One interesting and increasingly talked about area of the world of the paranormal is the Shadow Person. These are often described as vaguely humanoid entities of pure black, variously as either well-defined or more amorphous and cloud-like, which are usually only glimpsed in the periphery of vision and are known to conjure up waves of irrational fear. They have been speculated as being everything from demons, to interdimensional interlopers, to earth spirits or even angels, and they are commonly accepted as being a separate phenomena from regular ghosts. Considering their fleeting nature, evasiveness, and seeming aversion to be witnessed head-on, there has been very little photographic evidence put forward towards their existence, but on occasion some images come out that seem to be in keeping with the idea of Shadow People. While inconclusive and often blurry or vague, thee photographs offer a glimpse into a poorly understood realm of the paranormal, and here we will look at some of the more famous and indeed controversial such photos of Shadow People.

One treasure trove of shadow people reports is the notorious Waverly Hills Sanatorium, in Louisville, Kentucky, in the United States. Opened in 1910, it was originally envisioned as a hospital for tuberculosis patients during an outbreak in the region at the time. Considering its secretive operations and the pall of death cast over it, it quickly became the center of rumors of human experimentation, mistreatment, suffering, and death, and by the time it closed in 1961 around 64,000 people were said to have died here in horrifying circumstances. Considering this, it is already ripe for tales of hauntings, and it is supposedly quite imbued with all manner of spirits, some of the most often seen being the mysterious Shadow People. One well-circulated photo of one of these entities was released after a tour of the facility in 2014, during which a woman took a picture of an empty area and noticed this image when the film was developed.

Waverly Hills Sanatorium photo

Another visitor was investigating the old sanatorium by himself when he snapped a photo of a room full of old equipment. The image shows what appears to be some sort of shadowy figure looming in the foreground, and the photographer insists that he was alone at the time. What do you think?

Waverly Hills Sanatorium photo

Speaking of haunted tuberculosis hospitals, we also have the Lima Tuberculosis Hospital in Allen County, Ohio, which closed in 1972 and has remained abandoned ever since. The former hospital has become infamous for its various hauntings, including reports of shadow people, which are said to follow visitors about, mostly only visible in the periphery of the vision and only briefly witnessed before flickering away. Yet on occasion there have been some photos taken of these mysterious figures, and one of them was taken by an urban explorer who didn’t notice what he had captured on film until much later.

Lima Tuberculosis Hospital photo

One location that seems to be absolutely infested with Shadow People entities is Lawler Ford Road, in Glencoe, Missouri. Built in the 1860s, it has over the years accrued a long list of strange lore, such as ghost lights and persistent reports of Shadow People, and such is its odd legacy that the road is more commonly known as “Zombie Road.” Reports of shadowy entities lurking in the wilderness here are numerous, and some of them have allegedly been captured on film. One of the more striking of these is an image taken by Tom Halstead, of the paranormal investigator group “Paranormal Taskforce,” who in 2005 took this eerie photo of a whole procession of purported Shadow People milling about in the tree-line apparently staring at him. Halstead has been adamant that there were no other people there at the time, and that the whole area was surrounded by water, due to a high water level of the river, yet the figures just sort of melted away. The picture was featured in the documentary Legacy of Shadows.

Zombie Road Shadow People

Halstead returned to the area in 2006, when he took another anomalous photo at a bridge in the area well known for its paranormal phenomena. The photo in this case is a bit less defined, but also seems to show some sort of black, vaguely humanoid figure at close range to the camera. It is a strange image to be sure, making one wonder if it is real or just a photography trick.

Zombie Road Shadow Person photo

Other supposedly haunted places have their own alleged photos of Shadow People, such as the famously haunted RMS Queen Mary, which was in its glory days a British ocean liner that largely sailed about the North Atlantic Ocean before being retired in 1967. The vessel was then sailed to the port of Long Beach, California, where it became a hotel and tourist attraction and has gained a reputation for being intensely haunted ever since. One of the many paranormal phenomena reported from here is, you guessed it, Shadow People. Indeed, one of the best photos of a supposed Shadow Person ever taken was snapped here, and you can see it below. Is this just a trick of lighting, or what?

The Queen Mary photo

Another rather famous image of a purported Shadow Person was taken at the former Moundsville Prison, in West Virginia. Between its years of operation spanning from 1866 to its closing in 1995, this was the final destination for all manner of some of society’s worst offenders, many of whom spent their last days on earth here. Murders, riots, and suffering were rampant here, and it is perhaps no surprise that the location should be insanely haunted. Many types of apparitions have been sighted here, including Shadow People, said to come here to feed off the negative energy, and photos of strange things are not uncommon at all. One such picture was taken by Polly Gear, of the Mountaineer Paranormal Group, and seems to show a black figure lurking at the end of a hallway, even though Gear has insisted that no one was there at the time. What is it?

Moundsville Prison Shadow Person photo

One figure that the Shadow People seem to be prone to taking is that of the “Hat Man,” a black figure with a hat perched upon its head that is seen in many far flung cases. The Hat Man has been sighted all over the place, and has indeed become a paranormal phenomenon all unto itself, and while there has rarely been any photographic proof of it there has been some. In 2011, a family visited Trentham Cottage, in Port Arthur, Australia, which is a former prison facility and convict settlement, when they took a random photograph of a doorway. At the time there was nothing there, but when they looked at the photos later they could see an anomalous entity clearly wearing a hat standing there. What is it and why did it appear in this picture?

Trentham Cottage Hat Man photo

It is often the case that these figures are not noticed in these pictures until later, with the photographer not aware that anything is awry until they are shocked to see what they have captured when looking through their photographs. Another instance of this comes from a photographer who was taking pics of the 4th Street Bridge, in Los Angeles, staying there with a friend for around 20 minutes. When they went through the photographs later they were surprised to find a rather curious figure standing up within the shadows peering down at them. The location is supposedly impossible to get up to, and one wonders just what this figure is.

4th Street Bridge Shadow Person photo

As with all photographic evidence of supposed paranormal phenomena, these images are far from proving anything. They are inconclusive, perhaps able to be faked, and only serve to fuel speculation on the existence of these mysteries. Yet they nevertheless provide a rare glimpse into the specific phenomena of Shadow People, which are often considered to be the most elusive and mysteries of entities. Whether any of these photographs actually show these apparitions in action I leave for you the reader to decide, and whether there is anything to it or not they are bizarre glimpses into a particularly odd area of the paranormal all the same.

It’s the greatest paranormal/ufology/conspiracy event of the century — if not perhaps ever – so it’s only fitting that it ends today in … disappointment? Unfortunately, that’s the news from Area 51 this weekend where what started out as “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us” became a 2 million-persons-coming extravaganza which downsized into a couple of music festivals after another storm of warnings, lawsuits, folds, fauxs and fallacies and then reached a peep of a climax as an estimated 3,000 people showed up, around five people got arrested and no one actually stormed Area 51.

Except one woman.

“So like some old lady ACTUALLY stormed #area51.”

That’s the headline on a tweet by Matthew Carswell (@Leche_frio) which showed a video of what appears to be the only person to actually step around the barrier, cross the border, and storm Area 51 on this iconic/ironic weekend. OK, “storm” may be an exaggeration as it appears she walked in very slowly – perhaps out of caution or perhaps because she’s an “old lady.” (You can watch the video for yourself on Twitter or here.)

Hold my hand until we get inside the ship.

“Don’t do it, don’t do it!”

Needless to say (why else would we be doing this story?), she did it. Matthew Carswell (@Leche_frio) recorded the woman for about 45 seconds, showing her approach the secure facility’s back gate, dip under it and begin walking towards … what? Aliens? Men in Black? Security guards? Stealth bombers? (OK, they apologized for that one.)

“She gives no f–ks.”

Well, that’s obvious … although hard to tell because we never see her face. In fact, what’s more interesting is that Carswell pans the scene and we see a number of police officers watching her enter as well. After being asked too many times, he posted the answer on Twitter.

1. The cops couldn’t go after her since they were only state cops and it’s a federal base.”
2. She got scooped up by 2 trucks like half a mile in
3. No I don’t know what happened to her but I can assume she’s jail

That last assumption was confirmed by the Reno Gazette, where Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee revealed that the person was a 60-year-old woman (no identity given) and:

“She told us she was going to trespass. It was something she wanted to do, and she walked across.”

And?

The Reno Gazette says “the California woman now faces a trespassing charge and a $1,000 fine.”

They should have taken up a collection to pay the fine, court coasts, lawyer fees, etc. for the only person brave (or dumb) enough to do what began as a rallying cry just a few weeks ago:

“Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us”

They were right … they didn’t.

What if we’ve been silently observed by an alien civilization since humanity’s genesis? A new idea put forth by astronomer Dr. James Benford in a paper published in the Astronomical Journal this week suggests that our search for alien intelligence should focus on the “co-orbital” asteroids that orbit the sun in a similar pattern to Earth. Benford suggests that these asteroids would provide perfect observation decks on which aliens may have stationed robotic probes, laying dormant since ancient times. He argues that these co-orbitals should be a primary target for SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. He also suggests that if we look at these asteroids and do not find evidence of ancient alien probes than it tells us something else: we’re well and truly alone and no one cares about us.

Now that might be a pretty big assumption to make. After all, there’s the whole fallacy of thinking that an alien intelligence would come up with the same plans, tactics, and techniques as an Earth-bound descendant of chimpanzees would. But it’s clear that Benford is right about one thing at least—if aliens did have a long-term observation strategy, co-orbital asteroids would be perfect staging areas.

Dr. James Benford calls these potential probes “lurkers.” They would be small probes that have remained hidden and unnoticed for thousands of years, watching us, or perhaps waiting for a signal to turn on and begin watching us. A news release covering Benford’s new paper says:

“They may respond to an intentional signal and may not, depending on unknown alien motivations. Lurkers would likely be robotic, like our own Voyager and New Horizons probes.”

“Co-orbitals” are a recently discovered group of asteroids that orbit the sun at similar rates to Earth, thereby staying at roughly the same distance from our planet. If aliens had stationed probes on these asteroids they would have a constant source of solar energy and and a secure, hidden, and stable place from which to observe us. Regardless if aliens use technology remotely similar to ours or not, the physical laws of the universe would still apply. Everything needs energy, and in the void of space solar energy is probably the best bet regardless of what the probe actually looks like. Benford says that probes hanging out on co-orbitals could possibly sustain themselves for many thousands of years.

Benford says that if we did find an alien probe on one of these co-orbitals we could simply photograph it and send it the photograph with a message saying “we see you.” And sure, that’s a pretty creepy thing to do, but so is spying on a whole species for all of their evolutionary history. It’s only fair.

But if we don’t find one, Benford says that it would be strong evidence that we truly are alone. He says:

“If we find nothing there, this gives us a profound result: no one has come to look at the life of the Earth, which has been evident in our atmosphere in spectral lines over interstellar distances for over a billion years.”

Would we even recognize evidence of an alien civilization if we saw it?

But it has to be said, what if they just did something else? Sure co-orbitals would be perfect places to stage an observation from, but many people who have been told there’s a perfect way to do something end up doing it a completely different way, to varying degrees of success. Jumping straight to “well if it’s not there, in that specific spot, then that means it doesn’t exist anywhere else” is pretty ludicrous. That sounds like what I say about my car keys when I’m grumpy in the morning. But that’s a problem with looking for alien intelligence. We don’t know what it looks like, and we don’t know how it thinks. Assuming that it behaves exactly like Earth primates, when there’s a whole universe of infinite possibility seems a little bit small minded. But of course, that’s coming from someone who is 100% sure his car keys got eaten by a black hole at least three times per week.