From the Shadows is on hiatus for the summer. I’ll return in September with more true tales of the paranormal. If you have a story you’d like to share, please let me know at jasonoffutt@hotmail.com
Showing posts with label Shadow People. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shadow People. Show all posts
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
Followed By The Hat Man
The horror started slowly, almost playfully. Five-year-old Sinthia lie in bed with her grandmother when something pinched her feet.
“I woke up (my grandmother) and told her, but she brushed it off,” Sinthia said. “I tried to go back to sleep, this time putting my knees very close to my chest, but it kept pinching me.”
Sinthia’s prodding knees kept her grandmother awake, so her grandmother moved, sliding her legs where Sinthia’s would have been. Then the grandmother felt the teasing fingers.
“He pinched her,” Sinthia said. “She jumped up turned on all the lights but no one was there.”
Her grandmother dropped to her knees at the side of the bed, said the Lord’s Prayer, and crawled back under the sheets next to her granddaughter and they both tried to go back to sleep.
Then Sinthia saw something that made sleep impossible.
“I remember I had the blankets over my head but felt compelled to peek and when I did I saw this arm – just an arm and hand – over the bed. I remember the fingers were very long and the nails were pointy.”
She screamed and the appendage disappeared.
“It began to dematerialize,” she said. “It went away in pieces. I found that so odd even as a kid.”
The strangeness didn’t stop at her grandmother’s house.
“The next night I was very afraid to sleep,” Sinthia said. “I felt as if I was keeping watch.”
For good reason. Someone was there, in the room with her and her grandmother.
“All of a sudden I looked toward the door and could clearly make out the shape of a man with a hat on,” she said. “I froze in fear, praying he would not walk toward the bed.”
Young Sinthia lie helpless, fear freezing her to her grandmother’s bed.
“I finally said out loud, ‘wake up, it’s a man in here,’” Sinthia cried. “When she woke up I said, ‘look at the door.’ But he was gone. I knew at that point he was only really after me. I was no longer a fan of going over granny’s house.”
A few years later, Sinthia’s experiences grew worse.
“In middle school, my family had moved from the ghetto to a nice house in the suburbs,” she said. “I felt safe from everything.”
That night, when the sun crept over the horizon and Sinthia crawled into bed, she knew she wasn’t really safe. Not at all.
“The first night in my new room I could feel the mattress vibrating.” A feeling that became a nightly occurrence. “I shared a bed with my sister at the time so I asked her if she felt the bed shaking and she said ‘no,’ so I went to sleep.”
Later that night, Sinthia dreamt of dark, faceless people with long, boney arms reaching for her. The next morning her sister said she’d heard Sinthia moaning during a bad dream, but didn’t wake her.
“I was more angry at her than the Shadow things,” she said.
In the seventh grade, Sinthia found someone she could talk with about her Shadow encounters.
“At the time I had a very bad stutter and all the black kids would tease me while the white kids embraced me,” she said. “I became friends with a white girl named Kim and began spending time with her and her family. I mentioned my nightmares to her mother.”
Kim’s mother had experienced this herself.
“She mentioned Old Hag Syndrome,” Sinthia said. “She told me that I must have pissed off someone in a previous life.”
Kim’s mother told Sinthia to pray every night before bed, and the paranormal encounters faded away.
“It did stop for a few years until one night in 1990,” Sinthia said.
One night during Sinthia’s senior year in high school she fell asleep on the sofa and woke to a bright white light shining through the front window.
“I thought maybe it’s a police light, but at the same time I was paralyzed,” she said.
Although she couldn’t move her arms or legs, she could turn her head, and when she did she wished she hadn’t. A little white person stood in the room.
“I don’t mean white as in race, I mean white as in color,” she said. “This short, kinda white person walked into the living never taking his eyes off me and was sorta smiling. He walked up to me and I blacked out. I know for a fact I was not asleep.”
Sinthia is now an adult with three children and although she’s gotten used to these paranormal occurrences, they’ve started to become way too personal.
“Since my daughter was born I have seen the man in the hat about five times,” she said. “Once I totally ignored his ass, but what got me afraid again is when my daughter saw him.
Sinthia never mentioned paranormal experiences to her daughter, but the little girl described exactly what Sinthia had seen at her grandmother’s house so long ago.
“She was so scared I could see the fear in her eyes when she described him,” Sinthia said. “She said, ‘a tall man stood at my door wearing an Abraham Lincoln hat.’ Those were her words. Now I was pissed at it. As a mom, you don’t want nothing or no one to mess with your kids.”
The Hat Man came back weeks later, and spoke to Sinthia.
“I clearly heard a demonic voice in my left ear as I slept. I heard it say ‘lover’ (pause) ‘friend,’” Sinthia said. “I woke up to find Mr. Hat Man at the end of my bed.”
The Shadow Man with a square face and no neck loomed over her.
“This thing is far from being a spirit or ghost.”
Drawing all her strength and anger, Sinthia said “no,” then stared at the Hat Man until it disappeared.
But the Hat Man didn’t stay gone for long. Sinthia’s cousin took a picture of her holding a young relative in her living room – but they were not alone in the picture. A few days later her cousin called.
“She said, ‘I have a photo of you and the baby and it looks like a really tall man is standing behind you,’” Sinthia said. “Chills ran down my back. My cousin was confused because she had never heard of a Shadow Person, nor cared to. The subject of the paranormal is something black people stay clear of. That’s why I felt so alone all these years.”
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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
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Tuesday, March 27, 2012
‘Darkness Walks’ And ‘Haunted Missouri’ Available For Up To 15 Percent Off
For a limited time order both of Jason Offutt’s books on the paranormal for $30, a 15 percent savings of $5 off the bookstore price.
Or order individually for 10 percent off each.
Pick up “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us” for $13 (usually $14.95), or, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to the Show-me State’s Most Spirited Spots,” Truman State University Press’ all-time best seller, for only $18 (usually $19.95).
If ordering by mail, please include the cost for shipping:
Shipping for one book $2.50.
Shipping for two books $3.00.
No international orders, please.
Send check or money order to:
Jason Offutt
P.O. Box 501
Maryville, MO 64468
For all orders, allow 2-7 days for delivery.
For questions about your order, contact: shadowpeoplebook@gmail.com.
Or order individually for 10 percent off each.
Pick up “Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us” for $13 (usually $14.95), or, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to the Show-me State’s Most Spirited Spots,” Truman State University Press’ all-time best seller, for only $18 (usually $19.95).
If ordering by mail, please include the cost for shipping:
Shipping for one book $2.50.
Shipping for two books $3.00.
No international orders, please.
Send check or money order to:
Jason Offutt
P.O. Box 501
Maryville, MO 64468
For all orders, allow 2-7 days for delivery.
For questions about your order, contact: shadowpeoplebook@gmail.com.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The Looming Shadow Man
The rattle of a toy train running across the bedroom floor pulled Maggie from sleep. As she sat in bed looking through the gray light of her room, she realized she’d never seen it before.
“I was very young,” Maggie said. “And woke up to a toy train in my room. It wasn't mine so I got up and went to it.”
The toy stayed elusively just out of her reach, leading her toward the black, gaping mouth of her open closet door. Maggie scampered after the train, closing in as it crossed the plain of the closet doorway. She stretched out her hand and it hovered over the caboose when something happened she remembers to this day.
“Something from inside the closet grabbed my hand,” she said. “I then freaked out.”
Maggie’s mother ran into the room, pulled by her daughter’s screams. She snatched Maggie from the closet doorway and held her close.
As Maggie grew, she tried to push this story from her mind, dismissing it as something from the imagination of a very young child, but she knows it wasn’t.
Then, one day, something dark walked into her life.
“When I was approximately eight I began seeing the Shadow Man,” she said.
A blacker-than-night, human shaped shadow began visiting Maggie every other day – at first.
“It was always the same one,” Maggie said. “I felt uneasy, but not completely frightened. He was just a dark figure, no hat or anything traditionally associated with them.”
She never saw her Shadow Man appear, nor did he ever enter the room, “I just knew when he was there.” Standing. Always standing.
“I didn't get the feeling of any emotion from him,” she said. “He didn't seem to smile or even look at me. He would stay until I fell asleep so I never saw him leave either.”
This mysterious, black Shadow Man visited Maggie so often she grew used to him standing in her room.
“On a few occasions I did see him move, though,” she said. “He would walk a few steps either direction but always stayed in the same general area. And he would shift his stance or tilt his head almost like a normal person would when standing for long periods of time.”
But was this the thing that once tried to lure her into the darkness with a toy? She never knew. She didn’t know what this entity wanted from her.
“As far as emotions, he gave off none towards me,” Maggie said. “I never felt any kind of caring or malice from him.”
Maggie’s own feelings, however, perplexed her.
“I almost can't describe what I felt,” she said. “It wasn't like a caring you have for a friend or parent, nor was it romantic. It wasn't that I didn't want him to go, or that I missed him. It was just if he didn't come for a few days or so I felt like I had done something wrong, like I upset him.”
Maggie doesn’t know why she felt that way toward this dark sentinel in her room.
“I never felt like he wanted me to do anything but it seemed like I missed something,” she said.
Maggie’s not alone. People of all ages from around the world have reported seeing Shadow People, usually in their homes during the late hours, often walking down hallways, skulking in corners, or like Maggie’s – just watching, waiting.
In my book “Darkness Walks: Shadow People Among Us,” Lee Prosser, a sensitive and author from Springfield, Mo., described these beings as simply curious.
“I feel these Shadow Entities are scouts or explorers from another dimension simply taking a peek-see at what humans are doing,” Lee said. “They can appear at any time, and at any place; watching and observing.”
Maggie’s Shadow Man visited her regularly for about a year.
“Then it became less frequent until he stopped all together,” she said. “I didn't miss him or feel abandoned once he left. The last time he came I knew it was the last somehow.”
Maggie can’t figure out why her Shadow Man visited her, or what she may have “missed.”
“As far as my life at that time I had no real reason to feel this for him,” she said. “My parents were happily married and I had no real deaths in my life as of then. I never felt inadequate or disappointing. My parents were supportive and encouraging.”
As an adult, the Shadow Man experiences are long gone, but Maggie is still looking for answers.
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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
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“I was very young,” Maggie said. “And woke up to a toy train in my room. It wasn't mine so I got up and went to it.”
The toy stayed elusively just out of her reach, leading her toward the black, gaping mouth of her open closet door. Maggie scampered after the train, closing in as it crossed the plain of the closet doorway. She stretched out her hand and it hovered over the caboose when something happened she remembers to this day.
“Something from inside the closet grabbed my hand,” she said. “I then freaked out.”
Maggie’s mother ran into the room, pulled by her daughter’s screams. She snatched Maggie from the closet doorway and held her close.
As Maggie grew, she tried to push this story from her mind, dismissing it as something from the imagination of a very young child, but she knows it wasn’t.
Then, one day, something dark walked into her life.
“When I was approximately eight I began seeing the Shadow Man,” she said.
A blacker-than-night, human shaped shadow began visiting Maggie every other day – at first.
“It was always the same one,” Maggie said. “I felt uneasy, but not completely frightened. He was just a dark figure, no hat or anything traditionally associated with them.”
She never saw her Shadow Man appear, nor did he ever enter the room, “I just knew when he was there.” Standing. Always standing.
“I didn't get the feeling of any emotion from him,” she said. “He didn't seem to smile or even look at me. He would stay until I fell asleep so I never saw him leave either.”
This mysterious, black Shadow Man visited Maggie so often she grew used to him standing in her room.
“On a few occasions I did see him move, though,” she said. “He would walk a few steps either direction but always stayed in the same general area. And he would shift his stance or tilt his head almost like a normal person would when standing for long periods of time.”
But was this the thing that once tried to lure her into the darkness with a toy? She never knew. She didn’t know what this entity wanted from her.
“As far as emotions, he gave off none towards me,” Maggie said. “I never felt any kind of caring or malice from him.”
Maggie’s own feelings, however, perplexed her.
“I almost can't describe what I felt,” she said. “It wasn't like a caring you have for a friend or parent, nor was it romantic. It wasn't that I didn't want him to go, or that I missed him. It was just if he didn't come for a few days or so I felt like I had done something wrong, like I upset him.”
Maggie doesn’t know why she felt that way toward this dark sentinel in her room.
“I never felt like he wanted me to do anything but it seemed like I missed something,” she said.
Maggie’s not alone. People of all ages from around the world have reported seeing Shadow People, usually in their homes during the late hours, often walking down hallways, skulking in corners, or like Maggie’s – just watching, waiting.
In my book “Darkness Walks: Shadow People Among Us,” Lee Prosser, a sensitive and author from Springfield, Mo., described these beings as simply curious.
“I feel these Shadow Entities are scouts or explorers from another dimension simply taking a peek-see at what humans are doing,” Lee said. “They can appear at any time, and at any place; watching and observing.”
Maggie’s Shadow Man visited her regularly for about a year.
“Then it became less frequent until he stopped all together,” she said. “I didn't miss him or feel abandoned once he left. The last time he came I knew it was the last somehow.”
Maggie can’t figure out why her Shadow Man visited her, or what she may have “missed.”
“As far as my life at that time I had no real reason to feel this for him,” she said. “My parents were happily married and I had no real deaths in my life as of then. I never felt inadequate or disappointing. My parents were supportive and encouraging.”
As an adult, the Shadow Man experiences are long gone, but Maggie is still looking for answers.
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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
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Monday, January 09, 2012
Shadow People Haunt His Dreams
A gray sheet of clouds stretched across the sky as 12-year-old Doug ran to the corner store to buy snacks. Andre was coming to his house to watch movies and he wanted to be ready.
“It was overcast but not raining, and in the middle of the afternoon,” Doug said. Since the day was shadowless he didn’t understand what he saw on his way home from the store.
“As I approached the corner to turn onto my street, I saw something black sticking beyond the bushes in the front of my house,” Doug said. “I yelled, ‘Andre,’ and started running toward my driveway where the bushes are.”
But the dark figure wasn’t Andre. A black, man-shaped shadow rose from behind the bushes in this gray afternoon and began running toward Doug’s house.
“After a few steps I saw the shadow running down my driveway toward the back yard,” he said. “I ran up the driveway to the gate that leads to my back yard. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I watched a pair of legs running through the yard and through the fence at the far end.”
Doug stood at the gate, staring into the now empty yard.
“I was not afraid, I was just shocked,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it. This thing. What could it be? Why was it black when most stereotypical stories said that ghosts were white? Could this be demonic? Could it be like me, just a person?”
The questions from his first encounter with shadow people haunted him for years. But this encounter wouldn’t be his last.
Eight years later, at the same house, Doug woke from a deep sleep and lay in the gray room, staring at his bedroom wall.
“I woke for no reason, had no weird dreams, and I wasn’t groggy or half asleep,” he said. “My room was dark other than some stray beams coming through the blinds, and I could see a man, darker than the night like a void.”
The figure, shrouded in a cloak, stood at the end of the bed.
“I could only make out the silhouette of his head and shoulders. The rest of him just went straight to the floor,” Doug said. “There were no legs or feet. No red eyes, no facial features whatsoever.”
Terrified, Doug slid low in bed, pulling the covers slowly over his face, watching the black, man-shaped figure standing over him until his blankets hid the horror from his view and Doug fell back to sleep.
Doug is now 29, and although he doesn’t know what these shadow beings were, he knows he saw them.
“These are the two instances where I specifically saw shadow people,” Doug said. “Only in the past couple of years have I been able to find anything on the subject matter. It’s almost like re-victimization when reading stories from other people that describe experiences like mine. I never knew it could be so widespread and am still dealing with the shock.”
But the shadow beings haven’t left Doug. They visit him in his sleep.
“I have dreams of floating black heads with red eyes and extremely bright, tiny white teeth,” he said.
In these dreams, the shadow beings stare at him. In 2011, he realized these shadow figures might not be just a dream.
“Last summer, the first night I slept in my last apartment, I woke up in my old bedroom in the dream,” he said. “I thought I saw a shadow go past the doorway, and as I turned and stretched enough to be able to check, the most ungodly deep voice breathed my name in my ear and down my neck. It was so real.”
Doug is convinced his dreams of shadow people are more than dreams, and that these shadows are torturing people’s minds.
“That’s the thing with shadow people, I think they confuse people when appearing to them, make them question their sanity, only to show up again and make the person go through that whole process again,” he said. “They’d leave long enough for one to question themselves, only to reinforce their existence a few years down the road.”
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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
“It was overcast but not raining, and in the middle of the afternoon,” Doug said. Since the day was shadowless he didn’t understand what he saw on his way home from the store.
“As I approached the corner to turn onto my street, I saw something black sticking beyond the bushes in the front of my house,” Doug said. “I yelled, ‘Andre,’ and started running toward my driveway where the bushes are.”
But the dark figure wasn’t Andre. A black, man-shaped shadow rose from behind the bushes in this gray afternoon and began running toward Doug’s house.
“After a few steps I saw the shadow running down my driveway toward the back yard,” he said. “I ran up the driveway to the gate that leads to my back yard. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I watched a pair of legs running through the yard and through the fence at the far end.”
Doug stood at the gate, staring into the now empty yard.
“I was not afraid, I was just shocked,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it. This thing. What could it be? Why was it black when most stereotypical stories said that ghosts were white? Could this be demonic? Could it be like me, just a person?”
The questions from his first encounter with shadow people haunted him for years. But this encounter wouldn’t be his last.
Eight years later, at the same house, Doug woke from a deep sleep and lay in the gray room, staring at his bedroom wall.
“I woke for no reason, had no weird dreams, and I wasn’t groggy or half asleep,” he said. “My room was dark other than some stray beams coming through the blinds, and I could see a man, darker than the night like a void.”
The figure, shrouded in a cloak, stood at the end of the bed.
“I could only make out the silhouette of his head and shoulders. The rest of him just went straight to the floor,” Doug said. “There were no legs or feet. No red eyes, no facial features whatsoever.”
Terrified, Doug slid low in bed, pulling the covers slowly over his face, watching the black, man-shaped figure standing over him until his blankets hid the horror from his view and Doug fell back to sleep.
Doug is now 29, and although he doesn’t know what these shadow beings were, he knows he saw them.
“These are the two instances where I specifically saw shadow people,” Doug said. “Only in the past couple of years have I been able to find anything on the subject matter. It’s almost like re-victimization when reading stories from other people that describe experiences like mine. I never knew it could be so widespread and am still dealing with the shock.”
But the shadow beings haven’t left Doug. They visit him in his sleep.
“I have dreams of floating black heads with red eyes and extremely bright, tiny white teeth,” he said.
In these dreams, the shadow beings stare at him. In 2011, he realized these shadow figures might not be just a dream.
“Last summer, the first night I slept in my last apartment, I woke up in my old bedroom in the dream,” he said. “I thought I saw a shadow go past the doorway, and as I turned and stretched enough to be able to check, the most ungodly deep voice breathed my name in my ear and down my neck. It was so real.”
Doug is convinced his dreams of shadow people are more than dreams, and that these shadows are torturing people’s minds.
“That’s the thing with shadow people, I think they confuse people when appearing to them, make them question their sanity, only to show up again and make the person go through that whole process again,” he said. “They’d leave long enough for one to question themselves, only to reinforce their existence a few years down the road.”
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, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”
Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.
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