# What's happening in this video? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 21, 2020, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502 "2020-12-21T04:13:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/1 "2020-12-21T04:13:08Z")
Out of focus dust? I don’t know. The creator says there was no fan on in the room, and he’s not knowledgeable enough to fake this. I’m not asking if it’s a ghost or some such, but I don’t have an explanation. [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-7BYRUetePvzOefrDDXiXoJCt-M9V93S/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-7BYRUetePvzOefrDDXiXoJCt-M9V93S/view?usp=sharing) ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/2 "2020-12-21T04:17:06Z")
Yeah, falling dust speck. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/3 "2020-12-21T04:18:08Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > nd he’s not knowledgeable enough to fake this. 1. How do you know this? 2. Even if this is true, It doesn’t mean he didn’t have someone else fake it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/4 "2020-12-21T04:26:46Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Yeah, falling dust speck On second thought, you are probably right. I wouldn’t mind seeing a larger segment of video to see if this anomaly was repeated. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/5 "2020-12-21T04:32:03Z")
1. Because I’m too well acquainted, and he’s lucky to navigate youtube. 2. He shot this on his own phone himself. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/6 "2020-12-21T04:33:45Z")
It does repeat, he says. He shot this at a huge resolution and under 6 minutes was over 700MB, so I cut it down to only this. Even this is 83MB. I figured one of these was enough to make the point. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/7 "2020-12-21T04:33:50Z")
If there is more of this happening, it increases the likelihood that it is dust. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/8 "2020-12-21T05:29:30Z")
Did he hear a Who? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/9 "2020-12-21T06:26:47Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > It does repeat, he says. He shot this at a huge resolution and under 6 minutes was over 700MB, so I cut it down to only this. Even this is 83MB. I figured one of these was enough to make the point. 1.) No question but that it is an out of focus particle of some kind. The air is full of them–think of sunbeams. This is what fog looks like: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/mEZMtFOlAJ0/maxresdefault.jpg "Fog 20201016 0351") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEZMtFOlAJ0) 2.) Your 4.4 second video is in MPEG4 at close to 16 megabits per second, with audio that you don’t need at 193 kilobits per second. I converted it to h.265/HEVC at a quality setting of 30 with no audio and got a 159 KB file, which would result in the full 700 MB file being reduced to around 25 MB. Lowering the frame rate from 120 fps to 30 fps brought it down to 132 KB, which would mean a full file size of around 21 MB. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2020, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/10 "2020-12-21T11:57:13Z")
Pretty much all of the videos about ‘ghost globes’ (or whatever) that are not fake are caused by out of focus dust motes, insects or lens flare. Basically ‘Ghost Hunters’ could just be renamed ‘People Who Don’t Understand Cameras’ ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2020, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/11 "2020-12-22T03:20:27Z")
I agree, some sort of dust or other debris (maybe larger than a garden variety dust speck). There are two things at play, IMHO. First, the object is very close to the lens and getting closer, causing it to be completely out of focus, which also explains why it looks to be moving fairly quickly. There a common optical illusion that occurs when people see objects in the air where they believe the object is a different distance than it really is so they completely misjudge the speed. This is why you see a jet that seems to be floating leisurely across the sky when it’s actually moving at 500 MPH. In this case it’s the opposite. The image shows that objects nearest the camera are brighter, suggested an on-camera flash. That further exaggerates the size of the floater since it reflects and diffuses a whole bunch of light if it’s close. Here is a stock video of dust in a dark room. [https://ak.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/1159321/preview/stock-footage-dust-particles-floating-in-the-air-against-dark-background.webm](https://ak.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/1159321/preview/stock-footage-dust-particles-floating-in-the-air-against-dark-background.webm) There is really nothing to fake. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/12 "2020-12-23T23:25:11Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Basically ‘Ghost Hunters’ could just be renamed ‘People Who Don’t Understand Cameras’ If I wasn’t too lazy, I’d make this my sig. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2020, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/13 "2020-12-24T05:52:40Z")
What was he actually filming? Did he pull out his camera while hiding under his bed from ghosts? Did he accidentally drop his phone while the camera was rolling? I just can’t figure out what the purpose of the video was in the first place. Was he “ghost hunting”? ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2020, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-happening-in-this-video/928502/14 "2020-12-24T06:25:03Z")
He claims there are rats in his place and he was trying to get one on video.Look, we’re not dealing with the most sophisticated or even reality-based person here.