A Midsummer's Night Orb Swarm

Photo date: July 29, 2015. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below was taken in dry weather in New York City at 9:31 PM.

 Notice that the photo shows a dense swarm of orbs, but virtually none of them appear in front of the buildings. This is a strong indication that these orbs were not merely some particles (such as dust) near the camera lens.

The same thing is suggested by the photo below. A photo taken during the same minute (at 9:31) of a piece of cardboard at arm's length showed no orbs.

There was no fog, mist, rain, or precipitation on this night. The air quality as listed on airnow.gov was "moderate." When I took these photos, there was nothing unusual I could see with my eyes, and I could not smell anything unusual.