“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. It doesn’t look like what we’d call a ghost picture.

In addition, the dirt and dust were within two inches of the lens. (To get a sense of proportion, the shrubs are at least three to five feet away from the camera.)

The orbs should be bigger, for us to take them seriously in ghost research.

In addition, the photo at right shows that dust and dirt can leave streaks as each particle travels. They’re too vivid to be confused with what some call a ‘ghost vortex’ or a portal.

And, the orbs are still too small.

Out of more than a dozen photos in this experiment, only a few showed any orbs.

Dust that was more than four or five inches from the lens didn’t show up in the pictures at all.

We’re watchful on windy nights. It’s smart to have a companion watch the front of your camera when the flash is triggered, to see if any moisture, bugs or dust could be highlighted.

We’ll continue our experiments with false anomalies. This particular test confirmed our suspicion that dust and dirt probably aren’t much of a factor in many ghost photos.

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