“Micah, come quick,” she said. I could already hear the stress in my mother’s voice, and my concern was mounting as I ran out to my car, still holding my cell phone to my ear while my mother explained the strange something that had erupted out of thin air right before her eyes, and then vanished as quickly as it had appeared. 

“I have no idea what it was, just hurry,” she asked again. By now, I was already driving, and before hanging up the phone, I had worked to try and console her about the worrisome “apparition,” for lack of a better term, that had appeared in my parent’s living room. Had the otherwise quiet A-frame wooden structure, built by my father in the early 1980s, suddenly fallen victim to an inexplicable haunting? 

Once I arrived, I entered the living room to find my mother sitting on the couch with a worried expression. “So what happened?” I began.

“Whatever it was had been floating in the air,” my mother said. “It was a strange blue ball of light, and I saw it hovering right there, ” she said as she pointed in my direction. “It was precisely where you’re standing now.”

I asked my mother to describe how the “apparition” had appeared. She began to explain that as she sat enjoying a small plate of fruit after returning home from work for the day, a bright blue swirling ball of light had appeared out of the corner of her eye.

“I saw it right there where you’re standing,” she said. Discussing the matter further, she told me that she was absolutely certain it had been an omen of some kind; something alerting her to trouble or ill fortune that might be occurring someplace else. “I immediately called your grandparents,” she said, expressing fear that her aging parents, both in their mid nineties, might have suddenly fallen ill. But upon making the call, albeit shaken by the odd orb of light she had seen, my mother was relieved as the mellow sound of my grandmother’s voice answered the call, assuring her from across town that both she and granddad William were fine.

I sat and spoke with my mother, who had recently also been stressed not only about her parent’s wellbeing, but a few health-related issues of her own just as well. She had recently been prescribed blood pressure medication by her doctor, and for the past several weeks had constantly been having to change her diet in order to meet the new requirements of a healthier lifestyle. Furthermore, my examination of the area where the “light” had appeared yielded no results; while I had initially been concerned about a faulty outlet nearby, or perhaps some other kind of electrical discharge that might have occurred, I could find no evidence of scorches or burns, nor any reason why an outlet nearby might have been emitting electrical sparks or other dangerous activity of the sort.

“Mom,” I confided in her finally, “I don’t doubt that you saw something,” I told her. “However, I wonder if this might not be a case of questioning whether the chicken or the egg came first.” I explained that, while she indeed may have witnessed some kind of strange, unexplained illumination, her interpretation of the phenomenon had been primarily negative. In other words, perhaps the stress her mind, and even her body had been under for the last few weeks, led her to reach an almost panicked state upon perceiving what she believed had been a ghostly apparition in the living room.

“Give it another couple of days,” I said to further comfort her. “I guarantee you’ll find that there were, in fact, no deaths or other ill fortune in conjunction with the ghost light you saw.” And as predicted, within a week all had returned to normal at the Hanks residence.

The story I’m relating here is not intended to be a dismissal of the presumed appearances of strange phenomenon at various locales. While I have written extensively myself on homes that do appear to be haunted, I do often wonder if there aren’t elements that could be underlying the “popular” notion of a ghostly manifestation (i.e. that ghosts are simply “spirits of the dead”) that stem back to the individual witness. As was the case during my research into the haunting that is said to be ongoing at Reynolds Mansion, while the actual owners living on-site at the historic mansion had claimed to see very little, a number of guests at the home (now operating publicly as a bed and breakfast) have nonetheless supplied their stories of ghostly apparitions they claim to have seen at the residence. Could it indeed be that some may be capable of “seeing” a ghost more often, or even more easily, than others?

Perhaps even more important is the question of how the individual who witnesses something wholly inexplicable chooses to interpret the phenomenon; a question about one’s world view does come into play somewhat here, and it becomes something of a matter of how one’s outlook on life will tend to gravitate toward conclusions based on the apparent presence of an apparition. In my mother’s case, a strange, orb-like phenomenon she claimed to have witnessed had seemed to indicate an impending tragedy when, in reality, no such tragedy had (or was even about to) occur. Without having to doubt whether or not anything had been seen by y mother on this occasion, could it be that certain otherwise explicable phenomenon are witnessed from time to time by individuals who merely interpret the phenomenon as being evidence of something it is not? How often might this interpretation lead one to believe that a house might be haunted?

Have you ever visited a location alleged to be “haunted,” camera in hand, and upon reviewing photographs taken in the area, found what appeared to be glowing balls of light hovering in the environment?

For years, those who have studied paranormal phenomenon have argued that these strange objects are evidence of actual ghostly presences, transferred onto film (or digital images) via the same electromagnetic process that allows popular devices used for EM-field detection to register in old houses–but could their ultimate cause be the presence of supernatural energies?

Debate regarding the plausibility of the strange little “orbs” has continued for years, but now one group says they have been able to determine once and for all that the objects in question aren’t ghosts, bizarre energies, or anything out of this world.

The ParaScience organization has released a detailed report at its website which makes the assertion that what we see when apparent little balls of light show up in photographs are actually dust and tiny airborne objects:

“This comprehensive survey strongly supports the hypothesis that orbs are simply the result of dust and other airborne material drifting close to the camera and reflecting the flash illumination back toward the image sensor and provides long overdue definitive evidence that their origin lies firmly within the mundane and explainable, not the paranormal or supernatural.”

I too was initially skeptical about orb-related phenomenon, and after studying the subject for close to a decade (including time spent with the L.E.M.U.R. team between 2004 and 2010), I remain certain these strange little photographic anomalies are only that: anomalies specific to film, rather than invisible denizens of another realm that become apparent only when struck by the flash of a camera. Insects, dust and fragments of tiny airborne debris are the likely (and some would say obvious) culprits… but there are still differing perspectives on this.

For instance, on one occasion years ago, I had the chance to question a college professor named Dr. Lee Swendsen Ph.D. about the phenomenon. Swendsen was also a member of a skeptical organization called CSICOP, which since that time has changed its acronym to CSI which, more simply, stands for “The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.” Regardless, their focus and mission have not changed, and I thought that picking Swendsen’s brain about the bizarre objects appearing in the photos I had taken might be fruitful (keep in mind, I had been using a film camera, since at the time digital photography was not yet the respected norm it has become today). Reviewing the photos, Swendsen’s on-the-spot analysis surprised me: “I wouldn’t say that these ‘orbs’ represent anything ghostly,” he told me. “But I don’t think it can very easily be ruled out that they might indicate the presence of some kind of energy.” Whatever was appearing in the photos, he believed it was energetic, and that the camera was perceiving it as such.

Others have acknowledged the fact that dust particles are indeed the primary cause, but that electromagnetic anomalies in some areas cause tiny concentrations of bits of dust and other airborne matter, which are more likely to become prevalent when illuminated by flashes from a camera. Even if the source of the so-called “orbs” is rather mundane, could there be any scientific elements associated with their presence that remains mysterious? Could electromagnetism and geomagnetic activity affect concentrations of airborne dust in ways other than those we’d expect, or must we accept that the mysterious “orbs” just aren’t very mysterious after all?

Occasionally we see strange things in the sky that defy logic, and inspire the imagination to wonder whether odd facets of our existence are actually acting on us in our daily lives in ways we can’t comprehend. For the most part, these occurrences are completely random happenings; a mere matter of being “at the right place at the right time.” But what happens when you have locations around the world where anomalous activity not only occurs repeatedly, but predictably?

One such area is the Lineville Gorge, nestled in the Black Mountain Range in Western North Carolina. Although the Southeastern United States is home to a variety of strange phenomenon that captivates the area locals (and researchers abroad), near the vicinity of Brown Mountain, a long, looming ridge in the heart of the Gorge, a spectacular display of “ghost lights” can be seen on a frequent basis which continue to defy rational explanation.

Dubbed “The Brown Mountain Lights” by the locals, the lights are actually seen all throughout the Lineville Gorge, and are variously described as bright, glowing orbs of colored light that manifest and drift slowly upward, sometimes behaving so strangely that witnesses have been led to wonder whether they might somehow be “controlled” by external forces.

During a recent television shoot I participated in with the National Geographic Channel, my associates in the North Carolina-based L.E.M.U.R. Paranormal Investigations group and I managed to capture a spectacular display of odd illuminations while cameras were rolling. Below is a sneak preview of the new program, called Paranatural, which will be airing soon and appearing on the web to view:

A Murrysville, PA family has reported an object captured on video, one of several they have sighted according to a report on the Mutual UFO Network Database (MUFON). The sighting took place on August 17, 2009.

The witness says she pulled over after her daughter noticed flashing lights near a farm on Ader Road. After a brief exchange with the land owner, who told the pair of a saucer sighting his father had experienced in the early 70′s, the witnesses observed a “large bright yellow-ish orb light over the farm field”.

Video after the jump…

Click here to view the embedded video.

They claim the object “hovered, dimmed, then showed back up higher, brighter, double the size” but unfortunately there is nothing here to give perspective on size or distance.

It gets more interesting in the second video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The witness claims she “busted it going from 1 bright ball of light into a “fake plane” UFO that I’ve seen and filmed before”.

At one stage in the video three lights can bee seen in a triangle formation which is consistent with the formations seen in previous objects the witness has caught on video.

I better keep an eye out for those tricky “fake plane UFOs”.

[MUFON Case #18760]

[Witness' YouTube page]