Does not betray you, that IS what it looks like, dark and menacing.

I wonder if an aura can be detected from photos - or does it only appear in person? I don't have the gift, but have always had a 'flight' response when physically near some people. Been like that since childhood.

Visible in photos. I took a picture of my grandmother's sister the last time I saw her, before digital cameras, and her aura was blazingly visible in the picture when I had it developed. She was an ultra bible thumper but she walked her talk. She was the only adult in my early years,besides my grandfather, who treated me like I was human, everyone else treated me like I was some kind of sorry animal they found in the cold and brought in based on pity.

I have other pictures of people and their auras but that one was the most profound display.

I'll look for signs of the orange ogre's from now on but I can intuit that it is what we both describe... for confirmation, now that you've brought it up.

… because of the actual manure-pile stench that surrounds him, but I’m betting they’re the same colour.

There is no such thing and no evidence for it. People claim they can see a lot of things - some are real and some are not.

I have also never seen an aura. Physicists say that all things, animate and inanimate, have energy and energy waves, so I cannot say with certainty that there is no such thing as an aura. Maybe some people can see or perceive what most of us can't.

but there are many other ways of reliably demonstrating its existence. Not so for auras - there is no empirical evidence of any kind that they exist.

BTW, physicists don't say all things have energy and energy waves.

Saying one cannot say with certainty that there is no such thing as an aura is a logical fallacy (asking to prove a negative). I cannot say with certainty that there are no flying cows but it seems highly doubtful especially in view of the absence of evidence.

If some people claim they can see what most of us can't, it is up to them to provide credible evidence for the claim - it is not up to anyone else to "prove" they can't.

Also BTW, so called psychics who claim they can detect auras have been debunked without exception (James Randi for example has tested their claims):

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James Randi was a prominent scientific skeptic who debunked claims regarding the existence of human auras by subjecting self-proclaimed aura readers to controlled, scientific tests. He demonstrated that these "readers" could not accurately identify the presence of individuals behind screens, revealing that such perceptions were not based on physical reality.

Key details regarding Randi's work on auras:

Failed Tests: In televised and controlled tests, aura-seers failed to identify when people were standing behind screens, often misidentifying empty spaces as having people.
Mechanism: Randi often explained that purported "aura reading" was a form of cold reading or self-delusion rather than a perception of a spiritual energy field.

The Million Dollar Challenge: As part of his broader $1 million paranormal challenge, Randi offered a prize to anyone who could prove their ability to see or read auras under agreed-upon conditions, a challenge that remained unclaimed.

Goal: His objective was to highlight the lack of empirical evidence for such supernatural claims and to expose the deceptive techniques used by practitioners.
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Here's a YouTube of one of his trials:

Regarding your claim that physicists do not say that all things have energy which interacts with their environment, I disagree with your statement.

I am not a physicist or mathematician, so I rely on explanations in laypersons' terminology, e.g. discussions with physics majors and documentaries made for the general public, plus a few scientific principles learned in general science classes.

One documentary that I especially enjoyed was a PBS video on relativity, special relativity, mass, kinetic energy, and light. As I understand it, everything has its own rate of energy, whether solid, liquid or gas, whether stationary or visibly moving.

But, as a layperson who is not a scientist, let alone a physicist, I could be misunderstanding what I viewed in the video.

"rate of energy"? Acceleration, deacceleration, heating, cooling, being raised or lowered of an object? If so, how would that apply to an object at rest and at thermal equilibrium with its surroundings (as most objects are)?

In regard to Randi's challenges, if no-one has succeeded at that, or any other similar challenge, then all we have to go on is the word of the person making the claim (that person who may be delusional, hallucinating, or simply lying). In view of that, it is much more logical to conclude the ability does not exist until such time that empirical evidence may show otherwise. One also IMO has to take this in the broader context of the multitude of psychic claims in general where controlled testing by Randi (and many others) has shown unfailingly that such claims are unproven and are almost certainly false.

2 blocks away. Adults told me I could not possibly recognize someone so far away.

I lived in a city on Lake Erie and on clear days, I could see a speck of land across the lake. I asked people what was on the other side of the lake because I could see something there. They laughed at the idea that I could see that far, but told me that Canada was on the opposite shore.

Later I learned from an ophthalmologist that I am farsighted. I also learned that the spot where I looked across the lake was the narrowest point om the lake between Canada and the US and other farsighted people could see it, too.

Sometimes there is a scientific reason why some people can see things that other people can't.

That does not mean that every claim of what people see is true. I am skeptical about many claimed sightings like ghosts, alien aircraft etc. I can say that I do not see such things and therefore, do not believe that they are real. I think that sometimes people see what they want to see, or distort what they see into something that suits their imagination or preconceived ideas, like the varying descriptions of a car accident by witnesses. Sometimes they have mental health issues.

But it might be possible that some people can see things like energy auras that other people can't.