Ghost Orbs Populate St. Augustine
The ghost tours in St. Augustine, Florida encourage visitors to take photographs of the haunted locations in hopes ghost orbs appear on film. Orbs are a recently discovered phenomena. Researchers theorize orbs of light appear in pictures when spirits drift into the scene. Some believe the spirits seek out past relatives to comfort and protect the living. Others consider the orbs to be disquieted souls with unfinished business on earth. Such ghosts suffered emotionally or physically at the time of their death.
Even though I saw no evidence of ghost orbs while walking around the town, images of round lights appeared on my developed pictures. “Are they nothing more than distorted refractions of light taken by digital cameras?” I asked the film developer. He also toured St. Augustine and felt some were glitches with digital cameras and others were actual spirits. “It’s whatever you want them to be,” he said.
The spirit of a boy likes sits in this tree at the Catholic cemetery. Thousands of confused spirits join him, wishing someone would tell them how to get out of the graveyard.
Native American Chief Osceola was imprisoned at the fort on the river. Upon his death, the doctor decapitated him and kept his head as a souvenir. Taking on a bluish appearance, the head of Osceola bounces above the fort in search of its body.
Spirits enjoy hearing stories about themselves and follow the tour guide along with the visitors. My dog growled and became anxious at this point so I took a picture curious if she was reacting to ghosts.
Many townspeople died at the city gates, forbidden to enter because of an illness or unsatisfactory behavior. The town burned to the ground on several occasions and fleeing residents died. One sweet little girl still skips down the street and then sits at the top of the left column.
Robbers uncovered a body and stole a man’s gold teeth. The man’s spirit searches for his teeth during the night. This yellowish orb is identical in size and placement to other photos posted on the ghost tour websites.
Three rogue brothers lived a jovial life, drinking and partying every night. Even after their death, the three brothers play around the cemetery.
A school mistress looks out the window in search of her students who burned in a fire. The spiral lines inside the orb suggest it is a spirit and not refracted light.
Ghostly encounters throughout my life inspired the theme for my nymph fantasy, where a girl senses paranormal activity but doesn’t know whether to trust the spirits. An intuitive, passionate eighteen-year-old bravely faces the unseen forces destroying earth by entering parallel dimensions to solve the mystery of why a mystical book causes people to vanish, experience the thrill of romantic love, and reconnect with her wood nymph spirit.
What do you think? Are they real?
Interesting!
I think there are many mysteries we just don’t understand. Like atoms, they may someday make sense and explain a lot.
Aloha
Toby
I agree. Ghosts seem like electromagnetic particles left over after someone dies, maybe creating the same sequence of movements out of habit.
Boo!
Interesting orb shots in your photos. In a way it reminds me of that freaky movie Darkness Falls.
Nice blog!
You are kind to stop by, Kathleen. The orbs are freaky because they appeared exactly where the guide said they would and other people captured the same types of orbs in the same spots. What was most interesting to me, was that the Catholic cemetery had thousands of more unrested souls than the Huguenot graveyard.
Stay inspired!
Janie
i visited once there when i was 15. next time your their make sure to notice the grave stones when you look for the little boy. when i was there we looked for him in the tree but didn’t see him. just when my group was about to leave did we notice a small shadow playing hide and go seek amoung the stones. this all happened after a woman called out to the boy “james come play with us!” gives me the chills to this day knowing what i saw.
Someone called out to the woman who is near the boy and I have images of lights around her gravestone. She supposedly gets in tourists faces and demands they help all the lost spirits. Hopefully, there is something more than being stuck in a graveyard in the great beyond.
Cheers!
St. Augustine! Now THAT seems like a place to find spirits lurking about. Those pictures…wow.
Thanks for stopping by, Jeff. St. Augustine is a definite “yes” as far as capturing ghosts on film. The town is old and has many town burnings and battles in its history. Plus, like Orlando, there is a lot of limestone underground and it seems to attract apparitions.
Happy Hauntings!
Janie
We went to St. Augustine recently, and we took one of the ghost tours. Now, I love stories about the paranormal, and fantastical creatures, but I am a skeptic at heart. I like my fantasy to be, well, fantasy–that’s the fun of it! That it has the mystery of the unknown and the unseen. To be honest, I think the attention given to orbs caught on tape or in photos by paranormal investigators is sort of silly–it’s probably dust or bugs or light refraction. It’s so inconclusive that it’s hard to hold it up as evidence of the paranormal. However, during our ghost tour, we were out by that big tree by the lighthouse, and the guide was telling us the various paranormal manifestations seen in and around the lighthouse. While we were standing there, I’ll be ******ed if I didn’t see actual frickin’ orbs dancing around under the tree branches–real close to the ground. Weird, eh?