On examining the picture later he was puzzled to discover these luminous anomalies. They appear as either attachments to, or reflections on, the clothing of three unknown fellow tourists.

Cubsproat confirms that after having taken several hundred pictures with this camera it had never, ever, produced spurious images of any kind before.

"When I first saw how bright the image was on the woman's arm I thought it was a reflection also but after zooming in I could not find any reflective material anywhere on her. I really didn't even notice the other 'spots' to the left and the other one on her until later," he replied in an email.

We know the photo was taken in relatively moderate light conditions without the use of strobe flash and because of the lack of sunshine that day, we are unable to point to any obvious source required to produce these extremely bright, localized, areas in the picture. The camera's sensors could have attempted to compensate for the lack of sufficient natural light and automatically triggered the flash but perhaps the settings overrided this, or the artificial ceiling lamps and roof openings simply provided sufficient illumination.

Most of us are familiar with the anomaly responsible for coining the term 'orbs'. It most often appears spontaneously in images taken using a digital camera in conjunction with flash. This materialization is controversial because some researchers maintain these translucent, often opaque, spheres are simply the unfortunate byproduct of air quality [airborne dust particles, fluff, etc.,] and a conflict with the camera's inner workings. Others believe these cameras have an ability to actually record the manifestation of those since departed, whose souls are drawn either to people or a particular locality.

"I had never even heard of orbs until my brother saw the picture and said I should have it looked at," commented cubsproat, who also added that, as far as he is aware, he has no psychic abilities whatsoever.

Well, as much as my first inclination was to regard these anomalies as representing nothing more than mere 'reflections' of light, that idea doesn't really hold up under the weight of supplied evidence. They are not 'orbs' in the manner we would necessarily classify them. Most of the forms present in the frame are not spherical and in at least one instance appear both highly irregular and large. We have to consider that the luminosity could have been generated in another way, perhaps involving some kind of energy source in the form of plasma, for example.

Is Alcatraz haunted? Perhaps. The Rock has a long history that stretches back beyond the era when it was used to incarcerate some 1530 of the nation's most dangerous criminals, including mobster Al Capone. Alcatraz Island once housed a fort in the 19th century, before the maximum security prison was constructed and opened for business in 1934. It was officially closed for good in 1963 but perhaps not everyone, or everything, ever left!

G¬ farshores

A FarShores thanks to 'cubsproat' for kindly making this image available and providing additional information via subsequent emails.

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