Shadow people are generally described as dark silhouettes that are human-shape with no discernible mouths, noses, or facial expressions, sometimes red eyes are reported. They are generally described as male. Two common types of Shadow people are the Hat-Man. This appears as a silhouette of a man wearing a 1930s style fedora hat. The other is a cloaked figure wearing a hood. Others report them as shapeless wispy black blobs and swirling columns of thin dark smoke. Shadow people are similar to ghost sightings, but differ in that Shadow people are not reported as having human features or wearing period clothing. Furthermore ghosts are reported to be seen as white/grey or even in full colour.
Ghost like apparitions often attempt to communicate with the living. The appearance of Shadow people seems to be more fleeting. The behavior of Shadow people ranges greatly from shy and skittish to downright nasty and malevolent a feeling of dread is associated by witnesses and animals appear to react with fear and hostility. Their movement is often described as being very quick and disjointed; they may first move slowly, as if they were passing through a heavy liquid, and then rapidly "hop" to another part of a witness's surroundings. Some witnesses describe this movement as though the shadow entities they have seen "danced" from one wall to the next, or as moving around the room "as if they were on a specific track". They often completely disappear into solid walls.
Theories About the Shadow People Phenomenon
- A theory is that Shadow People are not ghosts or demons but inter-dimensional beings, perhaps an Ultraterrestrial, whose reality overlaps with ours from time to time. Strangely enough red eyes are reported with other inter-dimensional beings such as the Mothman. Shadow people are described with striking similarities all over the world such as the Hat-Man which is described the same from small children to adults.
- Another theory is that Shadow people are psychological in nature, and that they are somehow linked to a modern stressful lifestyle. And as shadow people are seen mainly in the corner of ones eye a condition known as Pareidolia could be responsible. This is a condition where vision in the peripheral area of the eye incorrectly interprets random patterns of light/shadow or texture as being familiar patterns such as faces and human forms.
- An ancient spirit - the last echo of a spirit or ghost that has existed for an extended period of time.
- Thought forms, (egregore or a tulpa), ghost or demon created through various means, including negative psychic energy, black magic and other occult practices, or an event in which extreme emotional or physical stress/trauma has taken place.
- Optical illusions or hallucinations brought on by the physiological/psychological circumstances of the witnesses. i.e stress, mental illness.