Hint of a Grin?

 Photo date: February 2, 2026. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

We see below a mysterious orb I photographed indoors.  We get what some might call a faint suggestion of a grinning face. 

Mysterious Red Sky Orbs: A Retrospective (Part 6)

  Below are some photos I previously took of mysterious red orbs in the sky. All of the photos were taken in clean, dry air when there was no fog, mist, rain or precipitation.

In my photo below we see a weird colored sky orb with a strange stripe.

The photo below shows a red orb I photographed above a building in New York City.

My photos below show two red orbs I photographed  in New York City.

My photo below shows a red orb above a building in New York City.

My photos below show three colorful sky orbs I photographed one night. None of them was the moon, which was only a half-moon on this night.

The photo below shows 4 orbs I photographed near a building top. One of the orbs was red-colored.

My photos below show two orange orbs I photographed, along with a red sky orb. None of these was the moon, which was less than a half moon on this night.

Baffling Birthday

Today (January 29) is my late father's birthday. On his last two birthdays there were baffling anomalies:

• On January 29, 2024, as described here, I was lying in bed thinking of my father, wondering whether a dream I just had was a reference to him. At that moment the GFCI outlet in the bathroom mysteriously turned off with a loud sound. There was no one in the bathroom. Turning off the outlet requires a press of a button on the GFCI panel on the wall of the bathroom. 
• On January 29, 2025, as described here, around 12:50 AM, a structural panel in front of my sink mysteriously fell to the ground. The event was very surprising, as the whole floor had been remodeled a few years ago, and the panel was expected to stay undisturbed for many additional years. 

Today, January 29, 2026 I woke up about 1:00 AM, and went into the living room. I was surprised to see the thermostat showing a temperature of 67 degrees. I had set the thermostat to 60 degrees when going to bed at midnight, a temperature I keep it at when I sleep. I set the thermostat back to 60 degrees, and went back to the couch. A few minutes later I saw the thermostat was again showing a setting of  67 degrees. It was as if some invisible hand had moved the thermostat to the right, resetting it from 60 to 67. 

It is interesting that all three of these events involve a panel. The dictionary defines a panel as "a flat or curved component, typically rectangular, that forms or is set into the surface of a door, wall, or ceiling." The thermostat was in a wall panel, as shown below. The first syllable of "panel" is "pa," an English word meaning "father." 

Below is the description of this morning's event that I wrote on a notepad immediately after it occurred:

"1/29: Saw thermostat at 67 at 1:10. I turned it back to 60, which I had set it to at 12:00. A few minutes later it was mysteriously back to 67." 

The Google Nest thermostat has a Settings interface that allows you to look at changes in the temperature that get scheduled, under some capability of the thermostat to learn from your previous habits in switching the temperature. Around noon today I used that Settings interface to see whether there was any scheduled switch in temperature that could explain the anomaly described above. There was not. Below is what I saw when looking at the schedule for today (Thursday):

Postscript: On February 4 I had the 186th dream I have had about my later father since I started recording my dreams. I  dreamed that I was living in some high apartment tower, and that my late father was on the other side of my apartment's window, like some window washer working outside the window. The dream seemed to symbolize an idea of my late father being on the Other Side of an afterlife, while also suggesting the idea of lofty heights associated with an afterlife location. But at the same time the dream has a "nearby, just past the barrier" idea. It was the latest of more than 500 dreams I have had that suggested the idea of life after death, all of which are described in my frequently updated post here. 

A Paraverse Interaction Map Might Be More Empirically Warranted Than a Dark Matter Map

 There they go again: claiming to have a map of something never observed. 

This time it's an article in the Daily Mail with this headline: "See dark matter like NEVER before: NASA reveals one of the most detailed maps of the elusive substance yet – confirming its vital influence on the universe."  We have these claims:

"NASA has revealed one of the most detailed maps of dark matter yet. Taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, the map suggests the elusive substance acts as a hidden framework on which entire galaxies are built...'By revealing dark matter with unprecedented precision, our map shows how an invisible component of the Universe has structured visible matter to the point of enabling the emergence of galaxies, stars, and ultimately life itself,' explained Dr Gavin Leroy, co–author of the study."

But how can someone have a map of dark matter locations when dark matter has never been observed? Scientists say dark matter is invisible. All attempts thus far to make direct observations of dark matter have failed. Dark matter doesn't even have a place in the Standard Model of Physics, and no evidence for it has turned up at the Large Hadron Collider. 

We have in the Daily Mail article a claim that the map of dark matter was made by studying gravitational lensing. Gravitational lensing is what the article is referring to when the article states this: "Because dark matter is invisible, the team looked for it by observing how its mass curves space itself, which in turn bends the light travelling to Earth from distant galaxies."

 But observations of gravitational lensing are not equivalent to observations of dark matter. Gravitational lensing is a strange effect produced on light rays bent by the gravity of high concentrations of matter. Such matter can be any type of matter: either normal matter or possibly some type of dark matter. 

As Scientific American puts it when describing gravitational lensing:

"According to Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, mass warps space, so a large amount of matter in the foreground of a galaxy can bend its light in a way that makes it look slightly squashed. This is true whether the foreground mass is made of invisible dark matter or ordinary matter."
 
So if you are claiming to have a map of dark matter made by observing gravitational lensing, you are doing something rather like announcing that you have a map of UFO landing sites made by observing small burnt patches in the forest. Such patches might be produced by hot UFO's that are landing, but they also might be produced by ordinary lightning flashes, or by people setting campfires.

We have in the Daily Mail article some unwarranted language by a scientist, the language below:

"Dr Diana Scognamiglio, co–author of the study from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said: 'This is the largest dark matter map we've made with Webb, and it's twice as sharp as any dark matter map made by other observatories.

'Previously, we were looking at a blurry picture of dark matter. 

'Now we're seeing the invisible scaffolding of the Universe in stunning detail, thanks to Webb's incredible resolution'." 

No, there was no actual "dark matter map" created. All that went on is that scientists saw things that can be explained by matter or things other than dark matter (as postulated by MOND theorists), and scientists jumped to the conclusion that such effects were caused by dark matter, without any adequate warrant. You can't see things that are invisible. 

The scientific paper of these claimants is entitled "An ultra-high-resolution map of  (dark) matter."  The title is inaccurate. The paper has figures, and none of them is labeled as a map of dark matter. The term "dark matter" is not even used in any of the captions of the paper's figures. We have here another case of what is so common these days in science literature: citation-hungry scientists giving their papers titles that do not match what is in the paper. 

What scientists call "dark matter" is something they believe is not actually dark matter but instead invisible matter. A more candid term for "dark matter" would be "spooky matter." Scientists boasting about having created a dark matter map may say that they "saw dark matter." But they should instead merely be saying that they saw regular matter and energy, and that they inferred dark matter or guessed that dark matter was somewhere. 

What type of "map of the spooky" would have much more empirical  warrant than the claimed "map of spooky matter" that is a claimed dark matter map? It would be what we might call a paraverse interaction map 

To explain such a map, I must explain the concept of the paraverse, explained in my 2016 post "The Possibility of a Paraverse." The term paraverse is formed from the end of the word “universe” and from the prefix “para,” which means “beside” or “to the side of.” We can define a paraverse as some hypothetical realm of existence that is in some sense connected to our universe in a way that allows information and causal influences to flow between our universe and this other realm of existence. 

The two main differences between the multiverse concept and the paraverse concept are as follows:

1. The multiverse concept postulates many other universes, while the paraverse concept postulates only a single other realm of existence (without excluding the possibility of additional universes). 
2. The multiverse idea typically postulates universes that are completely isolated from each other, without communication or interaction between any two of the universes; but conversely the paraverse concept says there may indeed be interaction or communication between our universe and some other realm of existence, with perhaps causes and effects sometimes flowing between the two.

The visual below illustrates the difference between the two ideas. The arrows represent interaction or communication. 

In the diagram above the arrows ---> and <--- represent causal interaction. 

In imagining a paraverse we should be as flexible and open-minded as possible. A paraverse might be a very physical place such as we know. Or it might be some ethereal state of existence very different from our existence. Beings living in a paraverse might be biological beings, or they might be beings of energy or purely spiritual beings. Maybe some of these beings once lived on Earth. 

Given the limits of our knowledge, it would seem to make little sense to try to make a map of the paraverse. There are those who claim that after you die, you go to an afterlife realm that has seven levels. But the basis of such claims seems to be too thin to allow any map of the paraverse to be created. 

However, there is a different type of "map of the spooky" that could be made with some empirical warrant. It is what we might call a map of paraverse interactions.  A paraverse interaction may be defined as some occurrence in our world of some inexplicable paranormal phenomenon that seems to be some interaction involving causal agency between a paraverse and our familiar world. 

A map of paraverse interactions would simply be a map showing where on planet Earth the most inexplicable paranormal phenomena have been observed. I will not attempt to make such a map. But I can mention a few places that should probably be marked by anyone creating such a map. 

One such place would be London, England, the site of some of the most well-documented paranormal events in history, such as those discussed in my posts here, here,  here, and here. Another such place would be some spots in upstate New York state, USA corresponding to the phenomena reported in my posts here and here. Two other such places might be Fatima, Portugal and Lourdes, France. Another such place might be the city of Boston in the USA, where lived the medium Leonora Piper, whose case is described here. Another such place might be New York City, USA, particularly Grand Central Terminal in midtown Manhattan, where I have photographed more than 1000 mysterious orbs, as you can see by using the link here, and continuing to press Older Posts at the bottom right. Below is one of the photos, from 2015.

The same city has been the sight of a long series of extremely spooky events described in my post here and my series of 100+ posts you can read here by continuing to press Older Posts at the bottom right of each page. 

A thorough attempt at a paraverse interaction map might well also include various locations in India and Brazil where paranormal events have been reported. Unlike the "dark matter map" which scientists groundlessly boasted about, a paraverse interaction map would be a map listing the locations of baffling sights that people actually saw or photographed. 

Mysterious Blue Indoor Orbs: A Retrospective (Part 11)

Below is Part 11 of a retrospective showing some of the better photos I have taken indoors of mysterious blue orbs photographed indoors. 

The photo below shows a transparent blue orb I photographed in Grand Central Terminal in New York.

  In my photos below, we see two mysterious orbs that are both aligning to lines.  One aligns to the edge of a window, and the other aligns to the beveled edge line to the right of the window.

The photos below both show mysterious orbs I photographed in front of the same spot near the central information desk at Grand Central Terminal in New York.

Below we see two mysterious orbs I photographed in Grand Central Terminal in New York (both of these were cropped from the same photo). 

The photo below shows a mysterious blue orb or blue orbs I photographed near a flag in Grand Central Terminal. It could be seven different position states of a single blue orb, as we might see if the orb was moving both down and sideways at the same time. 

In my photo below we see a mysterious blue orb that rather seems to have perched on a woman's shoulder.

In the photo below we see a mysterious orb I photographed in Grand Central Terminal.

A Bright Orb

 Photo date: January 23, 2026. Photographer: Mark Mahin. 

We see below a mysterious  orb I photographed indoors. 

Mysterious Red Sky Orbs: A Retrospective (Part 5)

 Below are some photos I previously took of mysterious red orbs in the sky. All of the photos were taken in clean, dry air when there was no fog, mist, rain or precipitation.

The photos below show mysterious orbs I photographed at the edge of a park area in New York City.

My photo below shows some mysterious orbs I photographed near an electrical wire in New York City.  Were they attracted to the electricity in the wire?

The photo below shows a red orb and a purple orb I photographed near a building in New York City. Is that a sky smooch we see?

The photos below show some colorful orbs I photographed above windows in New York City.  We see colors of green, orange, red, and purple.

The photos below show three red orbs I photographed in the sky.

The photo below shows a red orb I photographed above a building in New York City.

The grid below shows various photos I have taken of mysterious red orbs in the air.