These photos were taken of me (Joy Gardner) in 2003 by Suzanne Simms, in my backyard on the Kohala Coast near Hawi on the Big Island of Hawaii. We were focused on my hands because the photos would be used in her book, Healing Vacations in Hawaii. I was one of the healers featured in the Big Island version of her book. The photos are completely untouched (though I did use iPhoto to deepen the colors). The orb above my head could perhaps be dismissed, except that it showed up in three more pictures that were taken at the same time! Neither of us were aware of the orb until we saw the photos. Take a good look at the orbs. They seem to have a double layer, and they seem to be seven-sided: septagons.

Orbs have been receiving a lot of attention lately. According to the New England Society of Paranormal Investigators (www.nespi.net), "The term orb is the popular name given to typically circular anomalies appearing in photographs. In Spanish language they're commonly referred as canoplas. In photography and video, orbs appear to be balls, diamonds, or smears of light with an apparent size in the image ranging from a golf ball to a basketball. Orbs sometimes appear to be in motion, leaving a trail behind them.
There are two main schools of thought regarding the cause of orbs in photographs. The first school sees it as a fairly clear-cut case of flash reflection off of dust, particles, insects, or moisture droplets in the air in front of the camera, i.e. they are naturalistic. The opposing school maintains that orbs are paranormal in nature, i.e. non-naturalistic."

According to the Iowa Paranormal Advanced Research Team (www.diepart.com/truth about orbs), "There are 4 possible causes for an orb to appear in your image and they are as follows:

1. Refraction of a dust particle.
Oftentimes the tiniest particle of dust will reflect the flash of your camera or the infrared light of a digital camera producing a stunning orb that most investigators would drool over. Now, the most popular excuse for claiming that it is not dust is; "But, all the other images had no orbs in it. Only this one". Well, that is because it was only one particle of dust and it is most likely still there in the other photos but it is just not at the right position or angle to reflect the light of the camera flash again.
So, the question remains, how do we know when it is dust and when it is a true orb? Dust tends to refract in a perfect circle with little "noise" in it and no border. By this we mean that the orb does not look like a cell under a microscope. Its make-up is pretty much a solid color without a defined border to it.
2. Refraction of moisture.
"This is a little bit easier to spot. An orb caused by moisture will tend to have angular sides to it and its make-up tends to fade from solid to transparent. Once again it has no border. And like the dust particle, moisture can appear in one photo and not in another that was taken immediately afterwards.
The larger the moisture the less angular it will look. A picture of rain drops will yield very little angularity at all. In fact it will produce small solid looking object that can easily be mistaken for orbs. A fine mist will produce angular sides.
3. Reflection of an object.
Ok, I must say that this is the most common mistake made and usually the easiest to spot. If you have an image with multiple orbs in it and one is more intense than the other, then, chances are, you have a reflection.
4. True paranormal energy.
Now we're talking. Once you have eliminated the above possibilities, it is time to take a good, long, close look at the orb itself. What you are looking for in 'orb' activity is a solid object that emits its own light. . . . If the orb has signs of movement, such as a blurred trail behind it, then you've got some rather solid evidence. [See the next page.]
The other characteristic of orb activity that we consider is the coloration of the orb. True orbs are colored in the 'cool' end of the spectrum, namely white, blue, or green. Any orb activity that shows up as red, orange, or yellow, it typical of dust, light refraction, or processing error."

Note that most of these phenomena occured (in these and the following pages) when people were extremely excited or simply having a wonderful time, and often when children or young people were involved. If these truly are paranormal entities, then they are behaving very much like dolphins, who are drawn to people who are having a lot of fun, and those who are singing or making music. (We found this repeatedly when we were holding the Vibrational Healing Program at a retreat center on a bay on the Big Island where the dolphins
come in.)

to Page Two

Energy Photos, Orbs, metaphysical phenomenon