Orb Pays No Attention to the Laws of Optics

Photo date:November 2, 2016. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

The photo below (showing Grand Central Terminal) is one of those "jerked camera" photos you get when you accidentally move the camera while the photo is taken. We see everything in the photo has that streaky, blurred, jerked-camera look, except for one thing -- the mysterious orb in the center  of the photo. It's as if the orb was thinking, "Ha! Ha! I play by my own rules."

Below is a closeup of the orb, cropped from the photo above. Notice that the orb appears clear and sharp -- sharp enough so that we see the outer ring of the orb. No orb appeared in the next few photos.

This is one of several photos I have previously published showing the same effect, as shown here.

The effect I have documented here has also been noted by another orb site. The page here is largely speculative, but notes that orbs are "sharp on fuzzy pictures as well."

The effect shown here is impossible to reproduce through photographing known objects or particles falling near the camera. I defy any photographer to produce this effect using small objects or particles dropped in front of the camera. If the camera is jerked enough so that the whole background is as blurred as we see here, a natural object in the foreground will never appear sharp and focused.