Shadow People

Description

Shadow people are described as dark, featureless silhouettes in a human shape, darker than an ordinary shadow and seemingly without a source. Witnesses often say they notice one at the edge of their vision or in a doorway, that it moves in a quick, smooth or gliding way, and that it disappears when they try to look at it directly.

• A solid black, humanoid outline with no visible features.
• Movement described as gliding, darting or unnaturally smooth.
• Often seen at the edge of vision, in doorways, hallways or on stairs.
• A strong feeling of being watched before or during the sighting.

Episode Appearance

In the Season 2 premiere, Halloween Special, Leafy describes a tall shadow, about six and a half feet, filling his entryway before it glided up the stairs.

Myles recalls Halloween night 2021, when he was 22 and on a cross-country road trip during the COVID lockdowns. He had set up camp alone at a snow-covered campground in Wyoming and was watching the sun go down over the mountains when a black, featureless figure with human proportions, arms and legs emerged on a hilltop he estimates was two to four miles away. Despite the distance it appeared larger than he was, and he puts its height at upwards of 18 feet. As he watched, it began to move in what he calls a dance, in ways he describes as inhuman; smoke gathered around it, birds or bats emerged from the smoke and circled it, and an orange-red orb hung above its head, which he saw clearly even though he says he is colorblind. He describes a feminine presence and says it felt like watching a non-human intelligence performing a ritual. He did not think it noticed him, though he was the only person in the campground. Frightened, he packed up and spent the night in his car in a Walmart parking lot, and he later drew a simple illustration of what he saw.

Folklore and Background

Shadowy figures appear in folklore and ghost stories from many places, and modern accounts often link them to sleep paralysis. Reports usually describe them as silent observers rather than figures that act, and many witnesses say the sense of dread they bring is the most lasting part of the experience. Myles says he chose the Wyoming campground after reading about it in a book on unusual places in the state, and that the area holds cultural significance for the region’s Indigenous peoples; he is careful not to tie what he saw to them. Years later he noticed that the Egyptian goddess Isis is depicted, as he puts it, as a tall, dark feminine figure with birds and, in some images, an orb above her head. He says he does not believe that explanation but finds the resemblance odd.

Theories and Analysis

Skeptics suggest explanations such as tricks of peripheral vision, the brain’s tendency to see figures in random shapes, and the dream-like images that can come with sleep paralysis. Myles himself leans toward the idea that what he saw was a projection of his own mind, a kind of waking dream rather than a physical being; he says he was sober and alone, and that it was Halloween night. Shadow people are not an established phenomenon, and the accounts on this page are the guests’ own.

Related Sightings

The Hatman, from Episode 4, is one of the most widely reported kinds of shadow figure, often described wearing a brimmed hat. In Episode 6, the Extraterrestrial (Fraternity Encounter) account includes a massive black humanoid shadow figure standing silently in a doorway. The night after his Wyoming sighting, near the Castle Gardens petroglyph site, Myles reported balls of white and cyan light, described under Spirit Orbs.