A Hint That Orbs and Apports Are Related?

 Photo date: September 3, 2025. Photographer: Mark Mahin. 

In psychical research an apport is some object that seems to appear in some way that seems anomalous or inexplicable, as if the object had appeared "out of nowhere." An example of a report of an apport is  Alfred Russel Wallace's report of fresh-cut flowers mysteriously appearing at a seance. Here is what Wallace said about a Miss Nichols:

"The most remarkable feature of this lady's mediumship was the production of flowers and fruits in closed rooms. The first time this occurred was at my own house, at a very early stage of her development. All present were my own friends. Miss N. had come early to tea, it being mid-winter, and she had been with us in a very warm gas-lighted room four hours before the flowers appeared. The essential fact is, that upon a bare table in a small room closed and dark (the adjoining room and passage being well lighted), a quantity of flowers appeared, which were not there when we put out the gas a few minutes before. They consisted of anemones, tulips, chrysanthe. mums, Chinese primroses, and several ferns. All were absolutely fresh, as if just gathered from a conservatory. They were covered with a fine cold dew. Not a petal was crumpled or broken, not the most delicate point or pinnule of the ferns was out of place."

Wallace's account is hard to dismiss, as he was a very weighty scientist who was the co-founder (with Charles Darwin) of the theory of evolution by natural selection. I have on this blog discussed many strange observations that seemed to fall under the category of apports, including the case of a coin rolling up from behind me while I was alone in an apartment. 

I  have described in some recent posts a very strange effect in which I will suddenly notice some rubber band on my floor, with me lacking any explanation for how the rubber band got there. I have recently seen an effect like this well over 16 times. Upon awakening on this day (September 3),  I entered into my living room, and was surprised to see a pink rubber band on the floor, in front of the TV, a spot where I am sure no rubber band existed when I went to bed.  I reminded myself of a rule I am trying to remember: whenever you see something strange, photograph it, even if you don't think the photo will merit a social media post. So I took a photo of the anomalous rubber band lying on the floor. 

The photo showed the anomaly below. We see a mysterious orb right next to one of the rubber bands on the ledge in front of my TV set.  Was this a hint of a connection between the phenomenon of mysterious orbs and the phenomenon of apports? I have speculated about potential symbolism involving rubber bands. Being very expandable, a rubber band may symbolize some expansion of the mind that could occur in an afterlife. 

Postscript: on the morning this post was published (September 6) there was more rubber band weirdness. I picked up from my TV ledge my palm-sized Sony camera, and walked back to my sofa two meters away. I then saw a blue rubber band very strangely clinging to the flat-panel viewfinder on the back of the camera I held in my hands. This was baffling because I always place the camera viewfinder-down, and never put any rubber band on top of it.  Thinking this might have been caused by some adhesion effect, I tried ten times to reproduce the effect, by putting the camera on top of the same rubber band on the same ledge, and lifting up the camera which had its viewfinder touching the  rubber band. The effect was never reproduced. No rubber band clung to the viewfinder when the camera was raised. There was nothing sticky on the camera viewfinder and nothing sticky on the rubber band.