Thanks for bringing this one to my attention:
if actually nothing has been shown right before nor after (what happened after is less important, but we need the pics taken after too) then the photo
is extremely puzzling: a serious investigation over your set of photos would require also the set of photos themselves: i mean all the photos that you
took before and after, within some reasoneable lapse of time of 10/10 hence all the photos taken within a range of twenty minutes to say the least:
the original ones, taken straight from camera, don't worry about the native format, just zip and share them somewhere. Then, using exif data we would
be able to confirm the timeline of the pics, which would automatically upgrade the case to some more interesting level (while exif data can be faked,
one should first know how to do, second how to do it without being caught because some technical mistake, it's less easy than people believe).
Now, all i can do is to add my two cents about this single picture: well, in my humble opinion, the general appearance of what we see is consistent
with smoke, you say it's not, and both version can be true, i'm really convincend that this is not an attempt of hoax, and i have a very nice
reason to claim it: once my brother took a photo that looked exactly like that one, in the immediate closeness of the car. I can assure you that there
was no smoke when the pic was taken, not noticeable at least. Well, after doing some research on this type of stuff, i've learned that you can catch
some smoke on camera even a quarter, twenty, more minutes after it vanished from sight (depending on its composition): smoke particulate can be very
persistent, but still unnoticeable by the human eye: but they CAN reflect light, ths is why somethimes you can catch some incredibly strange effects:
now comes the question why your camera got it and your eyes didn't (IF this possible explanation is correct).
The human eye resolves about 8/mm (8 lines per millimetre, and it will get worse when you get old
PLUS, the images are processed by our brain )
some 38 mm film camera can be able to resolve something like ten times more (not exact data, but not far from the exact one, anyway you'll find it
usually expressed in pairs).
At the same time, we (humans) have a system of focusing that no one ever will be able to overtake, but this is another story.
Also our poor eyes have to cover aprox. 180°, a camera is usually set to cover something like between 15 and 90 ° : anyway, NOTHING compared to
us.
But the point, is that if you set some camera at 1/260 , it means that what happened in one 260th part of a second got caught on camera. An human
being, if asked, can't recall what happend during the 148°/260 of the unit in question (one second).
To me, the photo is still a mystery of course, just tried to add some points. Thanks for sharing ant thanks again for bringing this one to my
attention