Photographic Evidence of… ?

And now for something a little different…

A few months ago, my wife, sister, and I attended a memorial service for my grandma. It was truly a celebration of her life, and so I am not bothered to say that I had a great time there with my family.

I also took a lot of photographs — “a lot” being as many as my super cool 3.2 megapixel Sony Cybershot with bottomless 16 megabyte Memory Stick can handle. Embarrassing gadgetry aside, I was able to take some great pictures, pictures which you can check out, if you want.

Now, while you’re checking those pictures out, note two things: They are numbered in the order I took them, and that it should be fairly obvious that I have not done any retouching. The pictures appear just as they came off the camera — no levels adjustments, no resizing, no cropping, no anything.

That said, pay especially close to the pictures DSC01350.JPG and DSC01351.JPG toward the end.

Here they are for ease of reference; unfortunately, I had to resize them to fit here, but if you click them, you’ll get the full picture.

I linked those to the pictures as they appear in the album context; if you would rather view the files directly, here are the links: DSC01350.JPG & DSC01351.JPG

Did you see it?

In each picture, there is a circle of … well, a circle of an unidentified something. I’ve spent a little time trying to figure out exactly what caused that to appear in the pictures, and this is a summary of what I know:

• 31 seconds elapsed between DSC01349.JPG and the first image above.
• 17 seconds elapsed between the two above images.
• 20 seconds elapsed between the second image above and DSC01352.JPG.
• Times and other details about the pictures can be verified by checking out the images’ Exif information.
• The two images in question above were taken at the same table.
• In the first image, the primary sources of lighting were dim, yellow ceiling lights and windows to the left.
• In the second image, I had turned away from the windows; the primary lighting would only be the windows.
• Other photographs in the album were taken from the same general area in the same lighting but do not exhibit anything at all like the circles in question above. (Compare images which contain the same computer desk or painting of a woman wearing a dress in the background.)
• It is highly unlikely that the circle was on the lens or any part of the camera itself. It is in a different location relative to the edges in each image.
• In the second image, the circle has the illusion of being nearer to the camera because it appears in front of a closer subject and the circle itself has a slightly larger diameter.
• Fiddling with the brightness and contrast of the images, the circle appears to have a concentric circle (or perhaps spiral) design in the first image which is not present in the second.

So what are the circles? The only thing that seems at all plausible is that it is some sort of lens flare; however, that seems very unlikely due to the different angles the pictures were taken from and the fact that other pictures were taken in the same general area without any noticeable light anomalies. For it to happen twice in a row like that seems very improbable, though certainly not impossible.

If you’re waiting for me to bring up some sort of “ghost theory,” I won’t disappoint you, and will conclude with thoughts concerning it:

• I believe that our world is far from merely physical and that an unimaginable supernatural world overlays ours, and that this supernatural world is populated by a variety of creatures — angels, cherubim, demons, Satan, and so on — which generally go unseen.
• I believe that these unseen creatures can and do “intersect” with the physical world, and that quite often we interact with some of these creatures without ever having realized it. Paul referred quite plainly to “entertaining angels unawares” in Hebrews.
• I do not believe that the immaterial part of humans lingers on Earth for any length of time after passing. I believe at death the immaterial portion of man is either taken to Heaven or Hell based solely upon that person’s relationship to Christ.
• I believe it is possible — though quite unlikely — that technology may be able to randomly catch a glimpse into this unseen world whereas our human senses would be blind to them.
• While it would be quite cool indeed if that is what appears in the images above, I’d be happy with any sort of natural explanation that takes into account all of the known factors listed above.

If you have any ideas in addition to what I’ve said already, feel free to share them.