Imagine you are up one night and walking to the bathroom to get ready for bed. You walk down the hallway and out of the corner of your eye you see a dark shadow pass along the wall. You feel spooked at first but then brush it off as your imagination. Seconds after you reclaim your sanity, you see it again but this time in front of you moving into the room down the hall. It looked as if it were a shadow in the form of a human being! You soon begin to realize that fear is now seeping into your brain and it is slowly taking over.
So what did you see? You know that it was a shadow. You know it resembled the human form but what the hell was it? You know for a fact that no one is in the home with you as you have locked all the doors. You slowly creep into the room where you saw the figure. Into the darkness you go passing the door frame and fumbling for the light as you are shaking. The light flicks on and the room is as calm and peaceful as it should be but you know you saw something come in here!
You begin to question yourself as to what you had just witnessed once more. Was it a natural shadow? Was it your imagination? Was it the fact that it is late at night and you are getting tired?
Are you going crazy?
Or was it something that has been frequently discussed among the paranormal community; apparitions of shadows that resemble humans and are often seen fumbling around homes late at night. They have been named "shadow figures" or "shadow people." Perhaps the reason why it is so widely discussed is the invention of the internet and eyewitnesses to share their stories.
Most people who report this phenomena claim to have seen the figure out of the corner of their eye for only a few fleeting seconds. The figures are always dark or black in color. They offset the tone of a dark room and are noticeable. However, a few reports have claimed that these figures were witnessed with glowing eyes, usually red.
In recent years, more eyewitnesses have come forth but they claim to have seen the figures straight on or for more than a few seconds. There have even been photographs of them!
But the truth to the anomaly of shadow beings has yet to be found, the first question we must answer is, what are they?
The Imagination
The answer that comes from the skeptics and scientific community is that these beings or figures are the result of an overactive imagination, hallucinations, and the brain being just plain tired. While most reports can be examined and identified as these reasons, what causes the photos of them to be tangible? Surely, there cannot be hallucinations caught on film!
Look at this amazing photo! How can that be a hallucination!
Ghosts
To call these beings ghosts would be a stretch of the definition of a ghost. Many times the places that these beings are found are not haunted nor do they have a history of being haunted.
Most apparition cases that are reported often have the eyewitnesses describing features on the figure such as clothing or facial features. Ghosts also are report to have a glowing feature, appear to be white, or have some sort of opacity to them. Shadow figures are the opposite since they appear to be dark, solid, and lacking of features.
Demons or other spiritual entities
Many times these reports involve the eyewitnesses claiming to have felt a malevolent feeling or the presence of evil. This is where the glowing red eyes come into play during these cases.
While it is a preconceived notion that anything dark and lurking in the shadows is evil due to our religious upbringings as well as social standards, it is hard to determine if these figures are demonic in nature. I have yet to hear of a report of any of these figures causing abuse to the occupants of a home that reports these beings whereas abuse is common among demonic cases.
Could they be another type of spiritual entity that we have yet to discover? They might be. If so, this would open a whole new can of worms on the paranormal community as well as the classification of how this universe works.
Astral Bodies
Astral projection is the ability of the soul, or spirit, to leave the body during a state of unconsciousness such as sleep or meditation. Could these beings be the astral body of someone in an unconscious state? Perhaps this is the reason why so many of these cases are reported late at night when people are getting ready for bed?
Interdimensonal Beings
Main stream science has accepted the hypothesis that other dimensions exist outside of our current three that we inhabit. If there are other dimensions out in our vast universe, what inhabits them?
Some theorists say that our dimension exists parallel and very close to other dimensions. The differences in material frequencies are what separate the dimensions as everything that we can interact with in this plane of existence operates on the same universal frequency. The other dimensions operating on different frequencies are invisible to us. Sound far fetched? Well here is an example of this principle that we all can relate to:
You are driving along in your car and you are passing between the fringe limits of a radio station's broadcast area. You notice that you are starting to get interference on your radio as you begin to enter another radio station's area. You get both frequencies intermixing with one another and interfering. You are able to hear parts of both but not very well.
This would be the principle working model for the interdimensional beings theory. The same working model has been put into theory for the existence of why ghosts can enter our plane and interact with the living. The same concept works for the hypothesis of why the spiritual plane and our own existing parallel to one another.
While there is no way to disprove or prove these theories for a phenomena that is so open and mysterious to the paranormal community as well as the scientific field in general. In the scientific field, you need to have repeatable methods and results. Until we can figure out how to do that with elusive beings, all we can do is document them and try to provide theories as to why the eyewitnesses experienced what they did.