It Was Just As If They Teleported In Front of Me

 I will now give you a very fresh observational report of some spooky events I observed within the past hour (I started writing this account immediately after the events occurred).

After awaking, I showered and dressed, and walked into a living room (there was no one else on the floor). At first I noticed nothing unusual. But a minute or so later I noticed a pink rubber band on the floor, in front of the TV set. The rubber band had not been there when I went to bed last night. I am in general very careful to pick up from the floor any objects such as coins, rubber bands or pens that I see there, as soon as I notice them. 

Struck by this anomaly, I picked up a camera I keep on a little ledge in front of the TV. I raised my camera to photograph what I thought was a single rubber band on the floor. I was surprised to see there was now a second rubber band right next to the pink rubber band: a larger brown rubber band. It was as if the larger rubber band had been instantly teleported to the spot right in front of me. I had very clearly looked at the pink rubber band, and I am certain that when I first saw it there was only one rubber band on the floor area in front of the TV (the area shown in the photo below). 

A few seconds later I noticed there were now three rubber bands on the floor, right in front of the TV set. There was now a third rubber band about a foot to the left of the first two rubber bands. 

What I saw was like objects being instantly teleported from one spot to another, just as if the rubber bands I keep on the TV ledge were being teleported to the surface of the floor. As I reported in a series of posts labeled "rubber band anomalies," I have seen more than a dozen previous similar anomalies involving rubber bands. But none of the previous incidents seemed as dramatic as what I saw today. 

I speculated earlier that rubber bands may have a symbolic meaning. Being very expandable, rubber bands may symbolize some expansion of the mind that may occur in an afterlife. 

Below we see the rubber bands. What I saw was: (1) first no rubber band noticed on the floor; (2) then a single rubber band on the floor; (3) then a few seconds later two rubber bands on the floor; (3) then a few seconds later three rubber bands on the floor. This all happened in a period of maybe two minutes, during which I was alone in the room, and did not touch any rubber bands. I had not yet opened any window in the room, and there was no fan running, ruling out blowing air as an explanation. The area shown below is about 3 meters from the window, and today is not a windy day where I live. 

A conceivable hypothesis to explain these events is some invisible spirit or power quickly moving small objects around. 

Postscript: On October 5, 2025 there was another similar event. I woke up and noticed no rubber bands on the floor near the TV. About 30 minutes later I noticed a blue rubber band  on the floor, in front of the left edge of the TV, in front of the black leg shown in the photo above.  I had taken a photo the night before, which showed the same blue rubber band a meter away, in the middle of the ledge in front of the TV. How did that rubber band get half a meter lower, and also one meter to the left? I can't explain it. There was no one else in the room; the nearest open window was about 4 or 5 meters away, and the wind on this day was only 5 miles per hour where I live. 

From a Glowing Orb to His Sister's Face?

In my post "They Claimed Permanent Physical Evidence of the Paranormal" I describe some very strong evidence regarding the medium M. Franek Kluski. Experiments involving him were described in the 1922 book "Materialisations-Experimente mit M. Franek-Kluski" by physician 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. 

The authors describe materialization phenomena produced in seances of Kluski, saying that mysterious figures appeared while both of the medium's hands were held by investigators, to rule out fraud.  On page 36 the authors describe a process they used to try to get permanent physical evidence of such fleeting phantoms, using hot wax called paraffin:

"The paraffin casts are obtained as follows: A bucket containing molten paraffin floating on warm water is placed next to the medium during the session. The materialized 'being' is now asked to dip a hand, foot, or even part of its face into the paraffin one or more times. A mold is then immediately formed on the limb, which hardens immediately in the air or when immersed in cold water standing nearby. The organ in question then dematerializes and leaves the glove to the experimenter. Later you can pour plaster of paris into the glove and then get rid of the paraffin by placing the mold in boiling water. What remains is a plaster cast showing all the details of the materialization. We used this method but did not use the cold water to set the molds for simplicity and to ensure control."

Following page 72 we have some photos of the plaster molds that were made using the technique described above. They include the photos on the pages here, here, here and here, showing structures looking just like human feet and hands.  These plaster molds exist to this day. 

To try to explain reports of materialization, skeptics often resort to claims of secret confederates popping up from hidden trap doors, an explanation that is pretty unworkable given that most materialization seances took place in private homes where no such trap doors existed, with the effects typically occurring from small corners of rooms that had been well-inspected for trap doors.  In the case here no such hypothesis of secret confederates is workable, since  no such person would stick his foot or hand into molten hot wax, and since the very limbs placed into such hot wax were described as later melting away. We may presume some person helping a fraud would not be willing to sacrifice his foot or hand for the sake of such an effort. 

On page 58 we have this remarkable account, which is told by Count Jules Potocki of a session with Kluski on November 20, 1920:

"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."

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." 

An Orb Gradually Forming Into the Figure of a Child?

The 500+ page book "Essays From the Unseen" (which you can read here) is a massive 1885 testimonial by a person claiming to have seen many paranormal wonders.  We do not know the author's name, as he puts only a name of A. T. T. P on his title page. As evidence for the paranormal the book must be classified as less than first-class, only because of the author's refusal to give his name. There were very many people in the nineteenth century who claimed to have seen similar wonders, but who boldly gave their full names (and often even their addresses) when reporting their observations. When you have such a situation, the person too timid to give his name must be classified as a second-class witness. 

The orb-relevant part of the book comes on page 45, when the author states this:

"On one occasion I was sitting at No. 15, Southampton Row, in the company of several others, the Sensitives present being Miss Wood, and a Lady of the name of Fairlamb, and Mr. Herne, a well-known medium, when the figure of a small negro child of four or five years of age, whether boy or girl I did not know, gradually formed from a Ball of light at my feet. I put my hand on the crisp Negro hair of the child. This figure afterwards disappeared in the same manner as it formed, that is, gradually."

We should not exclude this claim merely because of its fantastic-sounding claim, as many similar wonders were reported by witnesses who gave their names and all the details of their observations, including relevant dates and places of observation. You can read about some of their accounts by looking at the 11 posts here.