I’m fascinated with shadow people. You’ll find if you do a search in the bar on the right down below a few posts on the subject. As someone who likes to knock around theories, I decided the best way to tackle the shadow people phenomenon is to study the accounts of people who’ve run into them.
What is a shadow person? It seems to be a more newly reported phenomenon. They’re described in many ways from 3-foot tall (most common) completely black opaque, human-shaped figures that one sees out of the corner of his vision and then turns and witnesses usually briefly after that, although some people have stories of more lengthy encounters, such as the one my son and his friend encountered in a graveyard.
Upon occasion, people see human-sized ones, ones with hoods, and strangely tall slender ones with what looks like a top hat. As ludicrous as these descriptions may seem, they’re seen at an amazing rate nowadays. There’s even a site where people can go and share their stories.
Let’s look at some snippets of people’s descriptions involving shadow person encounters:
“My sister would wake up and see a tall thin ‘man-looking-thing’ standing by her bed and when it realized she was awake, it would run away out the back of her house.”
“I was coming back to my house from a shopping trip, loaded up with bags. I opened the front door and glanced down the hallway to see my brother, silhouetted, standing there just inside the kitchen. That is, I assumed it was my brother as there was nobody else in the house. I looked back down to gather up my shopping bags, then realised that the person in the kitchen was taller and thinner than my brother. As I looked up again the figure was still there. The figure seemed to be made of darkness, no discernable features other than the outline. It was mid afternoon and the kitchen was quite bright, yet the figure seemed to just absorb the light. It was about six and a half feet tall and very skinny, almost looking like it was 'stretched' vertically, with it's arms by it's side. Legs were visible, though not clearly defined. There was no odor present and I didn't feel threatened. For two or three seconds I stared at the figure, then it seemed to notice me. As soon as it did it moved off to the left at incredible speed, almost seeming to melt away in that direction.”
“I was inspecting an air compressor, with the headlight beams from my shop truck pointing on me for better visibility. I was leaning into the equipment, about to sign the inspection forms, when I saw a person walk past one of the headlights, which were about six feet away from me. I saw this out of the corner of my eye. Of course I turn to look in surprise; at three in the morning I wouldn't have expected to see too many people around. The person passing the light was a walking shadow that walked past the second headlight before I could scream, run to my truck, and take off. The light did not pass through the figure, and I was close enough to see that there were no discernible features on it. He walked away into the night.”
“Behind my right shoulder was a closet door with a tall mirror. I bent down to pick something up, turned around as I rose, and caught a glimpse of an archetypical tall shadow man with a hat in the mirror. It was solid grayish black, two-dimensional, and moved like a large piece of flexible plastic. The shoulders resembled those of a trench coat. The hat was more "Pilgrim" than "cowboy".
Some common factors are reports that they are first seen in peripheral vision. That when you look at it and it seems to realize you saw it, it leaves very quickly—unnaturally quickly. It is also associated with a sense of doom even before seeing it. It’s also described as very opaque and black and human shaped, no matter what size or clothing it appears to be wearing. When my son used the red light for aiming on his camera to see it, he described the light as sitting on the surface of it as if it were solid and not against the wall behind it as if it were a shadow.
We can make some assumptions:
1. People usually see it first in their peripheral vision.
2. When it realizes it’s been seen it rushes off, so obviously it can see us.
3. It brings with it a feeling of dread often times preceding seeing it.
4. It appears to be human shaped and solid black, not like a true shadow.
5. It can be seen in day or night and is very often reported at bedtime
I’ll begin with #2 and #5. What if this “thing” is viewing us at bedtime because it’s the time we are less likely to notice it? It’s tendency to rush off when seen shows us two things; that it thinks we can’t see it so it can go about its business and it’s rather surprised we can see it at all. It's not trying to communicate, so apparently it's just a silent observer.
Supposing you had an invisibility cloak. What would you do? Go and listen to conversations between friends talking about you? Sneak into government facilities and learn about Roswell? Maybe hang out in a football locker room shower (okay, you guys might pick out something else like a girl’s shower at the gym). But, if this wasn’t your culture and your people, you wouldn’t care about sex and secrets and gossip, you’d be intrigued by the beings. So, perhaps some of us humans are more interesting than others to them. Perhaps they get an affinity for one or the other and stays to see over time what that human is up to. This might explain why some people experience them repeatedly. It doesn’t cover all the situations; however, such as when my son and his friend saw one in a graveyard at night where no one would be visiting.
Now, let’s look at #1. That we see it first in our peripheral vision might be one of biggest clues for several reasons. One reason is that to an observer of humans, we apparently have forward vision and our peripheral is really just a motion detector for us. What the beings might not realize is that their very motion in that peripheral area, that they believe we do not perceive them in, actually makes us turn our head and capture them. There’s a theory that I actually think has some credence about how, because we use TV and computer screens that refresh quickly nowadays, our vision is actually adapting in new ways and we’re able to see things that we didn’t before. I think this is pretty interesting because a great deal of the witnesses were using computers or in the computer-use business. The only mark against this is that we aren’t seeing more than just shadow people. However, this could be explained that perhaps shadow people have a visual frequency that is rapidly refreshing so that they happen to be in a spectrum that we can get see because it’s the only rapidly refreshing image that’s out there, other than our electronics. There are some drawbacks to this explanation, as well, such as I work on computers about 10-12 hours a day and I admit to seeing a shadow person twice, but we should all be seeing them much more often one would think.
Observation #4 is troubling. This entity appears to our eyes to be solid and not true shadow. It is black, devoid of any light or color and opaque. You have to wonder if it has some actual mass to it or if there is a condition in the world where something can be seen because of lack of light—sort of a black-hole effect. It actually is being seen because it is sucking the light and everything around it from view. This is just my own theory on the matter, but I actually would put that high up on the list of theories because it explains several things…how it seems to have mass and yet it’s able to go through solid objects and disappear rapidly. Why would a creature leave a signature that is an absence of light in a humanoid shape? Might it be a human spirit on an astral plane? Could what we’re seeing be our spirits during sleep time running about and dashing in and out of dream scenes in the sleeping person whose soul is wandering? Yeah, that’s a heavy thought, but one of my theories, as well.
Some explanation for shadow people have included interdimensional, noncorporeal beings (have never been in human form), demons, aliens, time travelers and problems with eyes and perception.
I would love to hear your take on shadow people. I think the fact that it seems to think it can’t be seen shows intelligence. That it’s humanoid-shaped means it could be something biological. That looks solid but can go through walls and travel at very high rates of speed makes it seem more like energy than a solid form. That it brings with it feels of doom could be an effect of whatever means it uses to put itself in a transport mode causing an effect on our bodies like EMF can cause us to feel like we're being watched or uncomfortable.
Thanks in advance for your input! This is one of my favorite fringe subjects.