Angry Hooded Shadows

Joseph was 18 when he moved into his first apartment, but he didn’t stay long – the apartment was angry.

“There was tension in the apartment,” Joseph said. “The longer I lived there, the stronger the tension would get. As I would walk across the rooms I would feel sensations going through me.”

Joseph felt the anger growing in his apartment, but nothing prepared him for what followed.

“One night I woke up and looked at the foot of my bed,” Joseph said. “There was a blacker-than-night creature. It spun around like it was angry and confused. I felt the whole presence of it at the foot of my bed.”

He turned on the light and the thing was gone – two weeks later, it returned.

“I was visited (by) one that was about seven-foot tall with a hood and a cape,” Joseph said. “It just came up to my side of the bed and towered over me.”

A black hooded figure; this specter has haunted humans for centuries. It can appear as a shadow lurking at the periphery of your vision, but sometimes it is fully visible, like it was to Joseph.

In his book of sermons, “Footprints on the Sands of Time,” William Branham refers to this “dark, gloomy-looking shadow” as the Death Angel. Branham claims to have seen this angel which has “a hood of dark smoke” and foretells someone’s death.

Psychic Dawn Newlan of the Ozark Paranormal Society has seen entities like this and knows how frightening they can be.

“These figures are … an evil entity,” Dawn said. “The fear it sends through your body is something hard to describe, but you know with every inch of your existence that what you are in the presence of is not good and you should not be there.”

That terror invaded Joseph when the creature appeared in his bedroom.

“I felt such fear I was paralyzed. It just stood there like it was looking through me,” Joseph said. “I covered my head like a kid. This one was bold and meant to bring about fear, and I knew it.”

When Joseph grew brave enough to peel off the blanket, the figure was gone – but the fear remained. After that night, Joseph rarely stayed in his apartment alone, but anyone staying there also saw the entity.

“My brother saw them,” he said. “A friend of mine woke me up screaming one night. She had seen one of them, so I knew it wasn’t only me.”

Joseph eventually moved.

“I am just glad they didn’t follow me,” he said.

Joseph’s experience isn’t unique.

“My brother-in-law saw one of these things in his apartment. It was not friendly – at all,” an anonymous Shadows reader wrote. “He said he could feel the anger directed toward him. He saw it. Tall, dark, no face, with a hood.”

The online Shadows reader Truthseeker has also seen the hooded figure.

“I was laying in bed at night, unable to sleep, a dark black figure floated about a foot or two above my bed,” she said. “His head looked like it was hooded… no detail other than that. It was very menacing and obviously not a good thing.”

The visits soon became frequent and Truthseeker had had enough of them.

“I sat up in the bed and I actually took a swing at this thing,” she said. “The instant my fist would have come in contact with it, it vanished. I was shocked, although I’m not sure what I was expecting. I just let my anger and frustration come out.”

It must have worked; the black, hooded figure hasn’t visited Truthseeker since.

“I felt very good after I figured out that I had ‘defeated’ it that night,” she said.

Although Dawn doesn’t suggest attacking these dark, hooded entities, she said people terrorized by them should find spiritual protection.

“They had better find absolute faith in one divine energy,” Dawn said. “My favorite saying is ‘You cannot harm me for I am protected by the Hand of God.’”

Copyright 2007 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Include your name, address and telephone number. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

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