Glastonbury Shadow

Several years ago I used to live on Chilkwell Street in Glastonbury in a very old house. One day I walked upstairs to the bedroom. The door was open, and as I reached the top of the stairs I saw appear from the corner of the room, as if from nowhere, a person-shaped shadow. It looked exactly like a human being but it had no features, as it was as black as the ace of spades. It seemed to be aware that it had been seen and disappeared right in front of my eyes. I saw it again two weeks later, but this time there was a red tint where its eyes would have been. I’ve done some checking on shadow people and I know that others have seen them as well. Some think they are ghosts, aliens or demons. I’m not sure. Martin Gidlow FTMB striding purposefully along some kind of roadway that paid no attention at all to walls or houses (the flat was part of a Victorian terrace).

It was a little different from the usual shadowman description in that it wasn’t all black, but brownish and black, like a dark, sepia tone image. I could make out the outline of face, thick dark hair, a three-quarter-length coat, possibly a cape, and knee boots. He was about 7ft (2m) tall and big and solid, not thin, angular or transparent.

I immediately ‘knew’ that he was aware I had seen him, but he didn’t look around or move his head at all. There was a real sense of consciousness, even intelligence to this thing: he was aware of me, and aware of me because I had seen him. I did not feel a sense of ‘evil’, but definitely not good either: neutral, but probably not very nice.

I also felt that whatever it was it was NOT human. It was not a ghost, a discarnate entity, a soul imprint, or projection. Don’t ask me why I thought this, it was just my immediate gut reaction as I stood there. No logic, no analysis.

The following night, I had not long got into bed – a minute at most – and just closed my eyes; there was no chance of my being asleep and I was still settling. I opened my eyes and this thing was standing over me, leaning over, lowering his face towards me.

Now, I am not a screamer – I’ve had a fair few odd experiences in my life, including seeing some really weird stuff, and I’ve never even been close to screaming. But I leapt onto my then partner and literally screamed the house down. God knows what I would have done if I’d been on my own. It is the only time in my life that I have completely lost it – I was hysterical.

Another odd thing was my cynical sceptic ex said when the shrieking started to subside: “There was someone standing by the bed wasn’t there?”

I’m pretty sure I asked then, but maybe the next morning, if he’d actually seen anything, and he said no; but he knew something was there. I felt the thing had come back to check me out because he knew I could see him and there was a sense of curiosity… but possibly it was just to try and scare the shit out of me on purpose. It succeeded.

My belief about these shadow forms is that they are ‘thought forms’, focused human emotion and that if concentrated enough are able to take the form of a conscious entity that lives just beyond our normal perceptions. They are perhaps also responsible for the atmosphere certain places have, particularly those that have been inhabited for a long time, or have had really intense or traumatic things happen in them (or a history of prayer at religious sites). They’re probably the same things that have been labelled as ‘demons’, and possibly ‘angels’ in the case of the positive ones, throughout history. Eve11 FTMB

For more letters about shadow people, see FT274:76; see also Nick Parkins, “They came from the shadows”, pp54-55 this issue.