I had written an article about this but a continuation of another introductory article that went into the Shadow People and all the pros and cons by another author I was working with on an ezine. No one knows what these are. There are numerous theories from demons, spirits, inter-dimensional beings, hallucinations, aliens, and the list goes on. The one significant factor is that more and more people are now seeing them than had in the past. They are appearing right in front of people and disappearing and it is no longer always that shadow caught out of the corner of the eye. Some have reoccuring shapes such as the "hat man" which many have seen including my daughter. Here are some stories from members of my family I included in my article. I don't see shadow people but small about 4 feet tall people not straight on but catch them looking at me out of the corner of my eye. I have seen them for years and had them confirmed by a friend and well the story goes on but that has nothing I don't think to do with shadow people. These are not edited tales but in their own words. So here are their stories.
Story one
A few years ago, I was sitting at my computer in the middle of the night, trying to think of something interesting I could do online; something different from the same old routine. I started racking my brain for anything interesting, unique, or obscure to look up. Then I thought of something from my childhood, when I was about four or five years old. But how to look it up…I didn’t quite know what “it” was. Especially since it was just a dark figure with no real features, just pretty much a tall black shadow that (at 4 or 5 yrs old) too closely resembled a witch!!! That’s when I decided, just for kicks, to see what would come up if I entered a search for “Shadow People”!!!
The first shock was discovering that I was not the only one to encounter shadow people. Apparently they are everywhere, because there was an almost endless supply of websites devoted to encounters with them. The second shock was realizing that my perception as a child, in thinking the shadowy figure was a witch, was all wrong. And while browsing through the different sites, I found one that had drawings/pictures that were submitted by people that have seen these creatures. At first, the pictures ranged anywhere from far-fetched to downright absurd…pretty funny even. At least until I got to the picture that had me staring directly at my shadow person again for the first time in over 24 years…..
As a little girl, I stayed at my Grandparents’ house a lot, even living there off and on at different times. The majority of my childhood memories are connected with that house. It has always been the one stable constant thing in my life…since that is where my Grandparents have lived my whole life and are still there to this day. The most confusing memory I have always had was during a particularly hard part of my life. It started when I was about four or five years old. During this time, I can remember visiting with my Dad a lot and in between visits…at my Grandparents house (I should mention now that they are my Grandparents on my Mother’s side). My Dad and Mom were divorced and my Dad remarried to a particularly cruel woman. Funny thing though, she was only cruel to me for some reason. She never had a problem with my sister…never really figured out why.
But I don’t want to stray from my purpose here, so moving on…My Grandmother has always told me that during my visits to their house, after being at my Dad’s, I would have constant nightmares and would scream in the middle of the night. She would describe them as blood curdling screams. I don’t remember any of this and can’t recall a single nightmare. What I do remember though, was waking up every morning…it scared the hell out of me. I remember it being the same every morning…my sister would already be awake and out of bed. I’ve never been a morning person, so I was usually always last to wake up. I would open my eyes, look up, and standing on the side of my bed down toward my feet…there was this person standing there looking down at me.
I don’t really know if “person” would be an accurate description as there were no discernable features…the figure of a person, but it was all black…like a solid shadow. The only details I could make out were what appeared to be a cape and what looked like a wide brimmed hat. I never kept my eyes open long enough to try to figure it out. It always happened the same way…I opened my eyes, saw the figure, quickly pulled my covers up over my head, counted to three, then jumped from my bed to the door and ran down the hall. What I remember thinking was that it looked like a witch and I figured she was there to get me. This memory has never left me and I can see it in my head today as clear as if it happened yesterday.
Sitting in my room staring at this shadow person, my shadow person, on the computer was scary, exciting, freaky, unbelievable, and a whole list of other emotions that just flooded through me. It didn’t look sort of like it…it was immediate recognition, almost like seeing a long lost friend after years of separation. Only thing was, this was not a witch. In fact, it is more often described as masculine and the wide brimmed hat almost a bolero style. It made sense to me at that moment why I, at four or five years old, would look up and see the wide brim hat and cape and of course…I mistook it for being the brim of the classic witch’s Halloween hat.
The website I found the picture on was the old Art Bell website. The picture is no longer there. In fact, his website was completely redone or moved shortly after that and I could no longer find the picture to show people as an example of my experience. So, I forgot about it for quite some time. Until….I started getting involved in an internet ezine publication that my Mom is involved in. The Graveyard Press impressed me and I thought it was pretty cool that my Mom was such an instrumental part of it. What was even more exciting was that my Mom had taken an interest in an article…or more like me ranting on about something that irritates me (I’m good at that!!) and wanted to put in the publication. So, that started my involvement and I decided to check it out further.
That’s when I saw the article coming out…Shadow People!!! Once again that scary, excited, tingling feeling came over me and I started searching the net again. And once again, I stumbled on a website that had me staring right at my shadow person. This website calls him the hat man and when the picture came on my screen, I jumped so quickly, I think I may have literally come out of my skin…at least that’s what it felt like for that split second. The website I found this on was: http://www.shadows.ufo2u.com/. I told my Mother about my experience and the strange way that the Shadow People keep appearing in my life and her suggestion…write about it. My conclusion: I don’t know what they are, I don’t know why they are here, I do know that at least one of them had an interest in me…but as for the reason why, I may never know.
Story Two
When I was a kid I used to see the shadow people. I would wake up in the middle of the night with an uneasy feeling. There were two types of shadow people that I can remember, the ones that took the form of a human they didn't scare me that much, and the ones that would change shape and make faces like jack-o-lanterns.
There was one night when I was watching the shadow people float around my room as a kid. I remember there was this old silver VCR in my Dad's room that had a green light-up clock. I watched the shadow people float across the clock, and I watched the clock get dark as they floated by. That's how I knew I wasn't imagining things. They used to say things to try and frighten me, not actually out loud but I knew what they were saying inside my head. They would pretend to choke my father and tell me they were going to kill him while he was sleeping. I actually woke him up on one occasion swinging a wiffle bat wildly around in my room trying to knock them off of him. After awhile I started seeing them during the daytime as well, in the morning while my dad was sleeping. My father just told me that I was dreaming, and kind of brushed it off. Eventually as I got older I stopped seeing them as often. Now I still see shadow people from time to time, but usually it's just a glimpse out of the corner of my eye.
On a personal note, what is not told is that they hit their Dad as well while trying to fight off the “shadow people” since they have no substance. You can imagine being woken up from a dead sleep and having your child standing over you hitting you with a wiffle bat.
Story Three
I have heard about shadow people for years. I always figured it was a delusion brought about by lack of sleep or heavy drug use, but one night I learned how wrong I was. I had just gotten off work a few hours earlier, and I was laying in bed talking to my boyfriend on the phone. The lights were out and I was just laying on my back talking and staring up at the ceiling. I started noticing figures moving around my room in the dark. They were darker than my room. I was slightly scared, and slightly amused until I felt something sit on top of me, then I was terrified. I felt the pressure of a weight on my mid-section. I felt the pillow sink in by my head as though someone, or something had put their hands on either side of it. I even heard the pillow case shift on the pillow, the sound of material being rubbed together. Then I really saw the shadow person up close. It was nose to nose with me, if it in fact had a nose. It's facial features were almost like a jack-o-lantern's only where the glow should have been for the eyes and the mouth there was darkness, darker than the shadow person itself, it can only be described as blacker than black. While it was still up in my face, it screamed, but it wasn’t audible, it was a shrill.
