Orbs...Skepticism

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Oh, wait, you live in Florida, one of the Bush girls just sneezed after doing a line of coke in the back of her boyfriends pickup.

LOL!!! Thanks ..I now have to clean my keyboard from the Coca Cola (didn't want to say coke) I was drinking...not hail....sorry.....

Ok, it is not ocean spray, not snow, not rain, not hail,

A sprinkler is a possibility, although I wouldn't consider that 100% natural.

Not bugs, not pollen, Florida dust storms? Nah.

The red "orbs" in the first picture I am assuming are reflections from roadside reflectors.

Sleet?

smoke from a smudge pot?

I give up.

ANOTHER guess.....I came up with this idea and cant get it out of my head.....lol.....so you were taking a picture of your wet dog and he was shaking off the water, and you just cut HIM out of the pic?

Dagnabbit I had NOT seen the 2nd pic before I posted this dog guess.......its gotta be hail.......and HR that guessed allready.....

[Edited on 9-5-2004 by theRiverGoddess]

Could it be snow?

And all skeptisism about orbs disappears when you see one float past you. You can see them with the naked eye too, not just on camera.

Originally posted by Faceless
And all skeptisism about orbs disappears when you see one float past you. You can see them with the naked eye too, not just on camera.

Thank you for pointing that out. Orbs have been documented throughout history. WWII American pilots reported seeing glowing orbs, which they called 'foo fighters'.

As for NetStorm's last example, those don't even look like orbs that I've photographed. It's important to not take pictures during the bad weather, because rain, snow..etc will produce an orb on the picture. Rain usually leaves a trail behind the orb, and it always appears to be going upward. Here's an example.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Is it Rain?

The orbs I have seen have been inside a building and much too far away from the camera to have been dust.

[Edited on 9/5/2004 by iwouldificould]

Ok...first off. Happy Mothers day to all you Mommys out there

HowardRoark and RiverGoddess gave the most answers and got the closer than most, so if the moderators can do it could you split the 1000 points between them?

The answer is


Fog--and NO that is not the same as rain

I accidently took a picture when coming home one night, and was amazed how the droplets reflected the flash and "looked like" little orbs. I have one of my dogs surrounded by little white orbs..looks like they are getting swarmed

The first one I posted as someone pointed out actually looked like stars.

I hope you aren't dissapointed that it was nothing spectacular, just a big ole fog bank that rolled in.

I like to think of the one in the car as my "Warp speed" picture cause it reminded me of the special effects they show when light speed is approached

Originally posted by iwouldificould
The orbs I have seen have been inside a building and much too far away from the camera to have been dust.

[Edited on 9/5/2004 by iwouldificould]

How do you know how far they are from the camera?

A photo is a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional space. There is no real way to tell how far an object is from a camera in a photo. Usually we use clues such as the depth of field, parallax and juxtapositions to infer distance, but that is not proof of distance. Hollywood special effects masters use this to create elaborate sets out of miniture models that look like a full sized scene, but aren't.

So, how do you know how far an out of focus "orb" is from the lens?

Dust particles tend to be observable only within a 4 foot range from the camera lens due to the optics involved and the lines of resoultion the camera has. That was why when I did my shots, we used two cameras set about 6 feet apart pointed generally at the same spot.
When set to go of simultaniously we got orbs in both shots in the same location except the slight deviance owing to the cameras being placed apart. This means that the object had to be further way than 4 feet, and more likely further out still due to the slight displacment of the position from the differing cameras points of view

hey Giselburtus!!!

can you show us the 2 pics? maybe throw down some links to past pics? ( I am clueless as to HOW to throw down a link, so I just told folks about MPR)

oh please oh please pleaseplease please? it would be SO pleasant!!!!
~~~~I am on my knees beggin the screen here~~~~

we went over this whole orb issue not that long ago
link
me? personaly, DUST! or other things of that nature. I was so convinced for the longest time, that it was spirits or ghosts.

Well to all you people that believe orbs are just light reflected from dust can I ask your opinion on orbs that are seen with the naked eye?

while we're on the subject I'd be grateful for some more opinions on the diamond shaped orbs that I posted in this thread

www.abovetopsecret.com...

to save upload space I only posted sections of the pictures, but the orb type things were in different places in the pictures , so not something on the lens, and they were in a whole bunch of pictures taken at tintagel and I've never had them in any other photos before or since. any sort of explaination , spooky or scientific will be welcome.

I have had diamond shaped ORBS show up in every picture I take in the rain......or of kids running through sprinklers.......so I would say the diamond ones are most definatly water droplets.

sings "Lucy in the sky with diamonds..."
all this talk about diamonds...

Argh I was too late to say fog as the mystery orbs.