Smoke is probably the biggest bane of the paranormal investigator as it can travel a long, long way. We have stood outside Houghton House and smelt smoke on the breeze yet the nearest houses were three quarters of a kilometre away, down in the valley. Maybe it was paranormal but that is unlikely as it was coming from the direction of the wind and the smell varied with the strength of the wind.

Smoke is one of those substances which can produce an almost unlimited variety of effects on a photograph from energy lines through things which almost look human. An example of such a photograph is shown in Image 1. To the right of the image there is a bright streak, a ley line (lines of energy which are believed to connect ancient sites)? Sorry, no, it is smoke, in this case from burning incense. The second image is even better as we can see the torso of a woman but it is again smoke. And is that the head of a bird in Image 3? In all of these images the smoke was very close to the camera when the picture was taken, if it had been further away it would have been obvious that it was smoke. In fact to produce these images required the camera lens to be within five centimetres of the smoke.

As standard practise all smoking should be banned on any site where you are doing an investigation. If it is not then any pictures you take will have no meaning as they could well be caused by smoke.