The Orb

I'm a rationalist.  I don't believe in miracles.  I don't believe in ghosts, or apparitions, or specters.  I don't believe in phantoms, or revenants.  That's not to say that I'm a pure empiricist.  I value mystery and uncertainty.  "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."  But I remain skeptical of the supernatural.

Here's my problem.  I live in a 150 year old farmhouse in Allegheny County.  Ugly, poorly constructed subdivisions have grown up around the place.  But we have nearly a full private acre, which we treat like a miniature farm.  The whole compound is separated from suburbia by an old privet hedge.  And inside, we've got a large garden, clotheslines, huge composting works, a few outbuildings.  I have my den in a little back bedroom, the only room in the house with only one window.  The panes of glass are old and rippled; they refract light unevenly like the surface of a pond--except without motion.  I walked into my den this evening.  All was dark, but I refrained from turning on the light because I noticed a strange square of light on the ceiling.  The square was about two feet by two feet, and it stood in a place where I had never seen light before.  It was rippled, as well, just like the light that passes through the old window.  I thought, "Hmm, the moonlight is reflecting off something on the ground outside, through the window, and onto the ceiling.  Strange."

I stood in the dark beneath the square of light, and I waved my hand between the light and the window, but my hand didn't cast a shadow.  As I puzzled, unable to find the source of the light, I started to grow uneasy.  I muttered something like, "This is a little creepy."  No sooner had I spoken than the square of light began to roll away.  That's to say, the westernmost end of the square receded into the easternmost end, as if a door were closing it out.  In a minor state of alarm, I fumbled for the light switch, but before turning on the overhead light, I noticed that there was indeed light entering the window and hitting the wall behind me in a much larger, dimmer square.  Very unlike the light I'd seen on the ceiling.

Twice this evening I've returned to the den to see if the square of light was back on the ceiling.  It wasn't.  Now I'm at a loss.  I want to find a logical, scientific explanation, and I refuse to be frightened in my own den.  At all cost, I have to love this place.  I'm locked into a mortgage the likes of which I never expected, and lord knows no fool would ever buy this old barn with its crumbling bricks and sagging floors.  There have been strange things here before: an occasional thumping noise, a tightly closed door that I know I left open; an electric light left on in a room where I know all was dark.  My wife and kids have never noticed these things.  I live with them and simply say, jokingly, "Okay, Hickmans!  I know you're still here!"  But these lights are too weird.  

No one really much reads this blog.  I don't keep the blog for its readership.  An occasional reader stumbles across it, not more than three or four per month.  The blog is mostly just a personal record of my excursions.  But does anyone out there want to tell me what the weird light's about?