Flour dust and false ‘ghost 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 A345 digital camera.

We failed during nearly a dozen efforts to create an orb effect by drizzling flour in front of the lens. Only one test photo produced anything visible in the photo–much less orblike–and that was when we dropped clumps of flour as the flash was triggered.

The result is shown above. Nobody is likely to confuse this with an orb. It’s too bright, too white, and too large.

Of course, flour dust isn’t exactly something that we see at most haunted sites.  We’re just testing extremes, to see what we can learn from them.  After all, we had no idea that hair can be such a problem, until we tested strands and individual hairs, sometimes under extreme conditions.

We’re not sure what natural conditions could produce a photo that looks like these very white orbs.  Some ash or milkweed spores might.

As extreme as it may seem, the results of this test may help isolate false ghost orbs.  We won’t know until we keep testing. That’s why we post our results here.