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Case file No. 15 · Fields, photos and lights

Orbs in photographs

The claim

Round, glowing circles that appear in photographs are spirits, energy forms or alien probes.

Explained

They are dust and drops lit by the flash.

Orbs appear in flash photos with small digital cameras because the flash lights specks of dust, pollen or drops close to the lens, which the camera cannot focus on. They can be made on purpose, and they are rare in photos without flash.

Last reviewed: 15 November 20263 sourcesVersion 1.0

Short answer

Orbs are round, translucent discs that appear in flash photographs, often taken at night or in dusty rooms [1]. They became common with small digital cameras, where the flash sits close to the lens [1]. A speck of dust or a drop of water near the lens, lit by the flash, is far outside the focal range of the lens, so it appears as a soft disc [2]. Orbs can be produced on demand by throwing dust or flour in the air in front of a camera [1]. Photographs of orbs taken without a flash are not known in the sources we found [1][3].

What supporters can show

Verified

Many people take photos with orbs

Source
Orbs are very common in photographs of dark places, cemeteries and old houses [1].
Shows
That many photos have these discs.
Does not show
That they are spirits. They are common wherever there is dust and a flash [1].
Partly verified

Some orbs seem to move or to be at different distances

Source
In some photos the orbs look as if they float and are of different sizes [1].
Shows
That orbs vary.
Does not show
That they move by themselves. The size depends on the distance to the lens and the aperture, and a series of photos in a dusty place gives different orbs each time [1][2].
Not verified

Some orbs appear in photographs without flash

Source
Some people say orbs appear in photos taken with no flash or in daylight [3].
Shows
That the claim is made.
Does not show
That it is documented. Without a flash, specks near the lens are usually not bright enough to show, and we found no tested example [1][3].
Could not verify

Claims that supporters often repeat and that we looked for but could not confirm in a reliable source.

  • Orbs that follow people. Reports from ghost hunters of orbs “that responded” to questions. We found no controlled test.
  • Orbs on video as probes. Claims that bright dots in infrared video are alien probes. Insects flying near the lens and illuminated by infrared lamps produce similar dots.

What science found

Dust near the lens, lit by the flash

A flash lights up anything in front of the lens, including dust, pollen, small insects and water droplets. These objects are very close to the lens, far from the distance at which the camera is focused, so their image is a blurred disc [1][2].

The orbs appear with small cameras

Orbs became very common with the arrival of small digital cameras, where the flash is only a few centimetres from the lens, so that light reflects back into the lens from the particles. Cameras with the flash high or far from the lens show fewer [1].

You can make them on purpose

If you take a photograph with a flash while a person throws flour or dust in the air in front of the camera, orbs appear. Photographing in clean air, with the same camera and place, gives none [1].

They are circles because the aperture is round

An out-of-focus point of light appears as a disc with the shape of the lens opening. This is why the discs are round and why bright spots in a blurred background are also round [2].

What is still open

The orbs are explained as an optical effect. What remains is why a picture of something ordinary gets interpreted as a spirit, which is a question about how people see patterns [3].

If this happens to you

If you see orbs, take two photos in a row at the same place. Take one with the flash and one without. If the orbs appear only with the flash, and change from one picture to the next, they are particles in the air [1].

Sources

  1. Radford, B. Ghost photos: A close look at the paranormal. Live Science. Source
  2. Hecht, E. (2017). Optics (5th ed.). Pearson. (Chapter on stops, apertures and out-of-focus images.)
  3. The Skeptic's Dictionary. Orbs. Source

Change log

15 November 2026: First publication. Verdict: Explained.