According to Websters dictionary a manifestation is ‘The materialised form of a spirit’. This is what people classically think of as being a ghost though they usually expect it to be a full body manifestation, a complete representation of a human being. Yet this is not the only form a manifestation can take and it is these latter forms that we are interested in here. Under this category appear mists, vapours and other such subtle manifestations.

We always want to know whether or not the thing we photographed is a paranormal phenomenon or not, so we first try to see if we can reproduce the effect, as we did in the section on orbs. If you photograph a strange mist which looks paranormal but was in reality natural, then it was most likely to have been water vapour. This could either be your breath or a mist, but it could also be smoke (especially cigarette smoke). The latter creates traps which are easy to fall into, as smoke can travel hundreds of metres without dispersing. Because of this you should always avoid smoking if you are undertaking an investigation; anyway people have smelt tobacco smoke when there was no one else there, so you could possibly be masking a real phenomenon.

One thing to note is that you may not be able to see smoke or breath on a dark night but your camera will when the flash fires.