The primary and secondary masses of the binary black holes ( BBH ) reported by LIGO/Virgo are correlated with a narrow dispersion that appears to increase in proportion to mass . The mean binary mass ratio 1.45 \pm 0.07 we show is consistent with pairs drawn randomly from the mass distribution of black holes in our Galaxy . However , BBH masses are concentrated around \simeq 30 M _ { \odot } , whereas black holes in our Galaxy peak at \simeq 10 M _ { \odot } . This mass difference can be reconciled by gravitational lensing magnification which allows distant events to be detected with typically z \simeq 2 , so the waveform is reduced in frequency by 1 + z , and hence the measured chirp masses appear 3 times larger than their intrinsic values . This redshift enhancement also accounts for the dispersion of primary and secondary masses , both of which should increase as 1 + z , thereby appearing to scale with mass , in agreement with the data . Thus the BBH component masses provide independent support for lensing , implying most high chirp mass events have intrinsic masses like the stellar mass black holes in our Galaxy , coalescing at z > 1 , with only two low mass BBH detections , of \simeq 10 M _ { \odot } as expected for unlensed events in the local Universe , z \simeq 0.1 . This lensing solution requires a rapidly declining BBH event rate below z < 1 , which together with the observed absence of BBH spin suggests most events originate within young globular clusters at z > 1 , via efficient binary capture of stellar mass black holes with randomly oriented spins .