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Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Naked-Eye Sightings of Mysterious Orbs (Part 3 of 4)

Mysterious orbs mainly show up in photographs, as if they were fleeting manifestations appearing too quickly to be seen with the naked eye. Orbs of many colors have showed up countless times in my photos, which have produced almost 1500 mysterious blue orbs, and more than 800 mysterious striped orbs.  But in many cases people will report seeing a mysterious orb with the naked eye. I quoted many such accounts in Part 1 of this series and in Part 2 of this 4-part series. Below are some more. 

At the page here you can read each of the prize-winning entries of a 2021 competition by the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies, a competition for the best presentation of evidence regarding life after death. There are some very interesting entries, some quite long. Clicking on the second prize entry by Pim van Lommel MD,  and scrolling down to page 33 of the downloaded file, we find an astonishing account. Pim van Lommel relates a personal communication he received from someone regarding a "sphere of light." We read this:

"At the end of 2000 my eldest son died by suicide. From the police report estimating time of death, I learned it was about the same time a curious thing happened to me. I saw a sphere of light enter my window and then enter my forehead whereupon I was suddenly ‘awareness without a body', in a place profoundly lit, with a sense of spacious depth but without any features. I felt profound warmth and love, felt my son was ok, and heard the words, 'There is nothing wrong and there has never been anything wrong.' Somehow, I knew this to be true with every cell of my body even though he had been suffering with pain for years. The next day I learned of his death."

I received by email an observational account from a person who reports seeing with her own eyes a red orb moving between her dining room chairs and her window, five different times. In the first episode of a cable series Aliens in Alaska, we have an eyewitness account of a couple that saw seven orange orbs in the sky.  Their video shows a featureless orange ball.  One of the observers reported the sighting to the FAA.  In the second episode, we see a picture of an orb-like object in front of a mountain, with someone describing it as a green sphere. On another episode someone repeatedly uses the word "orb" to describe a strange orange circular object he saw in the sky. He reports one orb "chasing" another orb.  On another episode another person describes seeing two orange orbs in the sky. 

Speaking of green spheres, on pages 89-91 of the book A Cavalcade of the Supernatural by Harold H. U. Cross, PhD, we have the following claims, which start by mentioning a circle of witnesses:

"At the Sydney circle, previously mentioned, there were always many manifestation of these wonderful lights, and the writer would describe them as balls of dull green fire, of various dimensions....The author, when on medical duty for the French Government at Tahiti during the terrible epidemic of Spanish influenza, watched at the bedside of a dying missionary and beheld a luminous cloud which enveloped the head and thorax of the patient. This was visible by candle light, and lasted about two hours; all who were near and the whole night staff saw the phenomenon. The author placed his hand in the cloud, and it became obscured as by a fog....As life departed the cloud gradually disappeared. Death was due to double pneumonia. At a distance from the man's bed, the cloud roughly resembled the conventional 'astral body.' "

The 1874 book Dead and Gone by James Samuel Pollock (which you can read here) is a a book deserving much more attention than the very little attention it has received so far.  It is a book filled with accounts of paranormal experiences, such as apparition sightings, dreams that seemed to foretell death, and deathbed visions. In some of the accounts we hear of balls of light. On page 120 we read this:

"Shortly after, when the room was dark, she saw the light again. It appeared as a globe of white light, and gradually formed itself into an angel. Both Mr. and Mrs. B- saw this. Next day their baby died."

On the same page we read another account involving an orb:

"When he inquired of her the cause of her comfort, she said, ' Father, I have seen with my own eyes the things of which I doubted. My soul went forth from the body, and I saw the holy angels, and the souls of the blessed, and the rewards of the just. I saw also my own body, with the eyes of my soul, lying pale and bloodless on the floor of my cell, as it were dried up and without juice.'  The abbot asked what appearance the soul had out of the body. She answered, 'The appearance of a ball of fire, like the moon, and able to see on all sides.'  She added, however, that when the soul, or an angel, manifests itself to men, it takes the lineaments of a body."

This account matches quite a few accounts of near-death experiences. In such accounts a person will often report floating out of his body, and being able to see in all directions rather than only in a single direction. On page 136 we read this:

"Miss A. M. K. is the youngest of three sisters, who lived in London in the year 1865. She had gone to rest one night, when she saw a blue globe of light in her room. She was greatly excited, and rushed at the light, when it disappeared."

On page 159 we read this:

"The man of God, Godric, saw, while he was praying, an intense light penetrating into the darkness of the night, and two walls of brightness reaching from earth to heaven. Between these walls angels, were flying up to heaven, bearing, with songs of joy, the soul of Abbot Robert, one on the right hand, the other on the left. The soul, as far as it could be seen, was like a globe of fire."

 On page 203 we read this:

"She observed that the room was lighted up. A little ball of light was floating about the room, and her father was outside the window, looking in upon her.... At the time of the vision her father had been dead a few months, and her infant only a few days."

Below are various reports from Chapter 15 of the book The Unexplained: A Sourcebook of Strange Phenomena by William R. Corliss. 

  • In 1897 a bright ball of light was seen to descend and float about six feet above the ground. 
  • A G. Gilmore reported in the journal Nature in 1919 that he saw a luminous ball lying on the street, and that it vanished with a loud noise. 
  • An M. F. Faulkner reported in 1964 that his father saw a small egg-shaped ball of brilliant light which spread out to become a sheet of greenish light about 12 feet.  "The whole sight then vanished as suddenly as it appeared, with a loud bang," Faulkner reported. 
  • In 1967 a G. S. Sheldon reported a ball of brilliant blue light descending from a cloud.  It passed behind or into a cloud, but seemed to reappear as a ball of bright red light. 
  • In 1749 someone reported a ball of blue fire rolling along the water.
  • An aircraft pilot named M. A. Uman reported in 1968 that a yellow-white ball of light about 18 inches in diameter passed through his windshield and went moving about in his aircraft, seen by multiple witnesses. It soon left the aircraft and was seen on the wing. The ball of light made no noise. 
  • The next year an R. C. Jennison reported seeing a similar ball of light (20 centimeters in width) coming from the cabin of the aircraft he was on. 
  • A Frederic B. Mohr reported in 1966 that a relative had seen a ball of light the size of a basketball, which suddenly disappeared. 

A 1982 book says this about hauntings:

"A house which is troubled by a haunting apparition is not unlikely to be troubled also by other kinds of disturbances. These include the appearance of luminous patches, balls of light, etc.; the turning of doorhandles and opening of doors; tugging at bedclothes; loud bangs on doors or sequences of inexplicable raps: movement or displacement of small objects; and above all imitative noises - sounds as of the dragging of furniture, the dropping of weights, the breaking of crockery, the opening of drawers, etc., also footsteps, voices, groans, etc., all without any determinable cause. In some cases - generally- called 'hauntings' (45, Chapters 10-12, 15)- phenomena of these kinds may take place without any recurrent apparition, or with only occasional tantalizing glimpses of shadows, misty figures, etc."

I was sent by email the following interesting account of seeing an orb with the naked eye:

"A few years ago I saw quite a big orb, it's the only one I have ever witnessed. If I did not see this orb I probably would not believe that they exist. Anyway it was in the early hours of the morning in the middle of a field as we were fishing. The weird thing about this is that the orb approached me it seemed like it grew as it got closer, it came within 10 feet of me. I was startled but not scared, my mind went a little panic because it could not comprehend what it was seeing. But after the initial shock I stared at it and i tried to focus on detail like look inside it but the moment I tried to do this something weird happened, the orb had some kind of control on my focus, it was like some kind of force on my vision, when I really tried to focus the force blurred my vision. I could feel that it did not want me to focus on detail. After a minute or two of the stand off it gently floated away, hovering close to the ground before disappearing into thin air."

NFL quarterback Baker Mayfield reports the following orb sighting, reporting a "very bright ball of light":

"Almost 100%, Em and I just saw a UFO drop straight out of the sky on our way home from dinner... We stopped and looked at each other and asked if either of us saw it... Very bright ball of light going straight down out of the sky towards Lake Travis."

In his very interesting book The Supreme Adventure the author Robert Crookall cites the following account told by an E. W. Oaten who witnessed the death of his friend Daisy: 

"I saw a faint, smoke-like vapour rise from the body. It rose some few feet above the bed and stayed there. It was full of motion and rolled over and over until it became a ball of greyish smoke, in a state of motion, with slight traces of opalescence in it here and there. It condensed and grew larger, supplied with a steady stream from the body, a stream of vapour some three inches in diameter. Slowly the ball assumed the size of about 5 ft. 6 in. in length by 18 in. in diameter. Condensation continued until it became to me, a semi-solid body, light-grey in colour, but still like a volume of smoke all in motion. Then, gradually, definition began to come. It assumed the form of a roughly-moulded dummy of the human form. An umbilical cord united it with the physical body. I could see the flow of energy in the umbilical cord. The etheric form began to assume the perfect shape. . . . Presently there was the exact duplicate of Daisy floating face downwards in the air.  It was connected to the body by the silver cord through which her life slowly escaped. Then the form began to heave and rock, like a balloon tearing at its moorings. The silver cord began to stretch. It grew thinner and thinner at the middle until at last it snapped and the floating form assumed an upright attitude.  It was the living duplicate of the sleeping form on the bed. She turned to me and smiled. She was thanking me for the hours I had spent in trying to help her. Then, from the corner of the room, near the ceiling, there came a rush. Two white-robed figures, a man and a woman...came to her, and wrapping their robes around her, they floated away . . . .” 

Robert Crookall's book Out of the Body Experiences is a fascinating account of highly unusual psychic experiences.  On page 107 we read this:

"F. W. Fitzsimons saw 'a small luminous ball.' Then the face of his (discarnate) mother appeared in it."

On the next page we read, "J. J. Morse  was told that 'a luminous sphere' left a body and 'gradually assumed the form of the person who had died.' ” 

In the September 1861 edition of The Spiritual Magazine, page 386, we hear of a Dr. John F. Gray, who supposedly had "the largest practice of any physician in New York."  Dr. Gray supplied this account from a friend who claimed to have seen an apparition of his wife:

"A globular light rose up from the floor behind me, and as it became brighter a face, surmounted by a crown, was distinctly seen by the medium and myself. Next, the head appeared, as if covered with a white veil: this was withdrawn after the figure had risen some feet higher, and I recognised unmistakeably the full head and face of my wife, surrounded by a semi-circle of light about 18 inches in diameter. The recognition was complete, derived alike from the features and her natural expression. The globe of light was then raised, and a female hand held before it was distinctly visible. Each of these manifestations was repeated several times, as if to leave no doubt in our minds. Now the figure, coming lower down and turning its head, displayed falling over the globe of light, long flowing hair which even in its shade of colour, appeared like the natural tresses of my wife, and like hers was unusually luxuriant."

In an online book on psychic phenomena, we read the following, which includes a reference to Frederic Myers and his book Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death:

"My father tells the story of a globe of light being seen near a person who had died. This occurred in a house which was lit by kerosene lamps during the night while relatives were sitting up with the body. The globe of light hung near the deceased person for a while then slowly floated away. This strange type of story is repeated many times by Myers and others who have investigated the existence of the soul. The typical story is that after the person dies, a dim glow of light is sometimes seen (and photographed) above the person’s head. The globe is attached to the head by a thin thread which becomes thinner as the globe of light floats higher, and it finally breaks as the globe floats away. The globe of light is considered to be the soul by some observers."

The Scole Report (which can be read in full here) is one of the most fascinating accounts ever written of inexplicable phenomena.  Observers from the Society for Psychical Research reported their observations of a host of strange phenomena. One of the biggest things reported was mysterious lights floating about indoors. The report is light on photographic evidence, but heavy on eyewitness testimony of paranormal-seeming anomalies.

In Appendix G of the report, we read some testimony by Ingrid Slack, who is identified as a psychologist at the Open University. She reports the following:

"There appeared a ball of diffused light, which I  estimated to have a diameter of about 20 cm, close to the ceiling...The ball had no physical boundary: it was simply a three-dimensional orb of diffused golden light...Slowly the orb moved toward the center of the room...I became aware of an overwhelming feeling of gentleness and love which seemed to accompany this particular phenomenon or, more accurately, which this phenomenon seemed to embody....I cannot explain why I should have experienced such an intense emotional reaction to the glowing orb." 

The long book "The Voices" by Vice-Admiral William Usborne Moore (which can be read online here) is an astonishing account of seances that occurred in the presence of the medium Etta Wriedt around 1912. Moore and numerous other witnesses quoted in the book describe hearing mysterious voices at these seances, corresponding to deceased friends or relatives.  They often report the voices giving information that was known only to themselves or their departed friends or relatives.  On page 328 a witness reports seeing balls of light floating about at such a seance. We read this:

"Balls of light, white, or sometimes tinted red or gold, floated about the room. They came behind us, and moved up and down in front of us, over our heads, sometimes one, sometimes two or three at a time, in different parts of the room, and again in the cabinet, where they seemed to rain down like oval- shaped meteors."

Back in my glory days as an orb photographer, I used to get the most astonishing pattern repetitions when photographing mysterious orbs. We see below a distinctive pattern I photographed on different days in 2016. Note the common elements of the pattern: a vertical stripe twisting over to the right and then twisting back again to the left, forming a loop with a little circle in the middle (and also a little stripe part underneath the loop) To see many other similar repeating orb patterns, see this post.

recurring orb symbol

Hippolyte Baraduc was a paranormal investigator. At www.archive.org we can read in English his book The Human Soul: Its Movements, Its Lights and Its Iconography of the Fluidic Invisible, a book with some interesting photos mixed with lots of dogmatic speculative metaphysics.  Baraduc also wrote a book in the French language, one entitled "The vibrations of human vitality: biometric method applied to sensitive and neurotics." The 1904 book can be read here. (The www.archive.org site incorrectly lists Baraduc's death as occurring in 1902, but he actually died in 1909.)

In that book on page 271 we see what may well be the first photo of a mysterious orb ever published. It is shown below:

first orb photo

At the top of the photo we see a mysterious orb floating, one looking like the orbs so often showing up in modern photos. The author makes comments that seem to be largely his own speculations. Below is the translation of the photo caption I get using Google translate: "Experimental release and momentance of the Azure ball of the spiritual body out of the Ether and the flesh showing the persistent link with the body, the thread of existence." The photo in the book is black and white, but the caption refers to an azure ball, meaning the orb was apparently blue. Presumably the author saw such a blue color when seeing the orb with his eyes.

For many years Michael Prescott had a blog in which he wrote at great length on topics of the paranormal and life after death. Prescott has stopped updating the blog, but it is still online, and makes a fine scholarly resource. Its very many blog entries are well tagged. So, for example, you can click on the "NDEs" tag on the left, and get 92 blog entries dealing with near-death experiences. In one of those entries I read a review of a book called "Near Death in the ICU" by Laurin Bellg MD. Prescott states, "One common thread involves seeing a spiritual being (or more than one) in the form of a glowing point of light or a luminous orb."

In the same Prescott post we read this quote from the Bellg book:

"[Marlene] soon became distracted by the presence of a soft blue orb of light that came into view on the opposite side of the room....While the orb was slowly approaching, she noticed that the voices below [in the hospital] became thinner and more distant while the visual scene grew ever smaller and more remote, as if she were looking through the wrong end of a telescope. As the orb, about the size of a beach ball, came to rest in front of her, she felt overwhelmed with emotion and intense feelings of peace, love and complete safety."

This is only the beginning of a long and interesting near-death experience involving some fascinating details you can read in the Prescott post

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