Seemingly Supernatural Behavior of a Sound Machine

In recent days I have noticed a particularly high level of spooky behavior from a sound machine I own, which has included things I am utterly unable to account for.  When no one was touching the machine, the machine underwent various types of  changes of state, which seemingly cannot be explained through any imaginable conventional explanation. Before discussing the spooky behavior, let me thoroughly describe the machine and its normal behavior. 

Description of the Sound Machine

The sound machine is shown below. It is one I bought quite a few years ago, a machine that has almost always worked with perfect reliability and predictability. I have used the machine for years to make a soothing "waterfall" sound while I sleep. The manual of the machine is here. 

Reading in a clockwise direction from the lower left to the lower right, the bar-shaped buttons on the upper part of the machine are:

• Rainforest
• Ocean
• Thunder
• Summer Night
• Rain
• Waterfall

Let's call the six choices above the "six sound channels," and let's call those bar-shaped buttons the "sound channel buttons." Pressing the "Power" button in the middle of the bottom row of circular buttons (and pressing on one of the sound channel buttons) will cause the machine to produce the selected sound. Until it is unplugged, the machine will remember whatever sound channel was last selected. So, for example,  if I press the Power button and press "Rain,"  the machine will make a rain sound. If I press the Power button again to stop the sound, and then press the Power button later to turn back on the sound, the machine will make the rain sound (the last sound channel I selected).  And, to give another example, if I press the Power button and press "Waterfall,"  the machine will make a waterfall sound. If I press the Power button again to stop the sound, and then press the Power button later to turn back on the sound, the machine will make the waterfall sound (the last sound channel I selected).

There is one exception to what I noted above.  The machine's "memory" of what was the last sound I selected is what computer experts call "volatile" memory, meaning that is a memory lost when the machine is unplugged.  If you unplug the machine, it causes the "current sound channel" to reset to the Rainforest sound channel, no matter what sound channel you had last selected. 

The circular buttons in the front of the machine read as follow:

• Hour
• Timer
• Radio
• Power
• Al Set
• Al Mode
• Min

The Hour button and the Min button (standing for Minute) can be used to reset the time shown on the machine. Pressing the Power button causes the green light above the Power button to become lit (if it is not lit), or causes that light to become unlit (it the light was lit). Pressing the Power button also causes the machine to make whatever sound is the current "sound channel," as long as the volume is set high enough. Pressing the Radio button turns on "radio reception" as a seventh "sound channel."  So if the Power button was lit, and you pressed Radio, you would hear a radio station. Unplugging the machine and plugging it back in will never result in the machine making a sound, unless you have also pressed the Power button, causing the green Power light to light up. 

The device on the left side of the machine controls the volume, and the device on the right side of the machine controls the current radio station (which is relevant only if Radio has been chosen as the sound channel). 

The back of the machine looks like this:

At the back of the machine are four things:

• FM/AM switch
• Backlight High/Low
• DC Jack
• Projector On/Off

The FM/AM switch is relevant only if Radio has been selected as the current sound channel. The "Backlight High/Low" button controls how strong the lighting is of the front digital time display. The DC Jack is a slot where you plug in the DC power. The Projector On/Off button controls some projection feature that I never use. 

The back of the machine has a unit where batteries can be inserted, but I have never used batteries with this machine. The sound machine is plugged into a double-outlet shown below. The black power supply unit shown below gives power to the sound machine. The white electrical cord is for a fan about a meter from the sound machine. There is no known problem with this outlet. Last summer I ran the fan every night using this outlet, without ever experiencing any abnormality such as a power interruption. 

The sound machine is located on the floor about a meter away from the edge of the bed where I sleep. There is no possibility that any leg movements or blanket movements could cause one of the buttons to be pressed. 

When you pull the power supply so that the machine is unplugged, the following will happen:

(1) The clock will reset to 12:00 (without showing a blinking time). The displayed time will continue to advance as time passes. So, for example, if you unplugged the machine, plugged the machine back in, and came back 10 minutes later, the displayed time would be 12:10. 

(2) The sound machine's "volatile" memory of the previously selected sound channel will be lost when you unplug the machine. After a loss of power the current sound channel is always reset to the Rainforest channel. So, for example, if you had set the current sound channel to "Ocean" by pressing on the Ocean button while the Power light was showing, and if you then unplugged the sound machine and plugged it back in, then if you were to press the Power button you would hear the Rainforest sound. 

I don't know whether there is any such thing as Internet-connected sound machines, but this humble device I bought for little money many years ago is certainly no such thing, ruling out "hacking" as an explanation for any of its strange behavior. 

Spooky Behavior of the Sound Machine, November 7 2022 to December 14, 2022

Below are some of the very strange results I have got in recent months from this machine:

• On November 7, 2022 I six times saw (at various times of the day and night never close to 12:00) the sound machine  have a time close to 12:00. It was just as if each of these six times the power to the clock was being interrupted, and then restored, causing the time to be reset to 12:00 (the clock on this device doesn't blink when the power is interrupted).
• On December 11, 2021 at about 8:30 PM I noticed that the displayed time on the machine had dimmed. This is exactly what you would get if you had switched the Backlight High/Low switch on the back of the machine from High to Low. But no one had adjusted that switch or even touched the sound machine.  
• Between December 11, 2021 (about 8:30 PM) to December 12, 2021 (about 10:00 AM) I noticed that about 15 different times the sound machine had switched from making sound to becoming silent, even though no one touched the machine. During each of these times the clock had seemed to reset to 12:00. It was just as if about 15 different times the machine had been unplugged for an instant, and then plugged back in.
• There was several instances of gigantically improbable synchronicity on this night. I looked at the sound machine about 15 different times on this night, but never more than a few seconds at a time. During one of those roughly 15 times, the machine reset to a 12:00 time while I was looking at it but nowhere close to touching it. Annoyed by the machine turning off so often, I turned on a fan to create the "white noise" I desired. Two times while either turning the fan on or off, the sound machine reset to 12:00 at the instant I was touching the knob on the fan. There should have been no causal connection between these two events. The fan and the sound machine are plugged in different slots of a wall double outlet. I estimate that the chance probability of such coincidences is less than 1 in a million.  Test attempts to reproduce such an effect produced no success. I later tried quite a few times turning the fan on and off, and it never had any effect on the sound machine.  
• On December 13 during waking hours there were quite a few additional cases of the sound machine inexplicably resetting to 12:00 and becoming silent.  Twice this occurred while I was lifting the machine up to inspect it, even though the machine stayed plugged in the whole time. These seemed like additional cases of extremely improbable synchronicity. 
• On the night of December 13 to December 14, there were six additional cases of the sound machine resetting to 12:00 and becoming silent.  On this night I recorded changes in the "sound channel" after the machine reset to 12:00 and became silent. If caused by a loss of electrical power or by unplugging the machine, this always causes the sound channel to reset to the Rainforest channel. But something different happened. The sequence of sound channels that occurred from the resetting events alternated between the Rainforest channel and the Waterfall channel. 

Let me describe very exactly what occurred on this night of December 13 to December 14 regarding the sound channels. By "a while later" I mean a time that might have been quite a few minutes or longer than an hour. The sound machine was never touched during this night. 

(1) When I went to bed the machine was making the Waterfall sound, and had the correct time. 

(2) A while later the machine went silent, resetting to 12:00. When I pressed on the Power button, the machine made the Rainforest sound. I reset the sound channel so that the machine made the Waterfall sound.

(3) A while later the machine went silent, resetting to 12:00. When I pressed on the Power button, the machine made the Waterfall sound.  This is not what would have happened from any mere interruption of the electrical power. Whenever you unplug it, the machine always resets the sound channel to the Rainforest channel. 

(4) A while later the machine went silent, resetting to 12:00. When I pressed on the Power button, the machine made the Waterfall sound.  This is not what would have happened from any mere interruption of the electrical power. Whenever you unplug it, the machine always resets the sound channel to the Rainforest channel. 

(5) A while later the machine went silent, resetting to 12:00. When I pressed on the Power button, the machine made the Rainforest sound. I reset the sound channel so that the machine made the Waterfall sound.

(6) A while later the machine went silent, resetting to 12:00. When I pressed on the Power button, the machine made the Rainforest sound. I reset the sound channel so that the machine made the Waterfall sound.

(7) A while later the machine went silent, resetting to 12:00. When I pressed on the Power button, the machine made the Waterfall sound.  This is not what would have happened from any mere interruption of the electrical power. Whenever you unplug it, the machine always resets the sound channel to the Rainforest channel. 

Twice on this night there seemed to be additional cases of synchronicity. One of the times mentioned above I awoke and heard no sound from the sound machine, finding it showing a time of 12:00, just as if it had reset at the same moment I awoke. A loss of the sound should not have caused me to awake. Another time I awoke to hear the sound machine making the Waterfall sound, only to hear the machine go silent a few seconds later. 

Finally my sleep was done on this night, and I awoke about 9:30 AM on December 14. Checking the sound machine, I was astonished. The machine now was making the Waterfall sound very clearly, but there was no time displayed on its clock. It was not merely a dimmed time display, but no time display at all. No type of fiddling with the machine can get it to reach this state of making a sound but showing no time. A knob on the back of the machine (marked "Backlight High/Low") allows you to switch between a bright display of the time and a dim display of the time.  But the machine does not allow you to turn off the time display while the machine makes any of its sounds. You can unplug the machine to stop it from displaying a time, but if you do that the machine will not be able to make any sound.  When I unplugged the machine and plugged it back in, the time display was as bright as ever.  The "Backlight High/Low" switch on the back of the machine was still set to "High," meaning the digital time should have been displaying in full brightness.

 I wonder whether this state of the machine was some kind of "life after death" symbolism. The machine was showing no time on its clock, as it can do only when unplugged or "dead."  But the machine was clearly making a Waterfall sound, as it can do only when plugged in or "alive." The combination of the two states rather suggests a "deceased but still living" motif. 

I wrote and published on this blog the above account of events of December 11,2022 to December 14, 2022 on the morning of December 14, 2022, using notes I had taken as the events occurred.   While some of the events described above could be explained by some far-fetched idea of repeated power interruptions, we have in the account above three types of events that cannot be explained by any mere power interruption. 

Realizing how inexplicable was the machine state described above in boldface, I tried to photographically document it, but foolishly only took a photo rather than a video. If I get this effect again, I will take a video and post it to www.youtube.com.  On a previous day in 2019, I had great success in capturing inexplicable device behavior in a video, as you can see by reading the post here. 

 

Keep checking this post for additional updates on this strange tale.  I have attached some letter labels to parts of the machine, and I wonder whether the machine's strange behavior will result in events that will effectively be the spelling out of meaningful letter sequences.  

Update #1: December 15, 2022

During the past 24 hours I saw an additional case of synchronicity.  I picked up the sound machine to inspect it, and the clock reset to 12:00 as I was merely holding it (although I had not done anything to unplug it).  Also when I awoke around 10:00 AM I found the digital clock time was dimmed. You can only dim that clock time by pressing a button at the back of the machine (the Backlight High/Low button), but no one had pressed that button during the night.  The clock had been displaying the time at full brightness when I went to bed. 

Update #2: December 16, 2022

On this night I observed dramatic phenomena:

(1) First, while the sound machine was making the Waterfall sound, I heard a kind of sound sputter, in which the sound faded and then resumed its normal sound.  I have never heard this effect before from this machine. 

(2) About twenty minutes later the sound from the machine stopped. I looked at the machine and saw no time displayed, not even with dimly lighted numbers. I went into another room to get my camera to film this state. When I returned the sound machine's clock showed a time of 12:00 in bright numbers.  We have here a kind of reset different from all other resets I have seen, something resembling what would have happened if the power to the machine had been interrupted for about 30 seconds, not just an instant.  

(3) Minutes later, the sound machine reset its time to 12:00. But now the time display showed an effect I have never seen before with this machine: the displayed time was fading in and fading out. I got a video of this effect, showing this fade-in/fade out effect occurring over the course of about 30 seconds. I took the following video on this day, showing quite clearly the repeated fading in and fading out of the sound machine's clock time:

After the event shown above, I unplugged the sound machine and plugged it back in. Its clock display was then bright and steady for the rest of the day. Modern digital clocks don't show any flickering effect towards the end of their lifetimes. This sound machine has never undergone any physical damage, and I expect its clock to keep working for many additional years.  A Google search using the phrase "digital clock time fading in and out" fails to produce any accounts of such a thing. 

During all of the mysterious sound machine resets described in this post, there was in the room a separate digital clock using red numbers to display time, which never showed any irregularity, and never showed any sign that the room had any power interruption. That clock using red letters is a type of clock that will always produce blinking numbers after a power interruption, until its time is reset.  

The effects described above are so inexplicable they reminded me of the opening narration of the old TV series "The Outer Limits":

"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image; make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. ... You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to the outer limits."

Update #3: December 21, 2022

The sound machine worked perfectly without any anomalies between December 17 and December 20. On December 21 the machine stopped making sound and reset to 12:00, at 12:30 AM.  The rest of the night it ran fine.  Abour 2:40 PM I found the sound machine displaying no time (not even in a dim light). Pressing the machine's Power button caused the time display to show a time of 12:15 in a dim light. Unplugging the machine and plugging it back in caused the machine to revert to a full bright display of the time, with 12:00 showing as the time. There is no way to fiddle with the machine to get it to reach a state in which the machine is plugged in but no time is displayed.  The machine always shows the time when unplugged and then plugged back in.  

Update #4: December 24, 2022

The sound machine worked without any anomalies on December 22 and December 23. I found the machine on December 24 displaying the correct time. Pressing the Power button to turn on the sound, I found the machine making only a kind of sputtering or groaning noise. Again, we have the machine in a state it can not be brought to through any amount of fiddling. I cycled through each of the sound channels, without the sound ever changing. Unplugging the machine and plugging the machine back in restored the machine to its ordinary state. 

Update #5: December 26, 2022

The sound machine reset three times, resetting its clock to 12:00, and becoming silent.

Update #6: January 2, 2023

I woke up in the middle of the night to find the sound machine's clock displaying numbers that were just barely visible. The numbers had been fully visible with normal brightness when I had gone to sleep. There is a switch at the back of the machine allowing you to change the brightness of the clock's displayed time, but no one had touched that. When I woke up in the morning the sound machine's clock displayed the time in its normal brightness, much brighter than when I had seen the sound machine's time in the middle of the night. 

Update #6: January 3, 2023

I woke up in the middle of the night to record a dream. The sound machine's clock displayed the time in normal brightness. I soon noticed that the time was not displaying on the clock. A few minutes later, after writing down a dream 1 had, the sound machine's clock was showing in normal brightness. No one had touched the machine. Again, we have a strong element here of synchronicity. 

Update #7: January 7, 2023

When I went to bed the sound machine's clock displayed the time in normal brightness. In the middle of the night I could see that the machine now displayed the time in only half its normal brightness. 

Update #8: February 14, 2023

During the past 30 days I have used the sound machine every  night, without any irregularity in its performance. This seems to rule out any kind of "dying machine" hypothesis as an explanation for the effects described above. 

Update #9: March 22, 2023

After more than a month of completely normal behavior, my sound machine started acting spooky again on March 22, 2023. First the machine stopped making any sound, at about 2:30 AM. I pushed a button to restore the waterfall sound it had been making. Then at 4:34 AM the machine stopped making any sound again. I restored the sound again, only to find the sound stop two additional times. The last time in addition to the sound stopping, the clock time had dimmed  very much, being no longer readable. After restoring the machine to its normal state, with it making the waterfall sound, the machine worked okay for several more hours. 

Update #10: March 24, 2023

After working normally on March 23, the sound machine again turned off mysteriously four times during the night of March 24. During such events, there is never any disturbance in a digital clock I have in the same room. 

Update #11: March 25, 2023

The sound machine again turned off mysteriously five times during the night of March 25. In the past seven days when I would press the Power button to turn back on the sound after one of these turn-off events, about half of the time I would get the "Waterfall" channel and about half of the time I would get the "Rainforest" channel.   

Update #12: March 26, 2023:

There were several additional cases of the sound machine turning off its sound mysteriously. This night I spent only about a minute looking at the sound machine, but I saw (1) the clock on the machine resetting its time from 12:18 to 12:00; (2) the brightness of the clock display increasing noticeably as I watched it. In both cases I was not touching the machine. 

Update #13: March 27, 2023:

The sound machine turned off mysteriously only once, at 2:13 AM.  Pressing the power button in the middle restored the waterfall sound. Whenever that happens, you cannot explain it as a mere power interruption, since the machine resets to its default "rainfall" sound when you unplug it. 

Update #14: March 28, 2023:

The sound machine turned off mysteriously three times. The first time there was a very strong synchronicity. At the very moment I pressed the Power button to turn on the sound, at about 10:00, the clock reset to 12:00. I press that Power button every night to turn on the sound, and I have never before seen the time resetting when I pressed this Power button.  

Update #14: March 29, 2023:

The sound machine's clock stopped displaying when I pressed the Power button, even though the Waterfall sound could be heard. Normally pressing the Power button merely turns on the sound when you press it. 

Update #15: March 31, 2023:

After I pressed the Power button to turn on the machine's sound, the clock light flickered, and a few seconds later the sound turned off. The machine's sound also turned off mysteriously two other times. 

Update #16: April 1, 2023:

The sound machine mysteriously turned off two different times. One time after the turn-off, pressing the Power button produced the Rainforest sound. The other time,   pressing the Power button produced the Waterfall sound. 

Update #17: April 2, 2023:

The sound machine mysteriously turned off one time in the night. 

Update #18: April 3, 2023:

The sound machine mysteriously reset its clock to 12:00 twice during the day. 

Update #19: April 4, 2023:

In the middle of the night I awoke. Within about twenty minutes that I was awake, the sound machine mysteriously turned off three different times. Before I fell to sleep, I saw that the light on the machine's clock had mysteriously dimmed, and that the light seemed to be varying in brightness, like the effect shown in the video above. When I woke up in the morning, the clock had returned to its regular brightness. 

Update #20: April 5, 2023:

The sound machine mysteriously turned off seven times. At 1:00 I looked at the clock on the machine, and could see no time displayed. As I looked at the machine, its sound turned off, and the clock display turned on, now showing 12:00. At 1:09 AM the sound volume seemed to get lower and lower. and when I looked at the clock I could see no time displayed.  After 2:00 AM the sound and clock worked normally. 

Update #21: April 6, 2023:

Two different times the sound from the machine gradually faded out, before suddenly returning to its original volume. If you had made measurements of the volume of the machine every second, it would have been something like this: 6 decibels, 6 decibels, 5 decibels, 4 decibels, 3 decibels, 2 decibels, 1 decibel, 0 decibels, 6 decibels, 6 decibels.  

Update #22: April 11, 2023:

Eleven different times the sound from the machine mysteriously turned off.  Most of the times the Waterfall sound resumed when I pressed the Power button, such as would not occur if there had been any power interruption (which would have caused a return to the default Rainfall channel). 

Update #23: April 12, 2023:

This night as soon as I tried to turn on the sound machine's sound, I got a very eerie effect. Here are the exact words I wrote just after seeing the effect:

"Turned on power button at 10:00. Clock reset to 12:00. But it did not advance. Froze at 12:00 for 3 minutes in dim numbers. Finally the time progressed to 12:01 -- number still dim. Unplugging and plugging in restored bright numbers."

The sound machine has an electronic digital clock, but the time on the machine froze for three minutes, staying at 12:00. Only after three minutes did the sound machine's clock start progressing to times beyond 12:00. 

Eleven times last night, the sound machine mysteriously stopped making its sound, with the time resetting to 12:00. The machine has no battery, and is plugged directly into an electrical socket. During the less than six minutes I spent looking at the clock this night, twice I observed a "fade out and restoration" effect. It went like this: the waterfall sound from the machine would get softer, softer, and softer, and simultaneously the time on the machine's digital clock would get dimmer, dimmer and dimmer until finally you could not see the clock numbers, and the machine was silent or almost silent. Then instantly the clock numbers would return to full brightness, and the machine would return to its full previous volume.  It reminds me of the diminuendo effect that the late tenor Franco Corelli had mastered. 

Update #24: April 13, 2023:

There was only one anomaly, which I filmed. When I pressed the power button (which normally just turns on the machine's sound and lights up a little light above the power button) the sound machine went entirely dark and silent for a second, with no clock time showing. A second later the clock numbers could be seen (showing a correct time of about 10:00),  and the sound could be heard.  The machine has never done that before when I pressed the power button. 

Update #25: April 14, 2023:

The sound machine turned off mysteriously four times. There was a repeat of the  diminuendo effect that had occurred on April 12. The clock numbers faded, and then the sound got softer and softer until no sound could be heard. About ten seconds later the clock numbers suddenly showed at full brightness and the sound returned to its normal volume. 

Update #26 April 15, 2023:

When I went to turn on the sound machine's sound by pressing the Power button, I saw the machine was not displaying any time. Being plugged in, the machine should have been displaying a time. I pressed the Power button, and still no time displayed for about ten seconds. Then suddenly the clock light turned on.

Update #27 October 12, 2023:

During the past six months I have used the sound machine every night, and it has acted in a completely normal manner. This just makes the previous spooky behavior seem all the more striking. 

Update #28 October 16, 2023:

The sound machine mysteriously turned off its sounds at around 2:15 in the morning. Finding the clock time still displaying, I turned the sound back on. In the morning I found the machine both silent and without any clock time displayed. I pulled the plug and out and put it back in. No clock time displayed. I did that again, and the clock time showed only dimly. I pulled out the plug again and put it back in, and now the clock numbers showed at full brightness. 

Update #29 October 17, 2023:

Seven times during the night the sound machine mysteriously turned off, each time during a different hour. Three of these times the machine mysteriously turned off a few seconds after I woke up. Once the machine mysteriously turned off while I was thinking of my deceased father. 

Update #30 October 18, 2023:

Nine times the sound machine mysteriously turned off.

Update #30 October 19, 2023:

The sound machine mysteriously turned off so many times I lost track, but I know it was more than a dozen times.  Once the machine mysteriously turned off a second after I had turned it on. I took videos showing the effect of the clock numbers mysteriously fading in and fading out.  They showed an effect like that shown in the video above. 

Update #31 October 20, 2023:

The sound machine mysteriously turned off about five times. 

Update #32 October 21, 2023:

The sound machine mysteriously turned off about seven times. I once saw the clock numbers on the sound machine looking dark, and I saw the numbers seem to fade in and fade out, before finally resuming full brightness.  

Update #33 October 22, 2023:

The sound machine mysteriously turned off about five times. 

Update #34 October 26, 2023:

The sound machine mysteriously turned off more than a dozen times, all at night. There was another case of the sound machine's clock numbers mysteriously fading out slowly before returning to full brightness. In the great majority of the cases listed above, the mysterious turn-offs of the sound machine occurred only at night.  

Update #35 October 27, 2023:

The sound machine mysteriously turned off more than a dozen  times, all at night.

Update #36 October 28, 2023: 

The sound machine mysteriously turned off about eight times, all at night. I could see an effect of the clock numbers of the untouched sound machine slowly fading out, and then suddenly returning to full brightness. 

Update #37 October 29, 2023: 

The sound machine mysteriously turned off four times, all at night. I could see an effect of the clock numbers of the untouched sound machine slowly fading out, and then suddenly returning to full brightness. 

Update #38 October 30, 2023: 

The sound machine mysteriously turned off four times, all at night. 

Update #39 October 31, 2023: 

The sound machine mysteriously turned off about eight times. I could see an effect of the clock numbers of the untouched sound machine slowly fading out as the sound dimmed, with the clock numbers then returning to full brightness.

Update #40  November 1, 2023: 

The sound machine mysteriously turned off many different times, usually (it seemed) very soon after I had turned it back on (typically less than a minute). 

Update #41 November 2, 2023: 

The sound machine mysteriously turned off about five time.. I took a video of the machine, which I watched in the morning. The video showed the clock numbers changing from barely visible to not visible, and then suddenly becoming bright again, when no one was touching the machine. 

Update #42 November 3, 2023: 

The sound machine mysteriously turned off about seven times. I saw the clock numbers fade out to become completely dark, and heard another example of the slow fading out of the sound (the diminuendo effect), before the machine returned to normal. 

Some of My Best Orb Photos (Part 1)

Alas, dear reader, I am these days in something of a slump in regard to getting exciting orb results from my humble point-and-click Sony DSC-W830 camera, the same model that has produced such a bonanza of astonishing results in previous years  During such a slump, it may be a good time for a retrospective review. Below are some of the most interesting results I got in previous years. 

I started to get exciting photographic results in 2014. Below is a photo from December 9, 2014 showing a large orb in Grand Central Terminal:

I took the photo below on December 27, 2014. Note the bright blue orb right next to the Christmas wreath.

I took the photo below in Grand Central Terminal on December 22, 2014:

I took the photo below in Grand Central Terminal on December 18, 2014:

Around this time when photographing falling water drops I was starting to get an astonishing effect that I would get very many times: an effect in which face-like orbs appeared.  I took the photo below on October 28, 2014:

The orb below I photographed on December 18, 2014 seemed to be moving very fast:

I took the photo below in Grand Central Terminal on December 27, 2014. We see a bright pink orb on the right.

I took the photo below in Grand Central Terminal on February 20, 2015. We see a bright blue-white orb seeming to make a sharp turn:

I took the photo below in Grand Central Terminal on December 9, 2014. A close examination of the top corner will reveal a very remarkable effect in which it seems as if light from the blue orb is reflecting off of the glass below:

I took the photo below in Grand Central Terminal on February 20, 2015. We see a bright mysterious blob. 

I took the photo below in Grand Central Terminal on December 8, 2014. We see a bright orb that seemed to be resting on an American flag (an effect I would get more than a dozen times in later days).

I took the photo below in Grand Central Terminal on February 20, 2015. 

We see two bright orbs near the top, one blue:

I took the photo below in Grand Central Terminal on March 19, 2015. We see a translucent orb right next to the physical orb of the station's famous clock:

I took the photo below in Grand Central Terminal on April 6, 2015.  We see at the top an orb that seemed to be moving very fast. 

I took the photo below in Grand Central Terminal on March 26, 2015.  We see a bright blue orb. 

I took the photo below on June 11, 2015, in front of a memorial to those who died in the American Civil War. We see what looks like an orb moving very fast:

I took the photo below on July 24, 2015.  We see a bright orange orb in the sky, near a skyscraper. Outdoor photos such as this can never credibly be explained as photos of dust particles, partially because the air quality tends to be much better outdoors, with far fewer and smaller dust particles per cubic meter.  There was no fog, mist, rain or precipitation when I took the photo, on a night when the moon was only a thin crescent.  

Below we see a bright blue orb I photographed at Grand Central Terminal on August 20, 2015:

Below we see a bright blue orb I photographed at Grand Central Terminal on August 17, 2015:

I have not even got further than August 2015 with this highlight series going forward from 2014. I look forward to posting additional retrospective review posts that will show highlights from the even-more-astonishing results I got in later years. 

Orbs Rising

The Google Ngram Viewer (at https://books.google.com/ngrams/) allows you to type in a search phrase and see how popular such a phrase has been in books that have been indexed by Google Books (supposedly more than 40 million). Searching for the phrase "mysterious orb," I get the graph below.  The sharply rising line suggests an intensifying of the orb phenomenon.

Similarly, searching for the phrase "spirit orb" shows a steadily rising trend:

A Visitation Dream?

I had a vivid dream last night. In the dream I was lying in bed alone in a dark room, when there was some kind of visitation that seemed supernatural. In the dream some figure was behind my bed, and reached out and grasped my hand. The figure was like an indistinct glowing haze. I had the feeling the visitor was a mother, possibly my late mother. I had an intense feeling of love coming from the mysterious visitor. 

Then in the dream I sat up looked at the wall of the dark room. First I saw green lights glowing on the wall. Then I saw stars glittering on the wall. In the dream I exclaimed:

"I saw it! The green lights! The stars!"

I then awoke, and audibly said to myself: "Wow!" Strangely, I sneezed twice, although I don't have any cold. But I felt a chill, and added some coverings so I had two sheets and two blankets on top of me. 

Do the green lights followed by the stars signify that I have been "green-lighted" for some supernal or other-worldly experience to come? Only time will tell. 

See my post here for a discussion of hundreds of other dreams I have had suggesting the idea of life after death.

First an Orb, Then an Apparition

A book offering some startling evidence for the paranormal is the book "Materialisations-Experimente mit M. Franek-Kluski" by Gustave Geley and Albert von Schrenck-Notzing M.D.   The title can be translated as "Materialization Experiments with M. Franek-Kluski." The book is in German, but with the help of Google Translate it is fairly easy to get an English translation of any page. 

On page 58 we have this remarkable account, which may be of great interest to anyone getting mysterious orbs in photos:

"I asked him if he could see my sister in the 'Astral' who has been dead for 3 years. Answer: Yes. At the same moment I felt a woman's hand gently placed on my forehead, making the sign of the cross there and encircling it with a circle, as my sister always did when she was alive when she said goodbye to me. I recognized her hand, dimly lit, against the edge of the fluorescent screen that lay on the table in front of me. It moved several times before my eyes, and more and more I thought I recognized it. She squeezed my hand, patted my face. I can no longer doubt that it is her hand that I feel. A short time later a glowing orb forms in front of my face and moves away; then she comes very close to my face and to my great astonishment and also to my great joy I notice the fully recognizable facial features of my sister, who smiles at me as in real life. However, she seems much younger to me, about the way she was when she was 25. She died at the age of 54. The upper part of the head is surrounded by cloudy veils."

Was the idea here that the orb turned into an apparition of the narrator's sister?  It is hard to tell whether that was seen or whether the orb was a kind of harbinger of such an appearance. 

A Mass Sighting of an Orb at Fatima?

 At www.archive.org, readers who have done the free registration with the site can read the very interesting book Miracles: A Parascientific Inquiry Into Wondrous Phenomena by D. Scott Rogo, who died an untimely death at the age of only 40. On page 227 Rogo describes events of September 13, 1917 at Fatima, Portugal, a month before the more famous October 13, 1917 event involving a disk-like sky anomaly. We read this account of September 13, 1917:

"The sun began to dim mysteriously around noon, stars could be seen in the sky, and an orb of white light appeared and settled in the tree. One of the witnesses was Monsignor John Quareman....He was one of many observers who actually saw the mysterious orb of light that had often appeared when Lucia claimed the apparition was arriving at the oak tree. 'To my surprise,' he later testified, 'I saw clearly and distinctly a globe of light advancing from east to west, gliding slowly and majestically through the air.' "

On page 106 of the same book we read this about someone having out-of-body experiences (OBEs): "Blue Harary usually perceives himself as an orb of light or as a speck of awareness free-floating while undergoing his OBEs." On page 209 we read this:

"Maximin Giraud (age eleven) and Melanie Mathieu (age fifteen) were playing when suddenly they saw a large orb of glowing light approaching them from the heavens. As it neared a small stream bed, it opened to reveal the figure of a beautiful woman."

Use the link here to read 49 other accounts I have collected of people saying they saw mysterious orbs with their own eyes. Rogo's research work with Blue Harary (Stuart Blue Harary) is described in Chapter 8 of his book Mind Beyond the Body: The Mystery of ESP Projection, which can be read here. 

Puzzling Pennsylvania

A web site documenting reports of the paranormal tells us "encounters with small spheres low to the ground and in some cases approaching near witnesses have reportedly been taking place for months from various areas of Pennsylvania." The site's latest report is entitled "More Mysterious Close Encounters with Ground Level Orbs of light (Mini-UFOs) Reported In Pennsylvania-October 23, 2022."  One witness says he saw a "glowing white ball of light" outdoors 10-12 inches in diameter, and another witness reports seeing indoors a strange blue sphere about a foot and a half in diameter.  

A New Poll Tells Us 22% Report "Seeing Unexplained Orbs of Light"

A new poll by YouGovAmerica surveyed 1000 Americans about any paranormal experiences they may have had. More than two-thirds reported having some type of paranormal experience. Some of the most common experiences were:

"Feeling a presence or unknown energy": 37%

"Hearing a voice of someone who wasn't there": 29% 

"Feeling an unexplained change in temperature": 28%

"Seeing lights or other devices turn on or off without explanation": 25%

"Seeing an object move without explanation": 22%

"Seeing unexplained orbs of light": 22%

"Seeing a door open or close without explanation":  20%

"Seeing a ghost or spirit": 20%

"Seeing an angel": 13%

The page describing the poll gives one interesting bit of testimony from one of the people polled:

"I was in a 100-year-old hotel in Brazil with abandoned floors that were accessible. As my friend and I explored, the temperature dropped and we saw orbs of light."

I myself have had several of these experiences. I once saw a locked door open when no one was near it. I have more than once observed objects move inexplicably. I have repeatedly witnessed inexplicable activity regarding lights, including either a turning on by itself of a light or a light turning off inexplicably and then quickly turning back on. My post here mentions recent observations of this type. 

Puzzling Playstation

 Photo date: October 20, 2022. Photographer: Mark Mahin. 

We see below a mysterious orb I photographed indoors. 

Spooky Serenade

Since I started keeping a log of my dreams in November 2020, the number of times my dreams have referred to deceased people seems to have greatly outnumbered the number of times my dreams have referred to living people other than myself and my two daughters and wife. Since that date there have been about 430 times that I dreamed about deceased people. Besides 76 dreams about my late mother and 79 dreams about my late father, I have had over 200 dreams about a vast variety of deceased people. Five of the dreams were about the late opera singer and actor Mario Lanza. 

This morning when I woke up I logged into my computer, and brought up a fresh instance of the Chrome web browser. I had not yet logged in to my Google account. Very oddly, before I did anything, the fresh new instance of the Chrome browser had a tab set to a Youtube.com URL I had not previously accessed. It was for a clip I had never seen before, showing two of my favorite movie stars from the 1950's: the late Kathryn Grayson and the late Mario Lanza. The clip was below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbG-daRLPRY

Why was a Youtube.com URL showing in my just-evoked browser when I had not done anything to go to Youtube.com? In my experience the Chrome browser never behaves this way.  My default URL on Chrome is www.google.com, and that is the only web site I ever see when bringing up a new Chrome browser (except for this day's event, which I could not replicate). You can configure Chrome to bring up multiple web sites on startup, but I absolutely had not configured Chrome to act in such a way (as a check of my Settings showed). My "On Startup" settings were as shown below:

 

I haven't searched for a long time on youtube.com for clips featuring either Mario Lanza or Kathryn Grayson, which makes this event all the more mysterious.  I almost get the impression here of some kind of "shout out" from the Great Beyond. It's interesting that the song sung in the clip refers to death, dreams, eternal love, and "a rapture that's all divine."

Searching for insight on the possibility of Chrome opening with two tabs, I find a page telling me to set my Settings as above (which have always been my settings),  to disable all extensions (I had no extensions installed),  and to install an anti-virus software (I already had Norton Antivirus installed and active). I am left with no explanation as to how this morning's event occurred. 

Green Orb and Sidekick

 Photo date: September 26, 2022. Photographer: Mark Mahin. 

We see below a mysterious orb I photographed indoors. 

Spooky Sign?

Below we see the electrical outlet in the bathroom next to where I sleep. It is a modern-type GFCI outlet that normally shows a green light, except when the circuit is broken. The outlet is about 13 inches above the bathroom's toilet, which is an inch away from the wall containing the outlet. When I go the bathroom in the middle of the night, I see the green light very clearly, because it is the only light source in the bathroom. I don't turn on the regular light in the bathroom when I use the bathroom in the middle of the night, because I have heard that turning on a full light in the middle of the night will make it more difficult for you to fall back to sleep. 

Last night I observed something spooky. Using the bathroom in the middle of the night, I very clearly saw the green light go off, and then turn back on a few seconds later. Nothing physical in the bathroom could have caused this. I have noticed such an effect two times out of about 180 days living at my current address. Whenever the circuit is broken with this type of outlet, you hear a very distinct and loud click sound, and have to manually press the white button to restore the circuit. I heard no such sound either of the times I saw the green light go off in the middle of the night, and did not touch anything to restore the green light. 

I can think of one possible explanation. The mysterious event may be  a sign. The turning off of the light may signify death. The turning back on of the light a few seconds later may signify life after death. 

Before observing either of these occurrences, I had written the following dream recollection in my account of dreams I have had:

"I dreamed that two women came into my apartment, and some paranormal things started to happen. At least once the lights turned off and then on...The turning off and turning on of the light is something I have got repeatedly in my dreams. The turning off may symbolize physical death, and the turning on may symbolize life after death."

Postscript: On October 3, I observed something quite similar to the two events described above. I sleep with a sound machine running, one that I have set to make a "waterfall" sound that I found soothing. I awoke around 1:00 AM, and very soon heard the sound machine (a meter away from my bed) turn off, so I heard no sound from it. Then a few seconds later it turned back on, resuming its regular sound. 

Post-postscript: The event with the electrical outlet recurred (just as described above) on October 11. 2022, which made the third time I have seen this happen. While going to the bathroom at night on October 11 I clearly saw the green light go off and turn on a few seconds later, with no sound. I recorded the time when this occurred: at 1:37 AM. Interestingly, the number 137 is a number of cosmic significance, as you can read about here. Being related to the fine structure constant (an important number related to the habitability of our universe), 137 is one of two or three "pure numbers" in physics, another being 1836 (the ratio between the proton mass and the electron mass). In a wikipedia.org  article we are told that in a book called The God Particle, a physicist named Lederman said this:

"The number 137, according to Lederman, 'shows up naked all over the place', meaning that scientists on any planet in the universe using whatever units they have for charge or speed, and whatever their version of Planck's constant may be, will all come up with 137, because it is a pure number. "

Post-post-postscript: The event with the electrical outlet occurred again on October 25 at about 12:15 AM.  I clearly saw the green light go off and turn on about two seconds later, with no sound. On October 27 I had another dream with content corresponding to such an event, a dream involving a sudden unexplained loss of power, with the power quickly being restored.  On November 7 I six times saw (at various times of the day and night never close to 12:00) a digital clock on a sound machine device have a time close to 12:00. It was just as if each of these six times the power to the clock was being interrupted, and then restored, causing the time to be reset to 12:00 (the clock on this device doesn't blink when the power is interrupted). 

I filmed the last of these occurrences. At 9:11 PM I put a camera next to the clock, turned the camera on to film a video, and went into another room. The clock had the right time when I started filming. When I came back more than an hour later, the clock showed a time of about 12:40.  Looking at the video I took, it showed the power inexplicably turning off at 9:28 and then turning back on a second later, with the clock then showing 12:00.  

Post-post-post-postscript:  The sound machine worked without any abnormality between November 8 and December 10, and I used it every night to make the "waterfall" sound that helps me sleep. On the evening of December 11 the machine started to act strangely again. Between about 8:30 PM on December 11 and about 9:30 AM on December 12, the sound machine stopped running and reset its time to 12:00 a total of about 15 times. There was amazing synchronicity involved.  During these 13 hours I looked at the sound machine for a few seconds about 14 times. One of those times the machine reset its time to 12:00 while I was looking at the machine for a few seconds.  I turned on my fan a few times to make the white noise that helps me sleep, only because the sound machine was turning off so many times. Two of about five times that I turned on the fan or turned it off, the sound machine turned off at exactly the same instant I was turning on or turning off the fan. This was even though there was no causal connection between the two machines, each being plugged directly into a separate part of a double electrical outlet. I estimate the chance of a coincidental synchronicity here as being much less than 1 in a million. 

Post-post-post-post-postscript:  I have seen many additional cases of the green light shown above turning off and then quickly turning back on. One occurred on March 18, 2023, and another time was a few days earlier. It happened again on March 22, 2023, on March 25, 2023, on April 7, 2023, on April 10, 2023,  on May 9, 2023,  on May 12, 2023, on May 21, 2023, on June 2, 2023,  on June 7, 2023,  on July 20, 2023, on August 15, 2023,  on August 18, 2023, on August 23, 2023,  on August 24, 2023,  on September 12, 2023,  on September 27, 2023,  on October 12, 2023,  on October 14, 2023, on October 17, 2023 (twice), on October 29, 2023, on November 4, 2023, on November 14, 2023, roughly around December 1, 2023,  on January 14, 2024,  roughly about January 22, 2024, on January 26, 2024, on March 2, 2024, on March 12, 2024,  on March 15, 2024,  on April 7, 2024, on August 27, 2024,  on September 21, 2024, on November 6, 2024, on December 1, 2024, on February 9, 2025,  on February 10, 2025,  on March 8, 2025,  on March 19, 2025,  on April 1 2025, on April 14, 2025, on April 24, 2025, on May 15, 2025, on May 20, 2025, and on  June 20, 2025. All of these times the event occurred at night, when the light was off in the bathroom (the bathroom being dark). 

On July 7, 2025 I saw the green light turn off and then quickly turn on in the morning, when the light was on in the bathroom. 

On August 31, 2023 I saw the green light turn red for 1 or 2 seconds before returning to its normal green color. There was no power interruption on that night, with two electric clocks still showing the correct time. The same thing happened at night on May 14, 2024 and on January 13, 2025; and the same thing happened during the daytime on March 15, 2024, on March 17, 2024, and on June 16, 2024. The same thing happened on October 23, 2024, with some interesting interesting synchronicity. Just as I opened a door to approach the bathroom I saw the normally green light as red, with it turning back to green about 2 seconds later. 

On September 20 I awoke in the night to see one of the two digital clocks in my bedroom was blinking, with a time 2 hours and 30 minutes off the correct time, just as if its power supply had been interrupted.  Another digital clock (on my sound machine) in the same bedroom showed the correct time.

Post-post-post-post-post-postscript:  The unit shown in the photograph above can be described as a panel. Searching for the definition of "panel" I get this: "a flat or curved component, typically rectangular, that forms or is set into the surface of a door, wall, or ceiling."  That would seem to fit the unit shown in the photo above. The word "panel" begins with the syllable "pa," which is a word meaning "father." Could all of these mysterious turn-offs and turn-ons of the panel's light (95% occurring in the middle of the night) be some spirit manifestation from my deceased father? I don't know, but I do know that the same panel very mysteriously had its circuit breaker button go off, on my father's birthday, when no one was in the room that has the panel, at the moment I was thinking about my father (as reported here). 

A Green Orb

 Photo date: September 22, 2022. Photographer: Mark Mahin. 

Below we see a mysterious orb I photographed indoors. 

A Flower Symbolizing Immortality

Below we see an unplanted Amaranth flower improbably arising at the edge of my all-concrete backyard.  A web page says, "This flower has been associated with immortality and eternal life because it does not die when cut."

A closeup shows the little yellow-colored specks characteristically seen in the long purple shafts of the Amaranth stalks:

And speaking of improbable symbols of good fortune, on September 30 I noticed in my backyard a grasshopper. I can never recall seeing before a grasshopper in New York City, where I have lived for many years. The grasshopper is a worldwide symbol of good fortune. 

Later, on October 7, I also saw a grasshopper in my back yard:

My all-concrete backyard in New York City is pretty much the least likely place you could find such an insect, which prefers grasslands.  The 'chevron markings" on the grasshopper identify it as the "Differential Grasshopper," "most prevalent in the central US," according to the page here. 

A Chilling Dream

I was there at the scene of  both of the attacks against the World Trade Center. I arrived at the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993, minutes after the bombing on that date, and noted heavy smoke in the ground lobby. I was in the World Trade Center during the September 11, 2001 attack that caused the destruction of both towers. About a year before the September 11 attack, I had a dream that the World Trade Center collapsed. In the dream I was inside the World Trade Center on a high floor, when the floor collapsed underneath me, causing me to fall in a terrifying and apparently fatal plunge, as if the whole building had collapsed. 

Last night I had a chilling dream. In the dream I was at the World Trade Center location, saying, "Now I've lived through three World Trade Center attacks."  The dream unmistakably suggests the idea of a future attack that would be the third attack, although it had no details about the nature or severity of such an attack. I hope very much this dream never comes true. At the WTC site there now stands One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. I hear it is very well designed to protect against terror attacks. 

Psychic Bond?

Today I said to one of my daughters, "You'll never guess what I saw down the street." I gave no clues, but asked her to guess. After a wrong guess of an orange cat, her second guess was "a raccoon," which is just what I saw. No one in our family has seen such a thing on our street before. Later in the day I asked her what I saw in a weird dream I recently had, mentioning only that it involved something odd in our front yard. After a wrong first guess of a snowman, she asked, "Was it a wild animal?" I said yes. Then she asked, "Was it an elephant?" I said yes. The dream I had was of two baby elephants in our front yard. These were the only two times today she tried to guess what was in my mind. Tonight is one of several times in which it seemed as if there was ESP between me and her (two similar cases are described here).

Postscript: One or two times during the 13 days after this event I asked the same daughter to guess what I was thinking, without success. Then on the 13th day I asked her to guess what I had dreamed about, without giving any clues. I thought of a dream involving my father playing baseball catch with my sister. My daughter's first guess was wrong. Then she asked whether it was something that happened in my childhood. I said yes. Then she asked whether it was something happening in my back yard. I said yes. Then she asked whether it was some kind of sport. I said yes. Then she asked whether it was playing catch or some kind of baseball. I said yes. This was the same performance level noted above: one wrong guess, followed by all other guesses correct. On a test with my other daughter (the only telepathy test I can recall doing with her), I simply asked her to guess a thing I saw today, telling her only it was something that I hadn't seen in years. On her fourth guess, she got the correct answer: a grasshopper. 

Post-postscript: On later days (around November 12) I got similar results. I asked one daughter to guess what I had dreamed about, giving no clues. The first guess she gave (a car) was fairly close to the right answer: a red double-deck bus, as both are vehicles. I asked my other daughter to guess what I had dreamed about, giving no clues. Her third guess was a red bicycle, which was close to the right answer, since a red bicycle and a red double-deck bus are both red vehicles. 

Post-post-postscript: I don't do such tests often with either of my daughters -- maybe a single "guess what I dreamed of" or "guess what I saw" test about every 10 days or two weeks, with only one target subject per test. In my latest attempt (on January 7) I merely told one of my daughters I had a dream of touching something, and asked her to guess what it was. Her first guess was "a tree," which was not correct. Her second guess was "a dog," which was correct. I asked her to guess the dog's color, and she answered correctly, "Black." I had dreamed of a black Scottish terrier on my lap. We see the same pattern I have seen repeatedly: wrong on the first guess, but correct on the second or third guess, usually the second one. 

On another test (the first in a few weeks) I was with my two daughters, and told them simply to guess what I had dreamed about, telling them only it was something I could not recall ever dreaming about before. After two incorrect guesses, one daughter guessed a zebra. The other daughter then made her first guess: a donkey. That was exactly what I had dreamed of. 

I see in such tests a "warmup" effect in which there is very often success on the second, third or fourth try. I encourage anyone trying such tests to always allow for several different guesses, with at least a ten-second interval between guesses. 

Post-post-post-postscript:  I was playing with my daughters a word game I invented, one that could be called "By the City Name Only." To play the game, you think of some question prompt involving a city. The answer must be based purely on the name of the city, not any of its physical characteristics or population. 

Here are some examples:

Q. Which city is the most mobile?

A.  Rome, as in "roam." 

Q. Which city has a parent's animal?

A. Moscow, as in "Ma's cow."

Q. Which city is the most hopping?

A. Albany, as in "Al Bunny."

Q. Which city is the most managerial?

A. Boston, as in "Boss ton." 

Q. Which city is the bravest?

A. Boulder, Colorado, as in "bolder."

While playing the game with me, one of my daughters said this: "This one has two answers: which city has a body part in it?" I instantly gave two correct answers: Liverpool (containing the word "liver") and Geneva, as in "Juh -KNEE-va." How was I able to answer so quickly? In the seconds just before my daughter asked the question, I was thinking of exactly that question, and also the two answers. What is the chance of that happening by coincidence? Much less than 1 in a million.

Confounding Circles

 Photo date: September 9, 2022. Photographer: Mark Mahin. 

We see below two mysterious orbs I photographed indoors.