Over the course of Manifest’s three-season run, the main characters have discovered that the passengers aboard Flight 828 weren’t the first people to experience an unexplained disappearance. There were others both before and after Flight 828 who have gone through the same ordeal. And like the passengers, they too received the Callings once they returned.
At the beginning of the series, Ben (Josh Dallas), Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh), and Saanvi (Parveen Khaur) made a decision to follow the Callings, having reached a realization that they could be used to help both each other and innocent people who had found themselves in harm’s way. Plus, heeding these mysterious messages and trying to decipher their true meanings appeared to be the best and most practical method to comprehending Manifest’s greatest mysteries, including the true purpose of the Callings and why the plane really disappeared. Though they have reached a certain level of understanding when it comes to what they’re supposed to do with the Callings, there’s still a great deal they don’t know about what happened to them that night.
That being said, they have been made a few developments over the course of their journey, such as the Death Date reveal in season 1. Interestingly, many of these revelations didn’t come from the Callings; much of what they’ve uncovered have come from investigations into related vanishings. Many of the situations they’ve looked into have been quite illuminating, as they’ve offered fascinating new details about this phenomenon.
Captain Daly
Determined to prove that the vanishing Flight 828 wasn’t his fault, the plane’s pilot – Frank Deal’s Captain Bill Daly – set out on a mission to repeat the events of that day by flying a stolen plane into a second dark lighting storm. Daly seemingly succeeded, considering that even though the military tried to shoot him down, no bodies or wreckage was ever found. Daly theorized that he’d be gone for another five years, but he inexplicably blinked in at Eureka three years early during the season 3 finale – and then vanished once again.
Zeke
Matt Long’s Zeke and Michaela’s current main love interest on Manifest was the first sign that Flight 828 wasn’t an isolated incident. At some point in late 2017 (when Flight 828 was still missing), took a trip alone to the same camping area where his sister died. While there, the character was caught in a blizzard. When a year passed, Zeke emerged alive, driven by a Calling that was directing him to find Michaela. Thanks to Cal’s own Callings, they were able to find Zeke in his cabin, where they realized that he was just like them. Zeke’s disappearance and sudden return provided evidence that what they experienced wasn’t just about a storm of dark lightning; what happened to them could happen to other people, and it didn’t matter if the conditions weren’t the same.
Griffin
The next person after Zeke to vanish was James Griffin (Marc Menchaca), a criminal who robbed an armored car. After the vehicle plunged into the river, Griffin was presumed dead, and for good reason. Shockingly, Griffin was revealed to still be alive three days later. When he started receiving the Callings (which he realized he could use for personal gain), the passengers discovered that they were linked to him in the same way that they were connected to Zeke. In the season finale, he suddenly died due to water in his lungs, despite being on land at the time. Griffin dying after the same length of time that he was thought to be dead made the passengers realize that they all have Death Dates. Now, it’s known that those who disappear and return can only live for as long as they were gone.
Al-Zuras
One of the biggest discoveries on Manifest came in season 2 when Ben, Olive (Luna Blaise), and TJ (Garrett Wareing) started digging into an explorer by the name of Yusuv Al-Zuras. Much to their surprise, the Callings date all way back to the 16th century. Al-Zuras and his crew went missing during a storm, and didn’t come back until ten years later. Al-Zuras recorded some of the Callings he had (some of which being about the passengers) in his journal, which was read by the characters. Through his journal, they learned that while onboard his ship, Al-Zuras spotted a “silver dragon” flying through the sky. After experiencing a Calling that showed them what Al-Zuras saw that night, the characters realized that somehow, Al-Zuras’ ship and Flight 828 were together. They don’t know how this was possible, but it could be a hint at time travel. The plane (or Al-Zuras) may have traveled in time while they were gone.
Jace, Kory, and Pete
In the Manifest season 2 finale, the passengers had to save Cal (Jack Messina) from three meth addicts. The ensuing confrontation led to all three presumably drowned in a frozen lake near Zeke’s cabin. They resurfaced in a scene at the end of the season 3 premiere, which provided further evidence for Ben’s resurrection theory. All three were troubled by the Callings and the knowledge that they were all doomed to die. They tried to convince them that the only way to survive their Death Date was to follow the Callings and do the right thing, but Jace (James McMenamin) didn’t see it that way. Instead, he chose to target Michaela and Cal, and in doing so doomed not only himself, but also Kory (Dazmann Still) and Pete (Devin Harjes). The passengers believed that if Kory and Pete made morally good choices in respect to their Callings, they would live, but apparently the three characters were tied together. Jace’s mistake resulted in the deaths of all three once their time ended.
The Three Prisoners
The passengers were able to make sense of the incident with Jace, Kory, and Pete by researching an old Egyptian myth called the “The Last Trial”. By translating an ancient parchment, Olive and Levi (Will Peltz) learned about three prisoners given a second chance to live by a higher power. Two made the most of it by doing good deeds, but the third remained on the wrong path by pursuing revenge against his enemies (just as Jace was doing with Michaela and Cal). Consequentially, all three prisoners were killed because the “trial” was meant for them as a group. The parallels between the prisoners and the meth addicts reveal that the exact scenario with Jace, Kory, and Pete (including how it ended), played out thousands of years ago somewhere in Egypt.
Noah’s Ark
Saanvi’s findings after analyzing a 6,000-year-old piece of driftwood laced with the DNA of a peacock helped her reach a hypothesis that Noah’s Ark is also entangled in this massive puzzle. The driftwood and every other subject who has disappeared and returned all contain elements of sapphire, which Saanvi believes is what links them all together. In addition, the fact that there have been frequent peacock sightings on Manifest is unlikely to be a coincidence. It looks like the peacock Ben saw in a season 1 episode was one of the animals onboard Noah’s Ark 6,000 years ago and possibly the same creature whose genetical material was on the driftwood. If so, it may be that Ben could see him because everyone who has ever had the Callings is connected across time.
