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Tour Of Terror  I was almost asleep last night when a couple of punks just walked into my bedroom. This is not a normal occurance but I immediately recognized the shaggy silhouette [1]. They were bored, and I couldn't sleep, so we planned a short scientific excursion. We packed up the camera and headed for the first stop on our Tour of Terror: Kriedler Cemetary. We used the ghost-hunting method described here and tried our very best not to walk over any graves in the dark. There was a full moon out and a storm on the way, so I doubt we could have picked a better night to spaz out. Kriedler Cemetary Shot #1.  We had read about these globes and were, needless to say, well on our way to having our bowels emptied out of shear fright. The globes were everywhere. [1 - 16] See this closeup for some creepy detail.  Sturges Park Also subject of an earlier daytime examination, Sturges Park is supposedly haunted. In particular, the old bathrooms were the site of strange balls of light and writings on the mirror. (Presumably not seeking to arrange a hot date.)  We were there two minutes before being approached by the local Man. They wanted to know just exactly what kind of drug deal was going down at 3 in the morning. After a tactful bit of explanation, however, they let us 'take our pictures' and 'clear out of the park'.  No globes were seen near the old restroom building, which was all lit up even though it was locked. [21 - 23] I also took a few pictures from around the statue of the old man [24] and got two little globes that appeared to be resting on the ground in the center of both frames. [25 & 26] Burned-Down House As a side-trip to the next cemetary on the tour, we stopped by an old-burned down house [28 - 30] that has obviously sat for more than a decade. Only the four brick corners of the house remained, and trees grew out of what used to be the basement. Pretty creepy, but no globes were in any of the house shots. One of the group members claimed to have felt a cold chill when [31] was taken as a joke, though.  Marysville Cemetary The temperature was now hovering in the mid-30's, so this stop was fairly short. [32 - 38] Only a few globes this time, but one was hovering ominously over the group [37].  The Orbs Being naturally curious and slightly skeptical that these orbs were the restless visages of the dead, I decided to finish the tour with a scientific investigation.
All experiments need a control, so we took some pictures in random locations other than graveyards [38] to see if the globes were present. The only shot they appeared totally unexpectedly was in [31] near the burned-down house.  To eliminate visual effects and reflections as possible sources of the globes, we took a picture of a glow stick being waved in front of the camera and reflectors in the background. Also, you can see a flash reflection in [14].  We also can eliminate outside light sources like streetlights because of the fact some globes appear in front of gravestones or ground with no light in between. There is a streetlight in one of the shots, but I forget which one and can't seem to find it. It didn't look like a globe. Having eliminated all those obvious things above, I moved on to less mundane explanations like some kind of fluorescing gas or elaborate interaction between static charge and the sudden burst of photons from the flash bulb. I searched online and found someone's speculation that the globes were dust very close to the lens of the camera. Simple enough, so I tried it. Using a piece of drying-machine lint to generate dust, I first tried a great deal of dust about two feet from the lens.  Not very close to the globes, so I tried a few different variations and struck on one that provided a familiar sight: focus in the background and dust just a few inches away.  Thus, the Tour of Terror reduced to nothing but an optical and psychological phenomenon. The dust explains basically all of the orbs we photographed near the roads - they were all dirt around where we were taking pictures. It was also a breezy morning, so dust or other particulates could have easily been lofted in front of the camera. The truth about orbs! What Are Orbs? http://www.dazzled.com/crystal/GhostOrbs/ghostorbs.html In order (some are sideways). 
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