Black eyes

Invasion of the Black-Eyed People.
Encounters with strange beings said to be "inhuman"

By Stephen Wagner

http://paranormal.about.com/od/humanenigmas/a/aa090406.htm

CREEPY, UNNERVING, threatening, sinister... even inhuman. These are words that people have used to describe children, adolescents and adults they have encountered who share an odd trait in common: unnaturally black eyes. Black-eyed people. Black-eyed kids. Who are they?

Granted, many people have dark eyes. Although black is not a natural eye coloration, there are many people with very dark brown or dark blue eyes that, under the right lighting conditions, can look black or nearly black. But in some cases, the black-eyed people are seen in excellent lighting conditions – bright daylight, for example. Also, some of these reports say that these are not just incidents of dark irises; their entire eye appears black, with little or no white showing.

Now all this could be chalked up to the perception of the viewer. But what is disturbing, in many cases, is the peculiar attitudes and behavior exhibited by some of these black-eyed people. Also, those who encounter them often are overcome with a profound sense of dread – as if these beings are to be avoided at all cost.

Paranoia? A psychological reaction to the eyes? Let's look at some cases.

At the rest stop

Chris and her husband were traveling on I-75 in Michigan when they made a routine stop at a rest area. Coming out of the women's room, Chris came face to face with a thin, dark-haired woman with black eyes staring directly at her.

"I instantly felt a terrible sense of dread, as though there was something deeply unnatural about her," Chris says. "The eyes ... were completely black. I saw no color whatsoever, and no pupils. I felt an extremely strong need to get away from her as quickly as possible, as there was something quietly threatening about her. Her stare was devoid of any emotion other than something very cold and disconnected."

We see dark-eyed people all the time, but Chris feels that there was something really strange about this particular woman. "My instant and unwavering feeling during this whole experience was that she was not human," she says. "There also was something almost predatory about her, as though she was homing in on prey while she stood there so still. I also had a strange sense of her feeling superior or stronger in some way. It seemed important, for some unknown reason, for me to act unaffected by her while in her presence. I felt a huge sense of relief as I got back into the car and left."

Superior. Predatory. There are a couple of more words we can add to how people describe these beings. But is it merely a psychological reaction to seeing an unusual looking, yet entirely normal, person?

At the apartment building

Tee is a 47-year-old apartment manager in Portland, Oregon, who after 20 years on the job is used to meeting people of every age, color, race and description, but you'd have a hard time convincing her that the young man who came to her door one day was normal.

"He was young boy of about 17 or 18, approximately," Tee says. "He asked me about an open apartment for rent. I remember feeling very scared and shaken by his appearance. He did not look weird by his dress or such. It was his eyes. I remember feeling the hair on my neck stand up, and I was shaking just from looking in his eyes."

Like Chris, Tee also felt that deep sense of malevolence. "I could not look him straight in the eyes," she says. "I felt like I was about to die. Now, some people may think that I was just over-reacting or something, but the eyes were completely black – like there was no real pupil. He spoke normally to me, but I had to just shut the door in his face and get as far from him as I could. I felt like I was in extreme danger."

Are the eyes really black? Or are the pupils open so wide that they obliterate the irises and make the eyes appear black? In darkness, the pupils open very wide (or dilate) to allow as much light in as possible. But the boy that Tee met was standing in the daylight. Some drugs can also dilate the pupils. According to WrongDiagnosis.com, other causes of pupil dilation can include: emotion, medication, eyedrops and brain injuries. Is it possible that the boy inquiring about an apartment just used eyedrops… or drugs?

Of course any of those causes are possible. Again, however, those who encounter the black-eyed people cannot shake the menace they instantly feel from them. It's as if it's not just their eyes that are dark, but that their whole beings – their souls – are enveloped in darkness.

In the coffee shop

Missy will never forget the black aura of the stranger at Starbucks. It was a cold November day when she stopped at the coffee shop for a hot tea. She ordered her drink and was reorganizing her purse when she felt someone staring at her.

"I turned around to give 'whatever' to the perv that I assumed was watching me, and the smart aleck remark died in my mouth as I caught sight of him," Missy remembers. "I did not see anything unusual in his manner of dress. It was the eyes and the aura coming off of him that scared me. The eyes, blacker than black, no white at all, wall-to-wall black, and I just felt a darkness around him, an evil. As I looked in his eyes, I somehow knew that was not a human soul occupying that body… and I felt that he knew that I knew that he was not human."

Not human. The phrase comes up again and again out of these encounters. It's not just a fear or uneasiness they get from someone who appears might be violent or crazy or just plain creepy. We have all come across people like that. But to have the profound sense that someone is not human, that's something entirely different.

Knocking at the door

Adele was at home when she had her experience with the beings. More unnerving, perhaps, they were small children. "I was sitting in my bedroom reading a book," Adele says, "when at about 11:00 p.m. I heard a knocking… a slow, constant one. I got up out of bed to see what it was. I looked out of the window and to my surprise saw two children. I opened the window and asked them what they wanted at this time of night. They replied by saying simply, 'Let us in.' I said no and asked what for. 'We want to use your bathroom.'

"I was quite shocked that children of about 10 years old wanted to use a stranger's bathroom at this time of night. I told them no, closed the window, but looked at them through the glass. I glanced at their eyes... and I have never ever seen eyes like them. They were black, completely black. I got the feeling of evil and unhappiness. It surrounded me. It was horrible."

Rational explanation… or paranormal?

So what's the explanation?

In his article, Black Eyed Kids: A Profile, Barry Napier of UFODigest, writes: "The black eyes … could be nothing more than contact lenses. (Solid black contacts are available.) The most likely scenario is that the few convincing reports were the results of overactive imaginations, and that the string of reports that followed were nothing more than copycat falsified stories used for attention or fun."

But, Napier admits, "most accounts seem to be passionate, and people that have encountered the [black-eyed kids] seem to be genuinely frightened even after the encounter."

Those who see the paranormal in these encounters speculate that the people who have met them face to face are not wrong – the black-eyed people are not human. It's suggested that they are either extraterrestrial, interdimensional or demonic. Or some combination thereof.

I have never encountered such a black-eyed person, so it's difficult to pass judgment on the subject or render any conclusions. I'll only say that it's an interesting phenomenon that seems to be growing and that should be scrutinized carefully and documented as best as possible.

There may be rational explanations for these encounters, or it may be, as Missy says, that "we are not alone in this world. We share our world with others, non-human."