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. 

It is interesting that the strange anomaly occurred on a panel of the microwave, and the first syllable of the word panel is "pa," a word meaning "father." The anomaly occurred just as me and my wife were discussing her father's death, something we almost never mention. Was this just a coincidence? 

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.