Sinister Observers

Imagine waking up in the middle of the night. In the dim light of your room, you see a black humanoid shape standing in the door way. Startled, you turn your head to look quick but the figure vanishes. You wonder if what you saw was just your imagination.

They exist in nearly every culture. They have been seen and brought fear for as long as mankind has existed.

Shadow people.

An experience with a shadow person is usually negative, their presence evil and even threatening and malicious. In less common circumstances, their presence is instead seen as that of a guardian angel that stands in the shadows watching over you.

One of the most interesting and equally terrifying things about shadow people is that they have been seen in various forms, each one as frightening as the next. Some people who claim to have seen shadow people have reported them as a dark mist while others have seen them as a solid black silhouette of a person including one common and sinister figure.

Hat Man

Imagine seeing the silhouette of a person. While you sense it as male, you can't make out any definite defining features except for a trench coat and one feature that stands out more than any other - a hat. If you've ever had a run in with such a shadow person, you might have just seen the Hat Man.

The Hat Man is easily one of the most popular types of shadow people seen. This shadow person is named for the most notable feature noticed - a hat. Usually a fedora or top hat.

Being an intelligent spirit, the Hat Man is seen as a sinister being that feeds off fear. He is more of an observer and when you catch sight of him, he vanishes as quickly as he appears.

So what are shadow people? Are they ghosts? Or are they something more?

Here are a few common theories of what shadow people could be:

Ghosts

The first thing that might come to mind seeing a shadow person is that you've just seen a ghost. However, people who have reported seeing apparitions are able to make out physical features like facial features, whether they were male or female, and clothing attire.

While those who have seen shadow people sense it as a male presence, no defining features can be seen. Only a black shadow in the shape of a person.

Inter-dimensional Beings

One wild theory (and my favorite) is that shadow people aren't really ghosts but rather beings who visit this world from another dimension. Maybe the only reason we are seeing them is the brief slip between dimensions as they glitch out.

Maybe they are only time travelers just curious to observe our time in our dimension. This makes their presence far less terrifying.

If you had the ability to travel across different dimensions and observe, wouldn't you be curious as to what you would find?

Demons

As mentioned, shadow people bring forth strong feelings of dread and the idea that they could be demons supports this theory. Often, those that have reported the presence of a shadow person describe it as a dark sinister presence with malicious intentions.

And like demons and unlike ghosts, shadow people might not have even been human to begin with.

Aliens

Here's one of the most popular theories of what shadow people are.

The reports of alien abductees and those who claimed to have seen shadow people are strangely similar. As startling as this sounds, if they are aliens, maybe they're only here to observe us and our world.

Or they could be no more than a figment of your imagination or the hallucinating effects of sleep paralysis. The human mind is truly amazing and prone to play awful tricks on us.

Of course, whenever you see the glimpse of a dark humanoid figure dash by out of your peripheral in the middle of the night, you can come up with your own conclusion.

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