Encountering the Shadow People

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Photo: WIN-Initiative/Neleman / Getty Images

Readers report their own unnerving experiences with the mysterious shadow people phenomenon, and also offer some additional theories to explain them

In our article on shadow people -- dark, ghost-like shadowy entities -- it is mentioned that this phenomenon seems to be on the rise around the world. There appear to be more sightings with greater frequency. Many readers seem to concur and have responded with their frightening, sometimes bizarre personal encounters with these strange beings.

Here are their stories:

HOUSE OF SHADOWS

I became aware of the shadows shortly after moving into my house in New Jersey. My daughters' playroom was in the basement and they were constantly complaining that they were always seeing something move out of the corners of their eyes. My youngest also said they hovered near the ceiling.

In later years, I had my floral workshop in the basement and saw them constantly. It got to the point where I would talk to them with my mind, not that they ever answered back. They were black. We saw them all over the basement, but mostly along one wall, and occasionally saw them along the same wall on the first floor and in the kitchen near the back door. We did not see them anywhere else in the house or elsewhere on the property. But even when we did not get a glimpse of them, we were aware when they were present. Some of them seemed to have an evil presence.

A few years after we moved in, I told them they were not welcome in the house and the evil presence seemed to go away. Still, we had an uneasy feeling about them. Not fear. We just accepted they were there, as several steps taken over the years to make them go away didn't work anyway. Only once after the evil ones were told they were not welcome was I aware they came back. And I am not sure if they were evil or just upset. I will explain later.

Only once did it see one clearly. But it happened in a split second and I did not see it from top to bottom. I was walking through the breakfast room into the kitchen. The kitchen light was on in the corner. It was by the back door in front of the stove. I was startled. I thought someone had come into the house. It all happened very fast. But the light from behind it did not pass through as it would a shadow. It was short and stocky and appeared as a silhouette of a person. It had a head (there were no discernible features, including no eyes) shoulders, arms, and a torso. It disappeared too fast to take note if it had legs or feet. I sensed it was as surprised as I was and did not intend to be seen.

Then our house caught fire. It was a major fire that started from a shorted TV along the wall of shadows in the den. We were out of the house six months while it was repaired. About a week after the fire, I stopped by right before dark to pick up a few things. As I came onto the back porch and looked through the six-foot hole where the picture window once was, I looked across the breakfast room at the basement doorway. I sensed three shadows near the doorway. It was almost dark outside, so I did not actually see them.

I also got a very bad feeling about them and told them by thought that the evil ones were still not welcome in the house whether I was there or not. Then I turned and left without entering the house. I was quite rattled. Whether I had this feeling because I was also emotionally upset about the fire... I cannot say.

The next day, I went back and it seemed the house was full of shadows, although I only caught a glimpse of them, as usual, fleeing in the basement. And I am not sure I really saw them as there were no lights on down there and the only light was from the window-well windows. It was the only time I ever sensed that they tried to communicate. It seemed they were upset that we were not there because the house was all black, there was no light for them in the kitchen, and there were strangers in the house (the workers) every day.

A few weeks later, burglars tried to steal the new appliances for the house. Everything was left in the kitchen by the back door. My daughters and I joked that they met up with the shadows and were scared off. Who knows? -- MSF

SHADOW MAN ON THE ROAD

I've always been very observant and I notice everything around me in detail. When I was 13, I was riding home from the supermarket with my older brother. All of a sudden, a dark figure dove under the car. It happened very quickly, but I saw it straight on. It was definitely in the shape of a man and it seemed to appear out of nowhere.

"I just saw a... a... a shadow man," I said to my brother. Of course, he made a joke of it. I went along with it, but it was more than a joke to me. I saw another shadow man that very night when I got out of bed to go to the bathroom. I know it was not my mind playing tricks. -- Jason

 

THE REFLECTION

I've seen shadow people at least twice. The most recent was while sitting in front of a TV that was turned off. The reflection showed a dark entity seated beside me. I was annoyed and soon it was gone. I hope I never have another experience like it again.

A long time ago, I saw what appeared to be a man wearing a top hat who moved in the shadows of a great building. He appeared to look almost like a phantom, appearing though he were a sail mast consisting of electrical magnetic signals. -- Gene

BLUE SHADOW PEOPLE OR DIMENSIONAL TRAVELERS

I have recurring visitations from a life form that I call the blue people. They don't really look like humans though. They are about four feet tall, they walk erect on legs, but the knees bend backward. They have four fingers and two thumbs and roughly the same configuration on their feet. The toes and fingers are webbed. The have no shoulders and no neck. They just go up from the shoulders into a bulbous head. The face consists of three crescents that are arched down like a grimace, the shortest on top and the longest at the bottom. They are blue.

They have visited me for about five years now, to my knowledge. They come late at night when everything is quiet. The first thing and the thing that wakes me is a high-pitched whine. That is followed by a white light that appears through the wall, door or wherever they choose to enter from. They come in through the light when it opens enough for them to pass. I was quite scared at first and thought that I was having a lucid nightmare. Later, though, when they returned several times, I realized that they were benevolent and only curious about this world. They would walk about my room, look at things and try to touch things.

For a long time, when I tried to speak to them, they would rush back into the light and disappear. I tried everything to set up some kind of communication. Only recently did I have a breakthrough of sorts. When I opened my mouth to speak, one of them rushed over and put his hand on my mouth. I got quiet, and it touched my eyes and then touched my ears. Then it touched the three crescents on its face, touched my eyes and ears again.

One thing I must interject is that they have no physical form here; I mean, they are kind of like ghosts, so when I say they touched me, it wasn't like really being touched. It took me a while to put it all together, but I have done so and the message is that they "see" with sound. My voice blinded them and scared them. It may even have injured them.

I think that they are dimensional explorers, and I think that they would like to communicate. I am working on different approaches to doing that. -- D.M.

SMOKY AND SHAPELESS

I have been seeing something similar to shadow people for a long time now, although the shadows I see don't look like people exactly, and they are in the bottom corners of the house. I see them from the corner of my eye and they are smoky, but they are shapeless and dissipate as soon as I look head-on at them, usually around a corner.

I definitely get a malevolent feeling from them, though. I always believed them to be demons, and still do, as I don't believe in life after death or aliens and ghosts. I am seeing a psychiatrist for clinical depression and finally told him about it as it was bothering me. I told him I thought I was going crazy and, of course, he immediately put me on a psychotropic drug and wanted to know if I heard voices, too (which I thought was crazy!). I haven't been on the drug long enough to see if it will change my seeing them. Somehow I get the feeling just having told someone that I won't see them anymore, though. Would that be a placebo effect? -- Barbara

SHADOW PEOPLE AND THE OUIJA

I'm pretty sure the shadow people are demons. One night I was having a party and I had just gotten a Ouija board for my birthday. Everyone talked me into using it, so we started playing.

Then weird stuff started happening. Shadow figures started to appear in my room -- a lot of shadow people. It wasn't any of our shadows; these were different. Some had red eyes. Then red orbs started coming through my room. We had made a protective circle and we all tried to stay in it. It got really cold in my room and we could all see our breath. If some of my friends couldn't see the shadow people, they could feel them.

There was an all-out evil feeling in the room. We all got too freaked out to move. We were just like, "Whoa!" Then one of the shadow people changed -- they got all scary looking. I could explain, but I don't want to go into detail. Let's just say Pumpkin Head (the demon guy from scary movies; no, his head is not a pumpkin.) So we screamed and finally ran out of the room. My parents thought we were crazy.

That night when we when to bed, my closets were glowing red and orbs were going through my room. We didn't go to sleep until, like, 5 a.m., and even then we only slept not even four hours. That was freaky, and stuff didn't die down for a while after that.

That was the last time I used the Ouija board. I threw it somewhere deep down in one of my closets. Now I've only used Psychic Circle, and even that has consequences. I'm not allowed to use it anymore because of what happened to me, my friend and my mom. But that is another story for another time. -- Manda

THEORY: ANCIENT GODS

I research all things of the paranormal, UFOs and ancient civilizations as a hobby of mine. I recall an article about aliens that have visited Earth before -- the Mayan gods Quetzalcoatl and Tezcaticopa were Drac brothers. This article said that these Drac humanoids, identified by such numerous names as dragons, snakes, serpents, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca, were from the constellation of Draco, which means dragon and which was named after these Drac humanoids. This was along with the constellation of Lacerta, which means lizard, another reptilian race that came to Earth at one time. These were worshiped mostly in Mexico.

Anyway, it is said that Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca could disguise themselves as various humanoids, and because the Dracs exist in another frequency range, they can control the ability to partially appear in and out of our frequency range, and that sometimes only their "shadows" or their wings will appear.

Could this be what people are seeing here with shadow people? Could all our legends of devils, gargoyles, serpent gods, Mothmen and dragons be of these creatures? And maybe the reason we are seeing more shadow people is because they are increasing in number. -- Mystylady

THEORY: MOTHMAN

I was reading your article on the shadow people and noticed that you overlooked an obvious theory: The Mothman. Am I the only one that noticed this? Some of the descriptions and sketches of the shadow people seem very similar to the Mothman. The black shadowy figure, the glowing red eyes, and the feeling of dread. All of these have at some point been used in descriptions of the Mothman and the shadow people.

Maybe these shadow people are the same beings as the Mothman. Okay, the Mothman had a little more "power" -- its hypnotic abilities the electrical disturbances that occurred when he was around. Perhaps it was some kind of "super shadow being." Yeah, I know that sounds corny. Mothman sightings have recently sprouted up again around the world. And these shadow people have just recently begun letting themselves be seen easier. Maybe they are one in the same. -- Brandon W.