More Encounters With Shadow People

For centuries, Shadow People – darker than night, human-shaped entities – have stalked the lives of people across the globe.


But they’re becoming more common. Are encounters with these two-dimensional, looming figures on the rise, or are more people willing to talk about their experiences because they know they’re not alone?


It knocked

TK first saw the Shadow Man standing in the doorway of his parents’ house.

“I was laying in my bed trying to fall asleep,” TK said. “Out of nowhere a big Shadow figure, about 6-foot, 6-inches tall, walked in.”

TK wondered about his sanity – but it was too real.

“The figure began to lean into the bed and stare at me, it would then lean back and look out the window,” TK said. “It went back and forth doing this for maybe a minute or two.”

Then fear draped TK.

“I wasn’t sure if it was an actual person or possibly a ghost,” he said. “From a spur-of-the-moment decision I leaned forward and kicked at the figure while kind of yelling. I kicked right through it.”

His parents ran into the room seconds later, and nothing was there.

“I was very creeped out but I pretty much convinced myself that my mind had played a trick on me,” he said. “I soon moved out … for college and never encountered anything like it again until I came back and stayed in the same room.”

At about 12:30 a.m., a knocking at his door roused him from sleep.

“I was sleeping on my side facing away from the door,” he said. “When I woke up to the sound, I turn around to look at the door and right next to my bed was the same Shadowy figure.”

TK is convinced it was the same entity he’d seen before.

“When I saw it, it completely scared the (crap) out of me,” he said. “I thought for sure it was a person. I am thankful to find so many people who experienced the same Shadow People as I did. I felt a little crazy.”


Red eyes in the night

Jayna was four the night her eight-year-old sister saw the Shadow Man.

“One night she was awake as our parents came up the stairs and she listened to their chatting and footsteps,” she said. “Then she listened and watched the light disappear as they entered their room and closed their door for the night.”

A few minutes later Jayna’s sister heard another set of footsteps walking up the stairs. But her parents were still in their room; she could hear them talking.

“After the footsteps, she said she saw a Shadow, and it had red eyes, standing in the hall and looking at her,” Jayna said.

But it wasn’t a normal shadow created by a difference between light and dark. It was something physical.

“She seemed more upset about the fact that it was more solid, off the wall, than about the red eyes,” Jayna said.

The red-eyed Shadow Man eventually walked away, but whatever it was, it never left Jayna’s sister.

“For the next 10 years it seems she believed something was ‘following’ her in some way or another,” Jayna said. “Strange, inexplicable things happened throughout those years. Some of those things were even witnessed by others around or near her although she said that she only saw that Shadow with red eyes that one time.”


The Hat Man

Tauni hasn’t seen the Hat Man since she was a child. But that was enough.

“My parents thought I was having nightmares and that I was seeing things triggered by television,” Tauni said. “But I know that I was very awake.”

Tauni was cuddled in bedding draped on the floor of the den watching her parents in the living room when something caught her attention.

“As I was trying to sleep, I suddenly heard the blinds from the window behind me hit the glass, back and forth,” she said. “I started to panic, and although I couldn’t look behind me, I could see the reflection of the window in the glass in front. In the reflection, I saw the blinds slowly lift, and behind the window there was a man with bright, glowing red eyes.”

Fear threatened to smother Tauni.

“I was terrified, but I had seen him before,” she said. “He was dark – completely black, like a shadow – wearing a fedora hat, in a trench coat of some sort, and had long hair falling around his face. He did not look human, but like deep darkness in human form, which accentuated his bright red eyes.”

Frozen, Tauni lie still, staring at this entity, when she found her voice.

“Finally, I was able to scream, and my parents ran into the room, trying to console me and tell me it was just a bad dream – my imagination,” she said. “I know that it was not my imagination, and I believe this entity does exist, although I am not sure exactly what it is.”

Copyright 2009 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. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s books on the paranormal, “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us,” and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.