Low volume, quiet day and then a wall of ~104,000 shs go on the ask early afternoon forcing anyone with small lots wanting to sell to ask under it. No rational person would advertise a large sell like that as a reasonable person wouldn't want to scare the market. You would slowly bleed it into the market small chunks at a time. An Iceberg order for instance. The large ask was to there to do just that. Scare you into selling, under that price.

Shorts still need to cover and they will manipulate the low volume anyway they can. Especially if they have any clout.

I don't have a problem with the idea of Shorting. Unfortunately, many of the "shorters" over time have been caught engaging in unscrupulous activities giving it a bad rap.