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What Constitutes a Real Spirit Orb?

In the area of ghost hunting, capturing a "spirit orb" on camera can be an exciting experience. Many times, however, what look like spirit orbs are actually something much more ordinary. Light reflections and particles in the air will often cause a fake spirit orb. Fortunately, there are several methods you can employ to determine whether your spirit orb is real.

Airborne Particles
- What looks like a spirit orb might just be specks of dust floating through the air, or moisture that is reflecting off a light source. You can tell the difference between an authentic spirit orb and specks of shiny dust by looking at the amount of orbs in the picture. If there are many spots together, or spots that overlap, it is only dust or moisture. If the spots are perfectly round, they are dust -- not spirit orbs. Real spirit orbs are round, but not a perfect circle.
Haunted Areas
- Sometimes people will catch some circles in a photo that appear to be orbs, and then they suspect that the area is haunted. If you want to photograph some real spirit orbs, then you should find out which areas are reportedly haunted and go take some photos. It is also helpful to bring someone along who is known to be psychic, or a tool to measure electromagnetic fields in the area. When the psychic tells you where a spirit is, or you get a higher reading on the EMF meter, start taking pictures.
Images Inside
- If you have a photograph with an image that looks like a spirit orb, magnify it to see if there is something inside. Real spirit orbs have a formation of some kind inside, such as a grid, a random array of small blobs or even a face. Load the photo onto your computer and zoom in to take a closer look. You may also notice a hazy ring around the inside, with fuzzy rays that reach toward the center. There may be an amorphous pattern near the center. This almost always constitutes an authentic spirit orb.
Shape and Color
- If the spots floating around in the air on your photo are very clear and sharp, these are only particles or reflections of moisture. Real spirit orbs are blurry and more amorphous. If the circles are blank on the inside, it is not a spirit orb. If the spots are in a line, look like rainbows or are a golden color, you've either captured moisture, rays from the sun or a reflection. If they are real, they will have a blurry, imperfect halo on the edge, with different colors or shapes in the middle.

The Occult