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. 

From Orb to Full-Sized Human Form?

 On page 497 of the October 20, 1906 edition of the periodical Light, which you can read here, we read an account of a seance with the medium C. V. Miller. The account is a summary of a German account by Joseph Peter given on page 586 of the periodical here. In the German account we have a diagram showing the viewing conditions, a typical affair in which a small portion of a room sealed off by curtains is designated as a "cabinet," and witnesses view various spooky phenomena arising from such a "cabinet." In the top left of the diagram we see an area marked "K" which is the "cabinet" referred to in the narrative below.  The "t" in the diagram designates windows. In seances such as these the area designated as a "cabinet" would always be searched to make sure it was empty at the beginning of the seance, or that it contained only the medium. 

We read the following in the account in the periodical Light:

"While Miller still sat outside the cabinet, the voice of ‘Betsy,’ his control, was heard from within the curtains, and there were some luminous appearances. After the medium had entered the cabinet various forms were seen, which did not come out of the cabinet, but appeared in front of the curtains, usually quite suddenly and unexpectedly, but in one case a luminous ball 'gradually assumed a human shape in full view of the company. The forms were not well seen on account of the dim light, and the features could not be recognised ; the outlines often appeared ill-defined. The first to appear claimed to be Frederika Hauffe, the ‘ Seeress of Prevorst,' who came again later, and spoke both times in German. Colonel Peter says expressly : ' I have repeatedly spoken with Mr. Miller ; he cannot speak the pure, fluent German used by the phantom.’ 

Soon afterwards, three forms were seen together in front of the cabinet, and one appeared to wear a shining diadem. They disappeared simultaneously, and soon a man’s form introduced himself by name to Mme. Nœggerath, and asked that his wife be told that he had shown himself. He passed in front of the semi-circle of sitters, and dematerialised at about a yard from Colonel Peter, taking leave of the company as he sank down to the ground.  'Mother Shipton,’ the English prophetess of three hundred years ago, also purported to appear, and then a little Indian girl, 'Susie,' came suddenly into the circle, no one could tell how. She said she had materialised behind Mme. Nœggerath's chair. A child's figure sang an American nursery rhyme, and then came the development of ' Dr. Benton ’ from a luminous ball. Immediately after this form had disappeared, ' Betsy ’ herself materialised (she had from time to time given explanations, apparently by the direct voice).... Some of the sitters saw her dark face and arms.  She disappeared suddenly, with a hasty farewell, as almost all the apparitions seen at this séance did—as suddenly as a light when it is extinguished. Miller came out of the cabinet almost at the same moment.

After remarking that the séance was not hold for the purpose of convincing sceptics, and that it was given disinterestedly to a few personal friends of the hostess, Colonel Peter gives his opinion as follows :— ' To the initiated, the phenomena at this sitting are convincing as regards their genuineness. The forms, though not plainly seen in detail, wore all so full of life, so genuinely human in their movements and general appearance, that none of the sitters had the slightest doubt of their reality. The voices were entirely different, not only in timber, but also in compass and articulation, and always characteristic....Then, again, the phantoms, without exception, both appeared and disappeared in front of the curtain ; moreover, one form materialised before our eyes, and another gradually dematerialised in full view. I consider it simply impossible to produce such a spectacle as this dematerialisation, under the same circumstances and in the same surroundings, by any trick or artifice whatever.' "

Although the events described may seem too astonishing to be credible, very many witnesses over many years in quite a few countries claimed to have seen very similar marvels at seances, particularly seances called materialization seances.  Witnesses at such seances would often report human forms or speaking human figures mysteriously appearing and mysteriously disappearing, in a way they were utterly unable to account for.  Such seances would almost always occur in private homes that offered no opportunity for stagecraft such as you might do in a theater equipped with trap doors and platforms that can rise and fall with the help of unseen stage workers.  You can read about such accounts in my eleven posts with a tag of "materialization," all of which can be read here by a reader continuing to press Older Posts at the bottom right. 

The account given above is similar to one given on page 219 of the periodical here, where we read Walter Appleyard tell of a seance in which "a luminous ball forming in the centre over the cabinet" appeared to transform into sights described as "two human forms."