Hi ALL,

Had an email from a friend, who is a medium, and she is going to attend this ORB CONFERENCE in March.

Website:

http://www.greatmystery.org/events/ps08.html/

Good articles on orbs on this website.

Janmg

Interestingly, I had a short email conversation with Dr. Tiller about this conference. I mentioned to him that I had a lot of doubts about the whole orb phenomenon. He has recommended a book called The Orb Project that apparently discusses the phenomenon from a scientific perspective. I have reserved it at the library. I'll let you all know what I think of it once I get a chance to read it.

For those of you interested in reading this book for yourselves, here is a link to it on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Orb-Project-Klaus-Heinemann/dp/1582701822

What interests me the most is that the author is a physicist. From what I can gather about the book, he attempts to differentiate between the normal particulate orbs, which are nothing more than dust caught in a flash, and real orbs. He also seems to have an explanation for something else that has bothered me. If orbs can be caught on film then my assumption is that they must be an optical phenomenon. If that's the case then they should be easily visible. However, Dr. Ledwith seems to be suggesting that a type of fluorescence is responsible, which if true might explain why they are not visible to the naked eye but still appear on a camera that is designed to detect visible wavelengths.

I'm sure it will be an interesting read!

What's even further interesting is that some people DO see them with the naked eye, especially in the peripheral vision field. My Mom used to tell me all the time that she'd literally see these little balls of light on occasion - different colors, and about the size of a ping-pong ball. Me? I've had that experience as well, but it's more rare than often.

I think once science gets into the study of photons/orbs a bit more, the connections will really start being made.

Well, I'm going to have a busy weekend reading. The Orb book arrived at the library along with The Energy Healing Experiments book by Gary Schwartz and another book on Healing Touch. It's a good thing I have Monday off!

I glanced through the orb book a bit. There are lots and lots of pictures. I have to admit that many of the pictures they claim are real orbs still look like unfocused particulates caught in a flash with various lensing artifacts thrown in. It doesn't appear that either of the authors is a true expert in optics, which is what I was hoping for, but the co-author is a respected research scientist. He focuses mainly on fluid dynamics but he also does materials science. I'd still with they had an optical physicist as a co-author, or at least a reviewer.

The only optical physicist I know isn't talking to me anymore. lol I don't know if it's just because I made him mad a few years ago or if he's just extremely busy. Could be a mixture of both. :-)

I posted this in the Orb of Life section a while back. News report on orbs. The only live video footage of orbs I've ever seen.

http://cbs11tv.com/local/local_story_058160642.html

Steve

That looks like a flying bug to me, but it's really too hard to say. The video just isn't clear enough.

YouTube has some orb videos, but the ones I saw weren't real. One of them looked really cool at first. It appears as if a large bright orb is passing right by the camera. However, it's just an optical illusion. Someone in the back of the room has a flashlight and they quickly shine it along a back wall. It's a very interesting illusion. You have to be careful with video of three-dimensional "objects" with two-dimensional technology. We lose a lot of important information by losing that third dimension.

I'm about a third of the way through that orb book now and although they have some interesting ideas, I'm not impressed so far. Here is the pattern I'm noticing:

1. Mention a phenomenon that is currently unexplainable (by them)

2. Come up with some working hypothesis that perhaps explains it

3. Make a giant leap of logic to a conclusion that is unsupported by evidence, yet sounds really cool

I'm *really* trying to stay open-minded about this. But this book already has quite a bit of nonsense in it. It has already been mentioned many times that what they see seems to agree with the teachings of Ramtha, and that is presented as evidence! Ok, seriously? Ramtha? I would refrain from using Ramtha as evidence in a book that purports to be scientific.

And there are other more scientific issues that I have with them. First, they think that modern digital cameras are sensitive to infrared light and that's why they're picking up these orbs. But why can we still see them? Because the camera is shifting the wavelength of the light into the visible spectrum for us. If that's the case then all visible light should be shifted by a similar amount, but that would make reds appear orange or yellow, yellows would be green, greens would be blue, and so on. But that doesn't happen. Why?

The other thing that bugs me is why a flash seems to be necessary to see them even if it's bright outside. They surmise that the flash energetically charges the orbs and what we see is the orbs fluorescing, somewhat like a sodium vapor street lamp. They go on to say that orbs don't appear to be a physical thing. They say they must be electromagnetic. Well, fluorescence is a physical property, not an electromagnetic property. I will be interested to see how they can explain how an electromagnetic entity fluoresces.

I also wasn't impressed by Dr. Tiller's foreward to the book. I'll summarize it for you:

1. At one time I didn't believe in orbs
2. Then I saw some, so now I do
3. [insert insanely advanced science and math that 99.9% of the population have no chance of understanding]
4. So, there, that's why you should believe in them, too!

I don't even know anyone personally that I could ask to verify the math and science in that foreward. It is absurdly complex. Who do they think their target audience is?

I will continue to read the book. I promise I'm trying to keep an open mind! I think it would be very cool if this were a real paranormal phenomenon. I'm considering using my own digital camera to try to get some orb photos. I've taken hundreds of pictures with that camera and I don't recall ever seeing an orb, but I think I'll give it a purposeful attempt.

Oh, another side note. If they're right about orbs fluorescing because of the high energy of the flash, do this test. Find a digital video camera that is also sensitive to the same frequency range as a digital camera that picks up orbs. Then film an area while using a strobe light. Edit out the parts of the video that are washed out by the strobe and what you should have left is a video of moving, fluorescing orbs.

I realize that I need to learn a lot more about this topic in order to fully comprehend it. I'm reading online about IR photography to see if I can figure out why IR images get frequency-shifted upward to make them visible for us. I don't understand how it happens yet, but it certainly appears to happen. Do any of you know why the IR wavelengths get shifted into a visible spectrum on a camera without shifting all other light?

I found a really neat website that talks about IR photography:

http://dpfwiw.com/ir.htm

They mention a cool trick to see if your camera is sensitive to IR. Simply go into a dark room. Look through the camera viewer while pointing a TV remote at it. Press a button on the remote. If you can see it through the viewer then your camera is IR sensitive. Or, more specifically, the IR has not been filtered out completely by its internal filter. Very cool!

I discovered that my camera is very sensitive to IR, so that is good news for my future attempts at orb photography.

I realized why the camera can show IR light without shifting the other light. The answer is that it is not shifting the IR light.

There are basically two components to light that are important to a camera/viewer: frequency (or wavelength) and amplitude. For any given pixel on a digital camera, the viewer attempts to display the corresponding frequency--the color--and the corresponding amplitude, or brightness. With IR, the frequency is not visible to us. However, the camera still attempts to display the amplitude component by increasing the brightness of the image in the areas where IR light are present.

That is more than sufficient to get clear IR images. You don't even need the frequency/wavelength component. After all, black and white photography is nothing more than that: pictures with the frequency/wavelength component removed, leaving only the amplitude component.

Okay, you may now return to your regularly scheduled program. :-)

Okay, here's a case where the author completely gets it wrong, provably, and then proceeds to make a baseless hypothesis that we are intended to accept as fact.

QUOTE:

Second, if they produce a radiation that is at least partly infrared, then they must belong to a realm that is at least at the frequency/wavelength of infrared or beyond. This indicates the the orbs are native to the dimensions that lie in frequency levels above our material realm. Normally, then, they will be manifested in this dimension only when a process occurs that causes them to give off a level of radiation a camera could perceive, especially one that is sensitive to infrared.

If an orb can only be photographed when its light radiation is lowered to the bottom end of the infrared spectrum, it would explain why a much greater lowering of its frequency would be necessary for it be photographed with normal film and why far fewer orbs can be captured on film rather than on the digital CCD.

UNQUOTE.

This is wildly inaccurate and I can't believe it's even in the book. The author seems to think that infrared is a high frequency, higher than visible light, and that these orbs must lower their frequency to our domain in order to be viewed. The fact is that infrared is long-wavelength, low-frequency light that is BELOW the visible spectrum. The author gets the science wrong and then proceeds to make baseless claims that aren't even supported by the "evidence" that he provides.

That's just one example. This sort of thing is common in this book. I'm really disappointed in it. Then again, perhaps I am wrong and am misunderstanding the points he is making. Or perhaps I have the science wrong. If any of you spot anything any errors in my approach or statements, please let me know. I want to make sure I'm thinking straight on this.