26 Gripping, Bone Chilling Encounters With ‘Shadow People’ That You Won’t Be Able To Forget

via Flickr - Michel Moreau
via Flickr – Michel Moreau

Sometimes they are seen during sleep but often not. They are consistently described as human shaped figures that are darker than even a pitch black room. Some have glowing eyes, others do not. Some are malevolent and some seem almost concerned. Some even believe they are the Jinn of Arabian legend. Below are 26 stories of encounters with unknown entities simply referred to as the Shadow People.

1. It Stood In The Doorway And Screamed

When my daughter was between the ages of 3-8 she spoke of people with no face or figures of shadows. She would often wake me up telling me there is a man or a figure standing in her closet. The most frightening of stories, she woke me up to ask me if I heard the screams. She said there was a shadow who stood at her doorway and screamed at her and then flew into my room and screamed at my wife and I. At this point she was in uncontrollable sobs, unable to understand why I did not wake up. She is now now 11 and the encounters have stopped. She refuses to speak of whatever was going on with her and makes light of my questions.

2. Even Remembering Them Is Terrifying

Typing this is stirring up emotions but fuck it.. I grew up in an old brownstone house in Brooklyn NY. It was a 2 story with a large squeaky staircase and a creepy basement. The house had a lot of spiritual activity, one day in particular is burned into my memory and still gets to me to this day. It was in the middle if the afternoon, sun was shining, I was running around the house misbehaving with my little brother. I was 8 he was 5. We were playing spies and I was making my way up the stairs. As I’m walking up the stairs I can see the entrance to my bedroom. As I was looking into my room a tall shadow being stepped into the doorway, looked straight at me then went back into my bedroom. It was a dark shadow in the shape of a human, standing upright and walking. It had a wavy quality like I was looking at a heat wave. I was so terrified, I tried to scream but my voice didn’t even come out. I ran downstairs as fast as I could to the living room where the rest of my family was. I was crying hysterically explaining to my mother exactly what I saw. She had me say some prayers and tried to assure me it was gone. I did not want to go back into my own room. I had difficulties falling asleep, I had nightmares about it. The entire experience lasted a few seconds but I replayed it in my head hundreds of times. When I got older and the internet became a thing I looked up shadow beings. It felt good learning about other peoples experiences and I finally felt like I was not alone. I never talk about this incident, but I will never forget.

3. “In The Beginning, Three Were Created”

These are quotes from a documentary, which I highly recommend if you’re interested in Shadowpeople;

“In the beginning, three were created. Man, made of clay. Angels, made of light. And a third, made of fire.”

“In arabic, a genie, also known as a djinn, is a supernatural creature which occupies a parallel world to that of mankind. The Coran mentions that the djinn are made of smokeless flame, and that they form communities just like humans. Just like humans, they can be good, or evil.”

“Most people in the west have never heard of the djinn, and that’s understandable. They really didn’t enter our paranormal lexicon. But they are major players in the field of our paranormal experiences and our ET abduction experiences.”

“The djinn go back to ancient times : Babylonia, ancient Arabia (…) They are a supernatural race, very powerful, who existed on this planet before we did. They preceded humans. They were around when the angels were around. And according to their creation story, the angels were made of pure spiritual light, the djinn were smokeless fire, and then God decided to make human beings out of earth and water. When he did so, according to their middle-eastern story, he asked the angels to bow down in acknowledgement. And the angels did so, because they follow the will of God. The djinn refused, claiming that humans beings were inferior to them, and they were not about to bow before anything lower than themselves. This made God angry, and he cursed the djinn, and cast them out of this world. He then gave them a bit of a reprieve until judgement day to make their case against human beings that we are unworthy.”

“So the djinn have until judgement day to prove their case. And they are attempting to do so by tormenting us, creating chaos and upset, becoming involved in a lot of paranormal encounters.”

“One of the things they do is to shapeshift into a variety of guises, to keep us confused about what they are doing.”

“There’s a faction of the djinn that have the agenda to reclaim the Earth. We find the same agenda in the abducting ETs.”

4. It Appeared Nightly

I rarely am one to make a big deal of things let alone tell anyone weird unbelievable stuff, but these are some experiences that I recently had in a house we lived in for a little under a year.

We moved into this house in October of 2001. The first two or three months all was fine. Then on or around the first of the year (2002) my 4 year old (then 3) would wake up in the middle of the night absolutely terrified saying the was a “monster” in her room. Now of course I brushed this off as childhood nightmare but then in late February I started waking up in the middle of the night with a feeling of some one staring at me (Note my daughter stopped getting up). Upon looking in the general vicinity of where this feeling was coming from I would briefly see a shadowy black and gray apparition that would be gone as soon as my eyes focused. This would give me the chills then I would go to sleep. This occurred 2-3 times a week for months. The same nightly scenario, I’d wake up focus and gone, or I’d wake up see “it” and turn the TV and “it” was gone. Only once did my Fiancé actually see the apparition too, I think it was in June. She woke me up in the middle of the night and said she saw a faceless child standing next to her about three feet from her side of the bed. As soon as she looked at the face, it was gone. I then got up telling her it must have been my daughter. I went into her room and she is fast asleep. Other than this she never saw anything again.

The most frightful experience with “it” was in late August when I woke out of a dead sleep again and did the routine, except this time “it” didn’t disappear. It stayed floating in the corner of the room. It was a swirling black cloud with some gray in it. Probably 4-5 feet long and 1½-2 feet wide. I will honestly say I have not felt that kind of fear ever in my life. It felt like there was pure evil in the room. I couldn’t move but I was able to nudge my Fiancé and say, “Look there it is, that thing I keep seeing!” With that she rolled over and only after she turned over did it disappear. We moved out in Late September and I have not been woken up since.

I did ask a few people of the history of this house but to no one’s recollection did anyone ever meet their fate on that ground. Like I said, normally, I wouldn’t take the time to write this however I feel as though I needed to get it off my chest.

(P.S. – The corner this always appeared in was a corner where I had a crucifix hanging on the wall. We left that behind as well to ensure we wouldn’t be followed).

5. Sometimes I Hear Whispers In My Ear

My name is Gabriela and I live in Munich, Germany. Since I moved to a small village I’ve experience this phenomenon. I just found out about it (what it is called) or that it even has a name and it is common only recently! I used to think I was crazy, as some days I just couldn’t sleep. Like if something was “bugging” me. Like an annoying mosquito, but different. I will feel a cold wind, (my windows are closed) it’s very cold at night here. And also feel some kind of pressure or “paralyzed” sensation. I will just shake and wake up. And I will see directly across the room. That figure. It did sometimes stink, sometimes not.

There might be months even seven or eight in which nothing happens. And then it comes back again. Doesn’t seem to follow a pattern. Can happen during the day even! That is more rare. I also feel or “hear” like whispers in my ear.

6. “Who Are You Talking To?”

I saw what I would best describe as a shadow person when I was around 8 years old. Me and a friend always had these Star Wars battles with action figures in his basement. We would spilt and set up our “bases,” basically just hiding figures all over the place. One day, while I was in the main room hiding one of my figures in preparation for battle, I looked over to where the room turned a corner and noticed what appeared to be a hazy, dark silhouette of a man standing just around the corner looking at me. There were no features, just a human shape. Not sure what I was looking at, I assumed it was my friend messing with me. So I asked him what he was doing. From behind me I hear “Who are you taking to?” I jumped around startled to see my friend behind me in the back room sitting on the floor. I quickly looked back to where the figure was, but nothing was there. Freaked out, I run into the room with my friend and hide. It was probably the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced and even writing this is making the hair stand up on my neck and my eyes tear up remembering what that thing looked like. I’m still friends with that kid to this day and have stayed in that house countless times since with no other incidents. However, I recently told his much older brother (basement was his room long before this incident) about it. He then told me about his late night experiences with doors opening on their own, scratching on the walls and strange shadows passing by.

7. A Dashing Shadow

When I was younger I lived in a ranch style home with my mom and grandma. My mom and I had chose to have our rooms in the basement, her’s in the back corner bedroom of the basement and mine in a sectioned off area of the main living room/recreational area. Her bedroom was connected both to her bathroom and the main living area, the bathroom door being in her room and the door leading to the living area being catty corner with a door that lead to her bathroom from the main living area.

One night in particular I remember playing with my legos (I was probably 9 or 10) when I happened to look up at my mom’s bedroom door. As I looked through that door it became more and more apparent that there was something there. It had no facial features and was nothing more than the silhouette of a small person with really…swooshy hair. After about a minute of looking at this shadow, it dashed into the bathroom via the door directly connecting the bathroom and bedroom.

In disbelief I continued playing with my legos, when I felt something staring at me. As i looked up I couldn’t believe my eyes, the same shadow was now standing directly in the bathroom doorway. Now I know it had now face, much less eyes, but it was staring, watching, perhaps even waiting. It almost immediately sprinted into my mom’s room, at which point I sprinted up the stairs tears of fear running down my face.

After that incident I could never be alone in that basement at night, and my bedroom was moved to one of the spare rooms upstairs. I wish I could say that was the last of my experiences, but alas it is not. This same shadow person followed me to several different houses, including the one I’m in now.

8. It Called To Me…And I Answered

I am usually not one to talk about my situation as it happened about 14 years ago and anyone that i have gone out of my way to share this with, immediately put a lot of discredit upon the topic. My spouse and close friends have always been the most intrigued.

I only had one occurrence that I recall the most, any others did not have as much substance behind it as this one did.

When i was 14, I was sharing the basement recreation area with my step brother at the time. My parents had spent time building me a room in the basement at my request but low and behold, I slept most of the time out on the “playroom” or whatever you wanted to call it. I didn’t start sleeping in my room till I was probably 16, however this instance further confirmed why I didn’t.

It was between 2-4 am, I don’t recall the exact time but i had originally fallen asleep on the floor next to the futon my step brother was sleeping on. He faced the wall and was heavily snoring to boot. I had woken up and couldn’t fall directly back to sleep so i tossed and turned while the ambiance of the TV kept spreading around the basement.

Out of nowhere, I became completely stiff and unable to move my entire body but my neck and head. At this point, feet point to the wall and the TV behind me, i started to look around because i had become immediately filled with anxiety and fear. I was thinking of this being sleep paralysis at the time…. until the next step took place. I laid there in silence, heavy snoring from my left, it felt as if someone/something was sitting on my body restraining me by the shoulders ( which due to claustrophobia issues, freaked me out) i heard a very faint voice at first in the distance.

“Josh…. are you there ? I know you are there ”

Eyes peeled wide open, trying to diagnose me being crazy at this point, it then spoke again.

“Josh… can you hear me ? I know you can hear me… come to your bedroom.”

I continued to try and ignore as I felt I was about to puke as I was becoming really scared. In a much louder, gruffer voice it spoke to me again

“JOSH…. I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME.. COME TO YOUR BEDROOM.”

As if the biggest weight was off my body, I was immediately able to move and i sat up in a split second and rose to my feet. This voice continued to call my name and demand my presence in my room. Like any unoriginal horror movie, i was pleading with my brain to not do it but stupid me decided to make way to the bedroom. The door always remained shut and as i put my hand on the doorknob, i hear one more time.

“Josh, are you coming ? Open the door!”

As i opened the door, i had a small basement window (at the time big enough to sneak out of the house ) parallel to the doorway. As i slowly creaked open the door in a cold sweat, there was what appeared to be a dim lit yellow eye shapes in the window in the shape of some sort of dark figure staring deep into my soul.

Wide eyed and terrified, i looked up and was locked on for about 30 seconds, they got brighter and became dim and that repeated, i slammed the door immediately and bolted to the other end of the basement for the light and proceeded to rock back and forth because there was no explanation. My step brother woke up in a panic as i was petrified. We went back in the room together and turned the light on and nothing was there… nothing was outside as we went and checked further.

He stayed up with me for a bit until i fell back asleep and nothing like that occurred again. I cannot advise whom, why where and what but ti has left the biggest impact on me to this day. I know the difference between dreaming and being in an altered state of mind, but this was the most real i have ever felt behind a paranormal episode. That voice makes my body tingle and hair on my arms raise every time I think about it. I feel good knowing that i am not completely alone in this type of thing and all i can do is hold on to the memory as nothing has been explained or uncovered otherwise.

9. Coexistence

My experiences have all been pretty good I guess. I’ve lived with shadow people all my life, and see them every so often.

First time I was 10. I woke up in the middle of the night and looked at my door and there was a shadow person standing there in the hallway (I used to sleep with the door open), and I could clearly see the outline of it. It was static though, the outline was clear but shifted, like there was interference in what I was seeing. I could tell I was being watched and looked at, but there were no facial features, just a black mass in the shape of a person. The figure darted to the left of the doorframe and entered the living room, I could hear its footsteps oddly enough. It came back, then stopped in my doorway again before going down the hall towards my parents room. I got up to look and of course nothing. I sleep with my door closed now. I never saw it again in that house, I heard it though walking through the house many times. It wasn’t until I moved into my current place that I saw them again, this time much more frequently. I see them every few weeks or so. They don’t bother me, I don’t bother them. We coexist.

10. They Seem To Know You

The thing about them is that they don’t move the way people say ghosts move, sort of unaware of their surroundings. They move around like people for the most part as if they’re really interacting with the world. The three times I’ve seen what I can only call a shadow person, I’ve been keenly aware they knew I saw them. That’s the creepiest part, that they seem to know who you are and where they are, that they’re intelligent.

11. He Turned And Fled Into The Wall

My only experience with anything like this was after a particularly vivid dream in which someone was whispering what I can only describe as “secrets” into my ear. When I awoke I looked directly across my bedroom and I saw a shadow darker than darkness and it turned and looked at me. When I called out it then turned and ran straight into the wall and I’m sure I saw a kind of splash of darkness, like dissipating smoke, as it disappeared.

I absolutely believe that whatever it was had been whispering into my ear before I woke up and that I had awakened before he thought I would. I also just feel I know it was a he.

12. Intimidating

For years, one shadow person (seemed male in retrospect) used to stand by my (mom’s) bed and essentially would force me to go to sleep. He would interrupt me reading books by basically being so distracting and then eventually intimidating. I had to leave the light on or pull the covers over my head to fall asleep. His shape was kind of an adult-size oval with diffuse edges, and he wouldn’t really move. He only ever really occupied two spots next to the bed.

13. They Can Disguise Themselves

I’ve encountered a few in my life. They are demons or Jinn. They are not good. I’m a sensitive empath and I feel death. I have never been approached by a good shadow person. They put on a facade to get you to let your guard down if you have one. The most frightening experience I have had was about three months ago. I was visiting my home town and staying at my mother’s house. I was in the back bedroom lying in bed and turned the TV off for the night. The door was closed and the room was pitch black. I felt and heard someone in my room.

I honestly thought it was my brother looking for something he might have left in my room and he didn’t want to wake me but I turned and looked towards the door and saw a talk black figure. It was so dark I could see it in the pitch black. I asked who it was with no answer. I Asked What It Wanted and It moved closer. I felt such fear and a weight. I’ve become desensitized to spirits so that was odd. It wanted me to be afraid. I yelled as loud as I could “go away. Leave me alone!!!!”

It stayed I got up and picked up my phone and turned on the flash light. When the light filled the room the black figure was gone and my door was cracked open. I grabbed my rosary that was blessed and an eagle feather and prayed till I fell asleep. I never pray. I still don’t know what it wanted but now it is masking itself as a little boy about 7 maybe 8 with black hair and sad eyes. I’ve told him to leave but he still peaks around corners at me. Don’t encourage them. Tell them to go away.

14. Confronting A Shadow Person

I woke up one night around 3 A.M. As I made my way to the kitchen to get some water, I noticed that a shadow person was sitting in my recliner in the family room. I would say that I was shocked, but the truth is that I have seen shadow people my entire life, so one more encounter was passe at this point.

Just to make sure that my eyes were not playing tricks on me, I stood there, motionless, for roughly 2 minutes to give my eyes time to adjust to the light. As my eyes adjusted, it was clear that there was indeed a shadow person sitting in my recliner, staring at me.

I am not sure why, but I decided to start walking towards it. With each step, it continued to stare at me, and as I drew closer, it actually leaned forward as if ready to flew. As it leaned forward, I stopped and just stood there. It stared back at me, and gradually leaned back into the recliner. I then started again, walking towards it, which caused it to lean forward once again and eventually evaporate away as I was within 3 steps from it.

I stood there, shrugged my shoulders. and shook my head in disappointment. I expected something to happen, but it didn’t.

14. Shadow People Are Negative Energy Taking On Physical Form

As a psychic medium and someone who had a lot of experience with them…..they’re pretty much bits of negative energy that take on a life of their own. Just little entities that will grow bigger and bigger the more you pay attention to them and feed them energy by being depressed/angry/annoyed. They can get huge too….I am not sure of their origin but they certainly seem to watch you. There was one that would stand at the top of my staircase when I was younger, and when I came home from school it would dart away. Seriously no explanation for it….no other light interfering with the shadows, it was also free-standing. They aren’t very harmful unless you interact with them. People usually brush them off as illusions and that works quite well if you don’t want them around.

15. They Are Not Necessarily Evil

I generally see three different things.

The first are full apparitions, the typical semitransparent people. RARELY they are opaque like any other living person but that’s very VERY rare for me. These happen the least but they’re the most talked about I think.

The second is partial apparitions, these are kind of weird because I know there’s the rest of the person attached to it, but I can only see something like JUST A HEAD bobbing along or just a hand going back and fourth, it moves like its attached to an invisible arm and shoulder but you can only see the hand. Or leg. It’s fucking weird. These happen a bit more than full apparitions.

And lastly are the shadow people. They pretty much always take a full shape, it’s like if you took a mold of a person, filled it with black smoke, and then removed the mold and the smoke held the form mostly. I can’t make out features, but well, it’s not always people but animals too.

I’ve heard people say shadow people are different than ghosts but my own experience does NOT reflect that. I’ve seen the same people and animals take on all three different forms. My dead grandmother doesn’t usually take on the smoke/shadow form because she knows it disturbs me because I can’t tell who it is when they look like that so she makes the extra effort to be a full bodied apparition. It’s been years since I’ve seen her though.

But what I think it is is the different forms either take more energy or are are more difficult. The shadow seems the easiest form to take on. But the other strange thing is that some of the time they seem really really surprised when I see and react to them, like they weren’t trying to be visible.

Sorry, I have real world experience with this but that doesn’t mean I have the answers- the more experience I get the more questions I have. The one thing I can say is they’re very kind to me, they aren’t evil. They have a range of personalities just like people, and I have a lot of good ones that keep the bad ones away.

16. I Remember We Weren’t Scared

My true story. My wife and I will swear to it in front of any person on this planet.

We lived in a fairly new doublewide mobile home that sets on a spot that has never had house of any kind and is at least half a mile from where any house has ever sat, so you would not think that it would be a likely location for a haunting. However my wife and I have on occasion seen some rather strange things there, the most startling of which I relate here.

One night after a uneventful day my wife and I retired for the night, we sleep in a large waterbed. Some time had passed and I was unable to sleep, my wife’s breathing had become regular and reached a point at which I assumed that she was asleep. It must be also known that we leave a light on in the bathroom farthest from our bedroom because we normally have children in the house, however that night there was no one in the house except my wife and I, but the light was on as usual casting a glow through our open bedroom door which weakly lit it . While lying there unable to sleep, I became aware of a presence and suddenly and silently a figure moved through our bedroom door and proceeded parallel to our bed. Then rounding the corner of our bed took up a fixed position ad the foot of our bed. I was aware that this entity was conscious of us and was intently watching us as we lay there. The entity can best be described as a something that had the appearance of black smoke or a shadow, however it was more material that either of these but less material than a real person. The most odd thing about this is my lack of fear. Although I was acutely aware of this being and the fact it was not of this earth as we perceive it, it did not seem to arouse any fear response in me, I would say it aroused a feeling that would fit somewhere between “creepy, awed, and curiosity especially considering the fact that it was aware of me as I was aware of it. After some time I almost convinced myself that I was imaging it but then I became aware of the fact that my wife was no longer breathing like she was asleep but was breathing almost silently. I then said “Honey you awake? ” to which she answered “Yes.” Then I said “do you see anything?” Expecting her reply to be “what do you mean?” but much to my surprise she said “You mean that thing standing at the foot of the bed?” At this time I did become somewhat “nervous”. We laid there for about 10 minuets and then it was gone. It just over a period of about 10 seconds became less solid and our perception of it’s presence became weaker until it just wasn’t there any more. Then it was if it had never been there. Nothing like this has happened since and the only evidence it ever existed is my wife’s and my memories of it.

17. They Aren’t Hypnopompic Hallucinations

Something that’s interested me in relation to Shadow People visuals is the consistency of them. So, so many revolving around the same basic themes and a quite small set of apparitions – you see the same things come up over and over again. Hat man, shadow beings, old hags, robed figures, etc. Also, the noise and often a reference to a corner of a room being a point of emanation.

I’ve never personally experienced Shadow People, but I have had vivid hypnopompic hallucinations and as far as I can tell, the two aren’t connected. My hypnopompic hallucinations have always been wildly varied – some scary, some not – but never the same thing twice. Whereas with Shadow People these recurring themes seem very common. It’s interesting.

18. It Behaved Like It Had Been Caught

I was walking through my neighborhood to the store in the afternoon. I lived there my whole life and nothing unusual ever happened. The houses I was passing at one point or another over the years had a dog that would be sitting outside so when I walked passed them on this day I heard leaves crunching and assumed it was the dog so when I looked over there was a 3-d mass of a human shaped shadow crouching by the mail box like he was running away when I saw it. It didn’t scare me I just remember thinking hey I just saw a ghost. It did make me a little paranoid wondering if it was still behind me as I kept walking to the store. I didn’t see it again though. I think I scared it actually, like it got caught and I wasn’t supposed to see it and that’s why it was running away. It disappeared as it ran.

19. Seeing Them Is Unforgettable

On Thursday 20th Aug 2015, I woke up to see a shadowy figure standing by my bed. It looked about the same size and shape as a person but had no sharp edges to it’s form. Others have described sightings as looking like being made of dark smoke, and that’s exactly what this looked like. I looked straight at it, and it immediately moved away quickly and was gone. The whole thing lasted for just a few seconds, but I know what I saw. I also felt strongly that it knew I was there and reacted when I looked straight at it.

20. Cold To The Touch

I had been on my computer late one night. Around 11:50 – 12:10, chatting and just browsing the net when I heard a creak from the top of the stairs behind me. I figured it was my mom getting ready to tell me to get to bed as she tended to do when I was up late online. Anyways so I just shout back before she can say anything “Yeah I’ll be up in a bit”.

Well I turned off the computer, got up and went to the stairs. My stairs didn’t go straight upstairs but instead have a landing and then turn and then go upstairs. So when I got up to the landing and looked upstairs (it was semi-dark) I could see this shape, a figure of someone standing up at the top of the stairs and then it walked off without a sound out of my sight towards where the bathroom and my parent’s bedroom was. At the time I just shrugged it off as my mom waiting to see if I really was going to get off the computer. So I got upstairs and walked past my parents’ bedroom on the way to the bathroom. I found it somewhat odd that my mom was already looking rather comfortable and looked like she was sleeping already, but I shrugged it off and kept walking.

I opened up the door to the bathroom (It was partially open) and there standing not two feet away from me was this black figure. Blacker than black, and just a presence that chilled me to the bone. I put my hand out to see what was there, to my surprise my hand passed through it. My hand went bitter cold and every hair on the back of my neck rose. At this point I was ready to freak, I quickly rose my left arm to hit the lights and as my arm was on it’s way up the figure leaped at me, and I heard this voice say “come here”. When the lights came on, even though it was in mid leap (and right in my face) it vanished. Gone, without a trace.

The next night I walked into the bathroom expecting to see it again, but I was then pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t there. Just the pitch black bathroom with a slight light coming in from the window. So I turned on the light, and when I turned on the lights, I realized that where the light was coming from, was not where the window was. I cannot explain where that light was coming from.

Lastly, on the third night I just woke up in the middle of the night. I was laying on my side, and I figured I would get up and use the bathroom. So I open my eyes, and crouched there, next to the bed was this black shape once again, crouched, just staring at me. Out of instinct my fist flew out but I hit it (once again, my hand went through it, turned ice cold… like I felt my hand afterwards and it was freezing), and it actually ran out into the hallway with this sort of whispering kind of laugh (really eerie, I don’t know how to explain it). So I chased it out into the hallway but it was gone.

The entire time I had kept all of these stories to myself. I thought it might have just been my imagination or some crap. Well, that next day I overheard my mom asking my dad if he had seen anything weird, and then she told a story about how there was this pitch black, shadowy figure staring at her through their bedroom window, and how she had to turn the water off in the bathroom for the past two mornings.

The feeling of terror and realization I felt then… I will never forget that. I had never told them anything prior to that, and apparently they had both had strange experiences within the same three day period. My dad had something crawl onto him while he was in bed. Thing is… we never told each other until that last day.

21. They Are Different From Ghosts

I’ve seen one leaning over my mother while she was sleeping. It seemed like it was very interested in her, observing her. When it saw me in the doorway it reacted extremely fast. It sprinted towards me and passed through me at great speed. Probably worth mentioning is that it divided itself into three beings when it moved. Woosh woosh woosh, all three passed through me.

But strangely enough, that shadow figure didn’t seem very hostile to me. I think there are more than one type of shadow people. When I was a kid I dealt with a demonic one, which, I kid you not, haunted my bedroom for a while. Every sign of a haunting was there : cold air, sense of fright, religious objects falling down, scratches on the ceiling, and even a face appeared. I’ve only seen that one once before it started the ‘haunting’, and I remember it left a very bad stench behind. And it looked different. I only saw a small portion of it, but it was more material, it had more substance, like thick smoke, while the other one was more translucent, ghost-like.

22. Childhood Friends

When I was a young child, I had 3 imaginary friends. They were shadows on the wall, distinct heads and shoulders for each, but blended into one being past that. I remember many times I’d be laying in my mom’s bed and jabbering away at them about lord only knows what while my mom did dishes or made dinner in the kitchen.

I’d see them out of the corner of my eye quite a few times over the years, after I stopped seeing the “imaginary friends” which occurred when I started first grade.

The last time I know I saw a shadow person for real, and not even out of the corner of my eye but full on right in front of my face was a few years ago. My bf and I were staying at his parents house. It was night time, and they were gone, bf was upstairs and I was on the patio smoking a cigarette. They have a hot tub and the steps for it were right in front of the glass doors leading into the kitchen.

I was sitting on those stairs, and the kitchen light was on, it was a very bright light. And I saw an incredibly tall figure walk from my left to the right, into the kitchen. And it was definitely what you would think a shadow person would look like. Very black. Yet when it went more into the kitchen and where it should have thrown a shadow across the door from being in front of the kitchen light, there was none. And where it walked from, was just a wall, shared by the garage and kitchen.

There were no vehicles in the neighborhood passing by at the time either, nothing at all to play any tricks of light.

It left me quite a bit unsettled that night.

23. We All Saw Him

I’ve seen shadow people multiple times. The first time I saw one, multiple people that were with me saw it too. It was a tall lanky looking man. I was in my house on the second floor. He was near the stairs standing next to the edge wall, and looking down. My friends and I were walking towards the stairs when we all saw him. He turned and looked at us then looked back in front and jumped off the floor. We ran to see where he landed but he was gone.

24. There Were Dozens Of Them

When I was younger I had some teeth pulled, and spent the next couple days stuck in bed.

I fell asleep in the middle of the day, and I remember slowly waking up to indistinct whispering. Like some people were talking to each other in the next room, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

When I opened my eyes, there were dozens of these tall, thin shadowy figures in the room. Definitely humanoid, but I couldn’t see any detail. They were just dark, like your eye couldn’t quite focus on them if you looked right at them.

They moved around the room a bit, generally paying me no mind. I was confused and curious, but not scared. Like, I knew they they couldn’t really do anything to me, or didn’t want to.

25. Even The Dog Could See It

I saw a shadow person twice…within a few months of each other. The first one, I was having a terrible day, I was scared because of some mundane things going on that were out of my control and I had been crying. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a humanoid black figure walk by on all fours, its arms were longer than a normal human, when I whipped my head around to look at it it was my roommate’s wolf dog.. no idea what to make of that one.

The second one, I had moved into a new place but was still majorly freaked out by various things that had happened in the other place. Laying in bed one night trying to fall asleep, something made me raise my head up and look towards the end of the bed. There was a full black shadow standing at the foot of my bed, oddly enough, even though I was very freaked out by the spirit world at that point my reaction was just ok whatever I’m going to sleep. Thinking about it the next day I found that very strange. edit: My dog also saw the second one, She sleeps in a basket a couple feet past the foot of my bed, the shadow person was between the bed and her, when I lifted my head up she was looking at it but not growling or scared in any way that I could see.

26. “I Never Had A Name For Them Until Now”

So I never knew it was really a thing until recently. That their was a name for them. I’ve never and hope that I never have an experience with the “hat man” but shadow people I have had one encounter with. I was probably about 14 or 15 babysitting for one of my parents friends me and the kids were curled up on the couch watching tv. It’s hard to explain because of how their living room was set up. The couch we were on was directly in front of the hallway and the back bedroom was their room and in front of us was the big glass tv stand and it reflected the couch, hallway, and doorway of their room.

Their bedroom light was on, so I could see the beginning of their room (which I assume that’s why the furniture was positioned the way it was so the parents could easily see in their room) I remember feeling really weird that night (as I often did in their house) scared and I remember the youngest asking me what’s that in my room.

I looked at the part of the glass that reflected into their room and it was a shadowed figure. What was striking was it was it wasn’t like a smudge or misshapen it was almost like a perfect outline of someone. I looked back at him and then back at the glass and it was gone, now like almost fear stricken I look behind me and their was nothing. I remember this because the child actually saw it too and then told his mother about it when she got home later that night. Not only that but I had never experienced anything like it in my life but just chalked it up to light bouncing off the glass wrong or some rationalization until I heard others talking about it. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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