They came from the shadows…
Explores the growing number of reported encounters with terrifying, featureless bogeymen that lurk in the darkness and asks who these shadowy entities might be...
soul or demon. Certainly, ETs and demons top the list of contemporary bogeymen with which we populate and make sense of the dark. In fact, how a person ‘chooses’ to interpret such an experience might not be down to choice at all, but rather to how they are wired, their cultural conditioning, their subconscious baggage. This level of the experience is instinctive; it also feels very real. Offutt agrees: “I’ve interviewed hundreds of people that have encountered shadow beings and their opinion on what they saw is completely based on their world view,” he says. “They won’t budge”.
Offutt has interviewed experts in Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and American Indian shamanism. “Shadow beings are present in all these religions,” he says. So is our interpretation based solely on expectation? In part, perhaps; but even if we buy this assumption there remains a stubborn core of consistency to shadow encounters.
In fact, both Guiley and Offutt refer to the remarkable similarities of particular groups. “Tall shadows, 6-8ft (1.8-2.4m), usually appear solo or paired, while shorter ones, 3-5ft (90cm150cm), appear in groups,” says Guiley. “The short ones almost always have red eyes, and seem more dangerous than the tall ones.” Offutt agrees: “The scariest have blazing red eyes. In all categories, the Hat Man behaves as do other Hat Men, the red eyes behave as other red eyes, and so on.” Can our culture, then, prime us to parrot back, en masse, such intricate and apparently consistent details?
Offutt believes there is more to it. “I spoke to people from every continent (save Antarctica) who have seen shadow people – the similarities were astounding.” Aside from the possible, as yet unproven, existence of shadow penguins, it would seem that the intrinsic nature of an encounter remains consistent and cannot be distinguished on the basis of culture or place. “The appearance and behaviour of a shadow being seen by an American Cherokee is the same as that witnessed by a Catholic from Portugal,” says Offutt. When you throw into the mix multiple witness sightings and daylight