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Shadow People?

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posted on Nov, 14 2004 @ 02:52 PM
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I'm not sure if this should go under Dreams, Urban Legends, or Here, but this seemed the most appropriate place.

I'm curious if other people have seen Shadow People before, and if so, could you please relate your story. Mine are as such:

They first visited me when I was only a few years old. I don�t remember, exactly, and my parents refuse to recall it ever happening. I was laying in bed, in the middle of the night, when I woke up to find a strange man inside my bedroom. I screamed for my mom and dad, and the man stepped forward, knocking over a small lamp that served as a dim nightlight at the base. Then the whole room went dark. Mom and Dad came sleepily into the room, opening my door, and turned on the room-light. There was no one in the room but us. Only a broken lamp gave any indication of the intruder. The Shadow Person had not exited through the window, unless he also managed to close the blinds behind him and re-lock the burglar bars. I had a habit of sneaking out of my room at night. and as such, my parents put a lock on the outside of my door. And before you ask, he wasn�t hiding anywhere in the room, either, or the closet, or under the bed. As to where he went, I don�t know. My parents said it was just a nightmare I had, and the lamp just fell over in my sleep. In fact, they said, it probably caused the nightmare in the first place. This could be, and for the longest time, I believed it, until it happened again...

The second time was back when I was in college school. Some friends and I were sharing a joint out in the woods near our apartments one weekend night, and it appeared in the trees off in the distance. There we were, having a few laughs, passing it around, when something rustles the branches in the trees. Everyone gets real quiet, because we thought it might be a cop. We�re staring at the trees, and there�s a figure there, just watching us. Everyone starts getting real nervous, and now we�re wondering if it�s actually a person there, or not because it�s not moving, and the shadows do funny things to the eyes sometimes. Then it just sort of melts away and the rustling comes closer. The grass was fairly tall, maybe waist-height, and something was moving towards us through it.
�Is that a dog?� One of my friends, Tara, asked, worried. No one was moving. If it was just a dog, that left us without the worry of it being arrested, only mauled. Someone else, Keane, suggested it might be a wolf. Then it stood up, and I nearly shat myself, because it was the same creature that visited me in my bedroom over a decade previously. I�m not sure which of us ran fastest, because none of us saw much of anything but a blur till we got back to Tara�s apartment.
Everyone was saying things like �Oh my god, what the hell was that?� Elizabeth, another friend, threw up. Everybody was pale as a sheet. Even Keane, mister I-want-to-be-H.R.-Geiger-himself was shaking he was scared so bad. We all were. Just to be sure we wouldn�t influence each other, we wrote down what we saw, and read it aloud. All of us saw the same thing: a figure, with smooth, black, slightly iridescent skin, with no facial features. Some of us saw a little more, but as I'm trying to take a fairly scientific approach to this, I'll avoid the metaphysics.

The third time occurred a couple of years later, when I had a room in a student co-op that was so small, there was barely even room to change my mind. Seriously, though, there was room for a mattress, a chest of drawers, and one chair, but at least one leg of the chair had to rest on the mattress. God, I hated that room. I hated the whole house. There was a flea problem, but because it was a hippy commune, they refused to use anything serious to get rid of the fleas. They would try things like herbs to try and get them out of the den. To a degree, it worked, except my room was right next to the den� Sorry, I�m rambling. Anyway, I awoke one night to find one by the door. I was exhausted, and scared. I tried to scream, but I couldn�t. My eyes were so heavy, and I was so tired. I started to fall back asleep. As I drifted towards unconsciousness my eyes fluttered open and I saw then that it was now on the foot of my bed, leaning over my legs, with one hand on the wall, and the other reaching towards me. Then my throat managed to wake up enough to let out what my friends described later as a primal yell, and I made the lights come on. I don't mean I flipped a switch, or did a "clap-on-clap-off-the-clapper" thing, I mean that suddenly every light in the house turned on, as I was howling. I was still in bed, the nearest electrical outlet was by the door to my glorified closet, but as I live and breath, every light in that house turned on to the brightest setting, and the creature disappeared. I managed to get the rest of my muscles working, and ran out of the room. Gabe, who had also been there that night in the woods, was staying in the same co-op, met me in the den. He was always kinda odd, fit in perfectly with the hippy crowd, but a very good friend. Kind of spacey, actually. I�ve always accepted the metaphysical with a sort of resigned attitude, but he dwells in it. Sometimes I wonder if it�s just so much BS, but he believes whereas I accept. You know what I mean? Anyway, Gabe comes with me to the room, as I�m telling him the story, and I�m pacing back and forth. �You say he had one hand on the wall?� Gabe said, as I took Murgatroyd, my pet python, out of her cage. �Yeah,� I said. �I don�t know if the other hand was reaching towards me or what.� Then he turns around and says �I think he was reaching for you.� And I ask �why do you say that?� and he says, airily, that there�s a bloody handprint on the wall. I take a look, and sure enough, it�s right there, where the creature's hand was. The fingers were too long. I don't recall there being a thumb. At one point I had a photo, but the ravages of the last decade worth of moving constantly lost it along the way.

The fourth incident was probably the most disturbing. I was dating a woman with three kids. I honestly don�t remember their names now, but at the time, I was like their father. Their old man had been very physically abusive to them and their mom, and the lot of them didn�t even realize it wasn�t their fault. Had he not driven off the road one night, he might be beating them to this day. I didn�t piece all this together till much later, but while I was dating her, I noticed they all pretty much took suggestions from me like they were orders.
Her kids were wild and violent, but also very obedient to me. Their mother, Starla, couldn�t manage to keep them under control without screaming, but all I had to do was open my mouth, and it was a completely different transformation. It was, slightly disconcerting as I was raised in a family of independent thinkers. We all respected our father, and obeyed both parents, so it was something I would naturally expect of a child to a parent. But I wasn�t his parent. I wasn�t even married to his mother. I was just the boyfriend she had. I�m sure she wanted it to be more, but as you�ll soon understand, it didn�t work out. One of her kids, though, was really weird. He drew lots of monsters, things like rabbits with bloody fangs and bat wings. He said they lived in the trees outside their apartment. I think his name was Adam.
Anyway, Adam rarely spoke, except to tell me about the monsters. He never told anyone else about them. I guess it�s because when he spoke, I listened, instead of assuring him that they were just in his imagination. I�d ask his questions about them. It�s a totally different story when you have your own monsters to deal with.
Well, the boys had a thing about sneaking in to try and watch Starla and I try to get intimate. It struck me as sick, and wrong, but she just took it with the good-natured disposition of someone resigned to kids being kids. One night when I was staying over, I heard one of the boys begin to scream. I was out the door in a heartbeat, and saw Adam curled into a little ball by the door to the boys� bedroom. He was pitching a fit, and pointing at me. I assumed right away he�d seen his mother and I, so I sat down to try and explain it to him, but he just kept crying.
�It�s okay,� I said. �I wasn�t hurting her. I�d never hurt any of you. When a man and a woman love� when they are grown up� ummm�� I was trying to think of a way to explain the birds and the bees to him when he cries out �I don�t care that you and momma were sexin�, he shouts, �just make the Black Men leave!� It felt like he�d struck me, and I realized he was pointing behind me, not at me. I turned around, expecting an attack from the burglar, and flicked the hall-light on. It was empty. I turned back towards Adam and asked �What black man? Where?� and he shakes his head. �Not a black man,� he said, between sniffles, �The Black Men. They started showing up when you did.
Memories came back, and I thought I was going to throw up. Starla asked if everything was okay, and I told her it was fine, that Adam was just having a nightmare, and I was going to make him some chocolate milk. Instead, I got him his crayons and some paper. �Draw them for me, please,� I asked. Adam was a remarkably talented artist at his age. Given another few years, and some formal training, he could have been a comic-book artist. When he finished drawing the Black Men, I did throw up, right there in the sink. I'd never before said a single word regarding the Shadow People, yet he'd drawn them with perfect accuracy.

So... what do I believe them to be? I don't know. I'm convinced they aren't human, they appear to be capable of physically affecting objects, yet insubstantial whenever total darkness or bright light is used. I'd never had a name for them until Adam, and for some years now, just referred to them as The Black Men, his epithet for them. But then, in sharing my story, another said "Oh, you mean Shadow People". Given some thought, I believe this may be a more accurate monicker for them, as they have the same properties, in appearance and disappearance, as shadow. I don't believe they are particularly good or evil; they fill me with paralytic dread when I experience them, but this could be due to simply experiencing something so alien, so outside our comfort realm of reality, that it stuns me. I do not know if they are ghosts, demons, angels, or extra-dimensional beings, or even rare, naturally occuring creatures in an ecology science has yet to document. I simply don't know, and I don't believe anyone has a satisfactory answer just yet.

What I would like, is not to be given spells to ward them off. I don't want people spinning me tales of how they are psychic vampires, or guardian angels. Nor do I want people telling me they are MiBs in some mind-control plot (unless, of course you have hard tangible, scientific evidence of these). What I am looking for are people with similar experiences who have witnessed this phenomena, or have found some other property of these creatures that I have yet to mention. There are web sites out there regarding Shadow People that are easily enough found through search engines, but this seems to be a fairly well-educated crowd with enough curiosity and skepticism combined to give me reasonable replies.



posted on Nov, 17 2004 @ 12:39 AM
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you know i hate to tell someone else's story, but a friend of mine said that , when his father was in a coma, that there were a bunch of these shadow people around his bed. waiting for him to die. My freind he yelled at them to go away, and after a while they did and his father got better. If i'm to believe my friend, their father saw these shadows alot, he would even yell at them during dinner ,while they watched them eat. I don't know if this will help you or not. I don't believe they are evil of course i don't think their good. being somebody who has experience alot of strange things in life and not someone to reallly accept most of the explanations people give me . i wouldn't know what to tell you , but if you have any ideas as to what they are , i wouldn't mine hearing



posted on Nov, 17 2004 @ 11:26 AM
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Originally posted by bordnlazy
...if you have any ideas as to what they are , i wouldn't mine hearing


Well, like I said, I cannot say with any degree of certainty what they are. All I can do is look at the evidence as I've seen so far, or had from a reliable 2nd-hand source.



  1. Affects Solid Objects - I've personally witnessed them affect solid objects (in one case a lamp, in another, tall grass). This implies a physical, as opposed to an incorporeal body.
  2. Can Block Light - When seen against a dimly lit background, (such as a window, at night) they appear as a silhouette. Others have reported seeing them as only a literal shadow, on the wall, with no apparent source. Either way, this implies that light does not pass through them, nor does it bend around them.
  3. Appears and Disappears Silently and Quickly - Infocomm is to be credited with "The Speed of Dark" in reference to grues. In that, grues can move as fast as darkness can retreat from the light. Whether or not the Shadow People are fast, or otherwise able to simply make themselves unseeable, this sort of behavior is typical of predators in nature.
  4. Generally appear to be attached to a particular place or person - Though I didn't actually know this to be true, overall, of Shadow People sightings, it makes sense from Adam's words to me in my fourth encounter.
  5. Usually solitary, rarely seen in groups - when they are seen in groups, it's generally large groups. One person related seeing a line of hundreds of them. From Adam's recount, it appeared that there were at least eight or so...
  6. Most of the time, act as silent observers - Not much comment on this. In two of my encounters, the shadow person was advancing towards me. In the other two, they were merely observing.
  7. Seem to vanish entirely in average or bright light. - They also, presumably, disappear in total darkness, but then again, that could just be because it's hard to see -anything- in total darkness. Regardless, once the light gets turned on, they're gone.
  8. Unlimited, Geographically - My own encounters happened in Houston, Austin, and Seattle. Other people from around the world are beginning to share their stories. Unlike the leprechauns of Ireland, or other more localized folklore, these appear to happen worldwide.
  9. Generally visible only to people who claim to be "sensative to (paranorma/preternatural/supernatural/etc) phenomena" - Whether or not they can only be seen by the "energy sensitive" among us, or if some people are just paying more attention to the shadows, I'm not sure. It could just be that someone who thinks they can cast a spell is more prone to believe their eyes than someone who thinks nothing "special" exists.
  10. Never armed - I didn't really think about this till now, but I've never seen one armed, and I've never even heard of one being armed. In fact, I've never even heard of one carrying anything. In fact, most people (myself included) have never even seen them wear clothes.


Now, considering these 10 things, one can reasonably conclude a few things.

First, it would appear that the "skin" (or bodysuits) of Shadow People would is some sort of high-speed, very effective camouflage. This would allow for a physical body, would appear as a silhouette against an illuminated background, and would cast a shadow while not appearing to come from anywhere. It would also allow for a quick disappearance, and would explain why they are usually only visible in shadow, and even then, not very well (odd lighting can render good camo ineffective at close range due to the angle of the light and shadows). This would also explain why most people cannot see them, as camo is made to fool the casual observer, but will sometimes fail to conceal under close scrutiny (or lighting conditions).

I re-iterate, this is merely conjecture--an idea that can reasonably and logically tie the evidence together. So, if the cammo idea is assumed valid, then it would seem that the Shadow People we see are probably some sort of reconnaisance or scout unit. This would explain why they seem attracted to particular people or places, why they are usually solitary, and why they generally act as silent observers. It would also explain why they are hidden the majority of the time, and always opt to "disappear" before too much detail can be discerned.

So... I guess...they are a scout that wears extremely effective cammo?

That's the best guess I can infer, based off current knowledge. Hence my desire to know other's details in this matter.



posted on Nov, 17 2004 @ 03:07 PM
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Okay but if they are still there when the light gets turned on then they would cast a shadow. I dont' see the reason for reconnaisance, but its not a bad idea either.

have you thought why the child adam saw them and you didn't, and two other times you saw them you were awoken from your slumber. and i thought about my childhood. i actually remember seeing these things at night. Just their outlines walking around. My family never understood why i was so scared of the dark.

BUt i also remember them touching my face while i slept, or my chest. for years i slept with my head under the pillow. And i remember a dream I kinda of shared with my sister,in my dream i woke up, and looked outside the window that the sky was a cloudy red. then next thing i knwo is that this man is standing at the door of my room. he was maybe a little under six feet with brown hair, and looked european. He is talking to me in what i cant' really say is a launguage, it's all in my head but i can feel the vibrations. Well we walk through the apartment and i remember there no doors whatsoever to any of the rooms. Now this is the part me and my sister shared , he walked in her room just inside the door way. and he said something that about her, i got upset at him and told him he could never be there , then i told him i was tired and i was going back to bed he followed me up to the door of my room, and he talking again. and i replied that i couldn't help him. and for that i was sorry, he asked again then i told him to leave. i laid in bed then i woke up. The next day sister was all yellow with fear dude. She told me how she saw a man standing right inside her door, but he had no features. he was just a three dimensional shadow. he stood there for a minute she pretended to be asleep then closed her eyes and opened them and he was gone?

i dont know why i didn't remember this right off the bat. i guess its just one of those things you try really hard to forget. I used to travel alot and have had alot of strange experiences mostly back east. I live on the west coast now. All these expereinces have kind of made me react differently to my own fear. I no longer hide under my pillow lol, but i tend to look for noises when i hear them and investigate what happen.

[Edited on 17-11-2004 by bordnlazy]



posted on Nov, 18 2004 @ 12:56 PM
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My friend gave me this really wierd hand-carved and painted baseball bat from Mexico. It's just a tad too small to actually play a game with, and too large to be a novelty item. It looks, for all the world, like a ceremonial beating stick. The designs are all very mayan in nature, and look like the side of some kinda cave. He says his dad got it from his grandad, and it was kind of a family heirloom, but his wife hates it, keeps threatening to throw it out, and gave it to me. I now keep it by the bedside, and haven't had a bad experience yet.

It could just be the psychology of the thing, or it could be some old spell on the thing... I try to keep an open and blank mind about stuff like that. Regardless, it has done wonders for my peace of mind while sleeping, and perhaps you should make your own ceremonial beating stick to ward off evil and the occasional burglar?



posted on Nov, 19 2004 @ 12:08 AM
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I don't know i guess i just Tuned it out, Started To accept maybe my mind was playing tricks on me and if it wasn't that you can't reasonably stay sane and keep having experiences like that in life. Cant' say i'm big on praying and it never helped, can't say that any objects ever did either. everything from crystals to crosses to human sacrifices(just kidding), of course i still would like to hear other people talk about similar experiences and how it makes them feel that they had them.



posted on Nov, 19 2004 @ 04:40 AM
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There is another thread on this topic that shares stories fairly similar to those posted in this thread...[url=http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread82962/pg1]click here

Maybe it will provide some insight and help more people discuss this topic



posted on Nov, 19 2004 @ 01:46 PM
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Interesting... it would seem that to see the Shadow people an altered state of reality is often a factor, usually being half-asleep...

This would, on the surface, discount the sightings as being hallucinations, but does not explain the physical manifestations apparent. Someone else recently spoke with me about this in person and said they've actually found footprints from the Shadow Person they say, in the carpet. Faint depressions, but footprints nonetheless.

It's odd... I don't guess we'll have any answers any time soon.



posted on Nov, 19 2004 @ 04:03 PM
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Well not unless we hang around somebody who sees them alot and attempt to catch it! I'm always up for that! But i definetly agree an altered state of mind, might lead to an altered state of perception.



posted on Nov, 20 2004 @ 01:40 AM
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Originally posted by Howard the Dolphin
There is another thread on this topic that shares stories fairly similar to those posted in this thread...[url=http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread82962/pg1]click here

Maybe it will provide some insight and help more people discuss this topic


I just want to say "thank you" for the information. I know alot of people have seen them, and they might now even not realize it. Of course it might be purely a personal interpridation of what our fears, death , love or of what the future might be. but the purpose of this thread was "have you seen shadow people", Definetly worth thinking about and the liink you gave was of great help. So really does anybody else have a story? can anyone relate? how many times have you've been driving and seen some shadow from the corner of your eye? has anybody else witnessed what you saw? Dont leave me hanging folks....everytime time i post something, the thread dies? do you want me to feel guilty of murder, for killing a thread, is that it? your sick you know that !!!!! NO really We would like more infor so Please post, thank you and by the way Alf Rocked!!!
DEny everything, especially IGNORANCE!!!!!




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