post. I threw out a few of these photographs which did not show a roughly equal amount of “lower area” and “upper area.” The row of lights in the terminal was used as the dividing line between the upper area and the lower area. I was then left with a set of 158 photos.
2. I examined each such photograph, and judged whether the total surface area of orbs shown in the photo was greater in the upper area or the lower area. If it seemed hard to tell whether the surface area of the orbs in the lower area was more or less than the surface area of the orbs in the upper area, or if no orbs were shown in the photo, I made no judgment regarding that photo.

The results were as follows: 106 of the photographs were judged to have a greater amount of “orb surface area” in either the upper area or the lower area (as defined above).  Of these 106 photos, 101 had a greater amount of “orb surface area” in the upper area, the area above the row of lights. Only five of the photos had a greater amount of "orb surface area" in the lower area, the area below the row of lights.

The table below summarizes these results.

Photos showing no orbs or no clear difference between the total surface area of orbs in the upper part of the photo and the total surface area of orbs in the lower part of the photo	52
Photos showing orbs in the upper part of the photo having a higher total surface area than the total surface area of orbs in the lower part of the photo	101
Photos showing orbs in the lower part of the photo having a higher total surface area than the total surface area of orbs in the upper part of the photo.	5

To put it succinctly, on this day (March 26, 2015) the abundant orbs in my photos seemed to appear much, much more commonly in the upper area of my photos.

Now how unlikely is it to have got a result such as I have just described, purely by chance? It's about the same as the chance of you flipping a coin 106 times, and getting 101 heads. If only chance was involved, and if orbs are just dust, then each of the photograph examinations I made (listed in the last two rows of the table above) should have been like a coin flip, with about a 50% chance of observing more orbs above the “row of lights” dividing line, and a 50% chance of observing more orbs below this dividing line.

But is there any way to calculate the chance of such a thing happening? Yes, there is a convenient online calculator we can use. The calculator is on this page at the stattrek.com website. The calculator uses a binomial probability calculation to estimate the odds.

The screen shot below shows the result I got when I typed the relevant numbers into the calculator.

The answer given by the calculator is that there is a 0% likelihood of getting these results by chance. The binomial probability (stated above in exponential notation) is calculated as about 1 chance in a trillion trillion (1 chance in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).

So we have our answer to the question about odds. There is essentially zero chance that you might flip a coin 106 times and get 101 heads. There is also essentially zero chance that I would have got the results I got, under the theory that orbs are produced by flash reflections of dust floating in front of the camera. The statistical evidence I have presented here is extremely strong evidence against such a theory. The orbs in my photos at this location on this day were showing a very strong tendency to “preferentially” appear in the upper half of the photo area. Such a fact is powerful evidence against the theory that these orbs are produced by random particles of dust floating in the air. 

Postscript: The 106 photos I mentioned (all from the same angle and location) showed orbs appearing in a great variety of photo positions, with each photo showing a unique set of positions for the orbs, and with the orbs appearing much more frequently in the top area of the photos. Quite a few of these photos will be shown in future posts on this blog. 

Orb in a Hurry

Photo date: March 11, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in Grand Central Station in New York.  Here we have another photo of an orb moving very fast.  

Mysterious Orb Infiltrates the Information Desk

Photo date: February 26, 2015.  Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in Grand Central Station in New York.

We see two orbs, and the more interesting orb is the one at the bottom. A closeup is shown below.

Note how the orb seems to be behind some features of that desk.  The information desk was more than 20 meters from my camera when I took this photo. The photo seems to show that the orb was located distantly, and cannot possibly be some speck of dust a few inches from the camera lens. For quite a few other similar photos, see my posts labeled "air orb too distant to be dust."

Water Drop Faces

Photo date: March 18, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo of water drops below was uploaded directly from the camera. Click here to see the photo at its full resolution. Or click below to see it at a somewhat lower resolution.

Below is a closeup cropped from this photo:

Below is another closeup from the top photo.

A Colorful Set of Orb Faces

Photo date: November 19, 2014. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

In this very colorful water drop photo, we seem to see several orbs with smiles. Two or three of them seem to be moving at a high speed. The different colors here are as hard-to-explain as the facial characteristics.  I was photographing nothing but pure, clean water.

An Orb With a "3D" Face

Photo date: March 26, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in Grand Central Station in New York. We see three orbs. The one on the top left almost looks as if it is playing "peek-a-boo."

Below is a closeup of the orb on the right. We see a face. Unlike most other orbs, which look flat and two-dimensional, this orb face seems to have a three-dimensional look to it. What is that red thing at the bottom of the face? Is the orb sticking out a red tongue?

An Interesting Case of Synchronicity

Yesterday I was reading the book Communion by Whitley Strieber, a story of his paranormal experiences.  While reading it, it occurred to me that perhaps one day I should write a book narrating all the many strange things I have seen or experienced (many of which can be discovered by reading this blog). But what to call such a book? I thought for just a second, and then suddenly a title seemed to pop into my mind: the title "Paranormal Plunge."  That wouldn't be a bad title, I thought.  It was rather odd that the rare word "plunge" should just kind of pop into my mind.

I then immediately turned a page on the Strieber book,  and saw that the next page had at the top a poem ("As I Walked Out One Evening") by W.H. Auden that begins like this:

O plunge your hands in water,
Plunge them in up to the wrist;

One could interpret this event as a trivial case of precognition, although perhaps pure coincidence is a better explanation. I have had some interesting experiences that made me wonder whether precognition was involved, as described in this blog post, "Does the Future Splash on the Present?"

Orbs Form a Giant S-Shape in Grand Central Station

Photo date: February 20, 2015.  Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in Grand Central Station in New York, and was uploaded directly from the camera.  Click here to see the photo in its full resolution. Or click below to see the photo at somewhat reduced resolution.

In the upper half of the photograph we see 8 orbs that are arranged in a gigantic S-shape.  The shape begins just above the American flag, and finishes on the green ceiling.

In the bottom right part of the photo, we seem to see a strange scene of paranormal tenderness that appears to show a floating ghostly head on both the left and the right.

On the lower left of the top photo, we seem to see another apparition cluster that seems to include a weird orange head amidst some dark ghostly figures.

Other paranormal-looking things can be seen by clicking on the link at top, opening the top photo in its full resolution, loading the photo into a photo editor, and zooming in to look at the details. Here is one other oddity, near the corner information desk shown on the lower left quarter of the top photo. Note the interesting face of the main figure.

For many other examples of this type of anomalous weirdness, see my posts on this blog labeled "apparition cluster."

Bright Orb Above the Donut Orbs

Photo date: February 26, 2015.   Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in Grand Central Station in New York.

 Below is a closeup of the top orb. We don't see a face, but notice an outer ring.

When an orb is this bright, it shows that the orb isn't just some speck of dust as a skeptic might have us believe. When one photographs specks of dust near the camera, they never look anywhere near as bright as on orb like this.  The reason is simple -- a particle of dust doesn't reflect much light. You would need a mirror-like surface floating in the air to produce a flash reflection as bright as this.

In the middle of the photo, we see the interesting thing shown below. I will label it as an "orb donut." I cannot recall seeing such a thing in the air, although I have observed something similar in water drops.

Smiley Group in a Water Drop

Photo date: December 12 2014.   Photographer: Mark Mahin.

This photo just shows your basic bunch of smiley orbs hanging around in a big drop of pure, clean water. The photo had its colors "auto-adjusted."  For 113 other examples of this astonishing phenomenon, see my posts labeled "water face effect."