Josh & Sharon Falk: October 2008

I have a crazy story to share, but first I must preface it with a little history. For those of you that don't know, I work at pictureline. It is an amazing photography store in Salt Lake that caters to professionals. I have worked there for 2 years now and have loved learning more and more about this line of work. You can check out my amazing face on their website at http://www.pictureline.com/info/aboutus.php.

Just before Josh and my honeymoon last year we decided to buy a fancy point and shoot camera. We purchased the Canon TX1. At the time it was a pretty innovative camera that has a 10x zoom and can also record 480P HD video. To say the least we have loved it. It takes great pictures and even better video. Up to this point we have not had any complaints about this little guy.

Well Tuesday night I met up with my sister and her husband Dean at a gymnastic tumbling gym in South Provo, and while I was there I took several pictures of everyone goofing around and having a good time. When I got back to the house I pulled out my camera and looked at the pictures I had taken. Several of the shots had translucent circles in them.

Since working at pictureline I have helped customers on numerous occasions with their cameras, but I could not figure out what might have caused this. Sometimes dust on your lens or sensor can show up, but it would be consistently in the same place in EVERY picture. Puzzled I went to work the next day to consult with my coworkers of whom many are professional photographers themselves.

I was surprised that no one really knew what the cause could be. Luckily our Canon sales rep, Kevin, was scheduled to come in that afternoon. He would for sure have an answer on how to fix my camera. As soon as he arrived I pulled him aside and showed him my images and ask him what could have caused the spots. His reply was that there was nothing wrong with my camera, and that it was just an encounter with "orbs". I don't know about you, but I don't know what the heck "orbs" are. He then told me that they are spirits. At this point I thought he was just messing with me so I told him that I wasn't buying it and that I needed a technical answer. He told me that there was no technical answer and that it was a commonly experienced phenomenon, especially in old buildings and cemeteries. I still thought that he was full of it, but he told me to google it and see what I could find.

Here are the google results...

What are these balls of transparent light we find in photos taken in allegedly haunted places? I won't tell you I know the answer to this question. No one has the true answer to this question yet, but that's part of the job of researchers and investigator.

One of the leading theories concerning what orbs are and the one that I lean towards the most is that they are not the spirit at all. The orb is the energy being transferred from a source (i.e. power lines, heat energy, batteries, people, etc) to the spirit so they can manifest. This may not even be a conscious thing the spirit is doing, just a natural way they get their energy. This would explain why the orbs are round balls. According to the laws of Physics energy being transferring like that would assume is natural shape of a sphere. This theory can also be tied into the EMF readings we get during spirit activity.

I always approach things with a bit of skepticism, so when I saw all these websites start showing off these photos as ghosts, I was just as weary as most of you. I just had to try it for myself. I took a 35mm camera that I had used regularly for 6 years in all types of lighting and weather and had never gotten an orb or other unexplainable photo before and went out with a few seasoned field investigators on a cemetery investigation. One of the investigators was psychic and she pointed out a few areas we should take photos, so I did. I also had ghost footsteps walk up behind me twice and I turned around quickly and took photos of the empty air. When I got my photos developed, I had these orbs and fog in those photos that I was told to take, as well as the footstep ones. All my other photos were normal. Coincidence?

Kevin then said his dad had just recently passed away and all the pictures that he took at his dad's house had just one orb in them. Crazy right?

I couldn't handle all this orb talk without getting to the bottom of it, so I started questioning all of my co-workers to see if they had heard of orbs.

Ken said that one of our customers had an experience similar to the one I found online where she had gone to a cemetery and taken pictures at night and when she developed her film, it was covered in orbs. One of the prints she blew up and inside one of the spheres was a women's face. She was so shocked that she brought in the print and shared it with everyone and has now joined a group that studies supernatural events such as these.

Dana, another co-worker was a major skeptic. However she said that she first learn about orbs when she was visiting Prague last year with her husband. One night they went out, shot some pictures of a Jewish cemetery, and every shot was filled with these translucent spheres.

SO I DON'T KNOW IF I'M CONVINCED, BUT I THOUGHT I WOULD SHARE MY PICTURES AND YOU GUYS CAN TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK OF IT.

ENJOY :)