Also, when looking at high quality close-ups of orbs, some can be seen to have an almost mosaic pattern of many colours making up the bulk of the sphere whilst others seem to have a more constant or solid colour, these latter ones are said to be charged to their full capacity, or stable whereas the 'multi-coloured' ones are believed to be lacking in charge. As the orbs are said to be electrically charged, it is believed that they 'ground' themselves against any materials that will conduct the current to earth potential and that they also share their charge, i.e. one fully charged orb may come into contact with a partially charged one and they will balance themselves electrically so that they have equal charge - the lower charged orb receiving electrons from the fully charged one, just as a full capacitor will pass some of its charge to an empty one, in proportion to the capacitance of the device until both have equal charge.

I will explain why orbs appear to have a darker or distinct circle around them and how this is known to some degree to be a shell or covering of the sphere as a whole after I explain the theory of how and why they show up on film, as this has a bearing on their appearance once captured. Putting the film camera vs. digital to one side for now, it is known that orbs show up best when a flash is used with the camera. This has been explained by some as being due to a property called 'phosphorescence', this is something which occurs with some minerals and is the process at work on the hands of your analogue watch or clock if it is a "glow in the dark" type. When light strikes such substances, the photons (packets of light) knock electrons whirling around the atoms into higher energy states or further-out electron shells. These electrons then fall back down into their normal place, some of their energy having been used to keep them in the higher energy orbit, this leaves them with some leftover extra energy which is emitted as a photon again. This photon is lower in frequency than the original photon which reacted with the electron in the first place, due to its having used some energy up already - hence invisible ultra-violet light can create visible light with phosphorescence by having its frequency lowered to that of light in the visible spectrum (put your watch under a UV lamp).

Now, the idea is that when the intense light from a flash camera bulb hits the electrons in the outer shell of an orb, it knocks these electrons into higher energy states, these electrons then 'jump' back down into their normal states emitting photons in the process which we see on the camera images. However, unlike normal phosphorescence effects which last a while (presumably because the electrons stay in their higher energy states for various and sometimes relatively lengthy periods of time before using so much energy that they can no longer survive in the higher electron orbit) orbs seem to have an immediate phosphorescence effect, whereby the light is emitted in one go with no lasting emission. There is at present, I believe, no explanation for this process being so rapid if it is indeed the actual process happening.

The basis behind the belief in the outer shell of an orb is quite simply that a shell around the orb made of electrons that was mainly responsible for the emission of light would create a circle around the perimeter of the orb as the 'center' of the orb's body would be light coming from the 'back' and 'front' of the shell which appears as a large area and light coming from the 'sides' would create the circle as there is light coming from those sides but it's only being seen as a thin line, so it looks different and stands out.