PARANORMAL PONDERINGS: The Shadow People

 

Ever swear you’ve seen someone out of the corner of your eye? You believe you’ve seen a dark elusive figure that exists for a nanosecond before vanishing. You dismiss it as a trick of the eye because there’s no one there; it was never there because it never existed. Or did it?

All over the world the phenomenon of the Shadow People has filtered into every culture. Believers say that they exist in flickering shadows and the dark places because that’s where they live; our shadows are their ocean.

They can hide in your very shadow but why they are here no-one knows. They appear to move fast in rapid, jerky movements and ARE generally considered to be aggressively evil in nature. In America it is a widely reported phenomenon and literally gives people nightmares. As to what they are, it is anyone’s guess but theories have ranged from aliens to spirits that feed off negative emotion and can be repelled by positive thinking.

Anyone that comes into contact with them experiences feelings of fear and terror. Even animals are prone to their presence. They never speak and although they possess a human-like form, they are not what we call ghosts which are the spirit of a deceased person. The Shadow People are believed to be a form of demon and have been reported in the earliest history books. The earliest literature related record was in the 1800s. The fact that they are often seen out of the corner of the eye ties in with the supposed behaviour of demons. There is something sly and furtive as they are able to pass through solid objects giving the illusion of the corner of the eye syndrome.

There have been cases where people have reported being physically attacked by these beings. Others have claimed the Shadow People have deliberately appeared to them and they describe the sensation as being in the presence of something that was once human. However there are others who claim they are benign and simply appear like ghosts.

Could this mean that a human soul, when leaving the body, can be taken somehow and possessed by beings that want a way back to our world? There have been reported cases where humans have had out of body experiences and seen terrible things and spoke of dark beings on the edge of the transition as if watching for a helpless soul.

One particular version has been name ‘the Hat Man’ because he has the appearance of a Victorian gentleman complete with cape, tall hat and red eyes. And don’t think for a second that these encounters are limited to the night hours; indeed there are as many daylight sightings as there are dark ones.

Experts claim that the phenomenon is down to the human mind, like sleep paralysis, just as some alien abductions are explained away, but this doesn’t explain the day encounters. Many of these conclusions have been drawn from experiments on epileptic patients but not everyone suffers from this. Indeed, these conclusions do not explain the physical evidence. People touched by them have suffered great pain, glass has been shattered and objects moved which can also be related to poltergeist and ghost activity but talking to the witnesses is compelling.

While the solitary Shadow People are the most commonly reported, a disturbing aspect to the story unfolded when witnesses living near woods and forests reported mass sightings of groups of Shadow People. These are called Sentinels as they seem to gather in a certain area and do nothing other than stand and watch. They move only so far, watching and waiting. Videos have appeared on YouTube and various websites pertaining to show the elusive Shadow People but these have no scientific backing at all. Add to that the amount of hoaxes out there and the real gem will end up swallowed by a mass of hoaxes.

In another curious twist in the story, an EVP session took place by an investigator who actively pursued the subject. When he questioned as to what the Shadow People were, a reply was caught that said: “We are the brothers of death”. What’s interesting is the annotation that they are described as ‘the’ brothers of death. Could there really be some sort of sub species in the spirit world where souls are truly repossessed and used to allow beings to walk our world again?

What they are watching for is unknown; what they want is a mystery but one thing is for sure, the reports keep coming in.

Dismiss them as a figment of the imagination but look twice the next time something catches the corner of your eye.