Actually, yes, I do occasionally hear unsual things that can't possibly be there. It's rare, but I will occasionally hear things that cannot possibly have been there, some of which includes heavily distorted voices. Of course, this could just be the result of my bad hearing, so I'm not going to count any unusual thing I hear as something paranormal.

if you put a tape recorderon for 24/7 in your house, you might end up with a few EVP's.

Glarg
if you put a tape recorderon for 24/7 in your house, you might end up with a few EVP's.

If you put a tape recorder anywhere for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you're bound to pick up some unusual sounds, not the least of which will be the strains of technology not designed to operate for that length attempt to cope with the stress.

But there is techonology available that is designed to cope with that kind of use.

Fairies are stealing my toothpaste.
They also fill my keyboard with cat fur.
This needs paranormal investigation!

i'm a pattern freak. i can see faces out of a pebbled ground, etc. used to scare me as a kid. a plastic bag caught in a brush became a ghost hand waving in the wind. i'm nearsighted too. never wear my glasses- like the muted look of things. i had a dream once where i thought someone standing beside my bed. i could see them thru half-opened eyes. i gathered up my courage and attacked. i slammed my fist into the poster of a person that i had hanging on the wall by my bed. boy, i felt stupid. if i'm at home, i see something out of the corner of my eye, i think it's a cat. if i'm in public, i assume it's a person. if i'm crossing a road, it's a car and i scurry. a few times, it has been-because who cares about pedestrians in this city. so in a way, this Pareidolia has a use.

ozoneocean
Fairies are stealing my toothpaste.
They also fill my keyboard with cat fur.
This needs paranormal investigation!

Who you gonna call?

Shadow busters!

Rich
While messing around on Wikipedia earlier I found this article on a paranormal phenomena involving ‘shadow people’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_people

Holy shit, so thats what people call them huh?
I see these things too, though ive never seen them with red eyes. They've just been big adult sized black silhouettes that dash away when i spot them.

Scare me so much though, i freeze whenever i spot one.

I remember one time, i was on the phone with my bf late at night. all the lights were off apart from the room i was in, and i looked up to see this big black thing dash past the door in the kitchen, completely froze and couldnt speak.

But yea, i cant go anywhere dark without a light of sorts, i am totally afraid of the dark :s even have to sleep with fairylights on.
I always put it down to having an overly active imagination though.

hartchamber
i'm a pattern freak. i can see faces out of a pebbled ground, etc.

I just want to stop you right there. Seeing faces out of a pebbled ground is nothing new. Every human being is trained from the day they are born to recognized faces in patterns. It's how we learn to identify people from one another.
I'm the same way, seeing faces in textured ceilings, grassy hills or droplets of water on a window.

So don't be too freaked out about that.

You may continue your topic of shadow sightings. =D

The only thing I'm superstitious about is numbers. Like, have you seen the previews for the Number 23? It's the same deal, except I see patterns in ALL numbers, not just one particular magic number like in that movie. Actually a friend of mine believes the number 22 is following him and has compiled a sheet of evidence. But he's a moron. (Don't tell him I said that.)

I suppose the reason I've never seen thse shadow people is I've never been afraid of the dark, always had really good night vision, and always had really good vision in general. However, also on that page they describe the half-waking, half-dreaming state of Hypnogogia, and I've had that several times. It's SO FREAKING COOL.

hahaha
number phobia…
the movie “PI” had something like that. PI was suppose to be the answer to the universe and the koran was written in mathematical language. and mathematics is the language of the universe and God is the universe…Einstien was trying to predict what God would do next, but he died before he could come up with that equation.

Funny, the ones I see aren't like people at all. They're karge 6-7 ft + shadows that move so fast that you only see them within a split second. I usually see them outside, especially when I'm driving or about to get in my car. For some odd reason these large shadows like to follow me when I'm about to go for a drive or already driving. They walk upright, and unfortunately to my dismay they have long claws that look to be about a foot long each claw. They scare the shit out of me because they don't seem like humans at all, they're more like animals - but not even like that, they're cold and unfeeling.

And I don't see them in my peripheral vision, I see them directly.

I haven't seen the glowing red eyes though, I've never been close enough to them to see that aspect of them.

I usually chalk it up to a vivid imagination because it's only happened a couple of times. But it still freaks me out because my hair stands on end, the temperature drops, and I get really affraid for no reason at all.


:/ Poor Einstien. He could've been the next messiah, but now he's only known for what? Wild hair!

I see those out of the corners of my eyes… It's pretty scary. My computer is againsy the wall, so when I sit at it, I always hear things behind me, I look, and sometimes I'll glimpse a black thing. On I'll be sitting and see something to the left. Not really to my right, though… Man, now I'm all freaked out.

hmmmm… I see opportunities here.
Send me $600 US dollars and I'll give you a special magnetic hairbrush that will protect you from the dark demons.
Send me another $600 US dollars and I'll send you my course of educational CDs “Working the Shadow”, they'll help you learn the true power that is within you! You'll be able to see and even control the shadow entities whenever you wish. Want a better girlfriend? Want more money? Want a better job? Want revenge on someone who has wronged you? Well, after my special course on 6 CDs, you'll be able to make the shadow people DO YOUR BIDDING!
That's right: anything you want!
Unleash the power within!

Shadow people keyring thrown in for no extra charge.
Contact me today and receive my bonus course: THE MAGIC OF NUMBERS.
-Offer ends today.

-The proprietor holds no responsibility for lack of results due to the shadow people not existing in the first place.

ozoneocean
Stuff

We got your point ages ago. If you wish to criticize us or express skepticism, then can you at least do it intelligently?

Send $600 US dollars and I'll consider it.

…besides, what's so “unintelligent” about opinion expressed through parody and satire? Especially compared to, say, unquestioning belief in supernatural entities that clearly defy logic, natural law, reality, and sense*? I contend that one approach is as valid as the other… One is certainly more entertaining than the other.

*but not possibility

-Although I don't want to be directly antagonistic to you or anyone in particular Rich, so please don't take anything I write personally. Rather, it's a general comment on the direction of the thread. If I do cause offence to you or anyone else , I'd encourage you to PQ me so that we can resolve matters speedily and amicably. :)

The only time I ever feel like there's another presence is when I start thinking about ghosts and urban legends and stuff.

For example, a year ago, I geeked out and painted a black mage onto my wall. It's right next to my bed, whenever I start thinking about monsters at night, I spot a shadow out of the corner of my eye, and it always turns out to be that painting.

Actually, once I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like there was something in the room. It made me really scared. I froze completely because I thought some lunatic had snuck in through the window. Suddenly, I felt something on my back, I flipped over to face my attacker and…

the cat was sitting there staring at me with her wide eyes. My reaction must have freaked her out too, because her eyes doubled in size with alarm.

Rich
Actually, yes, I do occasionally hear unsual things that can't possibly be there. It's rare, but I will occasionally hear things that cannot possibly have been there, some of which includes heavily distorted voices. Of course, this could just be the result of my bad hearing, so I'm not going to count any unusual thing I hear as something paranormal.

I've been doing that since i was a kid, a lot of times id come up to one of my homies and say “you were calling me?” then they go “no, no ones calling you” but in actuality i heard someone calling me. there was a time it got so bad i was even sleepwalking and my parents say i was always mumbling of someone calling me.

Weve also had stories of shadow people but i always thought them to be guardian spirit stuff or something not in the least scary and that it was supposed to be hereditary. weird.

I think it's really weird that so many people see these o.O I've had one strange “encounter” a few years ago. I suddenly became wide awake in the middle of the night because I heard a slow, intense violin swell in a minor/diminished key…it was really creepy. It sounded like it was right in my head, like I had headphones on but I didn't. Then I heard a creaky, “demon” or orc-like voice say something very distinctly that I remembered for a while, but have since forgotten. It wasn't English, and it wasn't backwards. Just weird. I got really creeped out by hearing that, and I psyched myself more and morei nto thinking and feeling something was in my room, so I got up and went to go into my mom's room, and I saw and bumped into a shadowy grey blob thing. It felt cold when I passed next to it, and it had a polarized, magnet kind of push against me. I rushed away and slept the rest of the night in my mom's room, and I heard lots of creaking the whole time. Looking back, it was most likely regular odd creaking, but it sounded awfully deliberate and slow at the time.

Probably an overactive imagination, but whatever. It was scary.

Mimarin
Does anyone get this sort of thing with sound as well as sight? I hear sounds like voices played backwards.

Yeah, I've gotten backwards-playing voices randomly since I was 11 and got strep throat. I had MASSIVE waking fever hallucinations while I was sick, and heard these hideous backwards voices for what felt like hours. Since then, they've been an integral part to every occuring nightmare I have, and I hear them … eh, I'd say once a month or so, maybe less, while I'm awake. Just for a couple seconds. It doesn't creep me out, I think it's psychological. It's creepy, but doesn't bother me in a deep, shuddering way like what I described above did.

The voices usually sound like my mom being angry and/or scared. But backwards, and sped up.

… … D: I sound crazy.

Adariel
Weve also had stories of shadow people but i always thought them to be guardian spirit stuff or something not in the least scary and that it was supposed to be hereditary. weird.

That is an interesting take on them. It's a better outlook on things than the whole assumption that they are evil.


And damn! I was expecting maybe one or two people at most to have had experiences like mine. I cannot believe how common this is.

Rich
And damn! I was expecting maybe one or two people at most to have had experiences like mine. I cannot believe how common this is.

Even considering the possibility of legitimate encounters, the wiki article does mention Pareidolia, a side-effect of our pattern-based mental process; basically a split second version of “Hey, that cloud looks kinda like a Lobster”. Personally, I think that just about all incidents of “shadow people” are because of this or something like it, but that's just me.

I know this isn't going to endear me to the people suffering from this, but I think that most of these paranormal encounters are something of a cry for attention, if only on a subconscious level. Children are quick to use words like “a zillion feet tall!” before “between 6 and 8 feet” because it sounds more impressive, more magical. We all put “sanitary technician” on our resumes instead of “Janitor”, and that fish that got away just gets bigger and bigger each time the story is told.

So, at the risk of putting myself on the chopping block, as far as I've been convinced things like this are just a more exciting, sexier version of “I saw something out of the corner of my eye and thought it looked kinda like a person for a moment”.

Hi guys. I'm ana. Newb

I've never seen anything creepy. These shadow people sound like the things that ended up to be the evil dudes in White Noise. I found the end to that movie rather disappointing and confusing though, so there you go.

On another note, one thing I used to be creeped out by was the sensations I always had whilst falling asleep. When I was a kid I used to get the sensation that I was spinning, and falling through the bed. Really I enjoyed that more than anything though. It never really scared me, and I wish I could get it to happen again these days, but it never does.

But earlier this year, when I was falling asleep and thinking a lot, I would get the freakiest sensation. I would feel like I could feel people touching me (yeah, I know how that sounds >_ Hypnagogia > Hypnic Jerk

The Hypnagogia pretty much describes my falling/out of body experiences, and the ‘tactile sensations’ (people touching me). I've also had hypnic jerks happen to me, and those are also really creepy, and are usually brought on by the tactile sensations. Then again, I guess I could just have that disease where I THINK I have every disease I read about. And really, all my experiences could be paranormal.

It's a funny world we live in, isn't it?

- Ana.

Adariel
I've been doing that since i was a kid, a lot of times id come up to one of my homies and say “you were calling me?” then they go “no, no ones calling you” but in actuality i heard someone calling me. there was a time it got so bad i was even sleepwalking and my parents say i was always mumbling of someone calling me.

Next time you hear it, answer: “Here I am Lord, why are you calling me?” =P
(But, seriously, I have that problem too sometimes)


I find it interesting that all these accounts state that shadow people have red eyes, yet the photographs I've seen don't have red eyes on the shadow people.

ozoneocean
hmmmm… I see opportunities here.
Send me $600 US dollars and I'll give you a special magnetic hairbrush that will protect you from the dark demons.
Send me another $600 US dollars and I'll send you my course of educational CDs “Working the Shadow”, they'll help you learn the true power that is within you! You'll be able to see and even control the shadow entities whenever you wish. Want a better girlfriend? Want more money? Want a better job? Want revenge on someone who has wronged you? Well, after my special course on 6 CDs, you'll be able to make the shadow people DO YOUR BIDDING!
That's right: anything you want!
Unleash the power within!

Shadow people keyring thrown in for no extra charge.
Contact me today and receive my bonus course: THE MAGIC OF NUMBERS.
-Offer ends today.

-The proprietor holds no responsibility for lack of results due to the shadow people not existing in the first place.

SWEET. Where can I pick up my copies?!


But seriously, guys the brain is like a huge computer. However although it's capable of processing a lot there are glitches once in a while. This is probably where all this shadow people stuff comes from, along with the fact that the imagination is prone to this stuff.

I'm a big believer in the group subconscious idea… I feel like this idea is just as rational as anything else, when you get right down to it, and can really be used to help understand phenomena like this.

I've seen shadowy figures, I've seen them moving, not just in the corner of my eye, and I believe that there are parts of this world (and functions of the human brain) that will never be fully understood. I think that mystery is the closest we get to magic. And I, for one, sure as hell need a little magic in my life. Even if it means also conceding that scary things exist, too. (For the record, I sleep with the light on when I'm home alone.)

Sort of related: I have a family friend who's a middle-aged psychologist (he mostly works with disturbed teens). He's a good man, honest and rational, but he has described these sorts of things following him his whole life. This sort of, in my head, ties back to the group subconscious idea, that so many people, with such disparate backgrounds, in all parts of the world, can experience essentially identical phenomena, and describe it essentially the same way (djinn, demon, hag, succubus…) Now, I also believe in the physical aspect of such sightings. I've experienced the whole gamut of sleep related goodies… hypnagogia, sleep paralysis, lucid dreams, sleep walking… and I talk in my sleep like it's going out of style. And the nightmares I have? Whoo, buddy. I could teach you a thing or two about vivid nightmares. And I do think that there's a physiological side to these sightings… but that could lead to a “which came first, the chicken or the egg” sort of argument. Are these sightings purely byproducts of short-circuits in the brain, or are the short-circuits in the brain actually allowing us to percieve something that really exists outside our usual perceptions.

Funny story: When I was a kid, I guess probably seven or eight, other kids my age in the neighborhood started talking about seeing these shadow people in our area (that's actually what we called them… oooh… wikipedia read my mind), mostly during broad daylight. I suppose it was just a dumb kids game, something to make our lives exciting, but isn't it funny that this sort of phenomenon expresses itself in so many ways, on so many levels… even though it could just be, at its root, some deep and primal fear of the saber-toothed creature on the edge of the firelight?

(P.S.– I am the queen of run-on sentences.)

I declare a shadow person hunt. We shall hunt down these creatures and have overly formal conversations with them about their way of life, this overly formal conversation shall be complete with tea, monocles, and sipping with our pinkies out.

Yes… It shall be the greatest pseudo-scientific breakthrough in history…

SHADOW HUNT!

LIZARD_B1TE
I declare a shadow person hunt. We shall hunt down these creatures and have overly formal conversations with them about their way of life, this overly formal conversation shall be complete with tea, monocles, and sipping with our pinkies out.

Yes… It shall be the greatest pseudo-scientific breakthrough in history…

SHADOW HUNT!

Actually, having just read a biography of Maggie Fox, one of the founders of the Spiritualist movement of the 1800's, I can pretty decisively say that people have been there, done that.

Aeon

LIZARD_B1TE
I declare a shadow person hunt. We shall hunt down these creatures and have overly formal conversations with them about their way of life, this overly formal conversation shall be complete with tea, monocles, and sipping with our pinkies out.

Yes… It shall be the greatest pseudo-scientific breakthrough in history…

SHADOW HUNT!

Actually, having just read a biography of Maggie Fox, one of the founders of the Spiritualist movement of the 1800's, I can pretty decisively say that people have been there, done that.

What we need to do is catch one and domesticate it, or failing that find a way to use it as a power source.

subcultured
hahaha
number phobia…
the movie “PI” had something like that. PI was suppose to be the answer to the universe and the koran was written in mathematical language. and mathematics is the language of the universe and God is the universe…Einstien was trying to predict what God would do next, but he died before he could come up with that equation.

Yeah, but ACTUALLY that movie had a much better example of what I was talking about, when the old mathematician was talking about seeing patterns involving the number 216.