Recurring Patterns in Mysterious Orbs

Note: This post is being continually updated to have the latest examples of recurring pattern orbs.  So while the post date is December 1, 2016, the post includes many photos taken long after that date. 

Of the many types of strange phenomena documented on this blog (summarized here), perhaps the most dramatic is the phenomenon of recurring patterns in orbs. Not counting the very many recurring patterns I have got when photographing falling water drops,  I have identified 40 types of recurring orb patterns. This post (which I will be updating as time goes on) will be summarizing the evidence for recurring orb patterns.

In each of the photo grids below, we will be seeing a series of photos taken over the course of a number of days (almost always weeks or months); and each occurrence of the pattern occurred directly after many of my photographs showed no such pattern. In no case will we be seeing patterns that showed up in consecutive photos. So I am sure that none of these photos was caused by some camera irregularity (such as cracks or lines on the camera lens).  Such an irregularity would cause a photo anomaly that would show up in consecutive photos; but none of these anomalies appeared in consecutive photos.

By using this link you can see the original posts in which I first presented the photos below. 98% of the photos below were taken in dry clean air, and the remaining 2%  were taken when there was fog but no rain. None of the photos on this page were taken when I photographed falling water drops.

The "Inverted Y" Pattern

I have so far taken 11 photos of mysterious orbs that had a set of stripes resembling an upside-down Y. The pattern has appeared between 2016 and 2018. Below are 6 of these orbs.

Below are two additional occurrences of the pattern.

Here is one other such photo:

Here is another:

Here is another:

Another photographer has twice got this inverted-Y pattern in mysterious orbs he photographed. See here for details.

The "Umbilical Cord" Pattern

I have so far taken 10 photos of mysterious orbs that had a set of stripes resembling a looped umbilical cord. They are shown below. Note the common elements of the pattern: a vertical stripe twisting over to the right and then twisting back again to the left, forming a loop with a little circle in the middle (and also a little stripe part underneath the loop).  The photos were taken between September 2016 and November 2016.

The "Curved Stripe at Top or Bottom" Pattern

Not counting photos in which curved stripes appeared while I photographing water drops, I have so far taken 15 photos of mysterious orbs that had a curved stripe at the top or bottom of the orb. Six of the photos are shown below.

Two other examples are below.

Two other examples are below.

Two other examples are below:

 One other example is below:

Another example is below:

Another example is below:

In the photo here (taken while I was photographing falling water drops), we see 10 orbs with curved stripes. See here for 75+ orbs I have photographed with curved stripes.

The "Diagonal Slash" Pattern

I have so far taken 49 photos of mysterious orbs that had a diagonal slash that goes from one side of the orb to another, with a resemblance to a slash rather than a backslash.  These photos were taken over the course of several years. Below are ten of the photos. You can see the original posts in which I published these photos here. The photo in the top right of the grid below was particularly astonishing, showing two striped sky orbs right next to each other.

Here are four more photos showing the same pattern:

Here are four more photos showing the same pattern. Astonishingly, the one on the top left actually has an orb with a diagonal slash in the middle of an orb with a diagonal slash.

Here are three more examples.

Here are four more examples:

Here are three more examples:

Here are two more examples:

Here are two more examples:

Here is another example:

Here is one more:

Here is another:

Here is another:

Here is another:

Here is another:

Here is another:

Here are two more:

Here is one more:

Here are four more:

Here is one more:

Here is one more:

Here is one more:

The Backslash Pattern

I have so far taken 20 photos of mysterious orbs that had a diagonal slash that goes from one side of the orb to another, with a resemblance to a backslash rather than a slash. Four such photos are below.

Here are two more examples.

Here is one more example:

Here is another example:

Here is one more example:

Here is one more example:

Here is one more example:

Here is one more example:

Here is one more example:

Here are two more example. Note that the stripes are 100% transparent.

Here are four more examples:

Here is one more:

Here is one more:

The "Short Diagonal Stripe" Pattern

I have seven times photographed mysterious orbs with a short diagonal stripe stretching from the top right corner of the orb to about the center of the orb.  These look like the "diagonal slash" orbs shown above, except that the stripe or slash is only half as long.  Below are four of these orbs.

Here are two others:

Here is one more:

The "Hose and Circle" Pattern

I have nine times photographed mysterious orbs with a strange pattern resembling a ball that has fallen out of a tube. Below are eight examples. In each case the circular or oval "ball" is found underneath the "tube."

Below is an additional occurrence of the pattern:

The "Slanted C" Pattern

I have 12 times photographed mysterious orbs with a stripe resembling the letter C, slanted over quite a bit to the right. Ten of the photos are below.

Below are two other occurrences of this pattern.

The "Inverted V" Pattern

I have 7 times photographed mysterious orbs with an upside-down V inside them. Below are 6 examples.

Here is another example:

The "Cane-like Stripe" Pattern

I have six times photographed mysterious orbs with a stripe resembling a cane. Below are four examples.

Here are two more examples.  Notice how the orb at right has a stripe making an uncanny alignment with a structural stripe behind it.

The "Curvy 9 Which Fell Down" Pattern

For lack of a better description, "Curvy 9 Which Fell Down" is my name for the strange pattern below that I have twice photographed in mysterious orbs.

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The "4 Stripes" Pattern

I have twice photographed the extremely distinctive pattern below in mysterious orbs.

The "Broken Squiggly T" Pattern

I have three times photographed a strange pattern consisting of one wiggly horizontal stripe at the top above a vertical stripe at the bottom. Below are the examples.

The Hockey Stick Pattern

I have 8 times photographed mysterious orbs with a stripe resembling a hockey stick. Three of the photos are below.
 

Two more such photos are below.

 One other such photo is below:

Here is another example:

Here is another example:

The Belt-Like Pattern

I have 43 times photographed mysterious orbs with a stripe stretching horizontally from the left side of the orb to the right side. Below are these photos of orbs with belt-like stripes.

Here are two more examples, which oddly occurred near the same spot (ornamental window frames at the top of Grand Central Terminal).

Below are three more examples.

Below are two more examples. Note how the stripes in these two photos have an almost identical shape.

Below are two other examples:

Here are two more examples:

Here are two more examples:

Here is one more example:

Here are two more examples:

Here are three more examples:

Here are two more examples:

Here is one more example:

Here is one more example:

Here is one more example:

Here is another example:

Here is another example (the orb was not a physical object on the table):

Here is another example:

Here is another example:

Here are four more examples:

Here is one more example:

Here is one more example:

Below is another example:

The J-Like Pattern

I have eight times photographed mysterious orbs that had a "J" letter inside them. Three are shown below.

Here is one more.

Here is one more:

Here are two more, photographed about 24 hours apart. There is an uncanny similarity that you can see by comparing the bottom part of the "J" shapes.

The mysterious orb shown below had a J-shaped stripe very closely resembling that of the two orbs shown above.

The "Two-Thirds of a Y" Pattern

I have 3 times photographed mysterious orbs that had a pattern that looks like two-thirds of  the letter Y (with the left third of the letter missing). The examples are below.

The "T With Slanted Top" Pattern

I have taken four photos showing mysterious orbs with the pattern shown below in which we see a T shape with a slight break between the lines, and a slanted top that is not wavy.   The photos are below.

Below is another example.

The "Corner Chord" Pattern

In geometry a chord is a line connecting two points on a curve. I have 46 times photographed mysterious orbs with a chord stripe in one of the corners of the orb. Below are nine of these photos.

Below are three more.

Here are three more:

Here are three more:

Here are three other examples:

Here are two other examples, both of which occurred on the same day in front of a high window at Grand Central Terminal:

Here is another example:

Here is another example:

Here are two more examples:

Here are four more examples:

Here are four more examples:

Here is another example:

Here is one other example:

Below are four more examples:

Below are two more examples:

See here  and here and here for three other examples of this pattern.

The "Side Curve" Pattern

I have 6 times photographed mysterious orbs with curved stripes on their left or right sides. Below are these photos.

Two other examples are below.

The "Letter T" Pattern

I have five times photographed mysterious orbs with a letter T pattern inside them. Below are two of the photos (the "T" in the second photo is kind of slanted over to the right).

 Below are two more examples, which are astonishingly similar. The second one appeared about an hour after the first. I took several photos in between taking these two photos, and they showed no orbs and no lines.

Here is one more example:

The "Triangle with Legs" Pattern

I have two times photographed a pattern I call "triangle with legs." In both photos we see a dark triangle shape, and in both cases there are two stripes (or "legs") at the bottom of the triangle, one connecting to the bottom left corner of the triangle and the other connecting to the bottom right corner of the triangle. The photos are below.

The "H" Pattern

I have two times photographed mysterious orbs with a letter "H" inside them. In both cases the right "leg" of the "H" curved to the right. The two photos (taken on the same day) are below.

The "7" Pattern

I have six times photographed  mysterious orbs with the number 7 inside them. Three examples are shown below (see here for the original posts).

Below is another example:

Below is another example:

Below is another example:

The Vertical Stripe Pattern

I have 22 times photographed mysterious orbs with a vertical stripe stretching from the top of the orb to the bottom of the orb. Six examples are shown below.

Below are two other examples:

 

Another example is below:

Here are two more examples:

Here are two more examples:

Here are two more examples:

Here is one more example:

Here is one more example:

Here are four more examples:

Below is another example:

The Eleven Pattern

I have twice photographed mysterious orbs with a number 11 inside them. The two photos are below. In both cases, we see a slanting to the right.

The X Pattern

I have five times photographed orbs with a letter X inside them. In each of these cases the X letter was less wide and more tall than a typical X.  Below are two of these photos:

Here is one other example:

Here are two other examples that appeared right next to each other in the same photo:



The Curvy Y Pattern

I have twice photographed mysterious orbs which had had both a curved stripe and a straight stripe, with the two stripes forming a kind of curvy letter Y. The two examples are shown below. The two photos were taken four days apart.

The "L Version 1" Pattern

Below is a repeating orb pattern that I observed in photos occurring only a minute apart. An intervening photo showed no such effect.

The "L Version 2" Pattern

Below is a repeating orb pattern that I observed in photos occurring 36 minutes apart.  Photos in between these two showed no such effect.

The "Ballet Dancer" Pattern

Below is a repeating orb pattern that I observed in photos taken an hour and twenty-one minutes apart.  Photos in between these two showed no such thing. The pattern resembles a stick figure of a leaping ballet dancer.

The pattern was repeated again on September 6, as shown below:

The Right-Angle Pattern

I have at least eleven times photographed mysterious orbs with stripes that formed a right angle.  Four such photos are shown below. They were all taken within a 24-hour period.

Below are two other photos taken a few days before the ones above:

Below is another example:

Below is another example:

Below is another example:

Below are two more examples. Although the line curves over a little, the angle is approximately a right angle.

The "Foot" Pattern

Below we see seven mysterious striped orbs that I photographed in August 2019 and September 2019. They all have stripes that create the appearance of a foot-like shape.

Below is another example, which appeared in September 2019,  about 10 hours after  I first published the seven photos above. The item on the right is a shadow from a sports trophy earned by one of my daughters.

The "Hook" Pattern

The photos below show six mysterious orbs I photographed that all have hook-shaped stripes.

Below are two additional examples:

Here is one other example (from 10/02/2019, a few days after the two photos above):

Below is another example:

The "E Minus" Pattern

Below is a strange pattern I have photographed on six different days.

Below we see what looks like two half-repetitions of the pattern. Notice how they both have the same little circle (at the bottom end of the "E") that we see in the two bottom photos above  (from February 8 and February 19).

The "Hobby Horse" Pattern

I got two cases of the pattern below, which rather resembles the child's toy called a hobby horse.

The "Tilted W" Pattern

I got two cases of the pattern below, in which we see a circular shape above a tilted W.

The "Swordfish Head" Pattern

I got five cases of the pattern below, in which we see something that looks rather like the head of a swordfish. Four are shown below.

Below is one other example:

The "Ribbon and Ring" Pattern

I got three cases of the pattern below, consisting of a somewhat curvy stripe and a ring above the stripe.

The "Fallen P and Pair" Pattern

Below is a repeating orb pattern I have got two times. It consists of a "fallen P" shape on the left (which you can recognize if you tilt your head to the left), and two circle-like shapes on the top right:

The Water Face Effect

The most dramatic example of a recurring orb pattern is what I call the water face effect, described here.  The recurring pattern is a simple face. I have taken more than 400 photos showing multiple examples of this pattern, as you can see here.  A video compiling many of these photos is here. See here and here for videos showing my camera viewfinder while I photographed such face-like details while photographing ordinary falling water drops.

Dramatically Repeating Motifs Appearing When I Photographed Falling Water Drops

This page has not shown any photos taken while I photographed falling water drops. While photographing falling water drops, I have very often got extremely dramatic cases of repeating orb motifs. This effect occurs so strongly and dramatically that I have labeled a series of such photos "photos suggesting a supernatural design effect." You can see the series of photos here (keep pressing Older Posts at the bottom right to see all the photos in the series).  Or to see highlights from such a series, look at the photos here and here.

The effect is not at all a subtle one. For example:

• one day I got a half-ring motif that appeared in more than 20,000 orbs;
• another day I got hundreds of photos that each showed multiple orbs that each had a half-oval hole;
• another day I got more than 5000 orbs that each had a large oval hole;
• another day I got more than 500 orbs that each had a very noticeable exclamation mark motif;
• another day I got more than 1000 orbs with a breast-like shape inside them;
• another day I got more than 100 orbs that each had a turtle-shaped motif;
• another day I got more than 5000 orbs that each had a snowman-shaped motif.

A very large number of striking motifs have abundantly appeared (with a very high degree of repetition) while I have photographed falling water drops. Click here to watch a 38-minute video showing my camera viewfinder as I photographed such massively repeating patterns appearing.

Perhaps the easiest way to see the full extent of the vast pattern repetition I have got when photographing ordinary drops of pure, clean water is to watch the 94 minute video here. This video is chronologically organized, and shows you the most dramatic pattern repetitions that occurred on particular days. I include in the video written discussion of how many times the patterns repeated.

Another Photographer Getting a Repeating Orb Pattern

A very strong pattern repetition effect can be seen in the orb photos of Marion Atehsa Cyrus (see here for how to best view them).  In more than 50 of Marion's orb photos, we see a repetition of a kind of "nucleus" repeating pattern, in which an orb will seem to have a central nucleus that is about 20% or 25% of the total area of the orb. 

Conclusion

What is the chance of any photographer getting this many pattern repetitions purely by coincidence? The odds of that is essentially zero.

Whenever you have anything that can take on any look, there are always a gigantic number of possibilities for the way that thing can look. So the chance of that thing looking the same distinctive way two different times due to a coincidence is very low.

Consider the following math. Imagine there are two strangers in different houses who are each told to randomly arrange 23 black tiles on a scrabble board that is a 15 by 15 grid.  There are 225 places for the first person to arrange his first tile, so the chance that they will both place the first tile in the same spot on the grid is 1 in 225. The chance that they both will put the second tile on the same spot on the 15 by 15 grid is 1 in 224, because now one of the spots on the grid is already filled. We can calculate the chance of the two strangers randomly positioning their tiles on exactly the same 23 spots on the 15 by 15 grid as follows: it is

(1/225) *(1/224) *(1/223)*(1/222)*(1/221)*(1/220)*(1/219)*(1/218)*(1/217)*(1/216)*(1/215) *(1/214) *(1/213)*(1/212)*(1/211)*(1/210)*(1/209)*(1/208)*(1/207)*(1/206)*(1/205) *(1/204) *(1/203). 

This equals 1 in 2 x 10⁵⁴ -- which is about 1 chance in 1 followed by 54 zeroes. This is about the  chance of you meeting 6 strangers, and correctly guessing all of their 9-digit Social Security numbers on the first try. 

This calculation simply gives us a hint of how fantastically improbable it is that two random patterns will coincidentally match. If we were to calculate the probability of getting by chance the number of pattern matches shown above by coincidental arrangements of matter, the answer  would be some probability much, much smaller than the microscopic probability mentioned above.