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On July 31, Jordan woman Marlea Cottrill came to The Citizen office agape.

Cottrill had snapped three photos the previous day that she could not explain. Using a friend's iPhone 5, she was documenting a cloud formation above her house that caught her eye. Upon looking at the pictures, though, Cottrill noticed something she couldn't explain.

Three separate photos showed a small, bright and vaguely green orb of light, with no immediately obvious connection to its wooded environs. Cottrill provided me the photos in hopes of finding an explanation.

Sept. 8, Cottrill emailed me again to say she took three more pictures, also near her house but on her own iPhone, that again contained the mysterious orb. She also noted that in both events, she did not personally see the orb with her own eyes — just in the photos.

Talking to the Upstate Paranormal Society about its Sept. 27-28 Finger Lakes Paracon event at the Hilton Garden Inn in Auburn, I decided to show organizer Steve Brewer the photos.

He didn't take long to form his hypothesis.