I think this is the fourth or fifth monster cereal post Iâve made in this thread. Perhaps my time abroad made me more sentimental about this pop culture ephemera.
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Something a little different for this thread. Something I find creepy, and I hope you will too.
This is the introduction to a three-part post that will demonstrate why I think so-called shadow people are real. Some of you may recall I was going to write this two years ago, but I was too worried about the up-coming election to focus on it.
For those who donât know, shadow people are visual phenomena that fall under the category of âparanormal.â These are featureless, dark, translucent figures. They are not to be confused with ghosts. Generally, they are perceived to be adult and male. Children tend to experience them in the night, standing at the foot of their bed and occasionally sitting on the bed. Adults usually see fleeting glimpses of them indoors or have more definite sightings in wilderness areas.
What do I mean by describing them as âreal?â By that I mean they are something people really experience. I donât know what they are. They could be anything from trans-dimensional beings, or a hallucination the human mind is prone to. Iâve never seen one myself, and I donât want to.
I consider myself rational, but I still find paranormal subjects to be interesting. I view such things as UFO encounters and cryptids with a combination of amusement and fascination.
For whatever reason, my reaction to shadow people is different. During daylight hours I find tales of them engrossing. But after the sun goes down, the thought of them disturbs me.
So, enjoy. This is a kind of therapy for me, I suppose. I will be posting the following parts as I write them.
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WARNING: May frighten collectors of âKenâ dolls:
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Since the city of Warren Water Dept. decided to dig up the my front yard, I decided to take advantage of it. I hope they donât come to lay down sod until 11/1. The first one was taken with the âSunsetâ filter on my phonecam; the second, no filter.
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Why I Think Shadow People are Real
Part I â Classic Literature
For the first installment, I point out this excerpt from Herman Melvilleâs âMoby-Dick."
This occurs early in the novel. The storyâs narrator, Ishmael, likens the sensation of waking up with Queequegâs arm around him to a mysterious event from his childhood:
âŠFor several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I have ever done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes. At last I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze; and slowly waking from itâhalf steeped in dreamsâI opened my eyes, and the before sun-lit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I felt a shock running through all my frame; nothing was to be seen, and nothing was to be heard; but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine. My arm hung over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely seated by my bedside. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand; yet ever thinking that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be broken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me; but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in confounding attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle myself with it.
When I first read Moby-Dick, I was already familiar with websites dedicated to paranormal encounters and Coast-to-Coast AM. Melvilleâs description includes many of the common details found in childrenâs encounters with shadow people: the child waking up in the night and perceiving a figure near them, the figure holding the childâs hand, and the child feeling too afraid to move.
Melville writes about this mysterious event with a direct simplicity. Much of his writing is based on his own experiences, so I assume this uncommon event is something that happened to him. As an adult, he could have dismissed this memory with a mundane explanation â it could have been a dream or one of his parents visiting him. But he doesnât. He experienced something that was real to him and he canât explain it.
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Popol Vuhâs soundtrack has been a favorite of mine for almost 30 years. i never tire of it. so beautiful.
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Excellent copy of the original Nosferatu, the first, and my favorite, Dracula adaptation. 100 years old this past March, itâs still an outstanding film. This is the same restored print as the Kino edition, but the intertitles are in the original German. It does have English subtitles, though.
Joe Bob says check it out. (No really. I was just watching this on The Last Drive-In.)
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Why I Think Shadow People are Real
Part II â Celebrity Endorsements
Despite his corny stage name and generally clean-cut appearance, Orson Bean led an interesting and sometimes experimental life. This left him many stories to tell, and he loved telling stories about himself. Anyone who has seen âTattletalesâ is aware of this.
Iâm going to paraphrase a story he told on a talk show in the mid-90s, during the Dr. Quinn phase of his career. I donât remember whoâs talk show it was â there were so many of them at the time.
Itâs a serious story, but he told it in a humorous manner. He described it as a ghost story, but no, what he saw was a shadow person. I have searched for a clip of this story on YouTube, but cannot find it.
The story comes from Beanâs time living in Australia with his then-wife Carolyn Maxwell. They had just bought a house, and had been living in it for about two weeks.
One night, he and his wife were getting ready for bed. She was in the bathroom, he was lying on the bed absentmindedly watching television. While lying there he became aware of a dark transparent figure walking across the room. It went out the bedroom door and continued down the hall.
At that moment his wife came out of the bathroom and saw on the bed, staring out the door with a look of disbelief on his face. She asked, âhave you seen it, too?â
Apparently she had seen this figure walking through the house a few times in the past two weeks, but dismissed it as just her imagination.
He concluded the story by saying they packed their bags that night, left the house and never went back.
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I saw this some years ago at a âNew Sounds Liveâ event. As part of John Schaeferâs introduction, describing Murnau and the film, he said:
Itâs hard sometimes to know exactly what to make of this movie, but it is undeniably creepy. But what do you expect from a movie about real estate.
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If you can, get a copy of âGumbo Ya-Yaâ; there are dark-men stories (and others, itâs a great book) of Lousiana.
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Love your avatar, btw.
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Thanks.
Tis Fantomas, The Elegant Menace:
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He reminds me of DCâs The Phantom Stranger.
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