When Natural Things Seem to Act in a Shockingly Unnatural Way

Some observations of the paranormal seem to involve sightings of something that looks unnatural, such as a transparent ghost or a mysterious moving light in a seance. But in other cases someone will report a familiar natural thing that seems to act in a very unnatural way. Let us look at some of these cases. 

There have been very many cases of astonishing discoveries of water through the use of dowsing. Dowsing occurs when someone takes a branch or forked rod, and attempts to use it to discover underground water.  A dowser holding a branch will often report that the branch seemed to point in a particular direction, leading the dowser to discover underground water.  Against all expectations, there seems to be substantial evidence in favor of something beyond chance going on, which I discuss in detail here.  With dowsing it is hard to disentangle whether there is some kind of anomalous movement of a branch, or whether the effect is something going on in the mind of the person holding the branch. 

A possible case of a natural thing acting in a shockingly unnatural way involves the famous "miracle of the sun" at Fatima, Portugal in 1917. Many thousands reportedly saw a strange sight that supposedly looked like the sun dancing around in the sky.  But it is questionable whether we should call this a case of a natural thing acting in a shockingly unnatural way, because people in other countries did not report the sun moving in an unusual way.  Maybe some luminous phenomenon was seen in the sky that was not actually the sun. 

At seances innumerable people have reported tables acting in an unnatural way, such as tilting or rising up in the air.  I will not dwell on such cases because it is questionable whether we should consider a table a "natural thing," even though it is made of wood, a natural material.  If we can consider the human body a natural thing, then the many reports of human levitation might be given as examples of natural things acting in a shockingly unnatural way. 

There have been reports of human levitation involving holy men such as St. Joseph of Cupertino. In more modern times, many reliable witnesses claimed to view the levitation of the medium Daniel Dunglas Home. Home was checked out very carefully by the world-class scientist Sir William Crookes, who wrote the following  on page 38 of his Researches into the Phenomena of Modern Spiritualism:

"The most striking cases of levitation which I have witnessed have been with Mr. Home. On three separate occasions have I seen him raised completely from the floor of the room. Once sitting in an easy chair, once kneeling on his chair, and once standing up....There are at least a hundred recorded instances of Mr. Home rising from the ground, in the presence of as many separate persons."

Similar observations were made in the twentienth century, when many witnesses claimed to have a seen levitations of the medium Indridi Indridason. 

There were two other reports involving Daniel Dunglas Home that might be classified as cases of natural things seeming to act in a shockingly unnatural manner.  It was reported by a quite a few (read here for an example) that Home could pick up a large red-hot coal or red-hot charcoal as large as an orange, and hold it in his hand without burning his hand.  But it hard to disentangle whether that was the case of a paranormal coal or a hand acting in a paranormal way. It was also reported that an inexplicable body elongation effect occurred in some of Home's seances. 

The investigative report issued by the London Dialectical Society is summarized on pages 138-149 of the Psychical Review (Volume 1, Number 2, November 1892). Pages 140-143 of the Psychical Review summary discusses reports of a mysterious body elongation effect. We read the following on page 143: 

"Another gentleman read a paper before the committee, in which he asserted that he, in company with about fifty others, had seen and measured the wonderful expansions and contractions of Mr. Home’s body, at the residence of a certain doctor well known to the committee and at various times. The expansion usually took place at the hips and measured ' a span ' — that is, nine inches. His body was also elongated at one instance eight inches, and again was shortened from about six feet to nearly five feet, a distance of eleven inches. Another psychic, a young lady, was elongated, at the same time and place. Lord Lindsay testified to similar distortions of Mr. Home’s body." 

Cases of spontaneous human combustion may qualify as cases when natural things seem to act in a shockingly unnatural way. Several years ago the Independent made this shocking news report:

"A woman with severe burns is fighting for her life in Germany, after she reportedly burst into flames in an apparent case of the much-debated apparent phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion (SHC). Eye witnesses described how the woman, believed to be in her forties, silently sat on a park bench as her body was engulfed with fire in the northern town of Flensbug."

In 2010 a coroner made the official judgment that a 76-year-old man had died of spontaneous human combustion. 

There have been some cases in which it was reported that many fish or frogs fell from the sky in a kind of freak "rain of frogs" or "rain of fishes."  Examples can be found here and here. Such cases may qualify as cases of natural things seeming to act in a shockingly unnatural manner.  And speaking of strange rains, the post here discusses various stories of shockingly anomalous rainfall, such as rain falling on an area of only 10 square feet, another area only 25 feet wide getting rain, and a rain that happened to only a single peach tree.  The post does not include links to other sources, so I'm rather skeptical of the quality of such reports regarding rainfall. 

Reports of plants or trees acting in a strange way seem to be very rare.  Very shortly after learning of a sibling's death, I once witnessed in New York City a kind of leaf shower from a group of trees, with at least 100 leaves falling during a few minutes, and as many as 150 or 200, when there was no strong wind.  The date was September 24, 2014, and historical weather data shows the wind was only about 14 miles per hour.  Since this date was about 24 days before peak foliage in New York City, the behavior of the trees seemed unnatural. 

The many reports of miraculous cures from those who bathed in the waters of Lourdes could possibly be a case of a natural thing (water) acting in an unnatural way. But it is hard to disentangle whether such cures are actually produced by some wondrous water, by some external power, or whether they are produced by the minds of those who believe in the power of such water.  The cures could be a kind of mind-over-matter effect showing dormant powers of the human mind or soul. 

Crystal gazing might be considered an example of a natural thing acting in a shockingly unnatural way. When crystal gazing occurs, a person will seem to see some scene while gazing in a crystal. Below is a quote from Frederic W. H. Myers:

"Crystal-gazing in some such form has been practised for at least 3000 years and is practically of world-wide distribution, having been found among the customs of Assyria, Persia, Egypt — ancient and modern — Greece, Rome, China, Japan and India, North American Indians, Africans of Fez, Zulus, Maoris. It was also practised by the Incas, and is still by Australian...and Polynesians, the Shamans of Siberia and Eastern Russia, and in Madagascar."

On pages 574 to 600 of his book Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, Myers discusses in detail the astonishing experiences of crystal gazers of his time such as Goodrich-Freer and Margaret Verrall.  For example, on page 596 we have this account by a Miss Angus:

"In a very short time I felt myself getting excited, which had never happened before, when I looked in the crystal. I saw a crowd of people, and in some strange way I felt I was in it, and we all seemed to be waiting for something. Soon a rider came past, young, dressed for racing. His horse ambled past, and he smiled and nodded to those he knew in the crowd, and then was lost to sight. In a moment we all seemed to feel as if something had happened, and I went through great agony of suspense, trying to see what seemed just beyond my view. Soon, however, two or three men approached, and carried him past before my eyes, and again my anxiety was intense to discover if he were only very badly hurt or if life were really extinct. All this happened in a few moments, but long enough to have left me so agitated that I could not realise it had only been a vision in a glass ball." 

Margaret Verrall states on page 585 that she saw these crystal visions: 5 animals, 7 human figures, 5 common objects, 1 geometrical figure, 2 written words, and 13 fanciful groups or scenes. 

We might consider crop circles as a case of natural things (crops) acting in a shockingly unnatural way. However, crop circles may be too static to qualify as such a thing.  The rare phenomenon of ball lightning seems to be a case of a natural thing (lightning) acting in a shocking unnatural way.  Everything we know about lightning seems to tell us it should never be able to travel around in balls, but ball lightning is sometimes observed by reliable witnesses. 

I have very often photographed dramatic cases in which natural things seem to act in a shockingly unnatural way. The natural things I refer to are ordinary drops of falling water. 

The effect I have long got is a phenomenon of unexpected pattern repetition.  When photographing ordinary streams of pure clean water falling from a plastic bottle, my photos will show many small round circles or orbs that all have the same pattern, a pattern that will differ from one photo session to the next.  Once a pattern appears, I will see it very noticeably occur multiple times in a single photo, typically about 5 or 10 times.  Then the same pattern will very often persist for almost all of hundreds of consecutive photos, and will sometimes persist for almost all of thousands of consecutive photos.  I never have to look closely to see such patterns in the photos, and they appear in a "plain as the nose on my face" kind of way. 

The patterns I refer to may consist of one or more orb indentations or orb notches, or one or more orb holes or orb dark marks, or one or more orb stripes. The patterns usually consist of only one feature (an indentation, hole or stripe), but often consist of two features, sometimes consist of three features, and rarely consist of four or five features. 

Below is an example from January 15, 2020. On that day while photographing only falling drops of pure, clean water I got more than 500 occurrences of an exclamation mark pattern shown below:

Below is an example from February 1, 2020.  On that day while photographing only falling drops of pure, clean water I got more than 1000 occurrences of the two-part pattern shown below:

Below is an example from February 28, 2020. On that day while photographing only falling drops of pure, clean water I took 5000 consecutive photos that almost all showed half-rings at the top of orbs. Altogether on that day I photographed more than 20,000 orbs with such a pattern. 

Below is another example from December 5, 2019.  On that day while photographing only falling drops of pure, clean water I got hundreds of consecutive photos that almost all showed the face-like pattern shown below:

This was only one of very many days in which I have got face-like patterns arising during photography of falling water drops (see here for hundreds of examples).  

In the photo summary posts here and here you can see more than 100 examples of equally dramatic patterns I have got while photographing falling streams of pure, clean water. Most of these patterns occurred massively, with many hundreds of repetitions of the pattern in almost all of hundreds of consecutive photos.  To make a more detailed examination of 300+ posts containing 1000+ photos of such dramatically paranormal patterns, click on the link here, and keep pressing on the Older Posts link at the bottom right of each page. 

To view a video with a chronologically ordered presentation of 1000+ photos I have made showing such inexplicable patterns, watch the video below:

My photographic record of these massively repeating patterns inexplicably arising from streams of falling water is good-as-gold evidence that will stand up very well to any scrutiny anyone may apply.  Over a period of more than five years, I have published online many thousands of authentic high-resolution photos of such inexplicable patterns, which you can view by using the links above, or by watching the photo slideshows at www.markmahin.com.   I have also published quite a few videos showing the viewfinder of my camera while I took such photos of massively repeating patterns dramatically arising during my photography of streams of falling water.  In these viewfinder videos, you can see the dramatic patterns "realtime," exactly as they looked to my eye when I was taking photos of these uncanny pattern repetitions.  You can see six of these videos here, including a 49-minute video of my camera viewfinder as I photographed massively repetitive paranormal orb patterns, and also a 38-minute video of the same type.  Below is a link to the first of these videos:

Below is a link to the second of these videos:

Videos like those above should be enough to rule out any possibility that this dramatic phenomenon is caused by anything like a camera defect. In a video like the two above,  you can see a multitude of orbs with dramatic patterns, and for very many minutes you can see such patterned orbs fall from the top of my camera display screen to the bottom of my camera display screen, as the falling water pours downward. There is no conceivable camera defect that could cause such a visual effect. (If you have any problem using the video links above, try the link here. At that link I have "slideshow equivalents" for such videos, which show them in a slideshow format, with a smaller number of frames per minute.) 

The fact that no camera defect can explain such repetitions is also proven by the fact that I have got such inexplicable pattern repetitions very massively with each of four different cameras.  I first started getting massive orb pattern repetitions back in 2014. While using an Olympus FE-100 point-and-click, I photographed and published at www.orbpro.blogspot.com (during 2015 and 2016) countless photos showing inexplicable repetitions of patterns arising from falling water drops: face-like details in orbs, mysterious crescent shapes, and orbs with dramatic stripes.  After several years of publishing such photos, my Olympus FE-100 stopped working. Much later (in 2018 and 2019) I got innumerable photos of dramatic paranormal patterns arising from falling water drops, using a Sony a6000 camera (see here for some examples).  After that camera stopped working in early 2020, I got a Sony a6100 camera, and  continued to get innumerable photos of dramatic paranormal patterns arising from falling water drops, between January and May 2020, published at www.orbpro.blogspot.com.  Finally, the Sony a6100 stopped working around June 1, 2020. I replaced it with another Sony a6100 in early June 2020. With that second Sony a6100 camera I have continued to get innumerable photos of dramatic paranormal patterns arising from falling water drops, published at www.orbpro.blogspot.com.

So I have got such massively repeating inexplicable orb pattern repetitions (arising during photography of falling water drops) appearing very abundantly on many different days when each of four different cameras was used, which rules out any "freak camera malfunction" explanation.  I regard these massive orb pattern repetitions as a vastly more impressive phenomenon than something such as the movement of a table by an invisible force, or the levitation of an object by an unseen force. A human being can move a table or lift an object. But there is no human intervention or technology that could cause what I so often photograph: very noticeable patterns dramatically arising from falling drops of pure clean water, with hundreds or thousands of repetitions of the same motif.  

The strange events mentioned at the beginning of this post are mostly not very well-supported by photographic evidence. But the phenomenon of abundantly repetitive orb patterns arising most massively and inexplicably from falling water drops is a phenomenon that is now most abundantly documented by the authentic photographic evidence listed above. So we have at least one very well-established case in which natural things seem to act in a shockingly unnatural way.