(photos above portray my son in the positions the shadowperson was in)
I decided to re-post an incident I wrote about last October. One of my favorite subjects has been shadowpeople and I have yet to explain a phenomenon that I find is genuinely chilling. Chilling because it is proof of interaction which I have always found elusive and debatable. This very real encounter, however, was proof of interaction and it still chills me to this day, but not as much as it does my son, Alex, who experienced it himself. It literally changed the course of his life a great deal.
My intention when I began avidly ghost hunting and officially ghost hunting back in early 2003 was to learn more through trial and error and also to enjoy the art and beauty of cemeteries and their headstones. I often took Alex along with me to cemeteries. He found it morbidly interesting and mostly just liked to read the headstones. He never gave any thought to what became of their souls or whether their families visited them often. He was mostly appreciative of the park-like setting. He was a very analytical type and hoped to maybe become a computer programmer. Mind you, my son was in gifted programs all his life with genius level IQ and also a typical "German engineer" type in that he was very straightforward, no games, no egos, pure logic. He didn't believe in anything at all of any unknown nature.
He did, however, decide one boring night when he was 17 to talk his best friend into entering St. Francis Cemetery at nighttime to see if he was brave enough to go in. My son was fascinated by how people were superstitious and spooked by such things. He doubted his friend would go through with it. In the end, that night changed his life so entirely that he became an art major soon after and has a fascination for abandoned sites and urban archaeology. My husband and I shake our heads in wonder. We never saw it coming at all. He wasn't the art type before. That fateful night not only changed his life, but made him open his mind to the supernatural world and want answers like I do. It also made him and his friend go their separate ways. They couldn't talk about what happened and both were baffled and scared. His friend has a religious upbringing so I think it probably scared him more. For my son, it made him realize he doesn't know the world at all like he thought he did.
So, to begin the story, I was riding in the car with my son when he was 18. I said, "you wouldn't understand why I look for answers about ghosts. You have to have something happen to you that no logic can explain and then you seek answers." He went kind of pale and quiet. I thought maybe I chastized him too much for asking me why I hunt ghosts. I didn't realize he was probing me for a conversation starter. He said, "Yeah, well, actually I know exactly what you mean. I never told you this, but last year, me and (we'll call him Bud) Bud went to St. Francis around midnight. I never told you because you were adamant with me not to go to closed cemeteries. Something happened that I still can't explain and I never will." He shivered and his voice actually quavered. My son is so logic-minded his emotions are all logical too, so when he did this, my alarm bells went off. He proceeded to tell me of this experience and I felt my hairs standing on end. He was not only an excellent witness but he debunked by the methods he learned from me. His findings were, to me, irrefutable that there is something unknown, something interactive, something out there that deserves further observation.
Here's his story...
They were walking through the grounds of the cemetery in the dark when they stopped about 25' away from a large altar at the outdoor crematory vaults. My son saw something very dark and dense-looking next to the altar (see above picture). His first thought was, a homeless person. His friend next to him said, "do you see that?" and my son nodded. They proceeded to approach the altar until they were perhaps 10-15 feet away. My son held up his digital camera, clicked on the red light that helps him to target what he wants to photograph and figured it might alert the person to leave. The red target sat atop of this dark definitely solid mass. It did not shine through it. It also frightened it and the dark mass unfolded to the same height as the altar (3' tall) and scurried behind it.
My son's heart was pounding and his friend was horrified. My son rushed to the altar, beamed his flashlight on it and realized that the altar was attacked to the solid concrete wall. There was no behind to it.
Feeling a heavy sense of dread and doom, they both rushed away to the side of the altar some 20 feet away and looked back. When they looked back, this 3' tall black thing peered out from behind the altar and looked at them (see photo above). They ran off to the far end of the cemetery. They gave the altar wide berth and took off out the far side of the cemetery where his friend saw it move between headstones. My son shook his head as he explained it. He had absolutely no idea what it was but it was nothing he could explain. It wasn't a creature. It wasn't a person. It was person-shaped but not detailed. It was definitely aware of them, as it startled and hid and then curiously peeked out at them.
What are shadowpeople? Well, they intrigue me because they show a sign of intelligence I've never seen in hauntings. They seem almost like what folks in Celtic cultures might have called elves or Scandanavians would call trolls. They go about their business but, when they realize they've been seen, they rush off. That's a hallmark characteristic, as is the sense of doom and catching it with the corner of your eye first. They can show up anywhere, even in modern houses with no haunting history. The fact that they show a startle response and flee when seen shows that they don't expect anyone to be able to see them. I think that's key in finding out what they are (keep reading to find out why).
The theories on shadowpeople including interdimensional beings that occasional blip in and out of our world through portals, alien life forms, noncorporeal entities that were never human, a form of ghost manifestation that's unusual in its qualities, natural life forms we weren't aware of until we began using high frequency HDTV and computer screens that made our eyes better able to discern things we didn't have a spectrum to see before.
I think the latter is a remarkable explanation and the one I stand by at this point in time. I do believe the fact these things are almost always seen in your peripheral vision first is telling. They often flee when seen straight on or disappear. This may have more to do with what our eyes are capable of, but I must admit in reading witness accounts, it seems that this modern day ability to see shadowpeople often occurs after a day on the computer screen. We could very well be training our eyes to see things in spectrums we haven't before been able to do. It also explains why shadowpeople are most often viewed in modern times and not really spoken of before the advent of TVs and computers. However, there will always be that person whose eyes may not need that training to see them.
The accounts of seeing shadowpeople has risen so much in the past decade that it makes me wonder. I can't think of any reason we'd suddenly be getting shadowpeople unless they've always been there and we're just now able to see them. For that reason, my deduction so far early in my research is that, in fact, our eyes are changing to pick up things we've never seen before and because of that we're startling those beings that might have gone about their business unnoticed for so long that they took it for granted they could go anywhere and do anything. Now, they have to consider where the humans are and move accordingly. It's just a theory, but it at least holds more water than evil spirits which is folks tend to like to call anything they don't understand. It's a long jump from shadowy phenomenon to evil, but you know there's going to be those with a spiritual explanation for phenomenon who are going to jump on that explanation. Why else is it black? Why else is it small and demon-like? Why else does it come with a sense of dread?
I could take a Stephen King-ish stand and say, "it's possible the sense of dread comes from us seeing a projection of our own souls and that terrifies us because for it to materialize, it is at that moment vacant from the vessel of our bodies..." (Boo!)
I had my own incident at this same cemetery that left me quite shaken. I was standing inside that outdoor crematory and my ghost hunting partner went back to the parking lot to get batteries (they always die there instantly). I heard very distinctly and without doubt a man speaking in Latin in quiet respectful tones. I made out the world "domino" and that was the only one I recognized. Although I read Latin okay enough, I suck at understanding spoken languages, but I did definitely recognize this as Latin, as I had many Catholic friends when I was growing up who took me to church with them and I did take Latin in school. He droned on for a few minutes and I realized that I'm standing there with a camera and how embarrassing if someone is having a funeral. I peeked out the archway to look into the cemetery and there was no one there. Not a single soul. It was twilight but there was still tons of light and I looked all around, behind the stones and trees, and found no one. My friend came up a few minutes later and I said, "who's here?" She said, "we're all alone. Not a car in the lot." I'm not usually a strong auditory person, but that was absolutely, definitely, a man speaking in Latin. It also was the cemetery where the priests and nuns are buried...
Well, hope that puts you in the Halloween mood. The scariest stories are always the true ones.