From Out of the Corner of Your Eye

Many people who have experienced a paranormal occurrence have reported seeing ghostly things from out of the corner of their eyes. People will catch fleeting glimpses of things moving in their peripheral vision only to have them disappear when viewed directly. These "corner of the eye" type of visions are most often the case under lighted conditions, however, such stories claim that at night, inside of a darkened room, illuminated specters and darkened shades become directly visible.

Some might say that such is the flight of fancy of our minds when faced with the diminished information obtained from the extreme limits of our vision. Others, like myself, would entertain the idea that perhaps the human eye has the ability to sense things outside of the range of what is considered normal vision. There is a whole universe of things we can't see directly, but perhaps under the right conditions we can see the unseen.

Given that the human eye has "rod cells" that "see" in low light conditions and that these rods are concentrated in the peripheral areas of the retina as opposed to cone cells (these sense colors in bright light) that are concentrated in the center, it would seem that the rods are mostly sensing these ghostly paranormal images.

So what special properties do rod cells have that could help to see these other worldly sights? Here are some facts about rod cells.

A rod cell is sensitive enough to respond to a single photon of light, and is about 100 times more sensitive to a single photon than a cone cell. Since rod cells require less light to function than cone cells, they are therefore the primary source of visual information at night (scotopic vision). Cone cells, on the other hand, require tens to hundreds of photons to become activated . . . peripheral vision (is) very sensitive to movement, and is responsible for the phenomenon of an individual seeing something vague occur out of the corner of his or her eye.

Rod cell

Experiments by George Wald and others showed that rods are most sensitive to wavelengths of light around 498 nm (green-blue), and insensitive to wavelengths longer than about 640 nm (red).

Rod Cell

Correction: Seems that the 498 nm wavelength is blue just on the verge of becoming cyan that begins at 500 nm and ends at 520nm.

Rod cells also respond more slowly to light than do cone cells, so stimuli received by rod cells are added over about 100 milliseconds. While this makes rods more sensitive to smaller amounts of light, it also means that their ability to sense temporal changes, such as quickly changing images, is less accurate than that of cones (Kandel et al. 2000). However, if multiple flashes of sub-threshold light occur during the 100 millisecond period, the energy of the flashes of light would aggregate to produce a light that will reach threshold and send a signal to the brain.

Rod Cell

Flicker fusion thresholds decline towards the periphery, but do that at a lower rate than other visual functions; so the periphery has a relative advantage at noticing flicker.[4] Peripheral vision is also relatively good at detecting motion.

Peripheral vision

Here is some other information that claims flashes of light may allow humans to "see" infrared light.

In some special conditions, the human eye can indeed detect infrared light according to scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “We experimented with laser pulses of different durations that delivered the same total number of photons, and we found that the shorter the pulse, the more likely it was a person could see it,” Vinberg explained. “Although the length of time between pulses was so short that it couldn’t be noticed by the naked eye, the existence of those pulses was very important in allowing people to see this invisible light.”

“The visible spectrum includes waves of light that are 400-720 nanometers long,” explained Kefalov, an associate professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences. “But if a pigment molecule in the retina is hit in rapid succession by a pair of photons that are 1,000 nanometers long, those light particles will deliver the same amount of energy as a single hit from a 500-nanometer photon, which is well within the visible spectrum. That’s how we are able to see it.”

ZME Science Link

So near-infrared light (1000 nm) under these conditions appears to the eye to be cyan light (500 nm) that just happens to be what the rod cells are most sensitive too. Perhaps paranormal ghostly images may be emitting near-infrared light that is being seen by rod cells as cyan light. A couple of questions that come to mind are how rapid are these photon pulses and do the infrared photons need to be aligned in a laser beam to be seen? Both of these aspects could somehow be factored into how a near-infrared camera may be used to capture these images and prove that they are not just figments of the imagination.

I have mentioned this on ATS before....

I bought a building, and ended up living in one of the apartments. Did not believe in the paranormal (at the time)

One of the first nights staying there, I thought I saw a flash of light up in the corner of the room...(behind me at around the 3 or 4 o'clock position). I turned my head, and saw nothing.... But when I looked back, both of my dogs had their teeth barred, Hackles' raised and were looking at the corner where I saw the flash. Very atypical behaviour from the dogs.... Same thing happened a few nights later in a different corner of the room. and finally it happened in the backyard a few nights after that. Never happened again....(although, a myriad of other things did happen. ) Never saw the dogs act that way before, or again in the 10 and 12 years I (respectively) had them.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

I'm not convinced that the periphery vision phenomena mentioned has a paranormal explanation, but I like your theory and you make it sound plausible.

Scintillating scotoma can cause people to see a variety of these peripheral hallucinations, from mild to flat-out scary. People with migraine issues often experience it.

Several medications, including over the counter cold and allergy meds can cause these "sightings" of shadow people, even the notorious "hat man". Source
I kept seeing a man with a trench coat and hat pushed down over his eyes (I only saw this with my periphial vision.

I'm not dismissing all of these sightings, I'm just proferring possible explanations. It's like people seeing and hearing things when they're in near-sleep or semi-conscious states. There's probaly a logical explanation.

I've had some personal experiences with "peripheral hallucinations". When I was a little kid up until about my early 20s, I had numerous experiences of this type, except some of these peripheral visions were of events that hadn't occurred yet, but would happen soon after seeing them from the corner of my eye. When I was about 7 or 8 years old, one of these peripherally previewed events was especially clear, intense and unforgettable.

There were no drugs, disorders or injuries to explain that one away and at the time it caused me to radically change my ideas about time and space. It was back then I came to believe in things paranormal, however, I can easily accept that there are many perfectly reasonable explanations for what is seen in the darkness or from out of the corner of your eye. Only an "eye opening" experience like I have had would convince anyone that there is something paranormal about our peripheral vision.

ETA: I've had mild bouts with scintillating scotoma, something that I thought were called "ocular migraines". But that is nothing like what I'm talking about with things seen from out of the corner of your eye. Thanks for that link though, now I know what scintillating scotoma is.

I like the explanation. I've always thought he phenomena was similar to seeing an LED display out of the corner of your eye, it kind of shimmers, but is clear when looked at straight on. Always seemed like a frequency/vibrational thing to me

Cole Younger, I took a look at the other link you put up and it doesn't point to any particular meds that may produce visions out of the corner of the eye. Floaters in the eye are talked about a lot and one person claimed that fibromyalgia could be causing them to see paranormal "shadow people" and "orbs" that they were able to actually photograph. They didn't share the photos and I didn't find anything conclusive in any of those comments, but they were interesting though.

Here are some ATS threads on the subject, they go way back (silly me, didn't even search it).

wife and i seeing things

My theory - "Seeing Things at . . .

from the corner of my eye

There are a lot of possible reasons for seeing things from the corner of the eye. This link goes into depth concerning normal reasons including seeing things in the dark.

Corner of the eye phenomena: shadow ghosts