Lizzie Borden Took an Axe...

Location: The Lizzie Borden House; Fall River, Massachusetts

Date: July 14, 2006

Recently, the credibility of “orbs” has come into question.  For the most part, I still believe in them.  I do not believe they are a bi-product of digital photography.  Every day, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of digital photographs are taken… most of which do not yield little glowing, floating balls.

        

There are different kinds of orbs, I think.

        

Some are simple enough to explain, as they are likely reflections of dust or some other perfectly natural object.  Sometimes light doesn’t even need an object to reflect off of to ruin a good picture.

        

I believe most orbs, though (even those that pop up in seemingly innocent pictures), are remnants of some past energy source.  You don’t have to be wandering the dark, spooky upstairs hallway of a haunted house to accidentally snap a photograph that contains some stray piece of energy.  Energy, after all, is everywhere.  And the orb phenomenon does not always have to be explained by paranormal energy.  Yes, if you’re in a hotspot that was once the grounds of a grisly decapitation, I think there may be enough stray energy boiling up from the ground to produce an orb.

        

But I believe someone’s natural aura may also produce an orb if the moment is right.

Or, perhaps an overheated toaster is capable of producing an orb as well. 

Whatever their source, orbs are energy, and digital photography happens to be one of the first forms of technology capable of capturing them on film.

I say all this to say that the Lizzie Borden House gave us an orb. 

I was impressed by the house and its dark history.  I was not impressed by our tour guides and their over-the-top, fluffed-up, cheesy-excuses for ghost stories.

We toured the house with an obsessive bald man that knew a lot about the Bordens and, in fact, wanted to be a Borden.  He led us through the house with his obsessive stories and, upstairs, revealed to us the one piece of original furniture in the house that they knew once belonged to Lizzie Borden.  A sewing machine.

We took several pictures of it.

One apparently disappeared and one revealed an orb.

Of the dozens and dozens of pictures taken in the Lizzie Borden house, the one orb that popped up made its presence directly in front of Lizzie Borden’s sewing machine.

Coincidence? 

Only if you’re very simple.

Mitch.