Orange Orb and a Yellow Orb

 Photo date: September 29, 2024. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

We see below two mysterious orbs I photographed indoors.  The yellow orb has a strange feature.

Baraduc's Photo of a Large Orb at a Deathbed

 Below is an excerpt from pages 184 to 185 of The Problems of Psychical Research by Hereward Carrington.

"Dr. Baraduc had prepared a camera beside the bed of his wife, and, at the moment of her death, photographed the body, and shortly after developed the plate. Upon it were found three luminous globes resting a few inches above the body. These gradually condensed and became more brilliant. Streaks of light, like fine threads, were also seen darting hither and thither. A quarter of an hour after the death of his wife, Dr. Baraduc took another photograph. Fluidic cords were seen to have developed, partly encircling these globes of light. At three o’clock in the afternoon, or an hour after her death, another photograph was taken. It will be seen from this photograph that the three globes of light have condensed and coalesced into one, obscuring the head of Madame Baraduc, and developing towards the right. Cords were formed in the shape of a figure eight, closed at the top, and opened at the point nearest the body. Thus, as the globe develops in one direction, the cords seem to become more tense, and pull in the opposite direction. The separation becomes more and more complete, until finally, three and a half hours after death, a well-formed globe rested above the body, apparently held together by the encircling, luminous cords, which seemed also to guide and control it. At this moment, the globe becomes separated from the body, and, guided by the cords, floats into Dr. Baraduc’s bedroom. He speaks to the globe intensely; the globe thereupon approaches him, and he feels an icy cold breeze, which seems to surround and issue from the ball of light. It then floats away and disappears.

Frequently, within the next few days after these experiments, Dr. Baraduc saw similar globes in various parts of the house. By means of automatic writing, obtained through the hand of a non-professional psychic, he succeeded at last in establishing communication with this luminous ball, and was informed that it was the encasement of Madame Baraduc’s soul, which was still active and alive within it!" 

The photos referred to can be seen here.

Baraduc may have been the first person to ever publish a photograph of a mysterious orb.  That photo is discussed in my post here. 

Higher Reality Intrusions: Some Examples

 The average person does not well understand the idea that our familiar reality may experience a sudden intrusion from a vastly different reality.  The idea is that adjacent to our known familiar reality (or accessible to it) there may be some radically different reality, and that there may occur interactions between the two. The idea is best explained by giving some examples of such events we may call Higher Reality Intrusions. I use the word "intrusion" to mean a sudden unexpected appearance of something, something that may or may not be welcome. 

Example #1: An Octopus Experiencing Strange Anomalies

Let us imagine an octopus living at the bottom of the sea. Such an animal has a familiar world of experience that rarely changes much. But occasionally some anomaly may arise that may be a hint of some world of experience vastly different from anything known to an octopus.  For example:

• A boat may travel above an octopus causing ripples that a very observant octopus might detect above him. 
• Passengers in such a boat may toss something overboard, which may sink down and land very close to the octopus: maybe a coin or a tin can. To the octopus this is an unprecedented anomaly, unlike anything he has ever seen.  An octopus would be unable to imagine any theory explaining such an event. 
• Scuba divers from such a boat may travel down to the bottom of the sea, and be seen by the octopus. To the octopus, this would be an unprecedented anomaly, something that might seem like a supernatural event. 

We may note here the utter incompetency of the octopus to explain any of these events. In each case we are seeing an intrusion from an octopus-unimagined world of experience (the world of land-dwelling creatures) into the vastly different world of experience that is the world of experience of the octopus. 

Example #2: Pacific Islanders Experiencing Aircraft and Air Drops for the First Time

During World War II the United States had many bases in remote places in the Pacific Ocean. Such bases were normally supplied by sea, although sometimes they might be supplied by air drops.  Sometimes the air drops would go to the wrong place, landing on some island where there were no US soldiers, but only tribesmen who knew nothing about the United States, and nothing about the existence of aircraft.  

You can imagine how such primitive tribesmen would have reacted to such air drops.  They may have thought that they were seeing visitations from gods, and that they were blessed by divine providence. Apparently many thought this, because there arose "cargo cults" based on such anomalous droppings of cargo.  

To such tribesmen, the droppings of cargo from the air must have seemed like the most paranormal event imagine, something supernatural. 

Example #3: The "Apocalypto" Finale

The 2006 movie "Apocalypto" has a very striking ending. We watch a Mayan escapee and two of his pursuers reaching the sea coast, at which time they experience what to them must seem like the most paranormal or supernatural experience. It is the arrival of voyagers from Europe, in ships unlike any the Mayans have seen. You can watch the finale below:

The end of the movie gives us a striking visualization of a kind of Higher Reality Intrusion.  Before the depicted event the Mayans never dreamed that there existed such a reality as a Europe capable of launching transatlantic voyages, but suddenly such a "higher reality" intruded on the reality of the Mayans. 

Example #4: Visits of "Daughter Craft" From an Extraterrestrial Mothership

Travel between stars is very difficult, and as far as we know there is the limitation that no expedition can travel faster than the speed of light. Such a speed limit should mean that interstellar travel should always take at least years. Partially because of such a limit, UFO theorists do not imagine that each unexplainable UFO is a separate UFO expedition from another star. They instead typically imagine that some very large extraterrestrial spacecraft has arrived (one called a mothership), and that such a mothership launches much smaller "daughter craft" to explore our planet. Where is this hypothesized mothership? Some speculate that it is hiding behind the far side of the moon, or maybe hiding too far away to be seen by our telescopes. 

The underlying theory gives us a good hypothetical example of a Higher Reality Intrusion. The very large mothership is like a little world of experience vastly different from human experience. Visitors from such a mothership may intrude into our reality, being seen by humans as strange UFOs. More dramatically, there may occur some "Close Encounter of the Third Kind" in which humans get a close-up look at the inhabitants of such "daughter craft" launched from a mothership. Regardless of whether such encounters do or do not occur, the scenario is useful for illustrating the concept of a Higher Reality Intrusion. 

Example #5: Mysterious Interactions From Some Spirit World or Paraverse

Now we come to a discussion of Higher Reality Intrusions relevant to the photos on this blog, and the discussions on this blog of people who saw mysterious orbs with the naked eye. There may be a Spirit World or paraverse that can interact with our world. Such interactions may have various forms:

• There may be extremely fleeting and low-energy interactions, which show up as mysterious orbs in people's photos.
• There may be more long-lasting and higher-energy interactions, which show up as visible mysterious orbs that may last for a minute or two.
• There may be mysterious movements of matter that sometimes occur on our planet because of actions by intelligences in such a Spirit World or paraverse, who have the power to briefly manipulate matter in our world, or rarely make dramatic physical manifestations such as those described here and here.
• There may be ghostly forms that appear on our planet, because of brief visitations from such a Spirit World or paraverse. 
• The inhabitants of such a Spirit World or paraverse may be able to communicate with us by showing up in our dreams, or sending us dream messages cloaked in symbolism, or by communicating with mediums. 

You could use the term "Spirit World" to describe the source of such interactions. But some might prefer to use the term "paraverse" that I introduced in my 2016 essay "The Possibility of a Paraverse" that you can read here. In that essay I gave the diagram below, contrasting the idea of a multiverse with the idea of a paraverse. 

The idea of the multiverse is that there are many other universes which have no causal interaction with our own. Such an idea has no explanatory value. But the idea of a paraverse does have explanatory value. Using such an idea, we can postulate a mysterious radically different reality adjacent to our own, which can interact with our reality, and be the source of Higher Reality Intrusions such as the mysterious phenomena listed above. The arrows in the diagram above represent causal interactions or communication.  Human souls may make sojourns to such a paraverse or Spirit World during a near-death experience, and such a paraverse or Spirit World may be the destination of our souls after our earthly life ends. Just possibly (as suggested by many dreams and near-death experiences) all our souls may have originated in such a Spirit World or paraverse, an idea that I have described as the hypothesis of nonearthly pre-existence. 

The Astronaut and the Orb

 In Episode 8 of Season 16 of the Ancient Aliens TV show, we have an account by astronaut Jerry Linenger, who at the 16:41 mark says that while on a Russian space station Mir he saw a "white globular-looking thing" that looked like a snowball while looking out the window. The object was never identified. 

Bright and Triangular

 Photo date: September 21, 2024. Photographer:  Mark Mahin. 

We see below a strange thing I photographed indoors.  The triangular shape is very unusual. 

Puzzling Panel

Today just before eating dinner I was looking at my interesting post here discussing unusual deathbed phenomena such as the appearance of abnormal light or the appearing of what looks like an unusual mist. I found similar cases doing a Google search for "strange light at deathbed,"  and found the very interesting account below. As dinner ended I asked my wife whether she had ever seen anyone die. She told me she had been at her father's bedside at death. I asked her whether she remembered her father's last words. She said he was unable to speak in his last month. 

While asking these questions I went to wash a dish, and I noticed that while our microwave oven was not running, the panel on our microwave oven was acting strangely. It seemed to be cycling between three different numbers, none of which I could recognize. I had  not noticed the effect while twice passing by the same microwave oven a bit earlier, before I had asked the questions. I pressed a Clear button to stop the effect. Only later did I realize the possible synchronicity between this strange effect and the questions I had asked. 

Here I forgot to follow my own rule, which is whenever you see some effect that could be paranormal, try to make a video of it, before doing something to stop the effect.  But at least I am following another rule of mine, which is: whenever you see something spooky, write down what happened as soon as possible, while the incident is fresh in your memory.  I followed the same rule when I wrote the post here, also involving something spooky-seeming just after mentioning a deceased parent. 

Below is a very interesting account that appeared on page 148 of the July 1926 International Psychic Gazette, which you can read here. Among other wonders, we read of a room being filled with an unearthly light at the moment of someone's death. 

Postscript  The next day something else spooky happened in the same kitchen. At a moment when I was at the sink looking towards the dinner table, my wife was walking towards the dinner table, and a daughter was seated at the dinner table (all of us being at least two meters from a light switch), the main lights in our kitchen turned off. My wife may have switched off the switch for such lights a few seconds earlier, but if she did, there was a delay of maybe three seconds before the lights turned off for good (there may have been an off/on/off thing in rapid succession, with only the first caused by a human hand).   

Shadow Stripe Orbs: A Retrospective (Part 3)

 In part 1  and part 2 of this retrospective series, I showed some mysterious orbs I photographed with shadow stripes. Here is the conclusion of the 3-part retrospective series. 

I photographed the orb below in Grand Central Terminal. We see a very prominent shadow stripe.

The photo below from 2019 is one of the most spectacular I have taken. It shows two striped orbs, both with shadow stripes.

My photo below from 2019 shows an orb with a rare wavy-looking shadow stripe:

Below we see a shadow stripe in a sky orb I photographed:

The orb below had a shadow stripe and a little circle below such a stripe.  If you click on the link here, you will see eight other orbs I photographed with the same pattern.

The orb below had both a shadow stripe and a strange circular interior feature:

There is  a remarkable story regarding the orb below with a shadow stripe. Two days before taking the photo, I had a dream of an orb with such a stripe. I made the drawing at right on the day I had that dream,  depicting what I had seen in the dream.  

I took the two photos below on the same day. The one at top is a clear example of a shadow stripe orb. 

Finally there is this shadow-stripe orb I photographed  way back in 2015. 

A Green Orb

 Photo date: September 15, 2024. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

We see below a mysterious green orb I photographed indoors. 

Using Online Resources to Search for Accounts of the Paranormal

 Human reports of the strange, anomalous and paranormal are extremely varied. In my post "120+ Types of Paranormal or Anomalous Experiences" I list a great variety of such experiences. Some of this variety is shown in my visual below:

When trying to seriously study such phenomena, a very valuable type of resource is a publicly accessible online database, one that allows you to make particular queries and get search results. An example of such a database is the MUFON database. It is an extensive online database of UFO sightings, which is only one of the many types of paranormal phenomena reported.  Unfortunately, the MUFON database fails as an example of what we would like to see in a good online database tracking the paranormal.  The main reason it fails is that access to the database is currently restricted to members, and becoming a member requires a monthly payment. 

A better example of a publicly accessible online database tracking the anomalous is the free site of the National UFO Reporting Center at https://nuforc.org/.  On its page here, you see links that allow you to access UFO reports of particular types:

If I click on one of the "Shape of UFO" link, I go to the page below, which gives me a series of links, and also totals telling me how many observation reports of each type are in the database:

We see above that reports of circular UFOs  are far more common than reports of disk-shaped UFOs. 

By clicking on one of these links, I can browse through all of the observation reports of a particular type. For example, if I click on the Circle link, I go to the page below, which allows me to browse through 14,000+ reports of circle-shaped UFOs.

The page uses a pagination system allowing you to navigate to different subpages by using Next and Previous buttons. So we can see below that you can navigate to any of 147 subpages showing reports of circle-shaped UFOs. 

Clicking on any of these rows takes you to a report page that gives data on that particular report. Below is an example:

We have at this site a fairly good example of how to do a good online database allowing people to study reports of some particular type of observational anomaly. The site includes an interface allowing people to submit new reports of UFOs. Clicking on the File a UFO Report button at the top of the site takes you to a nice page that first warns you about various types of things that are misidentified as UFOs, and then has at the bottom a button you can press to file a UFO report:

I can imagine "bells and whistles" that would make this interface more useful.  It would be nice if the user interface allowed you to make more specific searches, such as a search of all the circle-shaped UFOs seen in California between one date and some other date.  But this site at least shows us what the first stage of a good online database of observations of the paranormal or anomalous would look like. The main limitation of the database is that it only handles reports of UFOs, and such reports are only a small fraction of the reports of the anomalous and inexplicable that humans make. 

There are other online databases that collect particular reports of the paranormal. Let us look at some of these, all free.

The www.iands.org site has a collection of reports of about 900 near-death experiences. The accounts consist of first-hand reports anonymously submitted to the site.  Lacking search capabilities allowing you to refine your search, the site is not a very good example of how to create a database of reports of anomalous human experiences. Any site collecting such reports should encourage witnesses to state their own name or at least provide an email address allowing people to send follow-up inquires to them. Reports by named witnesses are more reliable than anonymous reports. 

The www.nderf.org has a collection of 4000+ reports of near-death experiences. The accounts consist of thousands of first-hand reports semi-anonymously submitted to the site, and the witnesses are identified by names such as Wendy G. Any site collecting such reports should encourage witnesses to state their own name or at least provide an email address allowing people to send follow-up inquires to them. Reports by named witnesses are more reliable than anonymous reports. The site is a better example of how to create a searchable database of reports of anomalous human experiences than the site www.iands.org.  Each person submitting a report has been asked a series of questions. There is a search page allowing you to select only those giving particular types of responses to such questions.   

For example, I can use the interface to search only for reports in which witnesses claimed all of these things:

An out-of-body experience.

Seeing a bright, unearthly light.

Seeing their past. 

I get a total of 354 reports with all three of these elements, as we below:

So now we can do some analytics. Knowing  that a search without any search criteria gives 4080 accounts, we can estimate that maybe 9% of near-death experiences have all three of the elements listed above.  Similarly, I can search for only accounts including an out-of-body experience. This produces 2380 results, suggesting that out-of-body experiences may occur in most near-death experiences. Similarly, I can search for only accounts in which a witness supposedly saw past lives.  Such a search produces only 175 results, suggesting such reports are relatively rare when someone has a near-death experience. 

Another type of resource for searching for accounts of the paranormal are sites allowing full-text searches of old newspapers.  Newspaper search web sites can be used to make full text searches such as a search for the phrase "mysterious orb" or the phrase "prophetic dream" or the phrase "psychic marvel" or the phrase "saw an apparition."  Some of these "search old newspaper" sites charge a fee for use, but the sites below offer powerful searches of old newspapers, without costing you anything:

Site	Description	URL
Chronicling America site	Allows search of American newspapers between 1756 and 1963	https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
NYS Historic Newspapers	Allows search of New York newspapers	https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=q&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN----------
UCR Newspaper search	Allows search of California newspapers	https://cdnc.ucr.edu/
University of Manitoba newspaper search	Allows search of Canadian newspapers, and also 80 years of the Psychic News newspaper	https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/manitoba/newspaper_search

It requires some practice to be able to use these sites effectively. You can find all kinds of fascinating newspaper stories using these sites. But you will have to get a little practice at being able to recognize the best stories from looking at either thumbnails of such stories or nutshell quotations of the search phrase you used. 

A major online resource allowing you to search for accounts of the paranormal is the site www.iapsop.com, which preserves innumerable periodicals that specialized in collecting reports of the paranormal.  Sadly, the site lacks any full-text search capability.  Another major online resource is the Psi Encyclopedia  you can access here. 

Another major online resource allowing you to search for accounts of the paranormal is the site www.archive.org. You can search for books on particular subjects.  The results will fall into two categories:

(1) Books that anyone can immediately read, even if they are not a registered user at the site.

(2) Books that you can read online only by "borrowing" as a registered user. 

It is well worth becoming a registered user to take advantage of the second category, although there are still very many worthwhile books that can be read even if you are not a registered user.  My post below has links to many of those books:

Some Recommended Online Reading

Was the Orb His Dead Sister?

 Here is the beginning of a newspaper account from 1897:

We read in the account of a badly wounded prisoner (John Jordan) who is being transported by stage coach. We read this:

"There it was— a ghostly, phosphorescent spheroid of light, waving and swaying behind the horses and moving along the dashboard. At one instant it looked like a reflection and at another it seemed to be a small body emitting the pale light itself. The light shifted to one side and next appeared under the wagon, and as they followed it with their eves it rested over the body of the prostrate John Jordan, who was uneasily slumbering. In a moment the light waved up and down and vanished in the darkness to the rear. Nothing was said to the prisoner about the peculiar experience of the night. Later in the day, however, Jordan revived and began to talk. 

'Say, Sheriff,' he began, 'I've got something to tell you.' 

 'Yes?' 

 'I aint going to last long, Sheriff.' 

'Don't talk like that. You're badly wounded, but you'll pull through as soon as you set medical attention and an easy berth. ' 

' No, I'll not,' Jordan reiterated stubbornly. 'I've called the last turn, I feel it. Last night I saw my sister. My sister's dead you know. She's the only one that ever thought much about me. Maybe I ought to have been a better man. Sheriff, but let that pass. Well, Sis came to me last night. I saw her as plain as I see you now. She was all in white, Sheriff, all in white. She pitied me and pointed to mv eye, where I got them shots in my head.' 

Jordan was wounded in the head and a bullet or shot penetrated the eye. He is no better and is not expected to live."

You can read the full account here:

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SFC18970612.2.77&srpos=30&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------

A Strange Sky Triangle

 Photo date September 11, 2024. Photographer: Mark Mahin. 

We see below a strange sky triangle I photographed this morning in New York City. Could the 3 sides symbolize the 3000 who died in the September 11 attacks of 2001?

Later in the day there was another strange "3":

A bit later there was another "3" consisting of three stripes, the top one thick, and the bottom one very thin:

Blue-Green Orb and a Yellow Orb

 Photo date: September 9, 2024  Photographer: Mark Mahin. 

We see below two orbs I photographed indoors. 

Today I was thinking of an interesting hypothetical explanation of orbs. Let us imagine some crustacean or octopus at the bottom of some pond or sea, not far from the shore.  Such creatures could never conceive of life on the land such as humans enjoy.  But humans could make little manifestations that a crustacean or octopus at the bottom of the water might notice. A human, for example, could drop pebbles in the sea that might sink down to the bottom of the water. To a crustacean or octopus, a pebble sinking down to the bottom of the water would be a strange anomaly it could not understand.

Just as humans can toss pebbles into the sea that sink to the bottom to puzzle creatures at the bottom, souls or spirits in some higher realm of existence might be able rather easily to make fleeting little manifestations in our earthly realm. One type of such manifestations might be orbs. It might be easy for such souls or spirits to make orbs that appear as fleeting blips in photos. An effort or energy a hundred  times greater might be required to produce an orb visible to the naked eye, such as are often reported; and an effort or energy 1000 times greater might be required to make something reported as an apparition or ghost.  In this analogy, humans are like the creatures at the bottom of the sea, receiving  occasional anomalies we do not understand from beings far more powerful, beings that may want to send signs of their existence. Of course, such ideas are speculation, and the causes of  photos like the ones above are still a mystery. But  the strong pattern repetition effect I have documented here may suggest some intelligent agency at work, with much more pattern repetition than we would expect by chance. 

He Says the Orb Turned Into the Weirdest Wonders

 Below is an 1894 newspaper account of what is probably the strangest orb sighting ever. The account starts with a sky orb, and then turns into a tale of the witness seeing the strangest sights in the sky. We end up with an account like none I have heard before. Click on the image to read it more clearly. 

If there is a symbolic meaning to such a vision, it is beyond my ability to interpret it. 

You can read the account below:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86091038/1894-08-21/ed-1/seq-1/

They Saw Weird Orbs

 Below is an interesting account of naked-eye observations of mysterious orbs by several different observers. The reported behavior is very strange. We hear of mysterious orbs rising up, lingering in the air, and then disappearing (or maybe  kind of bursting into flames). Click on the image to read it more clearly. 

You can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88063294/1942-08-02/ed-1/seq-68/

This is one of more than 100+ accounts I have published of people seeing mysterious orbs with their unaided eyes. You can read such accounts by clicking here, and continuing to press Older Posts at the bottom. 

Innumerable accounts of scientific interest can be found by using the Chronicling America site which allows you to do a full-text search on old newspapers.  A search for terms such as "ghost," "apparition," "clairvoyance," "mind reading" or "spiritual manifestation" will reveal many newspaper accounts of great relevance to the study of minds. But senselessly, almost all scientists fail to use such a resource.  The average scientist will search for information by doing some text search restricted to scientific papers, which makes no sense. Often such papers will be built on reports that appeared first in newspapers;  and it is often much better when studying any controversial topic to get the earliest account (often found in a newspaper), rather than a secondary source account. And there are very many important observations that were reported in newspapers but never written up in scientific papers. 

Ghosts in the News, Part 2

 Here is the second in a series of videos I am making. 

For Part 1 of this series, click here.

Orb With a Faint Four?

 Photo date: September 3, 2024. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

Below we see a mysterious orb I photographed indoors, one that rather  seems to have a faint number 4 in its right center part.