Shadow People

Perhaps it’s just American arrogance, or American humility, to think that no unusual ghosts come from our neck of the woods. After all, American ghosts tend to just be traditional European ghosts that, like most of our population, have come over and made themselves comfortable.  However, there is a type of ghost, fairly modern and mostly originating right here in the United States.  America, it seems, is the birthplace of the Shadow People.

Shadow People are specters that generally only appear at night, usually while someone is in bed.  The witness usually wakes to find themselves paralyzed while a shadowy figure moves through their room.  It’s the paralysis that makes Shadow People different than “normal” ghosts; witnesses rarely if ever can move while the ghost is in their presence.

Another identifying feature of Shadow People is also the reason for their name: they have no distinct features.  Most ghosts appear as they did in life, or perhaps as decaying forms, but Shadow People have very few defining features to identify who they might be.  It can be impossible to tell if they are male or female, and often they lack any sort of facial or physical features other than a vague humanoid outline.  In some cases the eyes of the figure are visible or possibly glowing.  Reports of Shadow People wearing old 1930s style fedoras are also common.

While Shadow People are most commonly seen in bedrooms, there also exists a subset of these ghosts that appear on the roadside.  Reports of these types of Shadow People usually involve someone driving at night or dusk.  They see what appears to be someone standing by the side of the road, possibly a hitchhiker, but as they pass instead of the figure becoming more distinct, it remains nothing but an inky outline that seems to watch them as they pass by.