Friday, January 15, 2010

Shadow People - General Details

There are some avid followers on the topic of "Shadow People," and there are even some experts who study the phenomena of Shadow People but still, these entities are largely unknown. It's hard to find good information about this topic - and this post, too - will only be a brief bit of point form structure about general details on shadow people.

What shadow people look like:

* about 4-8 feet tall
* seen as solid black forms, not completely transparent - but!
* varied levels of transparency - and!
* varied levels of darkness
* can be male or female
* can be part-bodies - or, not full figure/shape of a body
* might be visible as only a torso
* might be visible with clear upper body and a 'blob' or inconsistent lower body

Most reported accounts of people seeing shadow people mention the shadow person as a male, but females have, in fact, been mentioned to a lesser degree. "Long" and "Tall" are the more common descriptions but there are many reports of very short, 4 foot shadow people. The long, tall shapes are often not totally recognizable as a body shape and often, the shorter ones have the 'blob' characteristic. Also, in reports of the shorter shadow people, some have been described as impish or animal shapes. There are sometimes red eyes that are strikingly visible even if the body shape is sort of nondescript. Hats on the shadow person are often reported where the hat shape is very defined, even if, sometimes, the body isn't. The red-eyed and ones with hats are of a particular interest to paranormal researchers. Often, these are the ones believed to be harmful to people.

Shadow Imps/Creatures:
* around 3ft tall
* usually seen in groups
* usually visible before the appearance of larger shadow people entities
* speculation: they might be the scouts, lookouts, servants or companions for other shadow people
* sometimes have a semi-solid 'blob' shape
* most commonly described are 'imps,' 'cats,' birds,' and 'bats' in their shape
* speculation: they might be a sort of hybrid shadow entity

Transparency:
Think of the shadow you cast on the ground on a sunny day. Your shadow covers whatever is in it's pathway and that's how shadow people are. There can be some transparency, but generally, a shadow person - the shadow will block from view what is behind it. If you see something that you're concerned might be a shadow person but you can totally see through it, still recognizing a body shape, then you're probably dealing with something - just not what is considered a shadow person.  I know, I know, the details here are just as hazy as our knowledge about shadow people themselves, but most followers of this phenomenon say there are many other phenomena and forms which make person-like shapes and parts of shadows. Shadow people are of a different category of phenomena and usually have enough 'form' to block out that which is behind them.

Locations:
* have been reported as singular entities as well as in groups
* usually are seen at night, but some reports have deemed them visible by day as well
* both indoors and outside
* often seen in dark/darkened areas like corners, places where there are shadows, anyway
* seen more often where supernatural or paranormal phenomena is reported than where no activity is reported
* seen often where paranormal studies are being done, where people are conducting research
* seen more often by people who study the paranormal/supernatural and in people who have what some call paranormal/supernatural 'gifts.'

Behaviors:
* very quick body movement - will often hide or 'dash away' if noticed
* may disappear or 'fade away' when noticed
* most seem to be curious and will observe/watch people for a while
* "sprinters": a name for those who seem to sprint away just as you notice them
* "free-standers": a name for those you see in distinct form, head-on (not out of the corner of your eye - they seem to know you're going to see them, the free-standers)
* some seem totally uninterested in people and will not respond, even when provoked
* most do not seem threatening
* most, if they are watching you, do nothing other than observe for a brief while
* often appear to those with significant trauma in their past
* seem to appear more often to people with interest in or who study the paranormal

Their Effects on The Physical Realm:
* sometimes they make audible footstep noises or leave traces of footsteps behind
* animals do seem to take notice of them
* have been reported 'ou of the blue,' as well as, more frequently, during paranormal investigations or ouija sessons
* have been seen reflected in mirrors and television screens (*whew* they're not vampires then j/k)
* just a tidbit - some say they are the 'brothers of death.'
* not common for shadow people to talk, although, an occasional EVP is captured during sightings of shadow people and there have been EVP recordings of audible speech - particularly a case which feeds the point above. The words "We are the brothers of death" were recorded by an investigator who asked, "who/what are you?"

Now, these shadow people have been often enough reported that they've been categorized into types. There's not enough room in this post to include those types, but I'll follow up shortly with information on types like:

* The Hooded Shadow
* Hat Man
* The Old Woman

As already stated, this is very general information, but the topic of Shadow People warrants study and attention - especially for the accounts that exist of Hat Man, "Hoodies" (The Hooded Shadow), and The Old Woman, some of whom are most often reported as harmful, whereas most shadow people are considered relatively harmless.

23 comments:

  1. I saw a shadow person one time. It was spying on me through my bedroom window as I was talking on the phone. It then climbed a tree, killed two of the branches by simply grabbing them, and then disappeared. I know it sounds silly. But, it's what I saw.

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  2. For matters of simple interest, does anyone have any info on a 'lord of shadows'? Shadow people, i have had little experience with merely a glimmer now and then, while i have no inclination the lord of shadows and shadow people are alike, but as i said any info would be appreciated.

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    1. In hindu mythology there is a Goddess of Shadows called CHHAYA , which means this was happening for atleast 1000-2000 years..

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  3. I have seen two of them. The first one was standing behinde me. And it was a short one. And it seem to gett scared when it realised I saw it. Then it ran awey strait into the wall besides me. The other one I saw was tall and had the shape of a grown man. But that one scared me. Cu´s it did not ran when I saw it. It actually seem to want me to notis it. I ran from that one. At first I thought that I was crazy for have seen thees things. But then I told my son about what I had seen and he informed me that this was a shadow person. And that I was not alone. But I still struggle with this. I still think I am bit crazy.

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    1. hi, im amanda malone. a student at westridge middle school, Overland park Kansas. i feel your comment would be great evidence in my story. im going to use it (: thanks.

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  4. Shadow people do exist. I first noticed them when I was three years old but I thought they weren't real because I only saw them when I was tired or in dim light. One day when I was four, I was in my grandmother's house and my mother and I were exiting the kitchen when a tall shadow man ran right through us. Straight through us!! We made a sound together because we were so surprised at the boldness of it and ever since that day I know I am not crazy. They come and go but I see them the most when I have stress. They don't bother me, they make me believe in God and I always try to stay positive.

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  5. hi! i am so glad that other people have seen these shadows as well as me!!..I live in a rural area with loads of orchards and fields. I also have a railway line that runs at the side of my property. The first encounter was 3years ago when a relative of mine came to feed my dogs while i was away!..my nephew!!.. thought he saw someone hideing under the middle section of my house which is being rebuilt. As it was very dark he called out if anybody was there, got no answer so decided to investigate!..He told me as he looked under the house he see what would be an imp like shadow of a person trying to hide. He shouted at itas he thought it was a burgler, he then said it came out and tried to run. When he see it full on he got so scared he started to run away, and he said all of a sudden something hit him in the side of the face which knocked him to the ground but out of sheer fear he just jumped up and kept running..He telephoned me as he was walking home and told me what had happened , and said he is not ever coming to my house when it is dark again..Then i started to get visits from taller ones which have been witnessed by friends and family..My mistook one as a theif trying to steal his truck!.. I see them all the time the one you mentioned that was very tall i have seen last year.I was at my back gate waiting for my sister, as she came out of my house my sensor light came on but as she started to walk towards mein the dark the light reflected a very tall person waling beside her. I thought it was my daughters boyfriend as he is tall person and the fact that as she passed my side gate the shadow turned and walked out. as she came nearer to i asked her if it was him and she just stood scared stiff because she said she was on her own!!!..The latest sighting was a couple of months ago when my hubby was walking up from his shed, he saw 2 shadows lurking in the trees near the railway line. He came running in called our dogs and some help as he swore her saw what he thought 2 men watching our house but they disapeared. And believe me if they where flesh and blood they would not have got far without being caught!..i don't take any notice of them now but that little imp one is a nasty piece of work...

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  6. I always saw them. Usually when I'm alone but the first time I saw them, when I was kid.
    I was busy painting in bedroom while my mom went to supermarket. But suddenly a shadow figure behind me like ran passing through my bedroom's wall and then disappeared.
    It was real enough to make me scream and so when I told my mom about this 'ghostly-figure' as I called it,
    of course she didn't believe me even I really saw it and when I with my mom in the park, I ever saw a shadow figure with red eyes too and it was standing right behind her and this one, not like the first one I always saw since it's not trying to ran away or disappear when I spotted it.
    I tried to not screaming since I felt it's useless told her about this so I just stay quiet and avoid his/her gaze....and really difficult to do this.

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  7. I see them in my dreams and they r there and it's as if they say something but I don't know. They always show more around my birthday and now I'm 14 I can feel them everywhere and it scares me. I see them more now. Why won't they leave me alone? What can I do to get rid of them someone help me plz.

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  8. i saw a shadow person once, 11 years ago when i first moved into my bungalow , it flitted through the rooms before standing in the front room looking at me and my wife then after a few seconds it moved out of the room towards the kitchen then dissapeared never to be seen again.
    the only reason i dont treat it as a figment of my imagination, wife consantly talks about the experience

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  9. I am off work sick, laying in my bed looking at one. shes about five foot tall I guess, though she is laying down on her back, her head propped up as though she is laying in a bed as well. This article says that they are indistinct, but she really isn't. I can make out ever detail, from her face, to the parting in her hair which I THINK is shoulder length, though it fades into the shoulders so its hard to tell. Her chest is rising and falling like breath. She's Caucasian from her face, and I don't mean to be lewd but she appears to be topless, which is how I can tell she is young, maybe 20 at most. And no, she isn't my shadow, Ive tried moving and there is no light source behind me.

    As I was typing this she has vanished, I feel a little guilty. We were laying here looking at each other for a good twenty minutes. I hope she didn't feel betrayed by me mentioning her. I had never heard of shadow people before today.

    One other thing, about ten minutes ago she started moving her right arm towards me, slowly. I panicked a little, and she moved even more slowly. She didn't stop until I had my Mjolnir necklace that I keep next to my bed in my hand, then she stopped. When I calmed down and put it down again her arm moved back. I could probably have handled it better but I got scared. I tried to stick my arm back out towards her, but she seemed to recoil a little. I guess we both scared each other xD

    Either way she is gone now so there is not much more I can tell you. If she comes back, I might post about it afterwards.

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  10. I've had about two encounters with 'Shadow People'. One was when I woke up randomly; it was sitting (or standing, I don't honestly know) in a corner of my room. I think he/she was looking around calmly, but when it realized I was awake, it kept staring at me. When I went to move, it moved and I (not knowing what it was at the time) froze and waited. Even held my breath. When I looked at me clock (eventually) and back at the shadow, it was gone. (The feeling of wanting to sleep was too.)

    The second times was in one of my classes. It seemed to be following people at random, but when it noticed it was being watched, it backed away from my teacher (the last one it followed). I don't know why, but it just stood in the doorway of the class room, watching us all. With this one I could have sworn it had faint features, but since I could have gotten in trouble for not watching what the teacher was teaching, I didn't stare at it for very long.

    I don't know if seeing random people/shadows running around/hiding would count as an encounter, but I've been seeing a lot of that while I'm alone too. Or when people are sitting around me and just, being blank.

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  11. Has anyone ever seen a large or rather hefty shadow person? All my life I have had glimpses and very short encounters of shadow people. Not frequent but I've noticed them a few times. Mind you I'm only 16. I did have one ghost encounter once, not a shadow-there was color to thus spirit. Anyway, I wanted to know if a "fat" shadow man has ever appeared to anyone.

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  12. I used to be a night watch man at a plant that was in the woods. I had to drive around the property three times a night inspecting doors making sure they are locked and going into buildings to make sure there were no signs of intruders. While driving I noticed them peaking out from behind the trees. These were shorter and they had very very dim glowing orange eyes. They were terrifying. I was also followed home and see them all the time. I no longer work there but the damage was done. I see nothing but paranormal things everyday. I just wish I never would have worked there. Take this is a clear warning..DO NOT face the paranormal/unknown.

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  13. i've seen shadow people 6 times now and every time it was Hat Man but i'm really pissed off for him/it he scared my gf and now i gonna shove his/it's hat in his/it's ass.

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  14. i used to see a dark figure from the corner of my eye. happened a lot of times before but now never. i always think it was because i finally told people about it and so it just stopped. i thought i was imagining things (cause you know, teenage years) but every time it happened i would feel this weird feeling, you know. it was like the feeling of being watched and being scared at the same time. i'm either imagining things or ... who knows. i hate not knowing much about this.

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  15. Further more any insight or anything would be fantastic. I am extremely curious, and still get "my feeling" when I talk about what I feel is a him.

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  16. I'm convinced I seen him just 2 nights ago. I was sat on my couch with my Auntie talking. My couch is an L shape & she was sat on the seat that was under my window. As I was looking at her as she was talking, I seen a shadow above her head. It was that exact picture up there ^^^^^^ all black, no face, just the outline. I didn't see any coat/cape outline. Just hat, face, shoulder outline. There was no transparency. The whole shadow was blocking any view past it. I stared at it for a good few seconds as my Auntie carried on talking & then I got up to look closer & as I blinked, it just disappeared. But it was there for at least half a minute.
    The week before that happened, I was home alone & heard footprints coming down the stairs. I got up to tell my Dog off (thought she'd been upstairs) & when I got up, the door to the dog was closed, so it wasn't the dog. I heard the steps right down the full flight of stairs.

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  17. I am Native American and was at one time training to become a shaman/sundancer. I have encountered shadow entities twice. Once while camping on a battlefield for a historical reenactment. I saw a humanoid figure standing by our campsite, I assumed it was my cousin and was talking to him, when he stood silently I looked deeper into the shadow and realize there was no detail revealed at all. When I did this it just disappeared into the darkness. The second time, I was trying to nap on a couch at my then gf's house. There were other people in the room talking and as I lay there I began to feel my consciousness drift away from my body. I was physically laying on the couch, but my senses were moving through the house. I soon found myself looking down the stairs into their basement. Floating before me was a inky black globule about the size of a large beach ball. I could feel a tug like I was being pulled toward it. I suddenly got scared, I felt my fear turn to anger and I guess I focused all that emotion into a weapon. Because as I pushed my energy toward the thing, it dissipated. I had not been taught anything about these shadows, and wasn't really prepared for this experience. I have never encountered a shadow being again.

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  18. I have encountered a shadow/black_smoke-person last night just after I went to sleep,
    He was large, I estimate just over 2 meters.
    It walked past my bed and when he noticed that I noticed him, he came to me and choked my throat.
    After a few seconds he then let go and started to walk away but after a step or two, turned towards me once more, bowed down and loudly whispered something in my ear in words I could not understand. I would not even be able to identify a single letter used in his message. Shortly after, I woke up, I was not panicked or afraid and my heartbeat was that of a person in full rest.

    The experience felt somewhat like a person of authority grabbing me by the collar and striclty ordering me to go back.

    I was not planning to write about this until I started searching for myths about creatures made of black smoke, which was how I experienced him. When I did not find anything aside from Enenra and Djinni which where both not what I experienced, I widened my search and searched for shadow creatures. The similarities of getting choked, albeit by the throat and not the chest, and posture of warning made me share my story.

    I have once in my life had a sleep paralysis and I would recognise that state instantly, it was one of the scariest moments of my life. This was not it. There was no paralysis and there where no malevocent creatures near me whos focus was me. This smoke, or shadow creature seemed surprised to notice me noticing him, and seemed to striclty order me to go back.(even though I was, in my dream, lying in my bed, so in a way it felt like he strictly ordered me to unsee him.)

    A little about myself and my situation:
    I am an atheist, a man of reason and proof. I do not believe in ghosts, souls and not even in aliens that are near enough to be able to visit us. However, occasionally I dive into spirituality, chackras, mystical vibrations, vedas and other myths, crystal powers and so on (but never before into shadow creatures) in the same way that Einstein was open to verify Reichs Orgoneclaims, and this was such a week of spiritual 'research'. I decided to make as a present, a smudgingfeather for my sister who does believe a lot in the occult, and to decorate the handle with symbols of all elements and of purification and to respect beliefs like charging and cleaning stones and so with crystals. As such I also purchased some Shiva lingam stones and decided to put one of those stones on my throat that night in order to find out if I would feel something.

    I was able to find a lot of stories describing such 'encounters', however, I was not able to find a single ancient myth describing these.
    If someone knows of such a mythical creature, please share its name, I would like to learn more about it.

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  19. I was in my step mother in law's house when this happened. It was just yesterday night and I woke up in the middle of the night after a strange dream of me attacking me, a Freddy Krueger like figure with a red, black and white, and non-ripped, striped jumper (in that order), but it wasn't him, that's all I can link him to. Anyway, in the dream, I began biting at the arms of "me" since it was changed to me and then I woke up. I woke up hyperventilating and saw a shadowy figure walking around the bed. My sister woke up and asked me what was wrong and I told her I had sleep paralysis, but I didn't have it. I just told her I did and the whole time I was telling her it was standing there. When I went on my side, it was next to my pillow and it didn't go away until my dad came in to tell me he was going to work at 4 in the morning. I've had many instances of this before, in all of my other houses.

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  20. These r all amazing encounters but does anyone happen to know if these so called shadow people could be a form of “shade” or “umbra”? I have seen one but there r many things ppl compare them to, what if all these beings mentioned in myths and legends r all the same thing or closely related?

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  21. In my old house I used to see this man, like a shadowy figure follow me. I'll give you a little details on it. My old house was old. The kind who's been there for a while. It was in the middle of nowhere, only some other houses surrounding it in the distant but most parts were cloverfields. So, it started this one day. Just randomly. Maybe a week after I moved there. I was woken up, in the middle of the night, I think around 3 am (Yea, paranomal shit hour) and I remember my vision was dizzy, out of focus. So I looked around, my room was dim lit, only illuminated by the lamp above my head. Then something in the corner of my eye catch my attention and I look over at the door frame, where I see this tall figure stand. It was a tall figure with no face or actual feature, the only thing particular I can remember was that he was wearing a hat. Like a floss hat. He stood there for a good minute then walked off. I passed out after that. In the morning, I talked to my brother. (I have two brothers I was currently living with, and my father and mother). So, I talked to my brother and he said he had heard something beneath him as well. (he was living in the attic at the time). I also asked my father if he had been up, because he had work early, and was usually up to 3 am or so. But he said he had gone off early that night because my mother had been nagging him about it. Any physical apperance after that was just a glimpse of him, either in the corner of my eye or behind me. Only for seconds.

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