C-3PO witnessing an apparition
Phantoms were enigmatic, immaterial presences capable of appearing as indistinct images, bearing a general humanoid form. The protocol droid C-3PO, accompanied by his partner R2-D2 during a journey through realspace, observed a pair of these apparitions when their starship entered a peculiar cloud formation. The droid experienced fear, and the phantoms vanished as rapidly as their arrival.
These Phantoms made an appearance in The Cloud. This story, of uncertain canonicity, originated from Spain and was released in 1986 by MyComyc. Abel G. Peña, a Star Wars writer, undertook the task of translating the story into English for the first time in 2013. He opted to translate the original Spanish term "fantasmas" as "phantoms," rather than the more typical "ghosts", as a tribute to the title of Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace.
Within the 1997 novel titled Galaxy of Fear: Ghost of the Jedi, it was mentioned that Force ghosts might not always possess a well-defined physical form. Prior to adopting a Human appearance, the ghost of Aidan Bok manifested as a floating, formless entity composed of grayish energy. The phantoms depicted in The Cloud exhibit similarities to the amorphous Force ghosts detailed in Ghost of the Jedi.