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The following Q & A is from my files.

Dear Mr. Holbrook:
What do you know about the Shadow People? Some friends were talking about this and described it as some kind of dark inter-dimensional entities that have form but no details. I realize that there are all sorts of unexplained things out there but this seems pretty scary! Thanks if you can help. Jed, AR

Thank you for your question Jed in regards to shadow people. Yes, there is a school of thought that portrays shadow people different dimensional beings that show up in our dimension as shadows. I think that this belief came from the paranormal investigators that mostly investigate UFOs and other Alien type of phenomena. I think that they believe that these entities are inter-dimensional beings that have been watching us and can move freely between our dimension and their own in the form of shadows. There are many different stories and tales from history that involve shadow people or shadow beings. Shadow beings are like shadow people but the shadow takes another form other than the one of a person.

There have been stories of shadow wolves and other types of animals in Native American folklore that include shape shifters that can take the form of a shadow. Looking at different cultures you will find evil entities that live in the shadows and that they are described as looking like a shadow or smoke. I also remember a story (not sure if it is fiction or folklore) that has the shaman using his mental energy to create a shadow of himself to do his will. There are all types of stories of hauntings that describe the entity as a shadow but not as well defined as shadow people. Some people also believe that what is happening is an optical illusion that is created but our mind imposing an image onto a familiar shape. I think the terms that are used for doing this is pareidolla or apophenia, I know that these words are used for seeing faces in clouds and other items. This could be what happens on some occasions but just seeing an image will not give you the feeling that seems to be associated with some of these entities.

So for now let’s break down the shadow people into two groups, one bad and one neutral. The neutral group has the ones that you can see but do not cause you to have any change in way you are feeling. These could be the ones that are observing us or the ones that are created by our minds. These may give you the feeling of being watched or just a presence but you only get a glimpse of them, like in the corner of your eye. The next are the bad ones, these are the ones that cause you to feel impending doom or any other negative emotion. There are many people that believe that some of these shadow people are demons and feed on our fear or misery. I believe that if you get a feeling that you should pay attention to it but not be controlled by it, it is because we all have the ability to sense danger on some level. Not all get the same sense when they encounter the shadow people at the same time - some may get the feelings and the others may not. If we go back to thinking about inter-dimensional beings then we are talking about different frequencies and a different dimension. Our bodies have an energy field that has a unique frequency, some people you feel good around and others you don’t because of the differences in the frequencies in our energy field. If this is true then our own energy fields may be what is at work with the feeling that we get when we encounter a shadow person that is on the bad side. Because of the differences in the energy field that we all have there is a chance that some of these entities may be attracted to one person’s energy field.

Now if they are demons, spirits, thought forms or inter-dimensional beings that are alien is one of the main questions that I have been asked over the years. I do not believe that they are an alien form of life in our world but that because of the different dimension which they may exist that they are alien to our dimension. We may only be able to view them when our frequencies and the entity’s frequencies are in-sync with each other or that the entity’s frequencies are within the range that we can perceive. Within the dimension that we live there are many different beings that come in and out from time to time like angels and guardian spirits so it would have to be true that the opposite could come in also. The way I view the universe - there is a balance in all things, night and day, male and female and good and evil, or if you prefer light and dark entities. Sorry for straying a little from the topic but I think that both sides of a coin should be looked at to get a better view of things. For me because I believe in light beings like angels, it is not hard for me to believe in the dark beings. Believing in these entities is not the same as giving them any power over me or worshiping them, it is just that they are a part of my beliefs.

Getting back to shadow people I believe that if there is an absence of light in the entity like with shadow people then they are not good. Are they evil or do they just answer to a different set of rules because they exist in a different dimension? It is hard to come to a conclusion that fits all the evidence and stories that I have heard and have read over the years. So, one conclusion is that there is more than one type of shadow people.

What is their purpose in what they do?

Nature shows us that different forms of life need different things to exist and procreate. I believe that these shadow people feed on our fear and possibly other strong negative emotions, because of the different energy that these emotions produce. We may not always know the effect that the entities have on us when we have an encounter but sometimes when we look back we can see what effect it had. We can see that the effects it had on us were more negative emotions that could have been caused by the entity or by the encounter. So the shadow people, my opinion here, are entities that live on the energy of our negative emotions and we may not see them on the first encounter but they are still there feeding until we change our emotional energy. Again, not all are affected by them because of the differences in our energies frequencies which could be controlled by our emotional state or affect our emotional state. That would lead me to believe that seeing shadow people has a lot to do with the mental state of the witness. In my opinion there are many different dark and light entities that exist in a different dimension or plane of existence that can affect us if the conditions are right.

Shadow people are entities that primarily exist in another dimension until the environmental and emotional energies are right for them to enter our dimension. This is all the information that I have on shadow people but there is more information out there and people that have done research on them for many years. You will have to decide for yourself on what you believe is true and what will fit for your belief system so that you can deal with them if you encounter one.

Dear Mr. Holbrook:
Hello my name is Maryanne and I have been reading your columns for a long time although this is the first time I have written to you. Here is my question: I remember a column you wrote about the Will O' Wisp phenomena and I understand different things about the glowing balls of light people see. The question is what if you see a glowing ball (orange in color) and it follows you around keeping a close pace for a while then veers off and disappears? This happened in a park where there were no water sources of swamp land so I thought it was safe to rule out gasses. What do you think? Thanks if you can answer. Maryanne, PA

Hello Maryanne and thank you for your question about glowing balls of light. First I would like to say that I had a friend that had a glowing ball (orange at first then red in color) follow him around a civil war battlefield. He described the experience as disturbing and that he actually felt threatened by the orb (glowing ball). He stated that he had a feeling that the orb had female energy and that it was angry. As he was walking it followed him to his house, then turned red and he said that it felt that it grew angrier and shot off back the way he had walked. He even said that he felt the same energy in his bedroom on two more occasions but did not see the orb.

Reading your question, I can see that you may have done some of the same research that he did after his experience. With what happened in his case he also ruled out swamp gas (the skeptics say all glowing lights can even be even UFOs) and he did not think it was a Will O’ Wisp. My friend asked me what I thought the orb was because he knew that most of the orbs that he had seen in pictures were opaque or white. I told him that I thought that it was not a Will O’ Wisp, because of his story. Now I do not know all of the particulars of the event that you are talking about in your question so I will not assume that they are exactly the same. Looking at folklore, the story of the Will O’ Wisp says that you never get close to the light that is the Will O’ Wisp. It is said to lead you on and on off whatever trail you were on until you are lost - lost forever. With both of the experiences we are looking at the orb following the person, not the other way around.

These orbs could be spirits (ghost), residual energy, demonic or mental projections from someone - it is hard to say for sure without investigating the event more. Even with my friend’s story which he had told me a year after the fact and after he had moved, I started to investigate it by asking him questions because I believe that his encounter was with an orb that was a visual manifestation of the negative energy of a ghost or residual type haunting. This could also be true of the event that you described in your question. There are also some that would say that the orb in your question could be a nature spirit that is a care taker of the park. These nature spirits (fairies and gnomes just to name a few) are said to manifest as orbs sometimes. When you are looking at nature spirits, you are looking at many different types of entities with many different purposes for being. When they appear as orbs, for the most part, they appear as small orbs that move around fast. You did not say the size of the orb in your question but because you were ruling out swamp gas I do not believe it was a small orb. From what I understand from your question and my prior research, I believe that the orb in your question was a ghost or a residual emotional entity. The person or persons that it was following may have been walking a path that the residual emotional energy occupied and it fell into the person’s or persons’ wake. This is to say that when we walk we leave an energy trail because we are disturbing the area that we pass through. Just like you car when it is going down the road it moves the air around it and also the energy that is associated with the area. As with your car there is a area behind you as you walk that is like a sweet spot and this is an area where there maybe a slight vacuum. And if you happen to walk through an area that has residual energy, it may condense into an orb behind you and follow in your wake. If it gains enough energy or if it is in-sync with your energy it could become visible to you. If this is what happened then whenever the person or persons left the area that held this residual emotional energy it would return to this place.

Most times a residual emotional energy will stay in the same area and not travel outside of that area. This area could be a room or a larger area - it is all in accordance to who, what and why it is there. So it would only be an area specific type of event and also it could be a one time a year type of event. This is an anniversary type of occurrence, the anniversary of the event that occurred and caused the residual energy. If it was a ghost or a residual emotional energy entity there is also a chance that the person or persons walking had to have their energy frequency in-sync with that or the orb for it to be visible to them. There is also a chance that the orb, being either one of the two, could have been attracted to someone’s energy. This could be as simple as being attracted to a girl or boy, the female or male energy. With my friend’s encounter it was because he was a male and the ghost was angry at a man and because he was a male it was angry at him. In your question it is hard to come to this type of conclusion because of the limited information but from what you have said I do still believe that it was one of the two types I mentioned. So the orb you described in your question could be a ghost or a residual emotional energy left in the area.