From: Jeff
To: shadowpeopleorg@comcast.net
Sent: Friday, June 5, 2015 2:25:13 PM
Subject: Shadow Beings

What are they? I've wondered that for years. I would dismiss the whole phenomena as night terror/mental illness if not for my own encounters.

My name is Jeff. I was a young teen in the early 1990s, living in rural Upstate New York. Our household wasn't religious or spiritual. I didn't come from a background predisposed to the paranormal or high powers.

The first incident is of little note. I was in bed, my older brother asleep on the other side of the room. Our old farmhouse had two upstairs bedrooms, one large and one smaller. We were in the large room. I woke to see a shadow of a man standing near the bedroom closet. It was bald, about 5'10'' - 5'11''. No features. No clothes in silhouette; just the shadow of a man. What struck me was that it was darker than the darkness of the room. I was afraid, and pulled the blanket over my head and stayed like that until I fell asleep. I dismissed this as a bad dream.

Four years (mid-nineties), I had this same bedroom to myself. I was about 15 or 16 at this point, sleeping on my brother's old side of the room. I woke up suddenly one night to the feeling of being watched, and a sense of dread. I was lying backwards in bed so that my head was at the foot facing the wall. Whatever was there was behind me. I remember feeling angry and exasperated that I was still afraid of the dark at my age, and decided I would just turn and get up and prove to myself that nothing was there.

Big mistake.

I turned my head to see a shadow person like the one from years earlier. It was just standing there, observing me. I decided to grow up, get out of bed and face my irrational fears. I'm not sure what happened next because in the next few seconds, I went into a blind panic. As I moved to get up, it was suddenly standing next to the bed, like it moved there in a millisecond. It swung out its right hand fast and in slow motion, laid it on my chest. I was completely left ice cold and terrified. I passed out. When I woke in the morning I was soaked with sweat and felt nauseous. For three days I felt like that; shaky and very ill.

A year later the family cat refused to come into the bedroom. She would stand in the doorway and cry. Not sure why I took a cat's advice, but I moved into the smaller bedroom. My mom had her room downstairs, so I had the option. Everything seemed okay after that.

A year before graduation, I had the final encounter. As before, I woke in the night. I was in the other bedroom at this point. This time was very different. There was a featureless shadow person sitting next to my bed in what looked to be a shadow wheelchair (?). It was a woman. I can't explain why I knew that, but I just did. I stared at it in disbelief expecting it was a dream about to end. It wasn't malicious at all. It was just sort of there. I heard what I remember as its voice shouting in my own mind, "THERE'S NOTHING UP THERE! THERE'S NOTHING UP THERE!" and it pointed upward with its right hand. The voice sounded raspy, almost hollow and metallic. I get chills recalling this, but at the time I was just confused. When it was done, the room did this funny flicker thing and it was sunny in the room. I was exactly where I was sitting up in bed, but time had moved forward.

I have no answers to this phenomenon, just a million questions. A number of the accounts here sound similar to my own, others not so much. It would be amazing if someone could crack this mystery. It may very well change the way we perceive existence itself.

Thank you for your time.