Moth trails?  Insects as scribes?

A recent article at Photojojo, Light Painting with Moth Trails, caught my attention.  It answers a few questions and raises some possibilities.

First, it gives a clear (and exaggerated) example of how insects can create false anomalies. 

If you aren’t checking for [...]

“Ghost orbs are just dust!” That’s what we’ve heard from skeptics. So, we decided to test their theory. At left you can see our best result when tossing sidewalk dirt and dust in front of the camera, trying to duplicate a breezy, dusty night.

It’s not very convincing. There are too many small orbs. [...]

‘Fake ghost orbs!’ That’s what many critics and skeptics claim.

To maintain credibility as serious researchers, we need to study false orbs. We need to know exactly what they look like, to differentiate between them and genuine ghost orbs.

In April 2006, we experimented with regular white flour and a FujiFilm FinePix [...]

When a photo is most likely not an anomaly, we’re usually the first to indicate it, even when it’s one of our own photos, and one that we’d love to claim as a “ghost.”

Here are two photos that appear to show the abrupt appearance of a dramatic orb or series of orbs:

[...]

Some ‘ghost orbs’ look fake to us immediately. We’re so accustomed to looking at these photos, we don’t need to do much analysis. After years of studying real ghost photos, we can easily tell the difference between fake orbs and real ones. Here’s a good example:

The lower photo features a very [...]

When you’re hoping for real ghost photos, make sure that bugs aren’t responsible for your streaks, lines, and orbs. We see these ‘false anomalies’ online at other websites, with disappointing claims that they represent spectral energy. Here’s a good example of a bug:

As we recommend in Ghost Photography 101, we [...]