Thanks to the Internet, the phenomena of shadow people, those nebulous dark figures that haunt the corners of your bedroom and hide under your bed, has begun to coalesce into a kind of gestalt. The stories of real shadow people take on a variety of forms, from the classic haunted house narrative, to stories of men and women who can’t escape a malevolent force no matter how far away from the entity they move.
As you read these true stories of shadow people, keep in mind the ages of most of the people who dealt with these specters. Many of them were either going through puberty or deep emotional distress when they experienced their haunting, which gives credence to the idea that our mental state has something to do with our ability to make contact with the other side.
Another thing that you’ll learn about in this collection of true stories of shadowy hauntings are the many different types of shadow people, from the classic nebulous, spooky presence that engulfs an entire room to the shadow man in a hat that has somehow managed to permeate the culture despite its obscurity to mainstream thought. If you’re prone to being easily spooked, you may want to keep a night light ready after you read these real stories of shadow people.
What’s your verdict on these shadow people? Have you ever experienced a similar nighttime terror that you’ve been too afraid to bring up to family and friends? If so, tell us about it in the comments.Â
Throw Another Shadow Person on the Barbie
Photo: Gravitas Ventures
G'day, mates! Shadow person harassee Blair E. notes that while she was living in Lismore, Australia for university she did major psychic battle with a "black, quivering mass with these dark, ugly, green squiggly lines through it." The shadowy being engulfed her at one point, and even after she managed to escape its grasp, the being hung around. The night after Blair's attack, she stayed at her boyfriend's place, but the being stuck around to creep out her roommates. Blair recounts the shadow's follow up: "I woke right up for no reason at about three in the morning to my phone going off. I checked it and it was flatmate, going off about something black with green squiggly lines coming into her room... except she was nearly asleep and hit her on her third eye to make her wake up!" After a smudging of the apartment everything went back to normal.
The Black-Cloaked Entity
Photo: Causeway Films
An anonymous writer believes they've been haunted by a shadow person ever since purchasing a children's puzzle game in 1997. The first three visits all happened within about a year, and all occurred at night after the writer had watched TV or stayed up playing video games. But the fourth appearance occurred over fifteen years later and rather than just being a shadow person who smelled like a dead rat, this time, the specter shook the writer's blanket and had what sounds like chains around its wrists. And much like most spooky things that go bump in the night, it wasn't as scary as the author thought it would be. "To my surprise, it was much smaller than what I expected. I was expecting to see it standing next to my bed and looking larger than normal human size, but it looked smaller and moved freely in midair. I think this was the first time I was able to see this entity much clearer than before."
The Figure in the Corner
Photo: Blumhouse Productions
Redditor Loxxodonta is pretty sure her friend's grandma's house is haunted by the ghost of a man who committed suicide after his wife killed herself when she was diagnosed with cancer. Yikes, by the way. Loxxodonta says that there have been three instances of a shadowy figure hanging out in the home, and all of them were accompanied by a feeling of the air in the house becoming heavy and a "nervous feeling" taking everyone over.
Howdy Partner, This Cowboy Shadow Man Is Waiting in the Woods
Photo: Infinity Media
Marriane R. has had multiple run-ins with a "cowboy shadow" throughout her young life, but the scariest confrontation came while she was walking home alone through the woods near her house. Initially, when she saw the shadow man she believed that he was a wooden cutout, but it was quickly apparent that she was wrong. "I started walking very slowly, just staring at it thinking to myself, Why would [my neighbor] put that there? In the middle of his woods? After I thought that, I got chills, as if I knew he didn't put one of those there. So I power-walked the rest of the way home."
You Can't Stop a Shadow Person with a Pogo Stick
Photo: Blumhouse Productions
After moving into a garage apartment with his mother at the age of ten, Stephen Wagner claims that he was visited by a malevolent, shadowy entity who emanated from his closet. For over two years the shadow would exit the closet at night, despite the author trying to wedge it shut with a pogo stick, and choke him in his sleep. It wasn't until his mother stayed in his room and experienced the terror of the shadow monster that they moved out, escaping the vile creature once and for all. This just goes to show that no matter how much spring action you've got on your pogo stick, a shadow person is always going to find a way around it.
The Rec Room Ghost
Photo: Gravitas Ventures
When Reddit user cloudedvisions was 14, he slept in the rec room with his brother rather than using the basement bedroom that his parents had built for him, and one night he woke up to the sensation that something was sitting on his chest. As he tried to move he heard a voice beckoning him into the bedroom, and when he was finally able to stand and make his way to the bedroom, he saw two "yellow eyes" staring at him from outside the bedroom's basement window. He waited two more years before sleeping in his bedroom.
