Monks at All Saints church

[yetion1]

Earlier this year I was invited by Tom Precious to look at the All Saints church clock. I was given a talk on the clocks history and took many pictures. As I was not looking for anything else it was not until a week later I noticed a white ball under the clock (see the clock picture in the history section). I could not remember seeing it at the time so I zoomed in on the spot with my computer as you can do with the following pictures. What I could see was a perfect sphere with a glow. The inside looks cloudy. Is there a face? Intrigued I looked back at the other pictures taken on the night and was surprised to see other spheres in different colours. The most interesting was the first picture below. A third of the way up on the right you can see at the end of the step a blue/ green dot. As small as this looks when you zoom in I can see a face. To me it looks like a monks face. there is also a globe in the right glass of the door.
A few days later Tom came by and I asked him if he had seen the monk on the pictures. His reply was how do I know about the monks? I explained what I had seen. Tom explained that in 1545 3 monks had removed the bells from Nostel monastery and smuggled them the Featherstone. 5 years later they were fitted into the church tower. Over the years many people had reported seeing the monks in the bell tower.



With the pair of us now interested in what these globes were we arranged to go back and take more photographs and a video. The video showed nothing but the photos were great. How many globes can you see on the bells? Off centre middle shows 2 globes that when zoomed in on show a lady with shoulder length hair and another that looks like a minor. I have asked questions about the globes and it is thought they are what are known as orbs. Other comments have varied from get a clairvoyant in to the globes are just specks of dust and a camera trick. I have been taking pictures all my life and have never seen anything like this. I have been to the same place twice with the same results that do not show elsewhere.
What do you think? If you have any similar pictures please post them or send them to me and I will post them

[Orien]

I had a similar photographic experience a few years ago and got an answer (maybe not the correct one). I post it here in the hope that it may be of interest to someone and also not insult anyone.

Before I post though may I say what a great forum this is. I am new to the Internet and was advised of this site by a friend. I have found it informative, amusing and sometimes intriguing. I am still trawling through it and after reading the posts about the circles in the photographs taken at at the Church  I thought I would respond with an experience I had a few years ago.

About 8  years ago I was lucky to spend a holiday in New England, North America. We did the usual tourist stuff and one of these was a visit at night time to a haunted graveyard. On the coach there we were told that to see the ghosts we should take pictures using a digital camera. For those of us who had a standard camera or no camera at all then the guide conveniently came down the coach aisle selling us throw-a-way digital cameras at an exclusive price. I had to bite my cynical tongue. On  holiday I do as I am told which is usually "Be quiet", "Don't argue" and "pay for It".  Just like being at home really.

When we got to the graveyard some local celebrity's graves  were pointed out to us , the guy who became  a congressman, the hillbilly who had killed his wife, and the Red Indian who ha made good in the town,  some stories of local hauntings were told and my Grand-daughters got realistically excited and mock scared as teenagers will do. This is what holidays are made of. Then we were told to point our cameras in a certain direction where the ghosts usually appeared. Following this we were told to look at our cameras (digital ones are great for instant viewing) and shout out if we saw any ghosts, which apparently appeared as round circles or globes on the photographs. Fantastic, result.  We had little circles  all over the place. Zooming in to these circles showed fantastic patterns ,  shadowy faces , people who looked like people we knew and in  one  we saw a person who seemed to look my dead Father.

I've always liked a puzzle so on the coach home I spoke my thoughts out loud about the possibility of tin foil being placed in the bushes around the graves, about the fact that only digital cameras produced these results, about how we were directed a certain place to take the pictures. Nice thinking stuff for me but  in reality it was a very bad move. I was blasted an "unbeliever", a "misery guts" and a "party pooper".  Same as at home with hind sight.

About a year later I was visiting Coventry and got talking to a young photography buff who was studying at Warwick University. . Mentioning the graveyard pictures he told me about the Digital Orb Phenomenon.  Here it is.

Apparently "Orbs" (which I had been describing as small circles or globes are very rare on photos taken by conventional cameras. They seem to be a common phenomena of the digital age. The problem (if that is the right word) with digital cameras is that in low light the chip inside the camera interprets the low light reflected input as noise and makes up the detail in the form of an orb.  It also does this in respect of high light reflected off irregular surfaces, just what occurs when a flash is used in low light conditions or in enclosed spaces lit by artificial light. .  This condition can be dramatically increased when air borne particles like dust or pollen are in the air. The light from the flash reflects off the dust particles and if it reaches the digital lens is interpreted as a globe or orb.

Even dust particles which are near the camera can cause this effect - as being near they would cause blurring as they are not in focus but the reflections from them in the distance away from the camera would or rather could cause capturing by the chip and result in round circles  or spots or orbs which on zooming can appear very beautiful and even resemble faces or anything. He then went on to explain that in the early days of digital photos the chip and physical apparatus caused this phenomenon a lot but today with more advanced technology it is becoming less common. He asked a question which was very perceptive , "Did the tour operators push the sale of their throw-a-way camera?" In fact they did, we were advised that even if we had our digital cameras that we should purchase the 10 dollar cameras on sale as they usually were better at picking up ghosts.  and we should conserve our batteries on our own cameras. " This is probably very truthful but in a misleading way "  he said, "It is not ghosts of the dead these cameras are photographing but rather ghosts of dust particles which they capture",  "these cheap cameras have a very low poor chip and lens and a very bad flash unit. so will tend to produce the Orb effect whenever there is low light, dust in the air, high intensity artificial light in tight spaces,  or reflected flash".

This young man gave me a very reasonable explanation for something which had been puzzling me but I of course wanted to feel a little bit intelligent.  I told him about my  theory of little pieces of tin foil hanging from branches. He unfortunately pooh-poohed this idea. It is not necessary he said, "dust and other air borne debris will cause this effect,"  No Nobel prize for me then.

I had a good night in Coventry spent with some young University types, not the type of people I usually spend time with, I learned something and I thought I would tell my family about this, maybe even add that the tin foil theory was plausible,  and get my due reward.   Getting home I explained the "Orb" theory to my wife.  "Get lost" she said. "They're Ghosts.".

[Whistleblower]

I used to repair accident damaged cars, some insurance companies required photographic proof of damage and the final repair. If we took the photo in the workshop the cars were barely visible due to the dust orbs as we called them, push the cars into the spray booth which is obviously dust free then the orbs disappeared 

[yetion1]

Have to admit your conclusions make sense Orion. Since changing from camera to mobile phone for a camera the orbs are gone. Technology eh! Will be revisiting some sites in the year and will try old and new.