On page 121 of the document
here, we read an account by J. Ricardo Lavicka, telling what he saw at about age 14. He says that he saw forming above the head of a dying sister a translucent sphere about as big as a basketball. We read this:
In a book on page 43 the author Jas Robertson reports his first attendance at what apparently was a seance of David Duguid (the wording is a little unclear about which medium was involved):
"At my first sitting I witnessed phenomena which I have never forgotten, and I can recollect saying to myself, when I saw a globe of light travelling from the end of the room, and assuming the form of a human hand when it reached the table, 'There never can come to me in all the future years anything which will weaken or make me deny what I am now witnessing.' "
Telekinesis refers to some paranormal ability to move matter only by mind or the power of spirit. You could use the term for any inexplicable movement seen at a seance, such as the table levitations that were so widely reported. On page 294 of the document here, we have a letter by Arthur Conan Doyle, dated July 19, 1922. He records observations at a seance of the Austrian medium Frau Silbert:
"Yesterday, July 18th, I was one of six who sat with Frau Silbert, the Austrian medium, at the British College of Psychic Science....I was seated on the left of the medium. Behind her was the 'cabinet,' a curtained enclosure, partially open in front. This I examined and found empty. The red light was kept fairly high—so high that we could easily see every movement of the medium or of each other. We laid our watches upon the ground under the table, as it was said that the medium’s control was able sometimes to scratch his name, Ivel, upon them. I may say at once that this phenomenon did not take place....
Presently the medium sank into trance, and made curious movements with her hands as if she were drawing some substance from her mouth and nose. If anyone were choking with cobwebs and was trying to clear oneself, it is the movement they would have made. She then stood up, gave a sharp cry, and picked apparently out of the air behind her one of the watches which had been on the ground. We were all agreed that neither she nor any member of the company had stooped down from the moment that the watches had been placed there. It was a clear case of movement without contact or telekinesis.
The trance now deepened and the woman gave little whining cries, exactly like those which are the prelude to childbirth. Eva gives the same cries when she is about to emit ectoplasm. The actual emission is, I fancy, a relief. Presently I saw on the floor, about a foot behind the medium, and between her chair and mine, a luminous ball, like a phosphorescent sponge, rather larger than my fist. It was quite clear but it vanished in a few seconds. Further luminous patches then appeared protruding from under the curtains. The ball was exactly such as has been described by Miss Scatcherd in her observations upon Eva.....Several times the curtain of the cabinet was blown out as in a high wind, and twice I was touched by some solid body when I was quite clear of the medium. The sensation was that of a dog rubbing against my leg."
The mysterious fluttering of a curtain (as if blown by a wind) was an effect frequently reported in the seances of Eusapia Palladino. From a quality-of-evidence standpoint, a dated account like this (stating what someone saw on the same day or the previous day) is relatively good evidence, much better than someone just recalling what he saw months ago or years ago. I advise people to always immediately write down a dated signed account of any thing very unusual that they witnessed, whether it be something paranormal-seeming or something that may be a matter of investigation by a scientist or a court.
Below is an account from a paper dated September 10, 1959:
Brothers, Neighbor Report UFO Here Bright As Moon (From The Peoria Journal Star)
"A Peoria drug salesman reported seeing an unidentified flying object 'just about as bright as the moon but not as high' at 10:30 p m. Saturday as be went out to move his car. J. H. Baker, 2725 Renwood Ave., Hamilton Park, said he at first thought the object was an airplane, but it then appeared as 'a round large ball of white light.' The phenomenon, said Baker, could be seen moving rapidly from southwest to northeast at a height of 10,000 to 12,000 feet. Baker said the object also was seen by his brother, R. J. Baker, visiting here from Chicago, and by a neighbor, Jack Rhodes, 2724 Renwood. The brother trained a powerful pair of binoculars on it. The strange object stayed in sight from 4 to 6 minutes. 'It was moving much faster than a jet plane,' Baker reported."
The length of time the sight was observed seems to rule out a meteor (something that appears visible in the sky for less than 15 seconds). A check of a moon phase calendar suggests that on the Saturday in question (September 6, 1959) the moon looked like a mere thin crescent.
A very distinguished Earl (called under British customs the Master of Lindsay or Lord Lindsay) had many meetings with the famous medium Daniel Dunglas Home. Lord Lindsay kept careful records of paranormal events occurring at such meetings. Lord Lindsay was interviewed by the investigators of the famous Dialectical Society of London, when they did their long formal investigation finding resoundingly in favor of paranormal phenomena, which resulted in a long report that can be read in full using the link here or here. Lord Lindsay described viewing various dramatic types of paranormal phenomena, and his testimony is summarized in my post here.
Lord Lindsay had printed up a small number of copies of a privately printed document discussing his observations of the paranormal around 1870. For many years the document was available only to a small, select group of people who had one of the rare copies. Finally in the 1920's the Society for Psychical Research published the document, which appeared in Volume 35 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (1925), which you can read here. We have a book-length document describing some of the most amazing marvels humans have ever seen.
On page 60 and the following pages we have a description of a Seance #6 at the house of Mr. Jencken, the husband of the medium Kate Fox, by then Kate Fox Jencken. (Kate was herself someone associated with many reports of the paranormal, as discussed here.) First we read that a servant at the house had been "seeing phosphorescent balls of light in her room at night."
We then read this:
"Home stood up and said, 'He is very strong and tall.' and standing there beside me. Home grew, I should say, at least, six inches. Mr. Jencken, who is a taller man than Home, stood beside him, so there could be no mistake about it. Home's natural height is, I believe, 5 feet 10 inches. I should say he grew to 6 feet 4 inches or 6 feet 6 inches. I placed my hands on his feet, and felt that they were fairly level on the ground. .... He appeared to grow also in breadth and size all over, but there was no way of testing that. He diminished down to his natural size, and said, 'Daniel will grow tall again ' ; he did so, and said, 'Daniel's feet are on the ground,' he walked about, and stamped his feet. He returned to his natural size, and sitting down, he said, 'Daniel is coming back now, sit down, and do not tell Daniel at once what he has said.' In a few seconds he awoke."
This was only one of many times in which a paranormal elongation of the body of Daniel Dunglas Home was reported. We then read that the seance ended in this way
"We all went into the drawing room ; it was quite dark. Home sat at the piano, and played a few notes. Mrs. Hennings sat near him ; Mrs. Jencken a little way off ; Mr. Jencken and I stood near the piano. Soon we observed the light that we had been told we should see. A small luminous ball flitting about, sometimes very brilliant ; the chords of the piano were swept, but the keys were not touched. The piano was lifted off the ground about 2 inches. I had my hand underneath, and it was again lifted about 2 inches, and then without any effort, I should say 8 inches higher. It was not tilted, but lifted bodily. We now heard loud raps, the alphabet was called, and ' Good night ' spelled out. Nothing more occurred.."
Effects such as these in the presence of Daniel Dunglas Home were reported by many witnesses. As discussed in my post here, Home was investigated by the leading physicist Sir William Crookes, who reported dramatic paranormal effects occurring in Home's presence, including the levitation of Home himself (as you can read about in Crookes' publications here and here).
On page 187 of the March 21, 1935 edition of the periodical Light, which can be read here, we get two astonishing accounts. First, we hear of the sighting of an apparition:
"In the Revue Spirite Beige for February (Liège), Dr. Lucien Graux tells the following story. One night, M. Albert Lambert, of the Comédie Française, was silently going over his part in ' Ruy Bias' in his private room, when there entered a man in a long cloak, who was the very image of the Ruy Bias of the title part of the play. The apparition commenced to recite Victor Hugo’s verses. Albert Lambert listened with every sense alert; it was as though revelation and enlightenment were coming to him from the other world. When he was afterwards questioned about this vision, the famous actor replied: ' You wish to know whether it was an illusion, whether I really saw, or only thought I saw? My emphatic reply is this : I both saw and I heard.' ”
Then we have an account of a mysterious blue orb appearing at a seance:
"An eye-witness has sent to the Neues Wiener Journal (Vienna, January 7th), an interesting account of a sitting with the young French Medium, Mile. Remy. The sitters were the guests of Professor Lyonel, and included two well-known University Professors, two medical men, and an engineer, who was in charge of an intricate set of control apparatus, including a camera for infra-red film photography, as well as one that registered even the faintest manifestation of light. The delicate-looking young girl sat down in an armchair and was then put into slight hypnotic sleep. After an interval of only five minutes, Professor Lyonel was touched by a hand and the correspondent by another; then the table on which the sitters’ hands were resting was raised by powerful pressure from below and levitated into the air. The wish was expressed that the hitherto sceptical investigators might be enabled to see what was taking place, and a second later an iridescent ball of blue light appeared close under the ceiling; and the ticking of the light-registering apparatus gave independent evidence of this fact. By the light of this ball of blue, the sitters saw that the table was raised six to seven feet above the floor. The light then sank down over the Medium’s chair, revealing the sleeping figure of the young girl; and so profound was this sleep that it was not broken when, next moment, with a loud report, the ball of light burst and disappeared.
The account ends: 'There followed ten minutes of expectant waiting, when suddenly the room was filled with the most marvellous but infinitely sad music of a violin. We had seen before the room was darkened that, amongst the instruments on its walls, there was a violin, with its bow beside it. But whose was the masterhand that was now playing it? Certainly not the Medium’s, for, under the controlling eyes of the apparatus, she could not leave her seat even for one second without being detected; and the strip of film which I was allowed to examine later on proved that throughout the seance Mile. Remy had never left her chair. But the photograph also showed a film-like hand hovering in the air, with the delicate tapering fingers of a woman—ethereally delicate, as if from another world than ours.' ”
On page 375 of the June 22, 1934 edition of the periodical Light, which you can read here, we read the following account of observing mysterious orbs in a seance:
"MME. NIJINSKY, who recently returned to London, tells us of a strange experience of Rudi Schneider and his wife. Rudi said he had never sat with a Medium. Mme. Nijinsky took him and his wife to Miss Frances Campbell. During the sitting—which Rudi, we are told, hugely enjoyed—balls of light sprang up and skipped from Rudi to Mme. Nijinsky’s lap. Miss Campbell gave accurate descriptions of the family affairs of her sitters ; then she turned to Mrs. Schneider and said : 'I feel I must prepare you for a blow. Your brother has been shot to-day in Linz.' Mrs. Schneider protested that it could not be true. Next day, however, a telegram arrived stating that in the riot which cost so many lives in Austria, Mrs. Schneider’s brother had been killed."
On page 13 of the January 1897 edition of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, which you can read here, we read this:
"On the evening of May 21st, 1881, I was seated by a window at A. B. Rolfs in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Saw two large balls of light pass the window followed by a long crimson scarf that [it] seemed would never pass, its length was so great. I rose from my seat and went to the dining-room where some of the family were at tea ; told them what I saw, and stated my convictions that it was some national calamity. The balls meant death and the long scarf blood that would enwrap the whole nation. I then saw a stout, dark young man who handed me a paper. I then said, 'We will hear of this by such a young man as I describe.' Time passed and the vision had gone from memory, when one day in July, same year, we all sat sewing and a man passed the window. I recognised the young man I had seen in my May vision ; sprang to meet him and he handed me a bulletin announcing Garfield's assassination, or rather the shooting that cost his life—the first intimation we had had of such a thing."
President Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881, and never fully recovered. He died on September 19,1881. The shooting was about six weeks after the strange sight of moving balls of light.
Below is a passage from page 110 of the book The Other World by Frederick George Lee, which you can read here:
"The husband was often absent, but he and his wife occupied the room in which Mrs. Webb had died, while· their daughter, a girl about ten years of age, slept in a small bed in the comer. ...
Mrs. Accleton, during her husband's absence, having engaged her mother to sleep with her one night, was suddenly aroused at the same hour of two by a strange and unusual light in her room. Looking up she saw quite plainly the spirit of Mrs. Webb, which moved towards her with a gentle appealing manner, as though it would have said, ' Speak, speak ! '
" This spectre appeared likewise to a Mrs. Radboune, a Mrs. Griffiths, and a Mrs. Holding. They assert that luminous balls of light hovered about the room during the presence of the spirit, and that streams of light seemed to go up towards a trapdoor in the ceiling, which led to the roof of the cottage."
Page 231 of the May 19, 1883 edition of the periodical Light, which you can read here, has an article by Stella Dunbar about experiences at a supposedly haunted house. We read this:
"Just at this time a young lady was crossing a passage, and looking from the window to the garden saw a woman in a light dress crossing the lawn. She called her companion, and they both watched the figure disappear. The same evening two others, knowing nothing of what these had seen, met the same figure coming from my room, and even noticed that it had very large bare feet."
We later read this:
"A visitor saw a woman’s figure, in everyday attire, sitting at the foot of her bed ; and my mother, entering the same room, saw what—until she spoke to it—she imagined to be the servant. In this room are frequently seen large balls of bright light."
The account has some other mentions of spooky figures making fleeting appearances at the house. We are told, "The figure of a child has been seen by the drawing-room fire-place, and at the top of the stairs."
Not long ago there was a news article on the CBS News web site entitled "Pentagon solves 1 UFO mystery but still probing cases of 'large orange orb,' 'large metallic cylinder.' "
In the article we read this strange description of an orb encounter:
"One case was reported by a law enforcement officer 'out West' who observed 'a large orange orb floating several hundred feet above the ground,' according to Kosloski.
As the officer approached where he thought the orb would be, he saw 'a blacker than black object' that was about the size of a Prius. When he reached a distance of 40-60 meters away from the object, it tilted 45 degrees and shot up vertically, traveling faster than any drone he had seen before.
Just as it left his field of view, it emitted bright red and blue lights that lit up the inside of his vehicle 'as brightly as if someone had set off fireworks just outside of his vehicle,' Kosloski told Congress."
